Aspect Ratio problem on 2010 Bravia - revisited?

Hello

I have installed Serviio to see if I can get it to work sending HD AVC video files to a 2010 Bravia TV.

At first it was remuxing and this caused the TV to stop reponding.

I looked at the Bravia Readme viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2396 and forced video transcoding with a maxbitrate of 17000 and this fixed this problem. (IMHO this should be included in the default profile for Bravia 2010)

However I notice there are black bars above and below the picture still so there is an issue with the aspect ratio.

I see this is mentioned in viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2956 and various other threads but I dont find anyway to fix this.

I tried Mezzmo and this seems to have no issue - it seems to use AVC rather MPEG2 at least the TV lists the files as AVC - nevertheless it works fine showing the correct aspect ration (16:9) filling the screen.

Mezzmo reports that the file is DAR 16:9 PAR 1:1 and I wonder if this is somehow the issue that the square pixels are being interpreted as 16:9 pixels by Serviio and or TV so it is considered a 256:81 and so is letter boxed.

I like the way you can customise Serviio so would prefer it if I can fix this issue.

However it seems there is no clear answer on this topic??

Any ideas welcome

thanks

[Illico]

What is your TV region (US, UK, etc) ?
Do you try with other profiles "2010 US" ?

Hello

Thanks for your help

It is European TV and I am trying to play MP4 files (Video: 1,920 × 1,080 pixels/30p, 16:9, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, Audio: Linear PCM 48kHz 16bit)

As there is no US 2010 Bravia profile that I can see I tried the 2011 US.

This sends AVC not MPEG2 container (as shown by TV) but is jerky and sometimes makes TV non responsive.

If I force transcoding using

<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" forceVTranscoding="true" maxVBitrate="10000" targetACodec="ac3"

aBitrate="384" forceInheritance="true">
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="lpcm" />
</Video>

I just get back where I started and the TV shows MPEG2 and aspect ratio problem

If I use the above but change targetVcodec to h264 it shows on TV as AVC but it does not seem to reduce the bitrate in that I still get jerky motion &c

So either jerky non responsive TV or bad aspect ratio - not really any progress - other than my understanding of Serviio and streaming.

Not sure what to try next

[Illico]

Some "streaming" mp4/h264 used non standard h264 image resolution, that Sony device does not support.
So these video should be transcoded to mpeg2video with proper standard resolution, use DAR option on profile.

add DAR option to your previous example (you can remove forceVTranscoding="true" not needed here)

<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="10000" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" DAR="16:9" forceInheritance="true">
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="lpcm" />
</Video>

Hello

Thanks - I have tried it with DAR 16:9 and sadly it did not make any difference to the output

thanks

[Illico]

??
What is the profile selected on serviio console ?
Could you post your profiles.xml file ?
What is the model of your TV ?

Hello

I have been using as well two custom profiles Sony 2010 MaxVbitrate and Sony 2011 US MaxVBitrate.

I have attached my profiles.xml file.

Sony Bravia TV (2010): plays jerkily and causes TV to stop and has black bars top and bottom
Sony 2010 MaxVbitrate: plays smoothly but has black bars top and bottom

Sony Bravia TV (2011) - US: plays jerkily and causes TV to stop but has no black bars
Sony 2011 US MaxVBitrate: plays jerkily and causes TV to stop but has no black bars

TV is Sony Bravia KDL-40EX503 (UK).

I have seen other threads that may relate but do not seem to provide solution http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8620&start=20 and http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8620

Thanks

Previous Serviio versions from 0.6.0.1 to 1.3.0, had no issues with aspect ratios and Bravia 2010 profile (They did have the 2009 and 2010 mislabelled). For some reason from 1.3.1 on, for all files stretch out super thin (Only files that aspect ratio is correct on is .MKV, .MOV with H.264m and random 4:3 ). Early on I experimented with swapping out the profile file, but you would get the playback issues associated with the earlier versions. It seems like something in the base avi and mpeg profiles changed from 1.3.1 on, would be great if Zip could take a quick look.

[Illico]

From 1.3.1 version there were a modification about DAR compute:
from release note:

- fixed DAR enforcement for anamorphic files

Zip, could you explain how you manage DAR option from your code?

I don't understand why many people have problems now with aspect ratio while it was solved long ago.

Just tried the 2011 US and 2012 US profiles, and they work (On Canadian 2010 model). Unfortunately they can't play my .mov H264 high bitrate movies. Odd cause the only differences I see in the profiles are for the H264 high bitrate which unfortunately is a feature I need. I tried pasting into the 2011US profile but couldn't get it to work.

Fixed. Pasted in the H.264 entries from Sony2010 profile into Sony2011US under transcoding, rebooted and all working.

  Code:

<Profile id="sony2011us" name="Sony Bravia TV (2011) - US" extendsProfileId="sony2012us">
    <!-- 2010 models for US (without avi/divx)
- Still images: JPEG
- Music: MP3, linear PCM, WMA
- Video: AVCHD, MPEG2, MPEG1, MP4 (AVC), MP4 (MPEG4), WMV -->
    <Transcoding>
        <!-- Transcode all h264 video with HIGH/MAIN > Level 4.1 on MPEG-TS stream with MPEG2VIDEO and ac3 audio transcoding -->
        <!-- expected profile MPEG_TS_SD_EU/MPEG_TS_SD_NA/MPEG_TS_SD_KO -->
        <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="17000" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" DAR="16:9" forceInheritance="true">
            <Matches container="*" vCodec="h264" profile="high_10" />
            <Matches container="*" vCodec="h264" profile="high_422" />
            <Matches container="*" vCodec="h264" profile="high_444" />
            <Matches container="*" vCodec="h264" profile="high" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
            <Matches container="*" vCodec="h264" profile="main" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
        </Video>
        <!-- Remux h264 video + AC3 audio to MPEG-TS stream without transcoding -->
        <Video targetContainer="mpegts" forceInheritance="true">
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="ac3" />
            <Matches container="3gp" vCodec="h264" aCodec="ac3" />
        </Video>
        <!-- Remux h264 video + AAC audio to MPEG-TS stream with ac3 audio transcoding -->
        <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" forceInheritance="true">
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac" />
            <Matches container="3gp" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac" />
        </Video>
        <!-- Transcode audio MP4 -->
        <Audio targetContainer="lpcm" forceInheritance="true">
            <!-- To allow "pause" then "resume" functions and album art for TVs that support it - transcode to mp3 instead -->
            <Matches container="mp4" />
        </Audio>
    </Transcoding>
</Profile>


[Illico]

@ KOKO
You probably have to remove DAR="16:9" option from your modification to have good aspect ratio with high h264 profile level > 4.1, no ?