[MPlayer-users] live streaming & playback problem

[Florian Iragne]

Hi,

i've setup a box based on nvidia ion hardware and i'm using mplayer + 
vdpau out on it to play Full HD content encoded in H264. Everything is 
fine when the media is a file, the playback is smooth. When the media is 
a live stream (rtsp from a Wowza media server), the playback is "kerky". 
It looks like some frames are dropped, or there is a lag in the network.

here are the tests i ran :
   * playing the stream without vdpau : same playback
   * playing the stream with vlc : jerky playback the first 4/5 seconds 
and then smooth
   * using another computer (Mac + vlc) in replacement (same network 
cable, same port on the switch) : jerky playback the first 4/5 seconds 
and then smooth
   * using another computer (PC linux + mplayer) : jerky playback

the box is running a Debian squeeze and the linux pc a Debian sid.

the live stream is in 1080i, around 2mbits/s and the tests are run 
either on a 10mbits/s SDSL line or a 6mbits/s ADSL line (same results 
for the two lines).

Is there a known problem with such live streams and mplayer? the only 
relevant info i can see in the log is that mplayer complains that the 
stream is not cacheable, when it seems that vlc is caching the stream at 
the begining.

thanks for any help

Florian