Page 1 of 1

Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 3:25 pm
by jamen80
I have the Philips TV pfl8404. I have read the thread viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1601 about this TV.

I’m trying to play videos stored on my NAS ReadyNas 102. Serviio is installed on my PC with xp sp3. My PC is an Intel core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 2Gb RAM.
The videos I’m trying to play on my TV are of the following type:
  Code:
General
Complete name                    : \\nas\Videos\telecamera\estate2012-febbraio2013\100SANYO\SANY0001.MP4
Format                           : MPEG-4
Format profile                   : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                         : mp42
File size                        : 150 MiB
Duration                         : 2mn 12s
Overall bit rate                 : 9 508 Kbps
Movie name/More                  : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA GH1
Encoded date                     : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57
Tagged date                      : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57
Origin                           : Digital Camera
TAGS                             : O DIGITAL CAMERA

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Codec ID                         : avc1
Codec ID/Info                    : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                         : 2mn 12s
Bit rate mode                    : Variable
Bit rate                         : 9 117 Kbps
Width                            : 1 280 pixels
Height                           : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate mode                  : Constant
Frame rate                       : 29.970 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.330
Stream size                      : 144 MiB (96%)
Language                         : English
Encoded date                     : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57
Tagged date                      : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : AAC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version                   : Version 4
Format profile                   : LC
Format settings, SBR             : No
Codec ID                         : 40
Duration                         : 2mn 12s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 256 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 2 channels
Channel positions                : L R
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Resolution                       : 16 bits
Stream size                      : 4.02 MiB (3%)
Language                         : English
Encoded date                     : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57
Tagged date                      : UTC 2012-07-19 19:41:57


Here is the modified Serviio profile:
  Code:
<Profile id="20" name="Philips (2009)" extendsProfileId="plps2010">
   <Detection>
      <HttpHeaders>
         <User-Agent>Allegro-Software-WebClient.*</User-Agent>
      </HttpHeaders>
   </Detection>
   <Transcoding>
         <Video targetContainer="mpeg" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" maxVBitrate="2000" aBitrate="128" >
            <Matches container="matroska" />
            <Matches container="mp4" />
            <Matches container="mpegts" />
            <Matches container="mpegvideo" />
            <Matches container="asf" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
            <Matches container="flv" />
            <Matches container="rm" />
            <!-- if audio different to ac3, must be transcoded -->
            <Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="aac" />
            <Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="mp3" />
            <Matches container="mpeg" aCodec="dca" />
         </Video>
      </Transcoding>
   </Profile>


When I play the file I can see that it is transcoded in the serviio.log:
  Code:
2014-01-01 15:07:41,812 DEBUG [FFMPEGWrapper] Invoking FFmpeg to transcode video file: \\nas\Videos\telecamera\estate2012-febbraio2013\100SANYO\SANY0001.MP4
2014-01-01 15:07:41,812 DEBUG [ProcessExecutor] Starting f:\Programmi\Serviio\bin\\..\lib/ffmpeg.exe -threads auto -i \\nas\Videos\telecamera\estate2012-febbraio2013\100SANYO\SANY0001.MP4 -y -threads auto -c:v mpeg2video -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 2000k -maxrate:v 2000k -bufsize:v 2000k -r 30000/1001 -g 15 -c:a ac3 -b:a 128k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f vob C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\Serviio\transcoding-temp-410-20-ORIGINAL.stf


However the video cannot be reproduced correctly: sometimes I can only see a black screen and hear the sound and sometimes I can see video and sound but the video is reproduced very badly (strange lines or squares are displayed ).
If I remove the transcoding section from the profile.xml the video is reproduced correctly on my TV but it hangs a lot of times. This is probably due to the fact that the video has a too high resolution for my TV and/or for my network so I thought that it needs to be transcoded to some lighter format.
Here are the supported formats for my TV (codec_table.pdf). Look at the section xxPFL8xx4.
I also tried to to previously transcode the video manually by executing the ffmpeg command manually and then copying the transcoded file on the NAS and then playing it on my TV via Serviio and I can confirm that in that case the video was perfectly reproduced. So I’m suspecting that the problem is with transcoding on the fly.

Here is the manual ffmpeg command that I used to transcode the file manually:
  Code:
ffmpeg.exe -threads auto -i \\nas\Videos\telecamera\estate2012-febbraio2013\100SANYO\SANY0001.MP4 -y -threads auto -c:v mpeg2video -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 2000 -maxrate:v 2000k -bufsize:v 2000k -r 30000/1001 -g 15 -c:a ac3 -b:a 128k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f vob test3.mpg


Attached is my serviio debug log.
Please help me on reproducing my videos on my TV via serviio correctly!!
Thanks!!

Re: Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 4:00 pm
by jamen80
The serviio log...

Re: Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 4:41 pm
by Marksuk
I get better results by using ps3 media centre when using mp4 files.

Re: Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:43 am
by zip
It looks like your NAS is not powerful enough to transcode on the fly. That is true for most NASes. If you are on WiFi, try wired connection to see if it helps with non transcoded playback.

Re: Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:39 am
by jamen80
zip wrote:It looks like your NAS is not powerful enough to transcode on the fly. That is true for most NASes. If you are on WiFi, try wired connection to see if it helps with non transcoded playback.


Thanks for replying Zip. However my Nas is only hosting the videos and Serviio is installed on my PC. So it should be the PC to perform the transcoding, isn't it? I will try to install Serviio on my Laptop (which is more powerful) and have a try in that way.

Little question: my video has a Bit rate: 9 117 Kbps. My network can support more or less 7-8 Kbps. How can I ensure that the video bitrate is transcoded to something supported by my network? Is it the best way to enforce maxVBitrate to somehing acceptable? or there is any other way? here is how I have set the maxVBitrate.

<Video targetContainer="mpeg" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" maxVBitrate="2000" aBitrate="128" >

Thanks!

Re: Help with Philips PFl8404

PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:27 am
by jamen80
Hello,

I tried to install Serviio on my Laptop (Intel core i7 with 8 GB Ram) but I got the same result. Lots of lines and squares during video playback. The problem is not with my wireless since I can play my video perfectly if I transcode it manually (as explained in the first post). I only get the problem when transcoding on the fly. No ideas?

Thanks!!