VLC for Fire 2.1.3 on Fire TV Stick 2 cannot play some MPEG4-TS HD streams

Using VLC for Fire TV on the new Fire TV Stick 2 does not work for some MPEG4-TS channels which work fine on all other Fire TV devices as well as on other Android devices. The picture is immediately distorted and flickering the whole time. Changing the hardware decoder settings does not help. Both streams look the same concerning resolution, encoding and bitrate. I also checked the logcat, both streams start exactly the same. Only difference is in the problematic stream I see this: ts demux: discontinuity received 0x5 instead of 0x1 (pid=0) ts demux: libdvbpsi error (PSI decoder): TS discontinuity (received 5, expected 1) for PID 0

It is happening for those channels on satellite stream: SAT1 HD, Sport 1 HD, and many more Is is working on these channels: ARD HD, ZDF HD, RTL HD, Sky Sport News HD

Wifi connection is perfect, it is right beside the FritzBox. The old Fire TV stick is working fine with the same app and files.

Please contact me if I should upload a short TS-file for testing. I am also happy to debug or try anything to solve this.

I copied the file directly to the stick and it is the same problem. So this is not a network issue. You can find an example here: http://ul.to/tpx2nipb Also happens with the latest nighlty build 2.1.5 btw. If hardware decoder is disabled, it runs fine for 5-10 seconds, but then it gets stuck. The new Fire TV Stick uses a MediaTek chip instead of the Broadcom used before.

Please share the logs.

assigned to @tguillem

added Platform::Android label

Added attachment:

• firetvstick2.log

Also happens with other free to air channels like BBC HD or Channel 4 HD. Problem also occurs for a lot of other users I talked to with the new Fire TV Stick. So this is a big issue.

04-23 09:31:58.731 D/MediaCodec( 4542): [SVP] MediaCodec::Init=AMessage(what = 'init', target = 8) = {
04-23 09:31:58.731 D/MediaCodec( 4542):   string name = "OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.AVC"
04-23 09:31:58.731 D/MediaCodec( 4542):   int32_t nameIsType = 0
04-23 09:31:58.731 D/MediaCodec( 4542): }
04-23 09:31:58.735 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b8df9430/1baf] core input: Buffering 96%
04-23 09:31:58.735 I/OMXClient( 4542): Using client-side OMX mux.
04-23 09:31:58.736 D/ACodec  ( 4542): [SVP] msg=AMessage(what = 'allo', target = 7) = {
04-23 09:31:58.736 D/ACodec  ( 4542):   string componentName = "OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.AVC"
04-23 09:31:58.736 D/ACodec  ( 4542): }
04-23 09:31:58.745 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b8df9430/1baf] core input: Buffering 98%
04-23 09:31:58.757 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b8df9430/1baf] core input: Stream buffering done (1521 ms in 367 ms)
04-23 09:31:58.777 I/MediaCodecLogger( 4542): [ASAP] HW.video.avc P2 + 695498
04-23 09:31:58.778 D/MediaCodecLogger( 4542): Got m Service!!!
04-23 09:31:58.783 D/ACodec  ( 4542): sendFormatChange 1
04-23 09:31:58.783 D/ACodec  ( 4542): sendFormatChange 1
04-23 09:31:58.784 I/MediaCodecLogger( 4542): [ASAP] HW.video.avc P2 - 695506
04-23 09:31:58.785 I/MediaCodecLogger( 4542): [ASAP] HW.video.avc P3 + 695506
04-23 09:31:58.785 D/MediaCodec( 4542): start : turning on cabl
04-23 09:31:58.785 I/MediaCodec( 4542): setContextAdaptiveBacklight
04-23 09:31:58.785 E/MediaCodec( 4542): setContextAdaptiveBacklight: Could not open file to turn on/off CABL err = No such file or directory
04-23 09:31:58.785 I/MediaCodec( 4542): setContextAdaptiveBacklight: Best effort to turn context adaptive backlight ON
04-23 09:31:58.794 D/ACodec  ( 4542): native_window_set_buffers_geometry W(1920), H(1088), Stride(1920), SliceH(1088)
04-23 09:31:58.794 W/ACodec  ( 4542): [OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.AVC] setting nBufferCountActual to 7 failed: -2147483648
04-23 09:31:58.798 I/MediaCodecLogger( 4542): [ASAP] HW.video.avc P3 - 695519
04-23 09:31:58.798 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b912a1d0/1bc2] mediacodec decoder: MediaCodec via NDK opened
04-23 09:31:58.799 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b912a1d0/1bc2] core decoder: using decoder module "mediacodec"
04-23 09:31:58.799 D/ACodec  ( 4542): submitOutputMetaBuffers send FTB for ouptut
04-23 09:31:58.847 D/ACodec  ( 4542): native_window_set_buffers_geometry W(1920), H(1080), Stride(1920), SliceH(1088)
04-23 09:31:58.848 W/ACodec  ( 4542): [OMX.MTK.VIDEO.DECODER.AVC] setting nBufferCountActual to 11 failed: -2147483648
04-23 09:31:58.867 D/ACodec  ( 4542): submitOutputMetaBuffers send FTB for ouptut
04-23 09:31:58.942 D/ACodec  ( 4542): sendFormatChange 1
04-23 09:31:58.944 E/VLC     ( 4542): [b912a1d0/1bcd] mediacodec decoder: output: 2130706433 unknown, 1920x1080 stride 1920 1088, crop 0 0 0 0
04-23 09:31:58.944 D/VLC     ( 4542): [b8babd38/1bc6] core vout display: removing module "android_display"

Can you reproduce the issue? Should I send you another example?

I don't have a Fire TV. You should get 2.1.6 in the store now.

Added attachment:

• issue.jpg

Replying to [comment:7 jb]:

I don't have a Fire TV. You should get 2.1.6 in the store now.

Just tested 2.1.6. The issue still exists. Tried KODI today on the same device, everything plays fine. I uploaded two videos filmed filmed from my TV screen where you see the issue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0QRmtMYwBoEcVRNLTliMEUzRjg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0QRmtMYwBoEcG0tOGhyYkhveFE/view?usp=sharing Also added a screenshot and attached it. If you send me your address via email, I will send you the latest Fire TV Stick so you can reproduce it. Contact me at cyberdelic@gmx.de for details.

Logs with 2.1.6, please?

Added attachment:

• vlc_logcat_20170426_194632.log

Logs are attached now.

Can you give me a hint in which module/contrib the error might be located? Can I do anything to support you? It is no problem for me to send you a Fire TV Stick 2 or donate. Thanks in advance. Also do you think this is fixable at all?

Added attachment:

• MediaInfoComparison.png

Added a comparison picture of the working and not working files. Maybe it helps.

Same problem happens in Kodi 16.1 and was fixed in Kodi 17. Don't know what was changed meanwhile.

They probably found the correct workaround for this MTK chip.

Any chance you can find out about this workaround?