Ubuntu
gstreamer0.10 package

Bug #774008
Comment #14

Comment 14 for bug 774008

Revision history for this message

madbiologist (me-again) wrote on 2011-10-07: Re: ABC iView Flashplayer file blacking out on playback

#14

I fully agree about the need for more testing. If I was you I'd be feeling pretty frustrated right now. Although I think Canonical could do more testing of Ubuntu before release, I would also like to say that testing is something that us users can help out with. Canonical do not have the money or staffing resources to purchase and test all the hardware out there. In this regard, it is disappointing that when you reported this bug immediately after the release of 11.04 (and therefore during the pre-alpha testing phase of 11.10), no one responded in a timely manner.

My observations over the last couple of years have been that even when issues are noticed promptly, it often takes a whole release cycle to correct them, due to may bugs being largely out of Ubuntu's hands as they are in upstream components. In this case the bug seems to be upstream in GStreamer and how it works under the VESA framebuffer + classic softpipe environment. The GStreamer developers are the ones with the most expertise in this area. However it is worth noting that some people, including Greg Kroah-Hartman from Novell/SUSE's kernel team have criticised Canonical/Ubuntu for constantly taking from upstream and giving very little back in the way of patches.

Sometimes it is necessary for various upstream projects, and even Ubuntu itself, to drop support for older hardware and/or software tools to be able to fix other bugs, and more importantly, to enable new features. The reasons described at the first link in comment #10 of this bug are a good example of that.

If this bug can be fixed at all for future releases of Ubuntu, we will have to get the upstream GStreamer developers to do it. I'm not sure whether much can be done given there is no DRI driver for the [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP chipset (see comment #10), but I'll talk to them. Before I do that, can you try playing the file directly by entering the following command in a terminal:

gst-launch-0.10 playbin2 uri=file:///$HOME/<path to file>

For example, I have a file called Insalata_Caprese_Rec_317_263427.mp4 in Ubuntu's default "Videos" directory, so I use:

gst-launch-0.10 playbin2 uri=file:///$HOME/Videos/Insalata_Caprese_Rec_317_263427.mp4

Please report what you see in the video, if anything, and what is printed in the terminal.

Also, please navigate to /var/log by issuing:

cd .. <ENTER>
cd .. <ENTER>
cd /var/log

and then get the relevant part from the dmesg file by issuing:

cat dmesg |grep drm

and attach the output to this bug report.

I fully agree about the need for more testing.  If I was you I'd be feeling pretty frustrated right now. Although I think Canonical could do more testing of Ubuntu before release, I would also like to say that testing is something that us users can help out with.  Canonical do not have the money or staffing resources to purchase and test all the hardware out there.   In this regard, it is disappointing that when you reported this bug immediately after the release of 11.04 (and therefore during the pre-alpha testing phase of 11.10), no one responded in a timely manner.

My observations over the last couple of years have been that even when issues are noticed promptly, it often takes a whole release cycle to correct them, due to may bugs being largely out of Ubuntu's hands as they are in upstream components.  In this case the bug seems to be upstream in GStreamer and how it works under the VESA framebuffer + classic softpipe environment.  The GStreamer developers are the ones with the most expertise in this area.  However it is worth noting that some people, including Greg Kroah-Hartman from Novell/SUSE's kernel team have criticised Canonical/Ubuntu for constantly taking from upstream and giving very little back in the way of patches.

Sometimes it is necessary for various upstream projects, and even Ubuntu itself, to drop support for older hardware and/or software tools to be able to fix other bugs, and more importantly, to enable new features.  The reasons described at the first link in comment #10 of this bug are a good example of that.

If this bug can be fixed at all for future releases of Ubuntu, we will have to get the upstream GStreamer developers to do it.  I'm not sure whether much can be done given there is no  DRI driver for the [SiS] 661/741/760 PCI/AGP chipset (see comment #10), but I'll talk to them.  Before I do that, can you try playing the file directly by entering the following command in a terminal: