Choppy 720p video playback in Debian

[hakerdefo]

I was a bit reluctant to post this as it is not exactly a VSIDO specific problem. But someone whispered in my ear to go ahead and post it so...
My main machine has modest specs. AMD Sempron 2800+ processor running at 1600 MHZ, 2 Gigs of RAM, Motherboard with VIA k8M800 chipset. Now VIA never released proper Linux graphics drivers for this chipset and the only functional drivers are provided by OpenChrome project. This is not a great system but it fulfills my modest needs.
Here is the problem part. I've a few 720p videos and when I play them the playback is choppy and slow. All necessary codecs like libav family, gstreamer family, w32codecs are installed. openchrome driver is installed. Now this choppy playback occurs on every Debian distro I have on this machine. VSIDO, Semplice, and a custom Sid install.
Here is the interesting part, I also have Bodhi Linux [based on Ubuntu Precise 12.04] and Salix 14.0 [based on slackware 14.0] installed on this machine and the 720p videos play fine there. There is no stutter in video playback.
I've tried different kernels ranging from 3.2 to liquorix 3.12.7. I've tried mplayer2 and the newer mpv. mplayer2 and mpv configs are identical across Bodhi-Salix and all Debian flavors.
So why the playback is choppy on Debian based distros and okay in Salix-Bodhi?
Here's my mplayer2 config,

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ao=alsa
vo=xv
cache=8192
cache-min=20
cache-seek-min=50
double=yes
ontop=yes
stop-xscreensaver=yes
idx=yes
ass=yes
embeddedfonts=yes
sub-fuzziness=1
slang=en


And mpv config,

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ao=alsa
vo=xv
cache-default=8192
cache=8192
cache-min=20
cache-seek-min=50
fs=no
osc=no
ontop=yes
softvol=no
slang=en
stop-screensaver=yes
user-agent="Mozilla/5.0"


Here is detailed info of a video file that stutters under Debian,

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Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                                 : mp42
File size                                : 87.5 MiB
Duration                                 : 5mn 28s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 232 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2011-05-05 19:43:07
Tagged date                              : UTC 2011-05-05 19:43:07
gsst                                     : 0
gstd                                     : 328771
gssd                                     : BADC23143HH1340962604252990
gshh                                     : o-o.preferred.sin01s10.v3.lscache7.c.youtube.com

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 1 frame
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 5mn 28s
Bit rate                                 : 2 076 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 5 886 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps
Minimum frame rate                       : 17.241 fps
Maximum frame rate                       : 24.390 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.094
Stream size                              : 81.4 MiB (93%)
Tagged date                              : UTC 2011-05-05 19:43:09

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 5mn 28s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 151 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 204 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 5.92 MiB (7%)
Title                                    : (C) 2007 Google Inc. v08.13.2007.
Encoded date                             : UTC 2011-05-05 19:43:08
Tagged date                              : UTC 2011-05-05 19:43:09


Any feedback is welcome.
Cheers.

[jedi]

hey hakerdefo, have you tried to do an apt-get install mesa-utils?  i've found this sometimes fixes little quirks with vid related issues.  Then again it may not help at all, but probably worth a shot...
Good luck...

[PackRat]

Are Bodhi and Salix using different config files? If so, start by comparing them with your Debian files.

[hakerdefo]

hey hakerdefo, have you tried to do an apt-get install mesa-utils?  i've found this sometimes fixes little quirks with vid related issues.  Then again it may not help at all, but probably worth a shot...
Good luck...

Thanks for your feedback jedi.
mesa-utils is in default VSIDO install and I also installed it in Semplice and custom Sid. But sadly it doesn't make difference.
By the way DRI1 drivers were removed from mesa starting from version 8.0 and there is no DRI2 driver available for this chipset.
Cheers.

[hakerdefo]

Are Bodhi and Salix using different config files? If so, start by comparing them with your Debian files.

Yes, my mplayer2 config is identical in every distro. I've included mplayer2 config in my previous post.
Cheers.

[Digit]

are you  sure it's running  at 1600, n not 1000?  i've  noticed that several times in my debians, that they seem to like  being  limited to 1000mhz in software somewhere somehow. sry i dont recal how to pull up this info or change it, but thhought it worth a mention as another avenue too explore.

[hakerdefo]

are you  sure it's running  at 1600, n not 1000?  i've  noticed that several times in my debians, that they seem to like  being  limited to 1000mhz in software somewhere somehow. sry i dont recal how to pull up this info or change it, but thhought it worth a mention as another avenue too explore.

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cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep MHz
gives me,

cpu MHz: 1607.356

And,

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dmidecode -t 4 | grep Current
gives,

Current Speed: 1600 MHz

So I guess the processor is running at it's max speed.
Cheers.

[Digit]

damn.  that was all i had.   *shrug*

[hakerdefo]

I did a little experiment. I downloaded antix-core, defaulted the repos to Debian stable and in the live environment installed minimal working openbox system. And then played the 720p videos and they played perfectly. No frame-drops. Next I changed the repos to Debian testing and updated. After upgrade I played the same 720p videos and choppiness came back, frames dropped. So some package be it openchrome, xserver-xorg, mplayer, libavcodec or something else in testing-sid is causing the choppy playback on my machine. I can live this for sure. May be future updates will iron out the problem.
Cheers.

[VastOne]

^ Now that is a testing methodology

Great way to eliminate issues to the final one