Mezzmo Media Player is jittery and glitchy on Amazon FireTV & FireTV Stick

I have been noticing this for awhile but hadn't really taken the time to explore deeply until this weekend.

I rip and encode my BD movies to .mkv files, typically using Handbrake. For some movies I like to leave the size and bitrate pretty high. I am noticing that these larger files suffer from Jitter and Stuttering on playback with the FireTV and FireTV Stick (both v2) when using Mezzmo Android's built-in Media Player. It almost looks like a framerate issue because you only really notice it on panning scenes and during action but static scenes are good. For example, I have a 15GB .mkv of the Revenant that is almost unwatchable using Mezzmo Android's Media Player because of the large amount of panning in the first 10 minutes. If I use VLC as the media player, the problem disappears. If I use Kodi and the Mezzmo Plug-In it is also smooth as butter.

We can eliminate Bandwidth limitations and hardware resources as culprits since I have transcoding turned off and they play fine with VLC and Kodi.

I have tried it with Device Profiles set to both Kodi and Conceiva (Mezzmo Android) with the same results either way.

we also can't be sure what is going on... one of our latest troubles with some ripping software is invalid timeline generated for the video, then VLC is usually playing that quite well, some other players are not, it may be something like that in the above example...you may try to reduce birate

I am having the same issue with the Mezzmo app on Fire TV and Fire TV stick (both latest versions), except the files I am having issues with are .mp4 files. The files are ripped from my DVD and BD collection using makeMKV then converted to .mp4 using Handbrake. Typically the file sizes are between 2GB and 6GB. During panning scenes the video becomes jittery, but is fine on static scenes. Like the original poster, the files seem to play fine on other media players/devices.

This could be a problem with the codec used to decode the video, can you please try selecting the HW button in the player when the video is playing to switch to software decoding to see if this is better or worse?

I tried this on both Fire stick and Fire TV. The problem was definitely less noticeable on the Fire Stick when the Mezzmo player had "HW" showing in the bottom corner. However, switching from "HW" to "SW" on the Fire TV box didn't seem to make a difference. The issue continued to occur. If it helps, the Fire Stick is on Wi-Fi, the Fire TV is wired (Gb). The movie I am using as a test is "The Secret Life of Pets", the first minute and a half is a panning sequence so the issue presents itself quickly. Let me know if any other particulars would help (Fire TV/Stick build versions, FFMPEG info on movie, etc.)

Can you please post the FFmpeg information of the file so we can see if there is anything particular about the file that might be causing this?

Here is the FFMPEG info:

ffmpeg version N-78742-gf477849 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 4.9.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl32 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lpthread -lx264 -lx265 -lstdc++' --enable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc32/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc32/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-gnutls --extra-libs='-lz -lnettle -lhogweed -lgmp -lidn -lws2_32 -lcrypt32'
libavutil 55. 19.100 / 55. 19.100
libavcodec 57. 25.101 / 57. 25.101
libavformat 57. 26.100 / 57. 26.100
libavdevice 57. 0.101 / 57. 0.101
libavfilter 6. 36.100 / 6. 36.100
libswscale 4. 0.100 / 4. 0.100
libswresample 2. 0.101 / 2. 0.101


---> DB Level Info: 40, 77
---> Frame rate: 23.98
---> Aspect ratio: 480:259 PAR=1:1
---> Duration: 01:26:27


Fire Stick
Software Version: Fire OS 5.2.4.1 (573210720)
Fire TV Home Version: 5.7.3-20

Fire TV Box
Software Version: Fire OS 5.2.4.2 (574263120)
Fire TV Home Version: 5.7.3-17

The FFmpeg information appears to be missing the stream information, possibly Mezzmo did not wait long enough to get it, can you please try getting the FFmpeg information again to see if the stream info is added?

Here you go:

ffmpeg version N-78742-gf477849 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 4.9.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl32 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lpthread -lx264 -lx265 -lstdc++' --enable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc32/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc32/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-gnutls --extra-libs='-lz -lnettle -lhogweed -lgmp -lidn -lws2_32 -lcrypt32'
libavutil 55. 19.100 / 55. 19.100
libavcodec 57. 25.101 / 57. 25.101
libavformat 57. 26.100 / 57. 26.100
libavdevice 57. 0.101 / 57. 0.101
libavfilter 6. 36.100 / 6. 36.100
libswscale 4. 0.100 / 4. 0.100
libswresample 2. 0.101 / 2. 0.101
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'E:\Video\Movies\Kids\Secret Life of Pets.mp4':
Metadata:
major_brand : mp42
minor_version : 512
compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
creation_time : 2017-01-08 00:53:23
title : The Secret Life of Pets
encoder : HandBrake 1.0.1 2016122900
Duration: 01:26:27.20, start: 0.021333, bitrate: 3831 kb/s
Chapter #0:0: start 0.000000, end 305.972000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 1
Chapter #0:1: start 305.972000, end 564.064000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 2
Chapter #0:2: start 564.064000, end 799.424000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 3
Chapter #0:3: start 799.424000, end 1083.666000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 4
Chapter #0:4: start 1083.666000, end 1334.583000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 5
Chapter #0:5: start 1334.583000, end 1731.939000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 6
Chapter #0:6: start 1731.939000, end 1975.307000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 7
Chapter #0:7: start 1975.307000, end 2215.839000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 8
Chapter #0:8: start 2215.839000, end 2547.295000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 9
Chapter #0:9: start 2547.295000, end 2686.893000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 10
Chapter #0:10: start 2686.893000, end 3021.227000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 11
Chapter #0:11: start 3021.227000, end 3285.491000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 12
Chapter #0:12: start 3285.491000, end 3574.071000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 13
Chapter #0:13: start 3574.071000, end 3756.211000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 14
Chapter #0:14: start 3756.211000, end 4032.362000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 15
Chapter #0:15: start 4032.362000, end 4386.841000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 16
Chapter #0:16: start 4386.841000, end 4564.602000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 17
Chapter #0:17: start 4564.602000, end 4728.057000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 18
Chapter #0:18: start 4728.057000, end 4798.752000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 19
Chapter #0:19: start 4798.752000, end 5187.182000
Metadata:
title : Chapter 20
Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1036 [SAR 1:1 DAR 480:259], 3664 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 90k tbn, 180k tbc (default)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2017-01-08 00:53:23
handler_name : VideoHandler
Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 160 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2017-01-08 00:53:23
handler_name : Stereo
Stream #0:2(eng): Subtitle: mov_text (text / 0x74786574)
Metadata:
creation_time : 2017-01-08 00:53:23
handler_name : SubtitleHandler
At least one output file must be specified

<MEZZMO>: Child process ended with code: 109, ExitCode=1


---> DB Level Info: 40, 77
---> Frame rate: 23.98
---> Aspect ratio: 480:259 PAR=1:1
---> Duration: 01:26:27

Thanks, nothing in the FFmpeg information really jumps out at me so it is possibly an encoding issue. Could you please try pre-transcoding the file and force a full transcode to see if this allows the video to play smoothly? We will try a similar file here to see if we can reproduce it on our Fire TV Stick.