1080P performances

Hi Everyone,

I bought a Panasonic GT30 (50') last Friday and so far really enjoying it.
I've been testing Serviio over the weekend and it's really great.

Basically I'd like to have some thoughts on the following: yesterday I watched a 1080p movie and 90% of the time it's very smooth, but unfortunately sometimes it's not, it's choppy and stutters for like 10 secs then gets back to normal. Also, it always stutters at the exact same times.
Now I understand this probably has to do with the bitrate since I'm on WIFI (or at least partly):
- computer sends the data to the router : WIFI
- router to TV: WIRED

I ran bitrate viewer on the movie I watched yesterday and here's the result


I seems to me that everything above 22mbps lags. What I don't get is how there can be such a huge difference in bitrate at times (average is perfectly fine)? Does this have to do with the amount of details on the image or has this more to do with bad video encoding? From the graph you can see it's clearly not constant... I wonder if that's the movie's fault or the encoder's fault...

Any highlights on that? Any idea on how to fix that?

Thanks a lot

Cheers
Larry

[zip]

Yep, your peak bitrate is pretty high and is most likely the problem - probably on the device side as well (the decoding chip cannot cope). Higher bitrate is usually in a fast moving scenes or in scenes with high number of artifacts (e.g. 'old movie effect' - distorted image).

[Illico]

Any highlights on that? Any idea on how to fix that?

So solutions
1- Reencode with external tool the original movie with more accurate maximum video bitrate option (for example 17Mbps)
2- With Serviio, editing profile to transcode h264 video codec into mpeg2 video with max video bitrate option "maxVBitrate" (but this will be for all h264 video despite bitrate value and very eater for CPU)

[Illico]

Could you provide "ffmpeg -i" result od this file?
High x264 profile could be detected to force mpeg2 encoding.

Thanks for your replies, good suggestions in there.
The ffmpeg -i of the file is attached (movie.txt).


I could indeed try with transcode, the CPU might be able to handle that (Q9450: quad core 2.66ghz, 12mb L2 cache). To be honest I don't know how heavy that task is, so I can only try and see if that works.

What I could also perhaps do is create a similar serviio profile as the one I use now (a copy of the generic or panasonic vieria one), which I would only use when watching 1080p movies, since I don't seem to have that prob with 720P movies.
If I do that, where exactly am I supposed to add the "maxvbitrate" parameter?

If all else fails, I can indeed reencode the file with a maximum bitrate but I'd rather explore your other suggestions first ^^

Thanks in advance for your help

[Illico]

Strange result from your file:
"K:\MOVIES\movie.mkv: Invalid data found when processing input"
Do you use " " arround file path, for example ffmpeg - i "K:\MOVIES\movie.mkv"

For maxVBitrate option, like this...

  Code:

   <Profile id="12" name="Panasonic Viera HDx264" extendsProfileId="1">
      <ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>org.serviio.upnp.service.contentdirectory.PanasonicDLNAMessageBuilder</ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>
      <SubtitlesMimeType>text/srt</SubtitlesMimeType>
      <MediaFormatProfiles>
         <MediaFormatProfile mime-type="video/divx">AVI</MediaFormatProfile>
      </MediaFormatProfiles>
      <Transcoding>
         <!-- Transcode all h264 video to MPEG-TS stream with MPEG2 video (max 17Mbps) -->
            <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="17000">
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" />
            </Video>
      </Transcoding>
   </Profile>

Thanks for that!

Strange result for ffmpeg indeeD;
I tried again and same result. And I did use " ".

I did it for another movie then, the other one I have which is 1080p and which also lags at times.
ffmpeg is working fine this time. The result of bitrate viewer for that one is also included.
See attachments.

I'll also give a go at your suggestion for maxvbitrate later. Will keep you posted.

Thanks again

[Illico]

I think that these two movies are really not appropriate for Upnp/DLNA streaming over LAN, devices are currently limited to 20Mbps or 25Mbps (MPEGTS/AVC/AC3).

I wanted to try with maxvbitrate but the serviio service doesn't start anymore if I update the XML like you said.

As soon as I remove the maxvbitrate="17000" parameter it starts again.

Any idea?

[Illico]

Do you really try this ?

<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="17000" >

Well, I don't know what I did wrong last time but I now amended the file like this (only added the maxvbitrate param to my xml file), and it works (service starts fine):

<Profile id="12" name="Panasonic Viera" extendsProfileId="1">
<ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>org.serviio.upnp.service.contentdirectory.PanasonicDLNAMessageBuilder</ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>
<SubtitlesMimeType>text/srt</SubtitlesMimeType>
<MediaFormatProfiles>
<MediaFormatProfile mime-type="video/divx">AVI</MediaFormatProfile>
</MediaFormatProfiles>
<Transcoding>
<!-- remux DTS in MKV to AC3 -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3">
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" aCodec="dca" />
</Video>
<!-- Remux all h264 video to MPEG-TS stream -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="17000">
<Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" />
</Video>
<Audio targetContainer="mp3">
<Matches container="mp4" />
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
</Audio>
</Transcoding>
</Profile>

On the other hand, now that I'm using that profile, some of the vids play in 4/3 mode.
For example with the movie "Oceans" (the one I posted the ffmpeg -i output and the bitrate viewer screenshot in my earlier post), if I use the GENERIC profile then it plays in 16/9. If I use the panasonic viera profile then it plays in 4/3.


And the maxbitrate doesn't seem to help. Same lags at the same timings.


Lastly, can you change the profile on the go? Without having to refresh or save or restart the service?

[Illico]

if I use the GENERIC profile then it plays in 16/9.

Streamed in native format

If I use the panasonic viera profile then it plays in 4/3.

Transcoded with ffmpeg, this is probably a ffmpeg aspect ratio issue.

And the maxbitrate doesn't seem to help. Same lags at the same timings.

Damned!!
Could you copy/store the temporary file that serviio created in the "temp" folder and check the resulting video bitrate?
You could try to change the max bitrate option value: 10000, 5000.

Lastly, can you change the profile on the go? Without having to refresh or save or restart the service?

I would say, you must save and restart serviio service (no database refresh needed). Zip could you confirm?
Zip, could it become a new feature request : "Change the profile on the go after save, without needed to restart service"...

[zip]

I would say, you must save and restart serviio service (no database refresh needed). Zip could you confirm?
Zip, could it become a new feature request : "Change the profile on the go after save, without needed to restart service"...

Yes, the file is only read once on the program start.
Profiles don't change too often so won't be adding the refresh feature for now.