HVEC on Google Chrome - Dropped Frames and stuttering ?

[ohmygosh]

Trying out setup on new (old) hardware. Intel i5-8500t running jellyfin on kubernetes.
Video device /dev/dri/renderD128 passed through with correct permissions, ffmpeg seems to confirm that:

Code:

/usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/vainfo --display drm --device /dev/dri/renderD128
Trying display: drm
libva info: VA-API version 1.22.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/jellyfin-ffmpeg/lib/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_22
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.22 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 24.4.2 (b6b411f)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileNone                  : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileNone                  : VAEntrypointStats
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main              : VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264Main              : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileH264High              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High              : VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264High              : VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline          : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline          : VAEntrypointEncPicture
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSliceLP
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP8Version0_3          : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileHEVCMain              : VAEntrypointFEI
      VAProfileHEVCMain10            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileHEVCMain10            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVP9Profile0            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVP9Profile2            : VAEntrypointVLD

The problem is that in Chrome and Safari the videos that have HVEC codec seem to be "jerky" and stuttering. Playing the same movies with Jellyfin Media Player is all fine (same Mac).
Checked with

Code:

intel_gpu_top

in both cases there does not seem to be any transcoding happening.

Sample media info:

Code:

Video
Title: 1080p HEVC SDR
Codec: HEVC
AVC: No
Profile: Main
Level: 120
Resolution: 1920x1080
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Anamorphic: No
Interlaced: No
Framerate: 23.976025
Bitrate: 2367 kbps
Bit depth: 8 bit
Video range: SDR
Video range type: SDR
Colour space: bt709
Colour transfer: bt709
Colour primaries: bt709
Pixel format: yuv420p
Ref frames: 1

While viewing it shows dropped frames:



H264 encoded videos don't seem to have any problems. 
I tried googling but it seems you cannot force transcoding to H264? Any other hints how can this be improved?

thank you

[TheDreadPirate]

Dropped frames is usually a client side issue.  What are the specs of the client?  Does it support HEVC decoding in the GPU?  If it is software decoding, that could be the problem.

But there is a setting for the preferred transcode codec.

Settings (not dashboard) > Playback > Preferred transcode video codec

   

[ohmygosh]

Both Chrome and Jellyfin Media Player run on same client - Macbook M1 Pro.
Both as far as I can tell don't do any transcoding, and Jellyfin Media Player  plays fine while Chrome (and Safari to that extent) have issues.
Firefox seems to also run fine, but according to intel_gpu_tool it does seem to transcode. This is what I see in intel_gpu_tool while viewing with both chrome and Jellyfin Media Player

Code:

        ENGINES    BUSY                                                                                                                                                                            MI_SEMA MI_WAIT
      Render/3D    0.00% |                                                                                                                                                                        |      0%      0%
        Blitter    0.00% |                                                                                                                                                                        |      0%      0%
          Video    0.00% |                                                                                                                                                                        |      0%      0%
    VideoEnhance    0.00% |                                                                                                                                                                        |      0%      0%

[TheDreadPirate]

Firefox does not play HEVC, except on Windows 11 with the HEVC codec installed via the Microsoft store.

JMP will directly play almost everything. And I don't see why Chrome would struggle with a 1080P HEVC video on a M1, which has a HEVC decoder.

Does MacOS have the equivalent to Windows Task Manager? Can you see what the CPU/GPU/decode load is when you play these videos in Chrome?

[ohmygosh]

Chrome CPU is almost idle, 7-8%, GPU does not seem to change also though the graph is very basic



Ironically disabling hardware acceleration on Chrome plays the video just fine just that Google Chrome GPU jumps up to ~60%. Safari does not seem to have that option, so I guess I'll just have to live with that.