UMS as the ultimate remuxing machine, where to start?

[Wolfgan]

Hi, as I mentioned before, my media server is an old PC stuffed with lots of storage (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=624#p4116), that acts as file server for the whole family, media server and also as torrent machine.

Contrary to my server, all my renderers (PlayBook tablet, Android phone, PS3, WDTV) have the ability to render mpeg2/4 & x264 streams and rescale if needed; plus optimize video for the display via HW accelerated/optimized codecs.
What I always try to do is configure UMS to serve everything (without video transcoding), minimize server CPU and remux (just transcode audio if needed AC3 to AAC or similar).
What's happening lately is that with all auto quality new features and the like, I need to fiddle settings and profiles to avoid video transcoding. So maybe to help other users in the same situation, I want to proactively explore the "Remux to accepted container/avoid video transcoding" force switch somehow.

Question to devs then: what will be the most unobtrusive way of implementing it? I was thinking in augmenting Transcoding Settings-Video Settings-Transcoding quality (MPEG2 and H264) to implement a "Copy video stream only" so that all video transcoding is disabled.
Thougths?
Thx, Wolf

[DeFlanko]

So two things i think...

1) Once SubJunk finalizes the "TranscodeVideo=H264TSAC3" part i think streaming to all these devices might be a whole lot cpu less intensive...
2) start building/converting CONF files for each of those devices to the h264tsac3 (if needed).
a) playbook - i think there is a CONF already for this.
b) android phone - what kind? i originally built one for the SGS3, but want ot make it available for ALL samsung mobile Devices... (should be a fun and daunting task..)
c) PS3 - this should be really SOLID by now
d) WDTV - i think there is one of these too

i'm noticing that the h264 while testing it the video is WAY smoother and less cpu (server) intensive, so it looks very promising.

[Wolfgan]

So two things i think...

1) Once SubJunk finalizes the "TranscodeVideo=H264TSAC3" part i think streaming to all these devices might be a whole lot cpu less intensive...
2) start building/converting CONF files for each of those devices to the h264tsac3 (if needed).
a) playbook - i think there is a CONF already for this.
b) android phone - what kind? i originally built one for the SGS3, but want ot make it available for ALL samsung mobile Devices... (should be a fun and daunting task..)
c) PS3 - this should be really SOLID by now
d) WDTV - i think there is one of these too

i'm noticing that the h264 while testing it the video is WAY smoother and less cpu (server) intensive, so it looks very promising.

Thanks DeFlanko for the comments.
1) I monitor the commits at github from time to time and saw that H264TSAC3 was being worked on, will wait till is finished then.Unluckily it seems there are some issues with the video container detection as I reported in viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1168#p7165 that results in transcoding the final output. Latest Changelog indicates "Fixed tsMuxeR video detection bug " that's probaly related to my bugreport.

2a) Yep, I contributed the PlayBook profile
2b) I also have a SGS3, but using BubbleUPNP or Skifta as renderer clients. Samsung utils are nasty in terms of mandatory requirements of a Samsung profile. What do you use client side?
2c) My issue is not PS3 side but server side it seems, too many video files contents being rejected as unplayable or stuttering due a forced transcode operation. It may be related to the issue I observed at 1)
2d) Yes, using the provided profile. Works well but not all the time lately, most likely also related to issue 1).

Anyways, my goal is to somehow implement in the settings a "no video transcode, no matter what" option and just force a copy video stream and remux to an accepted container by the renderer.
Thx, Wolf

[DeFlanko]

So two things i think...

1) Once SubJunk finalizes the "TranscodeVideo=H264TSAC3" part i think streaming to all these devices might be a whole lot cpu less intensive...
2) start building/converting CONF files for each of those devices to the h264tsac3 (if needed).
a) playbook - i think there is a CONF already for this.
b) android phone - what kind? i originally built one for the SGS3, but want ot make it available for ALL samsung mobile Devices... (should be a fun and daunting task..)
c) PS3 - this should be really SOLID by now
d) WDTV - i think there is one of these too

i'm noticing that the h264 while testing it the video is WAY smoother and less cpu (server) intensive, so it looks very promising.

Thanks DeFlanko for the comments.
1) I monitor the commits at github from time to time and saw that H264TSAC3 was being worked on, will wait till is finished then.Unluckily it seems there are some issues with the video container detection as I reported in viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1168#p7165 that results in transcoding the final output. Latest Changelog indicates "Fixed tsMuxeR video detection bug " that's probaly related to my bugreport.

2a) Yep, I contributed the PlayBook profile
2b) I also have a SGS3, but using BubbleUPNP or Skifta as renderer clients. Samsung utils are nasty in terms of mandatory requirements of a Samsung profile. What do you use client side?
2c) My issue is not PS3 side but server side it seems, too many video files contents being rejected as unplayable or stuttering due a forced transcode operation. It may be related to the issue I observed at 1)
2d) Yes, using the provided profile. Works well but not all the time lately, most likely also related to issue 1).

Anyways, my goal is to somehow implement in the settings a "no video transcode, no matter what" option and just force a copy video stream and remux to an accepted container by the renderer.
Thx, Wolf

yeah i was using a P4 with 4 GB of ram for a WHILE now.. and then i just forced myself to get into the now with a dual socket Xeon board with 24 GB of ram.

its a nice jump and without the need of a GPU processing either... I didn't spend to much for this nice upgrade too...

2a) Nice!
2b) try my SGS3 conf - Samsung Mobile Devices im using Skifta. with the native media player!
2c) i can transcode to 4 Directv boxes as well as a ps3 and not have an issue... Server hardware is the key!
2d) since i started testing with it i've noticed the video quality and playback is better, as well as the CPU load as been reduced...

I honestly think though a hardware upgrade is a great place to start... it might just be that time sir. :/

[Wolfgan]

So two things i think...

1) Once SubJunk finalizes the "TranscodeVideo=H264TSAC3" part i think streaming to all these devices might be a whole lot cpu less intensive...
2) start building/converting CONF files for each of those devices to the h264tsac3 (if needed).
a) playbook - i think there is a CONF already for this.
b) android phone - what kind? i originally built one for the SGS3, but want ot make it available for ALL samsung mobile Devices... (should be a fun and daunting task..)
c) PS3 - this should be really SOLID by now
d) WDTV - i think there is one of these too

i'm noticing that the h264 while testing it the video is WAY smoother and less cpu (server) intensive, so it looks very promising.

Thanks DeFlanko for the comments.
1) I monitor the commits at github from time to time and saw that H264TSAC3 was being worked on, will wait till is finished then.Unluckily it seems there are some issues with the video container detection as I reported in viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1168#p7165 that results in transcoding the final output. Latest Changelog indicates "Fixed tsMuxeR video detection bug " that's probaly related to my bugreport.

2a) Yep, I contributed the PlayBook profile
2b) I also have a SGS3, but using BubbleUPNP or Skifta as renderer clients. Samsung utils are nasty in terms of mandatory requirements of a Samsung profile. What do you use client side?
2c) My issue is not PS3 side but server side it seems, too many video files contents being rejected as unplayable or stuttering due a forced transcode operation. It may be related to the issue I observed at 1)
2d) Yes, using the provided profile. Works well but not all the time lately, most likely also related to issue 1).

Anyways, my goal is to somehow implement in the settings a "no video transcode, no matter what" option and just force a copy video stream and remux to an accepted container by the renderer.
Thx, Wolf

yeah i was using a P4 with 4 GB of ram for a WHILE now.. and then i just forced myself to get into the now with a dual socket Xeon board with 24 GB of ram.

its a nice jump and without the need of a GPU processing either... I didn't spend to much for this nice upgrade too...

2a) Nice!
2b) try my SGS3 conf - Samsung Mobile Devices im using Skifta. with the native media player!
2c) i can transcode to 4 Directv boxes as well as a ps3 and not have an issue... Server hardware is the key!
2d) since i started testing with it i've noticed the video quality and playback is better, as well as the CPU load as been reduced...

I honestly think though a hardware upgrade is a great place to start... it might just be that time sir. :/

Thx Deflanko. Yes, maybe a hardware update is something to consider, but besides that, I don't want audio and video reprocessed if not needed (the least reprocessing the better the quality), that's why I aiming to implement a sort of quality profile for remux only in UMS and looking for ideas for proper integration (once "TranscodeVideo=H264TSAC3" is implemented so I avoid breaking concurrent efforts)

I'll try your S3 profile, thx for sharing! Wolf

[DeFlanko]

So worries Sir!

[Wolfgan]

I'm revisiting this thread again, due not matter how much I tweak the profiles, a lot of files I download and stream are video transcoded when it shouldn't happened.

Mostly by seeing the pull requests from tdcosta on H264TSAAC, will a good solution be implement something like COPYTSAAC? In that case the video stream is copied as is no matter what, subs ignored or soft streamed via the new caption features, and the audio converted to AAC (no royalties involved) if needed. If problems arise, there's always the TRANSCODE folder

My other idea is to make explicit how the file is analyzed w/o having to go into the logs. I thought about adding a description of the original file (Container-video-audio-subs) to the TRANSCODE folder name to avoid cluttering. ie inside TRANSCODE, entry will show as VideoFileName [MKV,H264,AC3,NoSubs]

Comments welcome on both ideas. Thx, Wolf

[Wolfgan]

Bump. Anyone on the dev team with feedback on my couple of ideas above?
Thx, Wolf

[Wolfgan]

Latest Changelog indicates "Fixed tsMuxeR video detection bug " that's probaly related to my bugreport.

I'm sorry but I can't find any recent commit related to TsMuxer,not even in 4.1 branch. Latest version which mentions TsMuxer in the changelog is 3.20...

[Optimus_prime]

It was Spam Wolfgan, and all his post's have been removed