Aspect Ratio, Transcoded Files

[PMI]

These results make no sense for me !!

I will try to describe it better later today.

The latest TEST3 have to display with good ratio...this is a standard?!

I will do it again.

I think I have a partial answer for Test3. The TV has an option to crop video to 95% when the "Full" screen setting is used. Normally I have this turned off. In DLNA, for some reason this becomes the default, and the video becomes less sharp. I have to de-select it manually. This solves the problem of the cropped pixels and the poor quality, but not the aspect ratio.

Could you check your Panasonic Options, is there an automatic mode or could your force 4:3 or 16:9? is there an automatic Wide mode ?

This is more complicated, b/c the modes are different, depending on the input. So, Input from a (Panasonic)BDP using HDMI has different options compared to input from USB port, or from digital broadcast, or from DLNA. Usually, the default works very well, and I almost never have to change it. I do NOT think that there is an automatically selected "Wide" mode in DLNA. (I will check again)

In DLNA there are three settings, Original, Aspect 1, Aspect 2.
"Original" is almost always correct, at least for videos that I know how they were encoded.
"Aspect 1" corresponds to 4:3, (1440x1080)
"Aspect 2" corresponds to full screen, 16:9 (1920x1080)
There is no automatic "Wide" like the " Justify" or the "Horizontal Fill" for broadcast video.

There are other adjustment options in the video menu, but most are not available for DLNA.
There are quite a few options and settings to manipulate the picture (stretch, crop etc.)
Testing all in combination could take some time, and I am not sure is relevant here.

At least with the padded video, you CAN find a good display mode manually. Without padding, I think there is no way to transcode 1920x800 video and then play back with the correct aspect ratio. So, I think this is important, because your method works, just not by default.

[PMI]

Test1 is identical to Test0, and Test3 is identical to Test2.

Don't know if we can conclude, but probably DAR was ignored and only resolution is taken into account Test0=Test1 = 1920x800, Test3=Test2=1920x1080

Only seems to be an issue with mpeg2video playback. H.264 seems to be always correct.

[PMI]

Correction in regard to the H.264 playback: MKV and MP4 container files which are otherwise identical as to video and audio CAN play differently.

Panasonic Viera supports H.264 in in both MKV and MP4 container files in native form. MP4 files with original aspect ratio greater than 16:9 (2.4:1, 2.35:1, 1.85:1 play with the wrong aspect ratio (stretched vertically). MKV files play correctly. So, the ONLy file format which ALWAYS plays with the correct aspect ratio seems to be MKV, although there is no way to be 100% certain.

I think there are at least two different problems. The solution proposed by Illico (padding) seems to solve the more serious of the two, meaning the one with files transcoded to Mpeg-2 TS format when the native format is not supported.

See related thread:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2055

There's a solution in the Viera's options menu: Turn off 16:9 Overscan (in Picture/Advanced Settings). It seems this settings is specific to DLNA inputs, so it won't affect other inputs (although I haven't tried everything).

Btw, today got the Viera plasma, and without Serviio and it's great community my day wouldn't have been that good: HD youtube streaming rocks!!! (unlike the Viera Connect App with only supports SD - 2011 model). Great software!

Sorry to bump this but that's not a solution, I have a G20 (2010 Viera) system and serviio is transcoding all my mkv files as 4:3 cropped instead of 16:9. The overscan setting makes no difference, you have no option on the telly to change the aspect ratio, only if you want to view the 4:3 box stretched or not which is no help since your still missing a large portion of the image.

Same problem here. The few viera profiles that display the mkv files correctly don't play sound if they have dts.

[zip]

mpegts doesn't store acpect ratio so if we only remux (and aspect ratio is not in the video stream) there is no aspect ratio present. It seems that the Viera sets have a problem with this.

You would have to transcode the video instead of just remuxing it.

So, is there really no way to possibly include this in the Viera profile? Or some other way to manually manipulate the aspect ratio so that it is displayed correctly? It is really a pity otherwise.

I am very new to serviio and have been using it for a month now. I have to say that I am generally happy with it. I am connecting to a new 2012 Panasonic Viera TV and so far, almost everything is fine. Almost, because, like I mentioned above, the only thing that is really a problem for me is the wrong aspect ratio with some files. Other than that, some of the sound is not correct either, I believe it is DTS, but that's a different story. Also, subtitles and proper DVD playback are on my wishlist too.

However, the wrong aspect ratio is really something I would like to be able to correct. Since I am very new to serviio and to DLNA in general, I am a little disappointed that there doesn't seem to be a reasonably easy way to fix that--at least that's what it sounds like so far.

Or is there?

[zip]

You could use DirecTV profile that will trancode the video using 16:9, but if you want to only remux the video stream it doesn't seem like it's doable for some files.

I tried the DirectTV profile and the DTS sound played on my 2011 Panasonic and the aspect was correct but both video and sound skip. Hoping we can find a solution here. Stretched heads is a bummer for an entire movie.

[JezzaT]

mpegts doesn't store aspect ratio so if we only remux (and aspect ratio is not in the video stream) there is no aspect ratio present. It seems that the Viera sets have a problem with this.

What it seems like to me is that my TH-P42U30Z Viera ignores the aspect ratio flags in the video stream and just uses what's in the container but as you say mpegts doesn't store those flags. I've taken a 2.40:1 mkv which played fine with letter box then remuxed it to m2ts which was stretched then remuxed the m2ts into mkv and mp4, both which played fine.

[Illico]

What it seems like to me is that my TH-P42U30Z Viera ignores the aspect ratio flags in the video stream and just uses what's in the container but as you say mpegts doesn't store those flags. I've taken a 2.40:1 mkv which played fine with letter box then remuxed it to m2ts which was stretched then remuxed the m2ts into mkv and mp4, both which played fine.

Are you sure that the video stream are only remuxed and not transcoded to mpeg2video ?
When remuxed, the original video DAR will be kept (true for both h264 and mpeg2video). But some devices does not manage h264 and mpeg2video display ratio in the same way. In fact when transcoded, ex: h264 -> mpeg2video, the display ratio is not managed by the device in the same way. This is troubling.

[JezzaT]

Are you sure that the video stream are only remuxed and not transcoded to mpeg2video ?

Yes. My Steps:
Downloaded http://tomtom2k5.free.fr/mkv/720p/NEXT% ... le-029.mkv
Turned transcoding off on serviio
Played NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mkv on TH-P42U30Z Viera - played fine with letter box
Remuxed using: "fmpeg.exe" -y -i "NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mkv" -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -map 0 -c copy "NEXT 720p HD sample-029.m2ts"
Played NEXT 720p HD sample-029.m2ts - Stretched
Remuxed using: "fmpeg.exe" -y -i "NEXT 720p HD sample-029.m2ts" -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -map 0 -c copy "NEXT 720p HD sample-029-remuxed.mkv"
Played NEXT 720p HD sample-029-remuxed.mkv - Played correctly

[zip]

apparently there is no field in mpegts to store DAR in the container, and the TV doesn;t look at DAR of the video stream (it seems). It sucks.

[JezzaT]

apparently there is no field in mpegts to store DAR in the container, and the TV doesn;t look at DAR of the video stream (it seems). It sucks.

Actually I'm not convinced that mkv file has the DAR in the MKV header as mediainfo shows 'Original display aspect ratio' if the container has that value set, which is doesn't.

I transcoded to mpeg2 using: "fmpeg.exe" -y -i "NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mkv" -y -c:v mpeg2video -qscale:v 1 -acodec copy -f vob -copyts -y "NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mpg"
Turned transcoding off on serviio
Played NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mpg - which came out in 4:3 even though it plays on a pc with the same aspect ratio as the original

For my Bravia KDL-32V5500:
Playing NEXT 720p HD sample-029.mpg - came out in 4:3 as well

but for NEXT 720p HD sample-029.m2ts only the audio played presumably because of https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/i ... resolution
but once I turned transcoding on serviio it came out at the right aspect ratio as it got transcoded to mpeg2video due to the High@L5.1

[JezzaT]

apparently there is no field in mpegts to store DAR in the container, and the TV doesn;t look at DAR of the video stream (it seems). It sucks.

Because of how about adding a Video transcoding match attribute for aspect ratio to allow this flow:
Bravia

  Code:

If not AVI(If supported) and not 16:9 or less
  transcode mpeg2video with DAR 16:9
Otherwise
  do as before


Viera

  Code:

If m2ts or mpeg container(either original file or because audio needs transcoding) and not 16:9 or less
  transcode mpeg2video with DAR 16:9
Otherwise
  do as before


I guess that could be generalized as

  Code:

If the container that gets sent to the renderer is m2ts or mpeg and not 16:9 or less (e.g. 14:9 and 4:3)
  transcode mpeg2video with DAR 16:9
Otherwise
  do as before


Assuming any renderer that requires transcoding will ignore DAR of video stream (or are there some the will use it???)

Adding this might remove the need for https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/i ... resolution