[FIXED] Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Support questions for Neutron Player only.
dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:33 pm

Progweed, Thank you very much for video: Neutron does not get enough CPU and is lagging really hard...

I also managed to get some sluttering on my 10 Dev Alpha, also when Neutron is sent in background. At least for my device I managed to fix it and I hope very much that situation becomes improved for all of you guys. 10 Dev Alpha has same CPU clock as basic PlayBook (not the one which is LTE and faster) so performance difference shall not be in play.

The reason of all this is in QNX/PlayBook OS: when application is sent to background application won't receive enough CPU. Neutron had high priority audio threads which were stealing CPU time from system threads which were doing audio output. Now, audo threads do not have any higher priority and it seems that it give necessary stability. There is similar issue on Android OS too but may be QNX was more sensitive to this due to its real-time nature.

The update was just released to App World for review and I hope it will take 1-2 days.

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:20 am

Hi Kurt,

> it stutters on every page of the program because they are all doing something on the screen

UI and audio rendering tasks are different processes, so UI thread can't affect playback stability. Moreover Neutron exists on Android platform for around 2 years and on much slower CPUs it runs just fine with the same UI activity. The problem is in nature of PlayBook OS: when application is sent to background OS provides much less CPU time to it. Neutron used high priority threads for audio rendering and it caused time starvation for system threads of PlayBook OS. When Neutron's UI is invisible it is destroyed completely.

The update is approved today some 5 hours ago and shall be available. Would you please update and check how it is working now. Currently on my device (10 Dev Alpha 16 GB, same hardware as PlayBook OS, same CPU speed, almost the same OS) on newest update I have no any sluttering as in UI (I did not have sluttering in UI earlier) so in background (was happening for me).

By the way to get rid of UI activity you could use: Settings -> Power Saver option.

Best regards,
Dmitry.

gouster
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by gouster » Thu Sep 13, 2012 8:00 am

I've just upgraded to the latest version of Neutron and it no longer works on my Playbook! After installation, I clicked the box to allow microphone access and the application closed itself. Now when I click on the icon it flashes up quickly and then disappears... please help?!?!?

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Thu Sep 13, 2012 8:12 am

> no longer works on my Playbook

It is killing me softly :( ... Yes, I already received similar reports and removed Neutron from App World. Will now try to understand why PlayBook is asking for Microphone permission while it has not to because Neutron does not declare corresponding permission.

Funny thing is that on my device it is working okay, it also passed certification by App World team who also start app on different devices to make sure it is working...

Anyway will make another update today with hope that it will be approved for tomorrow.

mikeywilliams
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by mikeywilliams » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:47 pm

I have just purchased Neutron and am running v 1.62.3 on a 64Gb playbook on 2 1 0 840.

I too have many high quality flacs (typically 16bit 1411kbps) which is what prompted me to get Neutron and I was somewhat dismayed that they are all virtually unplayable (stuttering and suchlike glitches)

However I would like to echo the report of kurtnodli above - when in the settings screen the playback is pretty well faultless (one gets paranoid listening out for stutters rather than the music but they were very few or possibly not at all). But the moment one clicked on "Done" on the settings screen the stutters flooded back. And every other screen has stutters, some worse than others (the equaliser screen is guaranteeed to stutter).

mp3s seem to play fine. No stutters.

All of the above is while Neutron is front of screen not multitasking with anything else. I cannot comment on how it behaves then.

One further point - the near perfect playback of flacs on the settings screen is only if power saving is NOT selected (if it is then the stutters are back). None of the other settings, 64bit, resampling quality etc seems to make any difference. Something strange is going on and I hope the next version is better.
Fingers etc crossed.

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:35 am

1.62.5 update is available now, so it would be great to hear regarding sluttering problem. Whether it is improved, or not.

mikeywilliams
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by mikeywilliams » Mon Sep 17, 2012 10:19 am

I've just tried to update but it wouldn't let me- says there is a problem with my purchase even though I have the app and the money has been deleted from my account. Doh...
I'm chasing RIM.

mikeywilliams
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by mikeywilliams » Mon Sep 17, 2012 1:40 pm

OK - got the update sorted - and well done sir.
I've just spent half an hour listening to various flacs and not a glitch or stutter to be heard.
Great.
I havent tested what happens when neutron is put to the back while browsing or whatever as i dont intend to do that.
It is just lovely to be able to listen to music reproduced so well.
Thank you for the update.

Progweed
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by Progweed » Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:52 pm

I'm beginnig to suspect that something is wrong with my device. :cry:

It still stutters badly on my 16 GB Playbook when Neutron runs in the background. There is virtually no audible difference between 1.62.3 and 1.62.5. Sometimes it even stutters with nothing else running, but this happens much less frequently, perhaps once or twice per song. I tested music in different formats (MP3, OGG Vorbis, AAC), but that didn't make a difference.

Streaming music from the web works fine though and without a single hitch.

dmitrykos
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Re: Blackberry Playbook: Sound stutters

Post by dmitrykos » Mon Sep 17, 2012 4:13 pm

mikeywilliams, it is good to hear that partially it was solved at least.

As to multitasking, for example on my 10 Dev Alpha I started as many apps I could and only interruptions I heard when UI of Neutron appear/disappear. For this I already developed an improvement and in next update Neutron won't create/delete UI when its UI get hidden but instead UI will be suspended and it gives 2 benefits: no heavy work for CPU to load/delete all graphics data of UI so rare interruptions went away on my device, better feel of PlayBook UI because it is not always reloading when becomes visible.

Progweed,
> beginnig to suspect that something is wrong with my device

I do not think so. All PlayBooks are based on standard hardware unless there is underclocked CPU with less than 1 Ghz per core but I am unsure that this is the problem because Neutron was stable on Android device if CPU is underclocked to around max 200 Mhz (dual core). The problem most probably in process scheduling and there is something in PlayBook OS that is causing interruptions to whole process of Neutron. One such activity I noticed is when you copy something to internal storage through USB. After I noticed it I started suspecting that may be occasional reading from internal storage. The problem is definitely in PlayBook's subsystem which I need to isolate as much as possible from rendering.

> Streaming music from the web works fine though and without a single hitch.

Do you mean streaming with Neutron? or another application? Could you please clarify.

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