Error 800288E1 when playing x264 video files.

[Morty-L]

I am on Ubuntu 64-bit 13.10 (xubuntu) and have installed the 3.3.0 version of Universal Media Server. I can play most other files, but not x264 video through PS3 (have had problems with .flac sound files as well previously). The x264 files play when I choose VLC as the transcoder, but none of the other video-options work (Mencoder, TsMuxer, FFMPEG). I have a hunch that the 800288E1 error occurs due to the sound settings(the X264 files have DTS sound) being incompatible with the ps3 somehow. Any pointers? Thanks for a great product.

[Ockhams Hatchet]

Hey Morty,

This posts a month old but I just lost a few hours of my life to this issue so hopefully it will help someone else.

While doing some maintenance on my linux box today, I think I installed the mediainfo package while noticing an error on my PMS logs. After doing a lot of other work, I went to watch an h264 movie and it failed exactly as you described, and PMS/UMS gave error "External input stream instance is null... stopping process".

I narrowed it down to h264 movies with DTS audio. I have a couple h264 with AC3 that work as expected.

Part of my troubleshooting was trying out UMS, which I just discovered and will probably keep permanently. It had the same issue too though. I cracked open the renderers/PS3.conf after realizing it was a codec issue. Lots of the boolean options were disabled as long MediaInfo was enabled. On a whim I disabled it by changing MediaInfo = false. Bingo.

Now I'm riding out this "Polar Vortex" with some horror movies. I'm not smart/current enough to tell if it's unnecessarily downsampling my audio or not, but we're up and running.

- Charles

[Morty-L]

Hi Oxhams!

I did almost as you recommended, only I changed to "MediaInfo = Supported". Thanks a lot for pointing me in the right direction.

As far as I understand, this should be the default setting for the PS3.conf file (your UMS-version/renderers/PS3.conf). [Don't you agree, SubJunk?] With this setting, MediaInfo checks if the audio and/or video codec is supported by the Playstation 3, and "more accurately define the supported formats for the renderer". The supported files are listed closer to the bottom of the file.

I also removed the checkmark for "Keep DTS tracks" under "common transcode settings" and "audio settings" in the Universal Media Server GUI, since the PS3.conf file says close to the bottom, that DTS is not supported by the PS3.

720p files now work well over wireless connection. DTS-sound is downscaled to AC-3, I believe, but the difference is very hard to notice (LPCM is not recommended due to high bandwidth use when using wireless connection from UMS).



Morty-L.

[ExSport]

Two faults in your post:

Code: Select all

MediaInfo = Supported

Code: Select all

DTS not supported by PS3

Both are not true.
MediaInfo accepts TRUE or FALSE value only.
DTS can be passed by PS3 to external receiver so DTS is supported in this case.