Panny ST50A Aspect ratio problem on OS X

Hi guys,

I've read a lot of the posts in this particular forum regarding the aspect ratio problem that some people get with the ST50A plasma from Panasonic (2:35:1 fills the screen). I have an odd situation. I have an iMac that I use for streaming in both OS X Mavericks (10.9) as well as a boot camp installation of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I have not modified the profiles in any way whatsoever on either installation, yet I get the aspect ratio problem only on the OS X installation. I'm using a 720p h264 rip of a movie to test this. It appears to do it with all similar movies streaming from OS X yet not streaming from Windows 7.

I only run with transcoding off as the ST50A can handle all the formats that I use. I have no sound or performance issues. I have tried both Panasonic profiles on OS X. It makes no difference which one I select. By default, Serviio picks the 2011 profile.

Any ideas why this would be the case?

Thanks guys,
Simon

[DenyAll]

I know you have said transcoding is off in both cases, but I suspect its being transcoded on the OS X case. What does the TV report the file as in both cases (is it being seen as MPEG2 in one case and something else (eg. Video) in the other?). You can also confirm if its being transcoded by turning on detailed logging and looking at the log file.

Thanks for the reply Deny. I'll switch on the logging and run some tests and post back the results.

Cheers,
Simon

I'm having the same problem after upgrading recently to latest Serviio version. Wider aspect ratios than 16:9 are being stretched to fill screen. Any ideas?

Here is the info on the file I'm trying to play:

Duration: 01:49:35.64, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2149 kb/s
Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1920x804 [SAR 1:1 DAR 160:67], 2051 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc
Metadata:
creation_time : 2013-11-26 02:16:26
handler_name : video.264#trackID=1:fps=23.976 - Imported with GPAC 0.5.0-rev
Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 93 kb/s

And here are the Serviio logs when I try to play the file:

2013-11-29 20:34:01,751 DEBUG [ServiioHttpService] Incoming request from /192.168.2.107:14140: GET /resource/540/MEDIA_ITEM/AVC_TS_MP_HD_AC3_ISO-0/ORIGINAL HTTP/1.1, headers = [Host: 192.168.2.103:8895,transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming,Connection: keep-alive]]
2013-11-29 20:34:01,752 DEBUG [RendererDAOImpl] Reading a Renderer with ip address 192.168.2.107
2013-11-29 20:34:01,753 DEBUG [RendererDAOImpl] Reading a Renderer with ip address 192.168.2.107
2013-11-29 20:34:01,760 DEBUG [ResourceDeliveryProcessor] Resource request accepted. Using client 'Identifier=192.168.2.107, Profile=Panasonic Viera E/S/ST/VT (2011)'
2013-11-29 20:34:01,761 DEBUG [ResourceDeliveryProcessor] Request for resource 540 and type 'MEDIA_ITEM' received
2013-11-29 20:34:01,762 DEBUG [MediaResourceRetrievalStrategy] Getting information about media item 540 (local)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,762 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Reading a MediaItem (id = 540)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,775 DEBUG [VideoDAOImpl] Reading a Video (id = 540)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,790 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Retrieving resource information for item 540, format AVC_TS_MP_HD_AC3_ISO and profile Panasonic Viera E/S/ST/VT (2011)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,791 DEBUG [AbstractTranscodingDeliveryEngine] Getting media info for transcoded version of file rem-filename.mp4
2013-11-29 20:34:01,792 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Found Format profile for transcoded file rem-filename.mp4: AVC_TS_MP_HD_AC3_ISO
2013-11-29 20:34:01,794 DEBUG [MediaResourceRetrievalStrategy] Getting information about media item 540 (local)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,794 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Reading a MediaItem (id = 540)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,794 DEBUG [VideoDAOImpl] Reading a Video (id = 540)
2013-11-29 20:34:01,795 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering item '540' for client 'Identifier=192.168.2.107, Profile=Panasonic Viera E/S/ST/VT (2011)'
2013-11-29 20:34:01,795 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering file 'rem-filename.mp4' using transcoding
2013-11-29 20:34:01,795 DEBUG [AbstractTranscodingDeliveryEngine] No suitable transcoding job exists yet, start one for client 'Identifier=192.168.2.107, Profile=Panasonic Viera E/S/ST/VT (2011)'
2013-11-29 20:34:01,796 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Getting file of media item 540
2013-11-29 20:34:01,796 DEBUG [FFMPEGWrapper] Invoking FFmpeg to transcode video file: /Users/foo/Downloads/videos/rem-filename.mp4
2013-11-29 20:34:01,796 DEBUG [ProcessExecutor] Starting /Applications/Serviio.app/Contents/Resources/Java/../../MacOS/ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -threads auto -i /Users/foo/Downloads/videos/rem-filename.mp4 -y -threads auto -c:v copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -c:a ac3 -b:a 96
k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts /var/folders/yg/k2_8vhnd4pbbmzjp_sx4d94r0000gn/T/Serviio/transcoding-temp-540-viera2011-ORIGINAL.stf
2013-11-29 20:34:02,305 DEBUG [FileBasedTranscodingDeliveryStrategy] Sending transcoding stream
2013-11-29 20:34:02,306 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Found Format profile for transcoded file rem-filename.mp4: AVC_TS_MP_HD_AC3_ISO
2013-11-29 20:34:02,306 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Marking MediaItem (id = 540) as read
2013-11-29 20:34:02,322 DEBUG [LocalContentCacheDecorator] Cleared cache (local_resetafterplay)
2013-11-29 20:34:02,323 DEBUG [GETMethodProcessor] Stream entity has length: 50000000000
2013-11-29 20:34:02,323 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Creating entity with chunked transfer
2013-11-29 20:34:02,323 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] HTTP/1.1 200 OK, headers = [[Content-Type: video/mpeg,Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:34:02 GMT,Server: Mac OS X, UPnP/1.0 DLNADOC/1.50, Serviio/1.3.1,Cache-control: no-cache,transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming,realTimeInfo.dlna.org: DLNA.
ORG_TLAG=*]]

[DenyAll]

Any ideas? - Yes . When Serviio transcodes your MP4 file it remuxes the video stream into a new mpeg2-ts container. Due to either a deficiency in the mpeg2-ts container, or in how the Panasonic handles that container type (I've never worked out which is the case), aspect ratio information is not being processed correctly.

What to do about it - two choices:

• Outside of Serviio, you can remux your MP4 video's into a container type that is supported on your TV (I believe MKV's are supported by the ST50?). You can do this with ffmpeg (or other programs like Handbrake):
  ffmpeg -i "/Users/foo/Downloads/videos/rem-filename.mp4" -c:v copy -c:a ac3 -b:a 384k "/Users/foo/Downloads/videos/rem-filename.mkv"
  ps. I'm not a MAC user so I am guessing somewhat at the command, so you may need to play with it.
• Within Serviio, you can change the profile to transcode the video (rather than remux it) and set the DAR. In profiles.xml edit the Panasonic Viera E/S/ST/VT (2011) profile add:
  

    Code:

     <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" DAR="16:9" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384">
      <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" profile="high" />      
   </Video>
above the existing line
   <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3">

  
  This will affect all MP4 files with a high h264 profile level (you may need to play with this if you need to broaden to include other files).

Hope this makes sense... come back if not.

Thanks very much for your time DenyAll.

I tried adding the 'Video' element you suggested, but still had the same problem. It's possible I did something wrong, but I tried to be diligent about editing the 'profiles.xml', restarting Serviio, checking, etc. But since I was not successful, I gave up and restored back to an older version of Serviio, from when I know this problem didn't exist. Now running v1.2.1 and all is well again.

Why does v1.2.1 work great for me, and not v1.3.1? I dunno.

Thanks again!

Quick question.. if v1.2.1 works (eg correct aspect ratio on my st50), and v1.3.1 does not, is there a line or two in the log file (w/debug on), which I can look for to identify the differences in how serviio is treating the video file in question?

[DenyAll]

Which profile are you using in 1.2.1? I can compare both old and new profiles and see what changed.