Video Playback Bad (Stuttering and Jerky)

I have the same problem as well. It happens to my slideshow and mp4 videos.
Here’s my today’s live stream, and you can see the video is jerky at 3:04.

Also happens on this live stream at 3:02.

Here’s my MacBook Pro spec:
macOS Big Sur (version 11.5.2)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017)
2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Radeon Pro 560 4GB

I even connect to Blackmagic eGPU with AMD Radom Pro 580 8GB.

i Have the same issue as well

I remember had the same issue last year, when Mimocall have 3 o 4 call in use and you start you stream playing a video, no matter the resolution or encoder it have, the video stutter.
I did several tests, and my conclusion was the mac I used this time (15" Retina 2013, 16gb RAM, GT750) was not able to manage the 4 calls, playback, render and upload a stream at the same time.
In order to solve my issue, I moved to Streamyard fo the calls, and captured it into Mimolive.

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@JMVBMW this is great info, can you show me the live stream outcome video please? If the video call quality is fine, then I may purchase Streamyard as well.

Hi @rockthespotevent I’m sorry to hear about the troubles.

This is almost allways due to one or both of those two things:

Since the mimoCalls are doing well, I think it might be the second option. Can you make the video and the mimoLive document you’re using available to me via WeTransfer, Dropbox or anything like that?

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Yes. How do I send it to you @Oliver_Boinx ? I couldn’t find pm feature on this forum neither email contact.

Thank you in advance.

You can click on my Name or Avatar and then there is a button called “Message”.

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Hi @rockthespotevent Thanks for sending the files.

The video file itself looks very reasonable and shouldn’t be a problem to play back. It does, if you play it by itself. This points to a performance issue of the computer you’re using.

To troubleshoot this further, please check the following when running the show with all mimoCalls connected:

  • Look at the Source Performance Monitor (Window menu->Source Performance Monitor). When you play the video, does it show dropped frames?
  • Look at the Render Performance Monitor (Window menu->Render Performance Monitor). Is the Actual Render Time larger or smaller than the Available time?
  • Look at the MacOS Activity Monitor App: Is your CPU overloaded? If not, you could try to free up H.264 hardware decoder by switching one or more mimoCalls from “Auto” to “VP9”:

Screen Shot 2021-09-03 at 19.00.57

(You can find this popup menu behind the settings button in the Source panel where it says “mimoCall ID”.)

You could also test if this behavior is related to the speed of your disk storage by turning the recordings on one by one and see when it starts to stutter.

Let me know if this is helpful and leads you to find a solution.

Hi @Oliver_Boinx,

I’ve tried all above solutions you provided, but still having video playback issue. And I found something interesting, the video playback shuttering only when it’s on streaming. It works fine when it’s not streaming.

Also, there’s another bug I found, the Source Performance Monitor could easily crash the program and it happens very often. So I always have to turn off Source Performance Monitor.

Thanks,

For reasons I do not understand, I have had more issues with this – video stuttering and jerky, thermal throttling, than I have had in the last year or so. I have changed nothing in my hardware and have continued using mimoLive 5.9, as it’s been working just fine. We put ice-packs under my MBP, which has a cooling pad (3 fans) underneath, and in streams over the last few months have had to change ice-packs 3x during a 90-min show. That’s new.

Boinx support has encouraged me to try using mimoLive 6.0.1 and to do so on Monterey.

I use a Sonnet eGPU Puck 4GB. I have noticed that the Render Performance Monitor window shows that I am close to using the whole 4 GB. Would using an 8 GB eGPU resolve any of this? Or is it there something about more recent editions of mimoLive that makes processing ProRes files less taxing on my MBP’s system?

I had this issue earlier tonight streaming out two 4.5 GB ProRes files with no mimoCalls at all.

As my streams are more than half just playing back video files, I need this to work without all that ice.

Thanks.

What about a macBook Air M1, or iMac M1? Or a macStudio m1 Max? (the entry model).

Well, I have no machine that shows less than your graph is showing. But I’d never use an Intel based Mac(book) again. I also had these troubles. Throttling, throttle and throttling. Have I already mentioned throttling?

I don’t believe this graph at all. I watch activity monitor, to see the ‘real’ usage. But I know how hard intel Macs can perform, especially with Apple’s codecs.

Since m1 support is here, everything changed for me.

On intel Macs, I used ‘intel power gadget’ to monitor performance. A :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth: of bottle necks!

My intel macs (2013 rMBP gt750 and 2019 tbMBP Radeon 5300m) randomly have throttling issues while using mimolive, always capturing cameras.
Mostly, when I left open a browser (safary or chrome).
Once, my Mac mini m1 also have the issue, but it was solved updating the Blackmagic drivers.

Did you install the last Apple ProVideo codecs?

Can you upload the video file in order to do some tests?

HI @undercrank I’m very sorry to hear this. As the screenshot shows that mimoLive is basically not doing anything, we need to look at the video files. If you open it in QuickTime Player and press CMD-I you will get a lot of information on the file such as dimensions, frame rate, data rate and codec. You can get even more info by using the disclosure-triangle for “video”. Please post a screenshot (or contact me privately) from one of the files that was stuttering.

@Oliver_Boinx Thanks for jumping in here. A year or so ago you’d advised me to use ProRes files instead fo the mp4’s I was working with for my streams. I have been using ProRes LT to deal with file size, so I’m not working with 25+ GB of files.

Here are grabs of the ‘info’ window for two films I tried streaming on Tues. Both films are about 15 mins each. All the films we show on our Silent Comedy Watch Party live-streams use these codecs etc; usually the video files are either 29.97 or 23.976. I thought that maybe rendering the files out at 30 fps would help, but had the same problem.


@JMVBMW I always have a browser open during the streams, on Firefox, since that’s my YouTube dashboard to “go live” or troubleshoot anything if needed. I am pretty sure I have the most recent ProVideo codecs. How do I check?

Thanks. I really want this issue to go away and be resolved.

Ben

I strongly recommend you have a separate computer for youtube control and use the Mimolive computer only for… Mimolive. Check it

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Interesting. I’d never thought of this. I’m intrigued…what does having a browser window open do to an Intel Mac to cause thermal throttling? I’d always figured this was an issue processing the video files.

We’ve found that something that helps is to have one less mimoCall connected. But I can’t have my co-host or show guests disconnect and reconnect every time we show one of our films.

Well in my case, yes, randomly

How did you discover this?

And why is it that an open browser can cause thermal throttling?

Thanks.

Ben

I’m having a similar problem. I have one Mac that has 8 Gig and one that has 16gig. The 16gig has NO ISSUES. However, the 8 Gig machine has significant stutters. I’m assuming its a memory issue as processor and files are identical.