Works on SMP-N100, problems with PS3

Hello,

have been using PS3 in my living room to stream media for a year or so with PS3MediaServer. It did have its share of problems like requiring to restart it every now and when, but when it played a file, it never had any problems.

Now purchased a Sony SMP-N100 to my bedroom - since it had built-in WiFi and it was a Sony device with what I generally had positive experience described above, I thought it was a good choice. First off, turned out that PS3MediaServer did not show .MKV files (which is what I mostly watch, most of them 720p). Googled, found out how to create a profile file, which resulted in showing the .MKV files in SMP-N100, but yielding "corrupt data" for all of them.

More Googling turned me to Serviio. So switched out PS3MediaServer to Serviio.

So the situation now is - SMP-N100 works just fine, over Wi-Fi. But PS3 constantly has jitter / pixelated crap like with bad digital TV reception. Tried both with Wi-Fi and 100mbit LAN connection, with different files (that play with no problem on SMP-N100).

Any ideas?

[Illico]

Please provide information about movie file (mkv) with MediaInfo and "ffmpeg -i" result.

That could be the "codec" library used, tvkdlna user found that with his Bravia 2009 model:

Final conclusions:

1. If it's h264 and not isom: definitely transcode.
2. If it's h264 and isom: transcoding improves performance, but no major issues without it.
3. If it's not h264: current profile is sufficient.

There was also a single sighting of mpegts h264 that stutters (hbo-mpeg4sd-dish.ts). Don't know what to do about that and not sure it's wise to take action based on a single sample.

[matroska,webm @ 0x1001c00] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'file.mkv':
Duration: 00:50:14.17, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 384 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 1280x720, PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 384 kb/s (default)
At least one output file must be specified

[Illico]

Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264 (High)

Thanks, also need mediainfo result (for h264 profile level)

Sorry for a stupid question, but: how can I get that?

[Illico]

how can I get that?

See my signature links...

PS. Dunno if it helps, but Serviio is running around 0.8-2% CPU usage, so I don't think any transcoding is taking place.

General
Complete name : file.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.01 GiB
Duration : 50mn 14s
Overall bit rate : 2 890 Kbps
Writing application : x264.exe
Writing library : mkv2rls x264-tv version built on 2011. febr. 17

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 50mn 14s
Bit rate : 2 449 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.111
Stream size : 880 MiB (85%)
Writing library : x264 core 118 r2085 8a62835
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=19.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 50mn 14s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 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 : 138 MiB (13%)
Language : English

[Illico]

Seems good...

For PS3, that could be due to h264 Encoding settings but I don't know why. Try to re-encode the source file.

Unfortunately it happened to all 4-5 files I tried, so re-encoding really isn't a solution I'm looking for.

[Illico]

Workaround:
You could also force video transcoding for all mkv files on PS3 profile: add <Matches container="matroska" /> element in the first <video> section and remove all other matroska references like this:

  Code:

   <Profile id="4" name="Playstation 3" extendsProfileId="1">
      <Detection>
         <HttpHeaders>
            <X-AV-Client-Info>.*PLAYSTATION 3.*</X-AV-Client-Info>
         </HttpHeaders>   
      </Detection>
      <MediaFormatProfiles>
         <MediaFormatProfile mime-type="video/divx">AVI</MediaFormatProfile>
      </MediaFormatProfiles>
      <Transcoding>
         <!-- Transcode all h264 video with HIGH/MAIN > Level 4.1 on MPEG-TS stream with MPEG2VIDEO and ac3 audio transcoding -->
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384">
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" profile="high" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" profile="main" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" profile="high" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" profile="main" levelGreaterThan="4.1" />
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="dvvideo" />
            <Matches container="matroska" />
         </Video>
         <!--
            remux MKV with any video to MPEG2TS and possibly change audio to ac3, also AVI anfd FLV with H264
         -->
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384">
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="flv" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="3gp" aCodec="amrnb" /> 
         </Video>
         <!-- all other unplayable files just transcode to mpeg2 -->
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3" targetVCodec="mpeg2video">
            <Matches container="flv" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
         </Video>
         <Audio targetContainer="lpcm">
            <Matches container="flac" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
         </Audio>
      </Transcoding>
      <LimitImageResolution>false</LimitImageResolution>
   </Profile>

That changed it from jittering (those laggy pixelated artifacts) to plain skipping/freezing.
(The server is a 1.83GHz Core2Duo Mac Mini.)

[Illico]

Sorry for my poor english, but could you explain. Does the last profile is a solution for you?

It resolved the original problem with occassional "jitter" - this pixelated content that happens like with poor digital TV reception.

But now the whole image just freezes for about 0,5-1 seconds every 4-5 seconds, so it's even more unwatchable.