Samsung LED TV does not play some DVDs

[zip]

1) forget the matroska transcoding, that was a red herring. The reason why it worked is because after transcoding to matroska manually, on playback through serviio, it was transcoded again into mpegts by serviio.

I think there is a trancoding config to transcode MKV with mpeg2video, that's why. You could remove that config to see if the file plays natively.

2) files transcoded manually into mpeg2video / mpegts play in through serviio just fine, including all of the files on this particular DVD that previously did not play. The command line I used was:
C:\Progra~1\Serviio\bin\\..\lib/ffmpeg.exe -i m:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_08_1.VOB -y -vcodec mpeg2video -sameq -r 26.29 -g 15 -copyts -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -sn -f mpegts e:\temp\transcodedfile1.vob

Can you do ffmepg -i on the resulting file and post here?

5) Lastly, and most significantly, if I capture the temporary file for example: transcoding-temp-109-MPEG2TS.stf, rename it transcoding-temp-109-MPEG2TS.asf then it plays in serviio (with transcoding disabled) without error.

Could this be as simple as serviio presenting the transcoded stream with an incompatible filename extension?

No, extensions don't play any role with Serviio streaming. You could rename it to .mpg and it should still play.

Hi Petr,
1) Yes, matroska does not play natively
2) VTS_08_1.VTS does play natively direct from DVD, plays when transcoded manually and also plays when transcoded by serviio.
C:\PROGRA~1\SERVIIO\LIB>ffmpeg -i e:transcodedfile1.vob
FFmpeg version SVN-r23012, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 3 2010 19:05:24 with gcc 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffs
erver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-w32threads --extra-ldf
lags=-L/static/lib --extra-cflags=-I/static/include
libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0
libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0
libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0
[mpegts @ 003fce50]max_analyze_duration reached
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcodedfile1.vob':
Duration: 00:00:20.72, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 2413 kb/s
Program 1 Service01
Metadata:
name : Service01
provider_name : FFmpeg
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9]
, 104857 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

VTS_08_2.VTS does not play natively from the DVD, plays when transcoded manually, but does not play when transcoded by serviio)
C:\PROGRA~1\SERVIIO\LIB>ffmpeg -i e:transcodedfile2.vob
FFmpeg version SVN-r23012, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 3 2010 19:05:24 with gcc 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffs
erver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-w32threads --extra-ldf
lags=-L/static/lib --extra-cflags=-I/static/include
libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0
libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0
libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0
[mpegts @ 003fce50]max_analyze_duration reached
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcodedfile2.vob':
Duration: 00:00:15.68, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 4176 kb/s
Program 1 Service01
Metadata:
name : Service01
provider_name : FFmpeg
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9]
, 104857 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

3) here is the result of checking the temporary files generated by serviio when transcoding first vts_08_1 then vts_08_2

E:\TEMP>dir *.stf
Volume in drive E is COMMON
Volume Serial Number is 1DE0-3A35

Directory of E:\TEMP

09/11/2010 19:41 77,689,684 transcoding-temp-104-MPEG2TS.stf
09/11/2010 19:45 30,456 transcoding-temp-105-MPEG2TS.stf
3 File(s) 86,913,152 bytes
0 Dir(s) 22,345,613,312 bytes free

C:\PROGRA~1\SERVIIO\LIB>ffmpeg -i e:transcoding-temp-104-mpeg2ts.stf
FFmpeg version SVN-r23012, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 3 2010 19:05:24 with gcc 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffs
erver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-w32threads --extra-ldf
lags=-L/static/lib --extra-cflags=-I/static/include
libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0
libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0
libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0
[mpegts @ 003fce50]max_analyze_duration reached

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 59.94 (60000/
1001) -> 29.97 (60000/2002)
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcoding-temp-104-mpeg2ts.stf':
Duration: 00:03:05.47, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 3351 kb/s
Program 1 Service01
Metadata:
name : Service01
provider_name : FFmpeg
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9]
, 8000 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 448 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

C:\PROGRA~1\SERVIIO\LIB>ffmpeg -i e:transcoding-temp-105-mpeg2ts.stf
FFmpeg version SVN-r23012, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 3 2010 19:05:24 with gcc 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffs
erver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-w32threads --extra-ldf
lags=-L/static/lib --extra-cflags=-I/static/include
libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0
libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0
libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0
[mpegts @ 003fce50]Could not find codec parameters (Video: mpeg2video)
[NULL @ 003ff010]start time is not set in av_estimate_timings_from_pts
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcoding-temp-105-mpeg2ts.stf':
Duration: 00:00:00.48, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 507 kb/s
Program 1 Service01
Metadata:
name : Service01
provider_name : FFmpeg
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, 90k tbr, 90k tbn, 90k tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 448 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

[zip]

they look the same to me, don't you think?

[Illico]

VTS_08_1.VTS, Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcodedfile1.vob': Duration: 00:00:20.72, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 2413 kb/s
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9] , 104857 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s

VTS_08_2.VTS, Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcodedfile2.vob': Duration: 00:00:15.68, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 4176 kb/s
Stream #0.0[0x100]: Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 720x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 16:9] , 104857 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0.1[0x101]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 192 kb/s

Bitrate are different

The result transcoding are also different:
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcoding-temp-104-mpeg2ts.stf': Duration: 00:03:05.47, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 3351 kb/s
Input #0, mpegts, from 'e:transcoding-temp-105-mpeg2ts.stf': Duration: 00:00:00.48, start: 1.400000, bitrate: 507 kb/s

But the second is bad:
[mpegts @ 003fce50]Could not find codec parameters (Video: mpeg2video)
[NULL @ 003ff010]start time is not set in av_estimate_timings_from_pts

Would it help if I uploaded the first few megabytes of the second file as read from the DVD?

[Illico]

Seems to be a ffmpeg problem...you could try another versions of ffmpeg latest or an older than SVN-r23012 (backup the current)
For Windows users, the latest ffmpeg.exe can be downloaded here (.7z file).