Serviio

I have a Dell PE 2950 with 5 10k 73gb drives, dual 5150 @ 2.66ghz cpu's and 8gb ram. Running w2k 2008r2 and a WHS v1 vm with 6tb of storage on a Lsi 3ware 9550 sata controller. My network is all Cat 6 cable and the VM which runs the video serving has its own dedicated network card. I am trying to stream 1080p over the wired network to my Toshiba (1gb connection on tv) and i always get stuttering issues on any 1080p stream. I have no problems with 720p. I have been using Isedora to stream but recently found serviio and was hoping it would fix my issue with 1080p. My TV supports "File format: MPEG2 PS, MPEG2 TS, AVCHS, MP4. Codec: H264, MPEG2 TS, PS in Pal or Ntsc. Audio:Max Btrate 320 LPCM, MPEG1-Layer1, MPEG1-Layer2, MPEG2-Layer2, AC3, AAC. Max 1000 files per folder.

I thought that becuase I sedora wont let me configure specifics when it comes to transcoding that I might be able to fix the problem by using Serviio and editing the profile of the Toshiba #13 in version 0.6.0.1. I seached the forum and came across a post with a Toshiba profile to transcode all formats into MPEG but still had issues. So i looked into limiting the bitrate on audio and video and came up with this profile: All my 1080p files are MKV, WMV, M2TS and range from 4gb to 24gb files

<Profile id="13" name="Toshiba Regza" extendsProfileId="1">
<Detection>
<UPnPSearch>
<FriendlyName>TOSHIBA REGZA</FriendlyName>
</UPnPSearch>
</Detection>
<Transcoding>
<!-- Transcode all video to MPEG-PS stream, with MPEG-2 video & AC3 audio -->
<Video targetContainer="mpeg" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" maxVBitrate="8000" aBitrate="256">>
<Matches container="asf" />
<Matches container="avi" />
<Matches container="mp4" />
<Matches container="matroska" />
<Matches container="flv" />
<Matches container="mpegts" />
<Matches container="mpeg" vCodec="h264" />
<!-- If audio not AC3, it must be transcoded -->
<Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="aac" />
<Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="mp3" />
<Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="dca" />
</Video>
<!-- Transcode all audio to Linear PCM -->
<Audio targetContainer="lpcm" aBitrate="320">
<Matches container="asf" />
<Matches container="mp4" />
<Matches container="mp3" />
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
</Audio>
</Transcoding>
<AutomaticImageRotation>true</AutomaticImageRotation>
</Profile>

Seems to work well on some files but not on others. Im new to all this "programming" stuff and would just like a profile that transcoded all video\audio formats to MPEG2-TS or PS with a bitrate of 8000 and AC3 audio of 256 for a start. Can anyone here tweek or rewrite my profile to do this. Also when i edit serviio profiles and close serviio i get an error when trying to restart serviio that says cannot connect to service. I correct this by replacing the profiles.xml with the original profiles.xml....

Thanks so much!

try directv profile, it does it already

Zip, I went ahead and tried every profile the only one that works kinda is the Toshiba Regza profile but still stutters on 1080p. The directv profile doesnt work at all even on my avi and 720p videos i just get Media playback error on tv.

Is there a simple way to make the toshiba regza profile transcode all files into mpeg2ps with ac3 audio no matter what the source container or codecs are?
The videos im testing with are Ironman, Ironman 2 and Terminator Salvation. All Media info attached.

With the Ironman files the movie plays for about 3 to 5 min then starts to stutter.
The Terminator one stutters almost right from the beginning then settles down for 5 min then starts stuttering again.

Transcoding set to use all 4 cpu threads. Avrg cpu usage while transcoding 60 to 80%.
My disk usage of the disk that the source files is about 20 to 27 mb.
The temp dir for transcoding is on a raid 0 drive of 2 x 73gb 10k rpm (46gb partition all for transcoding)

enable detailed logging, play the file, get the ffmpeg command used to transcode and run it manually. Check the fps (should be above 25)

If im under 25 im guessing that its a hardware problem. I ran it and it starts off at 48 then drops to 20 - 30 up and down.

Did you try to assign more CPU cores to transcoding in the console?

Yeah it was on four cores. I am changing up my server to not run it through a Hyperv, just going to run all the disks and transcoding directly off the host. I will get this all reworked and try testing the FPS again. I'll let you know what i find out.

Zip,

Ok reworded my server and now my Terminator Salvation mkv is the test file: Ran FFmpeg :ffmpeg.exe -i E:\TerminatorSalvation Director's Cut\TerminatorSalvation.mkv -y -threads 4 -vcodec mpeg2video -sameq -r 24000/1001 -g 15 -copyts -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -ac 6 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts E:\TempTrans\Serviio\transcoding-temp-5320-MPEG2TS.stf (Toshiba Regza profile)

With 4 cores I maintain between 28 to 40 FPS but i still end up with a stutter at the beginning, about 10 min in and 20 min from the end the video stutters and doesn't recover. I have all Antivirus off and this is a fresh install of server2008r2. it could be a bad encode.. any software out there that you know of to check video files for corruption/bad encode?

Anyway here is the debug at http://darkroom.no-ip.org/ ( it was 20 meg and no matter how much i compressed it wouldn't come out under the 500kb limits on the forum)
The errors i see in the debug is:
2012-01-01 02:32:29,697 DEBUG [WebServer] I/O error: Connection reset
2012-01-01 02:33:43,832 DEBUG [WebServer] I/O error: Software caused connection abort: socket write error

anyway hope you can have a look at all this and give some help.

Source File:
General
Unique ID : 214014535111221967497864935385575650576 (0xA101B33E5F68092FB128A15EC76AF510)
Complete name : E:\TerminatorSalvation.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 12.3 GiB
Duration : 1h 57mn
Overall bit rate : 15.0 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2009-10-28 22:11:32
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.9.8 ('C'est le bon') built on Aug 13 2009 12:49:06
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 57mn
Bit rate : 13.5 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.367
Stream size : 10.8 GiB (88%)
Title : Video: x264_L4.1 @ 13503 Kbps
Writing library : x264 core 68 r1184M 88b35c2
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-4 / threads=12 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=13503 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1h 57mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.24 GiB (10%)
Title : Audio: English DTS 5.1 @ 1.5 Mbps
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : English_SDH
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No


General : TerminatorSalvation.Mkv Transcoded file
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : E:\TempTrans\Serviio\transcoding-temp-5320-MPEG2TS.stf
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 16.4 GiB
Duration : 1h 46mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 19.3 Mbps

Video
ID : 256 (0x100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@High
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15
Codec ID : 2
Duration : 1h 46mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 18.1 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.492
Stream size : 15.5 GiB (94%)

Audio
ID : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1h 46mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 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 : 147 MiB (1%)
Language : English

Menu
ID : 4096 (0x1000)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Duration : 1h 46mn
List : 256 (0x100) (MPEG Video) / 257 (0x101) (AC-3, English)
Language : / English
Service name : Service01
Service provider : FFmpeg
Service type : digital television

so when you add the stf file (rename to mpg) after the transcode is finished to your library does it play with or without stutter?

So after all this I thin i finally got it. I would like let you know it had nothing to do with the Profile settings.

After alot of investigating and testing it looks like there were a few issues that all built up to cause these symptoms.

1) Failing storage drive (No bad sectors but 77k+ Raw read errors in smart)
2) Raid card configuration (My card does not like 256k stipes even though it has the setting) now on 64k
3) Corrupt/Bad encoded source files.

I would like to thank you Zip for helping me with all this! Now that i have all three of these issues solved my 1080p streams are great!

Thanks again

great

Hi,

Sorry to ressurect this old post but I followed it with interest, and tried the same as the OP. However, my machine's far simpler (IDE HDD, 2 core CPU - Intel Core2 4300 @ 1.8GHz, 3.12Gb RAM, runing XP SP3), and does not have hardware problems.

I have a Tosh REGZA RV75340 and I can see my Serviio server from it no problem. (Browse folders, view photos, etc.) However, when I play video, it either stutters right the way through the clip or reports a media problem. (Seemingly in a random manner. For any particlular clip, sometimes it will stutter, sometimes it will error.) The stutters are very large; you get a fraction of a second of audio and motion followed by the frame feezing for several seconds.

I have followed the idea of the OP and used ffmpeg to generate an STF file from my MOV file. (All my clips are MOVs off an iphone.) This reports a framerate of 39fps. After renaming the output file to MPG it plays fine locally on the PC (using VLC). However, the same stuttering occurs when i try and play this MPG on the REGZA.

Thanks for any further ideas to try.

Regards,
Harry.