Issue playing some MKV files on Sony KDL-60R550A

Certain MKV files don't seem to play on my Sony KDL-60R550A. Some do play, though. I understand MKV is just a container format, so I'm assuming the ones that work are a different video codec than the ones that don't. That's about the extent of my knowledge, though. The video files do play on the computer where Serviio is running, so I would assume they should be able to be transcoded to a format my TV likes. Is there anybody that can help me figure out how to modify the Sony TV profiles to allow transcoding to work properly?

I've had this problem with Serviio 1.2.1 and 1.3. I've tried all of the Sony TV profiles, but they all have the same issue.

I tried grabbing ffmpeg -i output, but it doesn't seem to work. Did the -i option get removed? Instead, I gathered the following mediainfo data for one of the MKV files that won't play.

General
Unique ID : 210697181533784138246991466593763182276 (0x9E82CD15A2D808D8B3FDC96F6443C6C4)
Complete name : E:\Downloads\Movies\Logan's Run (1976)\Logan's Run.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 7.95 GiB
Duration : 1h 58mn
Overall bit rate : 9 599 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-11-05 19:26:11
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.9.8 ('C'est le bon') built on Aug 13 2009 12:49:06
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 58mn
Bit rate : 8 957 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.243
Stream size : 7.26 GiB (91%)
Writing library : x264 core 78 r1309M 4d77de8
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x2 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=8957 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 58mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 543 MiB (7%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

[Illico]

What is the profile used?

Read the SonyFAQ here : viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2396

Q: With 2013 model, mkv does not play.

If that not work, try this one :

Q: It seems to have issues with some PVR files on my Sony Bravia 2012 model ( for example : mpegts / Video: h264 / Audio: aac )

Thank you for the reply. I explained in the original post that I've tried all of the Sony TV profiles and none of them make a difference. I did scan through the FAQ, but nothing obvious stood out (other than the fact that the profile being used is likely missing a key piece of information).

The first FAQ entry you point to simply recommends rebuilding the MKV file with an external tool. I understand you're trying to help and appreciate that, but such a response is a terrible "solution". When using a media server which supports transcoding, in an OS that can play a particular video file, the user should never have to manually "rebuild" the video file just so it plays on the DLNA device. Yes, I fully understand there are limitations to transcoding and with ffmpeg itself. However, rebuilding the file should be the absolute last resort and should very rarely be necessary. I have several such files that won't play on my TV through Serviio, but do play through other media servers. Additionally, these same "problem" video files will play through Serviio on a different TV. So, it is almost certainly just a transcoding profile issue. Again, I appreciate your response and help, but the media server community would benefit greatly if folks started helping with the transcoding profiles rather than recommend rebuilding (re-encoding, muxing, whatever) video files. I'm more than happy to help fix the Sony TV profiles, I just don't even know where to start.

On that note, the second FAQ pointer you provided definitely appears to be more on the right track. Is there a post somewhere that I'm missing which explains how to match the profile piece "<Matches container XXXXX>" with the video file I'm trying to play? I strongly suspect if I can add the correct <Transcoding> info to the Sony TV profile for these problem videos, I can get them to be transcoded to the right format and all will be well. I apologize if I'm missing an obvious post explaining this, but I did do some digging and couldn't find anything obvious.

Thanks again.

[Illico]

Try this :

  Code:

   <Profile id="sonybad" name="Sony Bravia TV (2012) - bad h264" extendsProfileId="sony2012">
      <Transcoding>
         <!-- Transcode PVR files -->
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" forceVTranscoding="true" maxVBitrate="17000" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="192" DAR="16:9">
            <Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac" />
         </Video>         
      </Transcoding>
   </Profile>

You can also try with container="*"

[NX3]

Thank you for the reply. I explained in the original post that I've tried all of the Sony TV profiles and none of them make a difference.

If you select Sony 2010 then the file will be transcoded on the fly to mpeg stream which your tv can definitely play. To be clear your saying even when transcoded it won't play ? Did you get an error message ? This would seem very odd, can you post the log file for this file and those settings ?

[Illico]

If you select Sony 2010 then the file will be transcoded on the fly to mpeg stream which your tv can definitely play. To be clear your saying even when transcoded it won't play ? Did you get an error message ? This would seem very odd, can you post the log file for this file and those settings ?

I think the problem is due to a bad h264 encoding settings that Sony Bravia devices does not support, so h264 video should be transcoded.

Thanks very much for everybody's input! I enabled debug logging on Serviio and found root cause for my issue. It's actually not a problem with the h264 encoding or the video at all. It's actually a problem with the embedded subtitles. In the debug log, I noticed that it was trying to extract the subtitles every time my TV started having issues. So, in Serviio console, I unchecked the option to "Enable extraction of subtitles embedded in in video files". As soon as I made that change, the videos started playing properly.

So, I now know root cause for the failure and have a decent workaround. However, this obviously removes a Serviio feature. The debug log both before and after making this change can be found at the following location. Hopefully it helps folks fix whatever is wrong with the subtitle extraction functionality.

http://filebin.ca/rBC6rdG59ib/serviio-st-debug.log

EDIT: It's actually "Enable burned-in subtitles" that's not working properly. I re-enabled the extraction of subtitles and disabled burned-in subtitles and the videos still play. Hoping to figure out how to fix this, since I want to watch Pan's Labyrinth.