BD Ripper (3D Plus) Poor MP4 performance

[rdorian]

Hi all

This one is for all you codec/DVDfab experts out there.

I have dozens of backups that would previously only be streamed to the PS3, but since Sony has jumped on the Cinavia bandwagon I've found that my latest backup "Green Hornet" loses audio after 20 minutes. So pre-empting what will most lilly become the norm for BluRay protection I bought a non Cinavia streamer.... a Western Digital Live unit.

I'm getting to the point, honestly.

My entire collection has been encoded using the PS3 BluRay profile (PS3.mp4.hd) which works fine on the PS3, and PC using VLC. However when being viewed using Windows Media Player or the Western Digital Live unit the playback is less than smooth, almost like its either skipping or adding frames. This is not the PS3 stuttering problem as seen in the QT versions of DVDfab. This is evident in all mp4 videos coded from DVDFab version 7 through to 8....excluding the QT versions because they just don't work at the moment for PS3.

So my question is why does every mp4 profile (mp4.h264.ac3, ps3.mp4.hd, etc...) encoded video exhibit this frame drop/adding/non-smooth playback, but and AVI encoded video is smooth at the same frame rate; 23.97fps? If anything I would have expected AVI to have the problem due to combining h264 and AVI's limited b-frame support (dependent on decoder).

Does anyone have any suggestions as to obtain a smoother (comparable to AVI playback) of mp4s?

MP4's give me the most flexibility in terms of playback for the devices in my house as encoding in AVI would exclude the PS3. Any input/solutions/workarounds would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks.

[rdorian]

Sorry, just realised that I kept referring to the containers without actually saying what the codecs were.

In all cases the video codec is h264 and the audio could be either AC3 or AAC, preference is AAC but I'm flexible.

Sometimes you just miss the most obvious things...

[signals]

How are you getting the stream to the WD Live unit? We have had some odd reports of content that plays fine from a local or network source not working when transported over a link made up with the ethernet powerline adapters.

[rdorian]

Thanks for the reply. I do run powerline kits, but it's also the same when played back on the PC with Windows Media Player.

This isn't the stop-start stuttering as seen in the QT versions DVDfab PS3 profiles. This is something that's existed in every PS3 mp4 conversion that I've done since DVDfab version 7. I forgave it before as I thought I'd always use the PS3 and at that time the only other player that had a problem was Windows Media Player, which I put down to it being rubbish... I'm now using other devices and the "non-smooth" playback is the same on them as WMPlayer. Please forgive the use of "non-smooth" as I don't want to use the word stutter as people will automatically relate this to the PS3 QT playback issues on PS3, it's not.

The videos are fine on the PS3 but not on PC (WMPlayer) or the Western Digital Live unit, the effect is the same. It's hard to explain... the video doesn't breakup, stutter or pause, but it's playback is not smooth, it's like it's missing a few frames every second.

My test video is the 20th Century Fox logo being panned around and it's very noticeable if you look in the background.

It's only MP4's though AVI's using h264 are fine. I did have the thought that the combination of MP4 h264 may not support 23.976fps and DVDfab (due to PS3 codec limitations) was padding to 30fps, but mediaInfo says is 23.976fps, which is correct.

I'm trying to find a container and codec that will play on all my devices, which can only be MP4 due to the PS3... but these videos don't play back well on other devices.

I'm at a loss as to why AVI h264 is smooth and mp4 h264 is not at the same frame rate using the same video codec on non-PS3 devices? Mainly my Western Digital Live unit.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[signals]

If the problem has persisted since v7, it has survived codec and muxer updates and lots of other changes that should have had some impact for better or worse. If the key symptom is jumpy/jerky playback during horizontal pans, I have seen it on MP4s played back on a Motorola Droid X that are flawless played on anything else. This (panning) is a stressful activity for any decoder or screen drawing chipset; likewise the encoder.

The QA Team in Beijing may be able to duplicate your problem, I will call this to their attention.

Please post the DVDFab internal log for one of these conversions that exhibits the problem, along with the MediaInfo analysis of the MP4 file.

[rdorian]

Signals your my hero!!! I really didn't expect to get anything useful out of this post!

I've identified my very first backup which was encoded using a late V7 of DVDfab and I'll encode a new one using 8.0.8.5 which was the last fully working PS3 profile to work. I don't want to use 8.1.1.8QT as that doesn't really work with the PS3 profile and I don't want to confuse matters, so I'll stick to what I know works.

I'll post up mediaInfo for both and the internals logs for the new conversions once done.

I get what you said surrounding stressing the decoder, but I would have thought that the Western Digital Live unit would have been up to the job, and I certainly know that my PC has the power to deal with it; Intel I7 with high spec graphics card, always use CPU encoding anyway... call me old fashioned.

[rdorian]

As requested, hope this helps.

DVDfab late V7 ps3 profile
General
Complete name : C:\Users\XXXXX\Desktop\Zombieland - 1080p.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 4.69 GiB
Duration : 1h 27mn
Overall bit rate : 7 653 Kbps
Movie name : ZOMBIELAND1
Album : ZOMBIELAND
Recorded date : 2010
Writing application : Lavf52.33.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L5.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 27mn
Bit rate : 7 500 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.151
Stream size : 4.59 GiB (98%)
Writing library : x264 core 67
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=8 / nr=65536 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=2 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=2 / wpredb=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc=2pass / bitrate=7500 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00:10.00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 27mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 100 MiB (2%)

DVDfab 8.0.8.5 PS3 profile
General
Complete name : D:\TMP Downloads\tests\HAPPENING_F1.Title13.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 198 MiB
Duration : 3mn 18s
Overall bit rate : 8 338 Kbps
Movie name : HAPPENING_F1.Title13.BlurayRip
Album : HAPPENING_F1
Writing application : Lavf52.78.4

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 3mn 18s
Bit rate : 7 906 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.159
Stream size : 187 MiB (95%)
Writing library : x264 core
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 3mn 18s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 428 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 10.1 MiB (5%)

Internal Log for the 8.0.8.5 conversion
DVDFab 8.0.8.5 (2011/09/14 20:24:43)

0m 01.09s: option dvd2dvd 1 dvd2mobile 1 bluray2bluray 1 bd2mobile 1 bd23d 1 bd2dvd 1 file2mobile 1 filemover 1
0m 11.71s: got bdmv
0m 11.82s: got extended bdinfo
0m 34.66s:


------ begin mobile work(1/1) ------


0m 34.67s: create config(5)
0m 34.67s: convert profile(ps3.default)
0m 34.67s: blu-ray playlist(13) angle(0) chapter(1->1)
0m 34.67s: stream(4113,AVC,1) stream(4352,DTS-HD MA,1)
0m 36.00s: not set correct fourcc for video(28)
0m 36.00s: info: set output video frame_rate(24000/1001)
0m 36.03s: processing source(00013.m2ts)
0m 36.08s: using software decoder(h264 multi-thread)
0m 37.11s: h264_encode: encode param profile(2) level(41) bitrate(8000)
2m 50.83s: processing source(00013.m2ts)
2m 50.85s: using software decoder(h264 multi-thread)
2m 50.85s: h264_encode: encode param profile(2) level(41) bitrate(8000)
4m 53.31s:


------ finish mobile work ------

[signals]

Did both of these work, and if not, which is which?
Also, please clarify for me if your source content is PAL or NTSC and/or which region.

[rdorian]

Both of these video's encode and playback fine on the PS3, but exhibit the same "non-smooth" behaviour as previously discussed , which seems to only happen with the MP4 container.

The source is should be PAL and the region B/2. I have always wondered by DVDfab auto selects 23.976fps for PAL BluRays... why not 24fps. That's a question for another day though, one thing at a time.

Thanks again for your help.

[rdorian]

Both of these video's encode and playback fine on the PS3, but exhibit the same "non-smooth" behaviour as previously discussed , which seems to only happen with the MP4 container.

The source is should be PAL and the region B/2. I have always wondered by DVDfab auto selects 23.976fps for PAL BluRays... why not 24fps. That's a question for another day though, one thing at a time.

Thanks again for your help.

Sorry for clarification the first line should read:
...playback fine on the PS3, but exhibit the same "non-smooth" behaviour ON OTHER DEVICES as previously discussed...

I could have swore that you could edit posts... must have been my imagination.

[terry5]

Hi boys,
In my test, Blu-ray ripper to mp4 and avi is OK. The output files' framerate is same as source no matter PAL or NTSC. But while Blu-ray ripper to PS3, the output files' framerate go down to 23.976, which is the issue we are dealing with. So please wait the fixed release.
Best regards.
terry5

[terry5]

Hi there,
We have fixed PS3 down to 23.976 issue. Please try the latest build 8128 QT beta http://www.dvdfab.com/mlink/download.php?g=DVDFAB_BETA.

Thanks for your support!