Very Pixelated rendering

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GenJaxIV
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 17, 2017 12:05 pm

Very Pixelated rendering

Post by GenJaxIV »

Hello.

Long time user here, but over the past several months anytime i stream to my PS4, the video image will start to look ok, but as soon as any kind of quick motion happens, the picture pixelizes SO bad, it almost looks like a 72ppi JPG blown up.
It doesnt matter what type of video either. So when a scene comes on such as rainfall, or a nightclub, you can imagine - its virtually unwatchable.
Mac OS 10.12.5
PS4 (latest OS)
Wifi connection
UMS 6.6.0 java 8

Logs dont mention any sort of issue (not that i know of). I've tried both java 7 and 8 versions. No change. Plus the beta version 7 doesnt even work for me.

This has been inconsistent. It started off happening on occasion, now it's every time. I have the transcoding settings on default. Which have always been ok.

Can anyone help me here?
Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by Nadahar »

We can't do anything without the debug files as explained above in red.
GenJaxIV
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 17, 2017 12:05 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by GenJaxIV »

Sorry. Here it is. Thank you for the help.
Attachments
ums_dbg.zip
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Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by Nadahar »

I won't pretend to understand what is going on, but there's something strange with your network traffic in your log file. Is your network very slow and/or unstable?

I see this:

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java.io.IOException: Network is down (sendto failed)
I've never seen that in a UMS log before, but it seems to me like this comes from the OS network driver. If your network is very unstable/slow and "automatic bitrate" is turned on, the quality will be adjusted so low that you might experience effects like those you describe above.

I don't use wireless for anything more serious than web browsing, so I really doesn't have much experience in using it for streaming. I know that a lot of people do, with varying success. If you have 802.11ac with a strong signal you should be ok. 802.11n with a weak signal, or an even older standard might not work very well at all.

Since I don't use wireless I don't have much experience with the "automatic bitrate" function in UMS and really don't know how accurate its measurements are. In any case, that's what UMS use to adjust its quality parameters. I see this in your log:

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INFO  2017-05-30 19:47:27.492 [pool-6-thread-1] Renderer PlayStation 4 has an estimated network speed of 4.668217445359376 Mb/s
That is a ridiculously low bandwidth, it is the same as 0,58 megabytes per second. Transferring 1 GB at that speed would take 29 minutes.

The theoretical bandwidth of Wifi standards has nothing to do with the real bandwidth, because so many factors aren't considered when the theoretical maximum is calculated. Wireless signals are also very unreliable and easily disturbed, which means that many packets have to be sent multiple times before reaching the destination. The worse the signal strength is, the more this will happen. The "rule of thumb" is therefore that under reasonably good conditions (good signal strength and not too much interference from other devices) you will get a real bandwidth that is about 50% of the theoretical. The most common Wifi standards has these limits:
  • 802.11b: Up to 11 megabits per second (Mb/s) - around 5.5 Mb/s in reality.
  • 802.11a and 802.11g: Up to 54 Mbps - around 27 Mb/s in reality.
  • 802.11n offers up to 300 Mbps - around 150 Mb/s in reality, given that multiple frequencies are in use - if not its the same as 802.11g.
  • 802.11ac offers up to 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) - around 500 Mb/s in reality given that multiple frequencies are in use - I'm not sure how it degrades.
You can see that unless you use 802.11b or have a very low signal strength or high interference, 4.6 Mb/s is way below anything you could expect.

If your network quality is really that bad, I'd say that it can't be used to transfer video. If, on the other hand, UMS' measurements are off, you're probably better off turning off the automatic bandwidth and setting a limit manually that is more realistic for your network. I can see that your maximim bandwidth is set to 30 Mb/s, but that's not actually used when the automatic bandwidth throttling limits the bandwidth even more. I'd recomment that you turn of "automatic" bandwitdh and play with the manual setting until you find something that works. You want it as high as possible without experiencing lag (playback stopping or pausing because it runs out of data).
GenJaxIV
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 17, 2017 12:05 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by GenJaxIV »

Hmm. that is bizarre because i never have any issues. Using a speedtest, i consistently clock 70 d/l; 6.5 u/l.

And my router does have 302.11ac, but i suspect my imac where things are streaming from isnt connecting that way - its in the basement.
Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by Nadahar »

The internet connection speed isn't relevant for this, it's all about the speed between the computer running UMS and the PS4. Even if your signal is strong on the PS4, it doesn't help if the computer running UMS has a weak signal.
GenJaxIV
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed May 17, 2017 12:05 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by GenJaxIV »

STILL having this issue...

Here's something of note - i was getting horrible quality with Logan, then switched to another language and the picture quality improved...strange
Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by Nadahar »

Have you turned off automatic maximum bandwidth like I asked? If you still have problems when that's off, please update to 6.7.2 and generate new debug files.
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Sami32
Posts: 851
Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:09 am

Re: Very Pixelated rendering

Post by Sami32 »

@genJaxIV Nice joke ;)
You are using lossless H.264 quality on a 1 MB/s (available after audio room and halving) network bandwidth, so don't be surprised of the result...

In case something get wrong disable the automatic maximum bandwidth, but the recent version have the macOS automatic bandwidth issue solved by @Nadahar, so the latest 6.x.x version could have already solved your issue.

I guess that if you have really a such network bandwidth you should try to leave/set MPEG-2 and H.264 to their lowest quality settings ("automatic" for H.264 case) in the "Transcoding Settings" tab.
And eventually edit your renderer's configuration file and replace the following line:

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MPEGTS-H264-AC3
by that one instead:

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MPEGTS-MPEG2-AC3
Hoping that helped you.
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