Issues with some letterbox movies being stretched

HI All,

I'm new to Serviio so please be gentle! I have searched the forums but can't find anything that helps - there are topics out there regarding video being stretched, but nothing that quite seems to fit the bill.

I've recently set-up Serviio on a Synology DS212J - the whole process of setting up NAS and Serviio was pretty painless, and by and large I have everything working how I want it to. I have a library of MKV video files with h264 HD video and DTS core audio and by and large these play back fine on both my Cambridge audio Azur 751BD (using generic DLNA profile) and my Sony BD570 (using the Sony BD profile, via transcoding). For the files to play on the Sony I have had to select to down-mix the audio to stereo, but that's OK because it's only connected to a TV.

The CA is my main player and I have a strange issue with a handful of files. Basically some letterbox format movies get stretched (vertically) to fill the whole screen. I've analysed files that suffer from the problem and those that don't, and there is absolutely no discernible difference in the video content of the 2, but nevertheless the issue occurs. I've narrowed it down to the CA by testing with other media players. I have raised it with CA support who are looking at it

I've experimented with other renderer profiles with not much success (as you'd expect, but I figured it was worth a go), and I was wondering whether a specific renderer profile for the CA might sort out the issue? Has anyone out there got the Cambridge and created a profile? Or is that not likely to resolve the issue? I'm afraid I really am not proficient enough to create one of my own. See below a comparison of video files from Mediainfo - the first affected by the issue, the second not. The video content looks identical to me!

Thanks in advance for any help!

Cheers
Dan

  Code:

File: /Volumes/Media/Video/Movies/stretched.mkv
Size: 9.84 GB
Format: Matroska/WebM file format
Chapters count: 32
Stream count: 3
Duration: 02:10:53
Bit rate: 10762 kb/s

Stream 0
Type: video
Codec: h264
Codec profile: High
Width: 1920
Height: 816
Sample aspect ratio: 1:1
Display aspect ratio: 40:17
Pixel format: yuv420p
Frame rate: 23.98 fps
Default: YES
Meta info:
    language: eng

Stream 1
Type: audio
Codec: dca
Codec profile: DTS
Bit rate: 1536 kb/s
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Sample format: s16
Channel: 6
Default: YES
Meta info:
    language: eng

Stream 2
Type: subtitle
Codec: Unknown codec
Meta info:
    language: eng

  Code:

File: /Volumes/Media/Video/Movies/correct.mkv
Size: 10.94 GB
Format: Matroska/WebM file format
Chapters count: 33
Stream count: 3
Duration: 02:13:21
Bit rate: 11741 kb/s
Meta info:
    creation_time: 2009-03-18 22:50:22

Stream 0
Type: video
Codec: h264
Codec profile: High
Width: 1920
Height: 816
Sample aspect ratio: 1:1
Display aspect ratio: 40:17
Pixel format: yuv420p
Frame rate: 23.98 fps
Default: YES
Meta info:
    language: eng

Stream 1
Type: audio
Codec: dca
Codec profile: DTS
Bit rate: 1536 kb/s
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Sample format: s16
Channel: 6
Default: YES
Meta info:
    language: eng

Stream 2
Type: subtitle
Codec: Unknown codec
Meta info:
    language: eng

[zip]

It might be possible to transcode to 16:9, but considering you're using low powered NAS it's a no-go. It looks like a problem with the player (as the Generic profile doesn't transcode anything).

Are you sure there is no Zoom setting on the player's remote controller or settings menu?

It might be possible to transcode to 16:9, but considering you're using low powered NAS it's a no-go. It looks like a problem with the player (as the Generic profile doesn't transcode anything).

Are you sure there is no Zoom setting on the player's remote controller or settings menu?

Thanks for the reply zip - I am 100% sure that no setting in the player or the TV can solve the issue, I've played around there endlessly. I really didn't think I was going to need to be transcoding when I got the NAS - although incidentally I have 'experimentally' set it to transcode at the moment so that my MKV files will play back on my Sony Blu-ray in the bedroom (and as I understand it, as that means it's transcoding all the time), so far without issue...

It's really frustrating because it only happens on some letterbox format movies and as you can see from the Mediainfo, there's just no discernible difference between those affected and those not!

Cheers
Dan

Thought I'd give an update in case anyone suffering from a similar problem stumbles upon this thread in the future - I managed to fix the issues by running the affected files through a bit of software called Mkvtoolnix and 'remuxing' (whatever that means) them applying a forced aspect ratio to the video stream. I have to do this for every affected file, which is a bit of a pain, but it's a solution so I'm not complaining.