Serviio

Hi
I have issues playing a number of avi's - but other avis play just fine?!

running on win 7, with serviio 1.0.1, on Pana GT30, with panasonic viera G/GT/DT/UT 2011

details for one of them is:
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

ffmpeg version N-42368-gbf53863 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers
built on Jul 10 2012 03:40:45 with gcc 4.6.3
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffs
erver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-librtmp --extra-libs='
-lrtmp -lpolarssl -lws2_32 -lwinmm' --arch=x86 --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enab
le-pthreads --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --pkg-config=pk
g-config
libavutil 51. 64.100 / 51. 64.100
libavcodec 54. 33.100 / 54. 33.100
libavformat 54. 15.102 / 54. 15.102
libavdevice 54. 1.100 / 54. 1.100
libavfilter 3. 1.100 / 3. 1.100
libswscale 2. 1.100 / 2. 1.100
libswresample 0. 15.100 / 0. 15.100
[mpeg4 @ 002FC300] Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected
Input #0, avi, from 'F:\Movies\Tegnefilm\Sværdet i stenen.avi':
Duration: 01:16:15.80, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2639 kb/s
Stream #0:0: Video: mpeg4 (DX50 / 0x30355844), yuv420p, 704x536 [SAR 1:1 DAR
88:67], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 30k tbc
Metadata:
title : Video
Stream #0:1: Audio: mp3 (U[0][0][0] / 0x0055), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb
/s
Metadata:
title : Audio

Can you help?

post ffmpeg -i for an avi that plays

Hi sparx - I'm not sure whether you are experiencing the same issue I have had, but hopefully this may help you.

I too had some random AVI's that do not play on my Panasonic (V20A) Viera TV. They would either play for a bit (up to 30 seconds) and then freeze, or would randomly skip. Looking at MediaInfo or doing an ffmpeg -i would not show anything unusual about the file when compared to other AVI's that work fine. Sometimes (but not always) I will see the Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected message you got. The file played fine on Windows Media Player, or via my PS3 - just wouldn't work on the Panasonic.

In my case the problem is nothing to do with Serviio (the same problem occurs if you play the file from USB stick). I have rectified the problem in all cases so far, by remuxing the video file using ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i existingfile.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy newfile.avi

This is a quick process (as fast as a file copy) that re-packages the existing video and audio without quality loss and creates the newfile.avi. This new file will likely look identical to the old using MediaInfo or doing an ffmpeg -i, although may be fractionally bigger (7-8 kB).

When I ran the ffmpeg process I got the warning:

requested bits_per_coded_sample (16) and actually stored (0) differ
or
[NULL @ xxxxxx] requested bits_per_coded_sample (16) and actually stored (0) differ where xxxxx is some hex number.

which is where the problem lies (in yellow). This problem occurred when the AVI was first created and is seemingly ignored by most renders (except the Pana).

Let me know if this helps as it may assist other Pana users (seems to be a common issue with a variety of Panasonic devices).

Thanks for helping DenyAll but it didn't work.... the new file was created but it is still pixelized.....

No problems. My fix wouldn't help in your case - it was for the symptoms I described in my post rather than pixelizing (block artifacts?).

Some things you may wish to try:

• Watch the video in Windows Media Player on your PC (just a part that normally has the problem). If this shows the same issues, it may be a problem with the video file itself (I suspect this won't be the case).
• Copy the file to a USB stick and watch it on the TV from the USB. If this then shows the same issues, it 99.9% rules out Serviio or your network as the issue, but points to an incompatibility between the Panasonic and that file.

If the latter proves to be the case we will then need to find what the incompatibility is before we can work through ways to overcome it. For this, see zips post as a start. Comparing an ffmpeg -i for a working AVI vs one that doesn't may help point to the problem.

Hello DenyAll
Thanks for help on this.
Unfortunately the process didn't change the way Pana plays the file. The file is still pixalized.
Sorry....

We the many experiments I did, the only way I could fix it was to convert files through Windows Live Movie Maker(from AVI to WMV) .