Performance comparison Xbox's XBMC -Vs- PS2's SMS

[marcosdjcm]

Hi,

I've been using an xbox for the past year to watch .avi's like LOST etc, but i hated having a whole fat console just to do that. I was glad to find SMS player for the PS2, but it appears to struggle to hit 25fps?

Looks like 15-20fps most of the time, running from USB. Is this a limit of the player? Or the source? Which of the 3 storage/sources provides the smoothest picture? Like the xbox at least

Everything else about SMS is great, i really want to make it my main avi player as it'll mean i can sell the xbox and have just 1 console handle everything

[Furatudo]

It is very unlikely that SMS will ever have the same performance as XBMC. The XBOX is a computer and it has much more processing power than the PS2, everything is very easy to port with little modification. The PS2 is a totally different machine with a totally different architecture, everything has to be built from scratch. What EEUG has acomplished so far with SMS is really amazing, and if u ask me the performance is also good enough for all the movies I've watched so far (I never really tried any HD movies tbh). U can't expect SMS to become the PS2 counterpart of XBMC, not only because everything is different and harder to do but mainly because it's almost a one man show, unfortunetly for the PS2 scene EEUG is almost alone in SMS development.

As for the movies not reaching 25fps, I guess it depends on the movies u're watching, u should give more info about it. The storage which offers the smothest framerate in the PS2 is probably the HDD (internal), but usually it's not worth the time and assle it takes to copy a movie to HDD, I prefer the network

[marcosdjcm]

I am impressed by SMS, it is good, especially like you said the PS2 is not a regular computer.

Its got all the features i want etc so i dont want it to be XBMC, just would like 25fps.

Its fine on regular and comedy type shows, but as soon as theres a lot of motion or fast-paced action you can see frames.

i'm just watching 42min long 350mb Avi's like this one:



You *can* ignore the stuttering, but i would like to resolve it instead

[Furatudo]

I've never tried a movie with such a high bitrate, maybe that's what's causing the stuttering.

[rathunter]

Which of the 3 storage/sources provides the smoothest picture?

The GSpot output you posted should play properly from all 4 sources. NA/HDD has the fastest read time, followed by DVDR/CDR, USB and Network/Host. I play most videos (many with higher bitrate and resolution than yours) over the network. SMS does not drop frames during normal playback, so you should be seeing each 23.97 fps. I don't know why you're getting stuttering on that video. Maybe the source has an encoding issue, or maybe your thumbdrive is slow (or do you use a USB HDD enclosure?). SMS should be able to handle it.

[dlanor]

The GSpot output you posted should play properly from all 4 sources. NA/HDD has the fastest read time, followed by DVDR/CDR, USB and Network/Host. I play most videos (many with higher bitrate and resolution than yours) over the network. SMS does not drop frames during normal playback, so you should be seeing each 23.97 fps. I don't know why you're getting stuttering on that video. Maybe the source has an encoding issue, or maybe your thumbdrive is slow (or do you use a USB HDD enclosure?). SMS should be able to handle it.

Perhaps that video has one of the standard problems, though it's not displayed by the obsolete GSpot version marcosdjcm is using ? (v2.21 as compared to the v2.52(beta01) I use)

If you check his screenshot again, you'll notice that it has no indicators for QPEL and GMC, which are the two main causes of rendition speed problems.

Best regards: dlanor

[marcosdjcm]

It seems to play this avi perfect:

[marcosdjcm]

Perhaps that video has one of the standard problems, though it's not displayed by the obsolete GSpot version marcosdjcm is using ? (v2.21 as compared to the v2.52(beta01) I use)

If you check his screenshot again, you'll notice that it has no indicators for QPEL and GMC, which are the two main causes of rendition speed problems.

Best regards: dlanor

I'm testing SMS with the same videos i have already watched perfectly on the xbox so the files are fine

[dlanor]

I'm testing SMS with the same videos i have already watched perfectly on the xbox so the files are fine

I never questioned the basic integrity of your video files.

What I did question is only whether or not they use encoding methods known to cause problems for SMS. It's a well known fact that SMS simply can't cope with QPEL and GMC encoded videos, so that may be the explanation for your problems. But to prove/disprove that you'll need to use a newer version of GSpot, or some other tool capable of telling whether or not those encoding methods are used.

Best regards: dlanor

[rathunter]

Perhaps that video has one of the standard problems, though it's not displayed by the obsolete GSpot version marcosdjcm is using

Good point. Use v2.52b01 and check for QPEL or GMC.

Also, when you said "stuttering" are you referring to stuttering audio? I assumed this is what you meant, and this is what SMS does when it can't display frames quickly enough (as opposed to dropping frames). If the media read speed isn't fast enough, you will sometimes hear a short buzz or loop as the audio stutters.

If you mean that the video is stuttering, which you described as jerky motion during fast scenes, then I think it is likely that source bitrate cannot keep up the content at that resolution. I would typically encode at ~1600 kbps for that resolution.