1080p video playback choppy even w/ vaapi

[alo7]

Our current setup:XBMC(Eden) w/ vaapi enabled on Fedora14(Timesys) with EMGD v1.8 drivers on Intel Atom Z520 w/ US15W chipset. We installed libva-1.0.12-1.fc14.i686 which isn't the very latest, but is very close (April 2011). I think the latest is 1.0.14 so we're pretty close. Is it good enough? With this version, we are getting some very poor 1080p video playback. Even though the CPU utilization is way down (~30%), we're only getting 6-7fps! When trying to render a video it gets about 15 seconds of choppy playback (and a rapidly increasing dropped frames count) then it gets slower and finally grinds to a halt, flipping back between two frames. The CPU doesn't even max out which is doubly weird. If this was problem between libva and the emgd drivers, where can I begin to look to troubleshoot? What tests/cmds/procedures can I try out?

[Kirk_B_Intel]

You do not metion your player. You might need patches, or VAAPI aware codecs to get full video acceleration. Also be aware that doing HD decode takes a LOT of graphics memory, so your system will need to have available RAM for the graphics driver to use to do a proper decode with VAAPI.

You should use the VA API library that is available for your distribution.

Also, have you read the white papers here on EDC about video decode and how to tune it for your use?

Hope this helps.