Version 4.2.2 is released

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Paradox
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:50 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by Paradox »

Apologies subjunk. I did not see they were now defaults, my mistake there.

The issues must be down to the DLNAPN changes and the rearranged CustomMencoderoptions. I do know you can not scale content on my bravia unless you specific state the padding/expand/area size first. This im sure has came up a long time ago back in the days of version 2.xx or 3.xx. The "softskip" option also has to be in a very specific place otherwise it does not work properly, causes issues, again been discussed a LONG time ago in PMS and UMS.

Changing them around fixes one thing (IE subtitles) but breaks the other (IE Aspect Ratio) or corrupts image in other ways if the "softskip" option is moved. I know of NO way to have both perfect on a Sony TV, me personally id sooner watch with the right aspect ratio and hardcode any subs which i need into a movie rather than watch a movie with perfect EXTERNAL subs but a screwed up Aspect Ratio. An example of one or the other working is here....
http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/forum/vie ... =6&t=16250
You can not have both perfect.

A user name OIIil on here has in the past done extensive testing and found the options have to be in a specific order to work as near as perfect as possible....
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=603

Changing the custom Mencoder options just to fixed subs but break Aspect Ratio was silly. Sony devices are VERY FUSSY and any changes should in future be tested first or test builds created each time.
ExSport
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by ExSport »

For best compatibility you can test softskip at the begining and also at the end. I fight with this many times and the behavior changes between MEncoder versions but found that using softskip at the start and also at the end worked always. Don't know if it can slow down the transcoding or not.
Same happens with rendering subs to additionally added black bars and the behavior that subs were not refreshed and overlapped. For some versions value 1 worked, for other value 0 worked 8-)
To be honest I am not sure what should be used with the latest versions but on my Panasonic TV it would be definitely one from examples below :mrgreen:

Code: Select all

-vf softskip,expand=::::0:16/9:2,softskip
-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9:2,softskip
Paradox
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:50 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by Paradox »

ExSport wrote:For best compatibility you can test softskip at the begining and also at the end. I fight with this many times and the behavior changes between MEncoder versions but found that using softskip at the start and also at the end worked always. Don't know if it can slow down the transcoding or not.
Same happens with rendering subs to additionally added black bars and the behavior that subs were not refreshed and overlapped. For some versions value 1 worked, for other value 0 worked 8-)
To be honest I am not sure what should be used with the latest versions but on my Panasonic TV it would be definitely one from examples below :mrgreen:

Code: Select all

-vf softskip,expand=::::0:16/9:2,softskip
-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9:2,softskip
A second softskip does indeed help with SOME subtitles (personally i rarely use subtitles so for me their loss is not a big deal), in nearly all cases on a Bravia you have to have a softskip at the beginning otherwise certain video files (normally avi based divx or xvid stuff) displays some artifacting (weird breaking up of picture or funny colours <normally green> bars where there should be black bars top and bottom). I suspect the issue is similar on some Panasonics. Switching the expand and scale commands around also as i have been over messes things up on a Bravia also.

The thing where you have a 1 or a 0 in your expand line above should not make much difference each of those values basically do this....
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1954#p11007
(yeah ive even be over that in conversation before and what each value does :D)

Basically a 1 should enable sub positioning/rendering where as a 0 or even a another ':' in the code line should disable sub positioning/rendering. Though Panasonics and Sony devices are fussy things so why it should not matter too much im not shocked it does and requires fiddling also :lol:

To be honest theres many things id like to seen fixed in UMS, id like to see TSMuxer scrapped (never understood why they cant let FFMPEG in addition to transcoding also just remux files???? FFMPEG has always been able to, its what is used to mux files in Plex, Serviio and many more) TSMuxer often within the last few seconds or minutes when watching files on some devices just dies and playback stops with 'unsupported file' or similar message, highly annoying bug that has been there since TSMuxer has been, not the devs fault but the fault of TSMuxer from what i can tell.

DLNA_PN and correct use of them (mediainfo often gets it wrong) also needs sorting.

I think half the issue is the code keeps getting added to with new class files and so much more that its became a bit of a muddle to keep track of things even for the developers, id like to see the guts ripped out an overhaul and streamlining, maybe could be done by one of the devs that has a lot of free time (if any of them do) and a real beta (call it something line streamlined edition) could be done.

They could also take all the renderer.conf files and place them in a single renderer.configuartion or similar file. (again like plex, serviio etc). The more separate files you have the more things get bogged down. If you have 6 or so devices in the house that are DLNA capable UMS can sometimes take neigh on 20-30 seconds to identify them all and select the right conf files.

I really do feel they could make the program which is one of the best even better if they took the original guts, dived inside and slimed things down.
ExSport
Posts: 595
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by ExSport »

Weird colors on my Panasonic TV is exactly the thing why I implemented softskip to PMS/UMS and it fixed it for me.
Unfortunately Sony TVs are more crappy to videos without black bars than PanTV so you must use scale param which can have some other side effects.
Later on, with some videos+subs and newer MEncoder versions I found that sofskip stopped working at the start and had to move it to the end. Because I wasn't able to find the buggy video with weird colors from past, I wasn't able to test if moving it to the end will fix also this old buggy file so tested softskip on both sides with no artifacts on new file (old still lost somewhere) so I started to recommend using it on both sides for better compatiblity (but with the warning it can be slower...but didn't test it)
UMS is running in parents house where I am maybe once a month so my testing is quite limited for last few years and parent not always report possible problems because they don't know if it is bug in sw or directly in video.
About 1 and 0. It differs (I am sure with older MEncoder versions for sure) 8-) When there was 0 and MEncoder had to add black bars and subs were rendered to this possition, when OSD/subtitle rendering was disabled, this place is not refreshed so subs are not cleared so they were overlapping. With 1 it worked ok because it says to MEncoder to refrest this newly added video part (black bars) so it fixed subs rendering. Unfortunately I know that some versions of MEncoder required 1 for corrects subs, some worked also with 0, some with 0 only :?
Yes, tsMuxeR is quite buggy and should be replaced with FFMPEG or mkvextract from MKVTOOLNIX Pack. But it seems it is still most stable because I remember SubJunk post where described ffmpeg is not so stable. If extraction part is not stable, we can test using mkvextract and merge streams back with ffmpeg. Or test extreacting and muxing streams with ffmpeg only if it is more stable. I am also for removing tsMuxeR at day when there will be fully working alternative.
But it needs lot of free time, much testing and the right knowledge 8-)
Paradox
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:50 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by Paradox »

The MKVTOOLNIX replacement is not a bad idea, however unless it has changed sine i used it will it not only remux and demux .MKV files? Last time i played with that pacakge you could not demux and remux .MP4, .AVI etc files. MP4BOX could possibly be another alternative. Though any change as drastic as these i imagine would need serious code changes :(
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SubJunk
Lead Developer
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Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by SubJunk »

MKVToolnix accepts several input options including AVI and I think MP4. I use it a lot, and a useful companion tool is MKVExtractGUI
Paradox
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:50 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by Paradox »

SubJunk wrote:MKVToolnix accepts several input options including AVI and I think MP4. I use it a lot, and a useful companion tool is MKVExtractGUI
Opps yep you are both right, i just fired up MKVextract and MKVExtractGUI which i have not for a while. It will take a variety of input files but unless i am wrong again it will only output to an MKV file, so unless the device you are streaming to supported MKV it would not help (i may of course be totally wrong). Then again i spose it could be used to demux a file and then something else to like FFMpeg to mux it back to other formats, though i imagine that would be a lot of work to implement.

Out of interest (though i imagine discussed before so feel free to be brief) is their a reason the default TSMuxer in UMS is an old 1.10 release? Where as the file named "tsMuxeR-new" seems to be the newer version/s?

PS hope you had a good Christmas Subjunk and you also Exsport :)
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SubJunk
Lead Developer
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Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by SubJunk »

Paradox wrote:
SubJunk wrote:MKVToolnix accepts several input options including AVI and I think MP4. I use it a lot, and a useful companion tool is MKVExtractGUI
Opps yep you are both right, i just fired up MKVextract and MKVExtractGUI which i have not for a while. It will take a variety of input files but unless i am wrong again it will only output to an MKV file, so unless the device you are streaming to supported MKV it would not help (i may of course be totally wrong). Then again i spose it could be used to demux a file and then something else to like FFMpeg to mux it back to other formats, though i imagine that would be a lot of work to implement.

Out of interest (though i imagine discussed before so feel free to be brief) is their a reason the default TSMuxer in UMS is an old 1.10 release? Where as the file named "tsMuxeR-new" seems to be the newer version/s?

PS hope you had a good Christmas Subjunk and you also Exsport :)
It would take work to implement yeah, but a lot of that wouldn't be too difficult since we already have code doing similar things. A lot of the work would just be copy/paste and minor alterations. That's not me volunteering to do it though ;) and yeah it could demux a file to FFmpeg, but then FFmpeg is pretty good at that without MKVToolnix so there may not be much benefit.
I haven't noticed issues with FFmpeg for a while so I think they have fixed the stability issues that ExSport referred to.

The reason for using a different version of tsMuxeR is because certain renderers like their MPEG-TS served certain ways, and the way the old version of tsMuxeR did it was very compatible with a lot of renderers. Unfortunately along with the more recent tsMuxeR updates which brought a lot of improvements, the output also became less compatible with some devices like Panasonic TVs, so to work around that in UMS we just said "if the device is a PS3, use the newer tsMuxeR, and if not, use the older one"

Hope you had a good Christmas too Paradox!
Paradox
Posts: 151
Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:50 am

Re: Version 4.2.2 is released

Post by Paradox »

Ah right that clears up the TSmuxer mystery, i was actually going to go play with them both tomorrow but you have explained quite nicely the differences and why both are there :) Definately will not even bother, if TSMuxer can be fussy with some devices i imagine using different versions with my fussy Bravia will just cause more pain lol :D

Id personally like to see something implemented in UMS see you can in a config file explicitly tell it what DLNA_PN to use for certain file types (yeah i know ive mentioned before thats how Serviio etc does things), i reckon that would solve a lot of current config issues and allow just FFMpeg to be used in future thus getting shot of TSMuxer and Mencoder. Either way i look forward to all the new updates in 2015 to UMS keep up the good work and try not to fight over which dev ends up with the biggest PITA workload for any serious updates ;) Great that its already a bit ahead of the game of some DLNA apps with the recent H.265 implementation :)
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