Playback Impossible: Transcoded MKV!

[bakalan]

Hey, guys!

First, kudos for your software! I've tested most media servers these days and yours definitely stood out so thanks for your hard work.

Hardware:

iMac Core 2 Duo 2.9 GHz, 256 VRAM, 4GB RAM, ML 10.8.3
LG LS5600 DLNA TV (upgraded to the latest firmware)
Standard router and Ethernet cables

Main problem:

My TV supports pretty much all of the major video formats and subtitles, but DLNA doesn't support subtitles. Therefore, I have to hardsub on the fly and use a media server to do the transcoding.

My goal: stream locally stored video files (mostly 1080p and 720p MKVs with external subtitles) over DLNA without glitches.

UMS Issues:

Using the default settings, UMS starts transcoding and displays subtitles properly, but playback only lasts 20-30 seconds. Frames are very choppy, and by the middle of the first minute playback of the transcoded file completely stops, and the server either switches to the non-encoded original file (which plays flawlessly) or the connection between the devices is terminated.

I tried lowering the MPEG2 settings, but no option helps. The computer and TV are linked through a Gigabit Ethernet cable so no bottlenecks there. Without transcoding, the TV streams all files perfectly, but of course there are no subtitles. The log displays some Java messages before playback stops, so there might be a correlation, but I am not competent to isolate the issue.

In some posts I've read that LG TVs hammer the UMS server with lots of requests. The logs state that the server starts and stops playback every 5-30 seconds or so, but I am not sure this is a problem, since the exact same messages are displayed when I play files non-encoded where there are no playback issues.

STATUS LOG clarification:

ums_dbg.zip

Look @ 19:15:55

(29.89 KiB) Downloaded 690 times

@ 19:15:55 is where the error occurred; playback of the transcoded file was terminated and the server immediately switched to streaming the non-encoded file

Is there a way for the server to just remux the file with subtitles without transcoding? My LG can play the MKVs as they are so isn't converting to MPEG2 an overkill?

THANKS A LOT!

[SubJunk]

Can you please get logs using this version? It will get me more info
http://www.spirton.com/uploads/UMS/UMS-bakalan.exe

[bakalan]

Can you please get logs using this version? It will get me more info
http://www.spirton.com/uploads/UMS/UMS-bakalan.exe

Sure, but I only have a Mac computer, running OS X. Can you provide me with a Mac compatible release? Thanks

[dadish]

I'm having similar issue with transcoding any file to my Samsung TV now. Was not like this before. The computer and TV are linked through a Gigabit Ethernet router/switch.

(CPU1) Intel® Core™ i7-3930K CPU @ 4301MHz (ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P9X79 PRO mainboard)
(RAM) 24GB @ 2000MHz , 17.1GB free
(VGA1) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680

This computer should have enough power to transcode anything. As said it was not like this a few versions before, thinking of going back to an earlier version. Playback starts but few seconds in it starts to get choppy and then it buffers on tv plays some more and then buffers again and this goes on. While watching UMS program the buffer bar gets filled around 10-20 % then gets reseted and starts over and this whole thing just loops. In the log i get these lines.

DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.428 [New I/O worker #26] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 081 344
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.439 [New I/O worker #27] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 114 112
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.450 [New I/O worker #28] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 146 880
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.463 [New I/O worker #29] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 179 648
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.474 [New I/O worker #30] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 212 416
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.486 [New I/O worker #31] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 245 184
DEBUG 2013-04-19 01:25:30.498 [New I/O worker #32] Setting InputStream new position to: 1 277 952

Hopefully there is a fix for this. Ill gladly try an another version to check it its fixed. Will try to post a debug.log when I get home tomorrow.

[dadish]

Here comes the debug zip. This is what happens to all files that I try to transcode. This did not occur a few versions back. Not sure what the issue is. I have transcoded Planet earth 1080p with no issues before. Hopefully this will help to get to the bottom of this issue.

[dadish]

Alright I have not updated Java and did a clean install of UMS 2.6.2. And the issue is still there. Now I get:

04-22 14:06:02 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v
04-22 14:06:08 Started playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:06:10 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v
04-22 14:06:14 Stopped playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:06:17 Started playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:06:19 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v
04-22 14:06:23 Stopped playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:06:25 Started playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:06:28 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v
04-22 14:06:32 Stopped playing F1.20130414.China.Race.720p.m4v on your Samsung AllShare

Does not seem to rely on what file it is. I tried with a mp4 file, I can play it without transcoding fine no lag or hiccups. But as soon as I transcode this happens again:

04-22 14:17:28 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130421.Bahrain.Race.720p.mp4
04-22 14:17:32 Stopped playing F1.20130421.Bahrain.Race.720p.mp4 on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:17:34 Started playing F1.20130421.Bahrain.Race.720p.mp4 on your Samsung AllShare
04-22 14:17:36 Starting transcode/remux of F1.20130421.Bahrain.Race.720p.mp4
04-22 14:17:40 Stopped playing F1.20130421.Bahrain.Race.720p.mp4 on your Samsung AllShare

I have added another debug log from the trying to view the file above. First I try with transcoding and then without and another with transcoding. Sorry if I hijack this post, if you want me to make a new one I will do so.

[SubJunk]

Can you please try older versions and let me know which was the last to play the files, and post debug info from that version?

[dadish]

I have gone and tried the earliest build that I had which was UMS-2.4.2 installed in without clean install and Transcode worked fine with all files. (I chose trough TRANSCODE folder Mencoder to force it to transcode). Then I installed UMS-2.5.1 and then UMS-2.6.0 and tried the same as with 2.4.2 and voila the issue was there. Just says Started then Stopped in a loop. Versions after 2.4.2 transcode is broken for me.

Test:
UMS-2.4.2 Working Transcode
UMS-2.5.1 Not Working Transcode
UMS-2.6.0 Not Working Transcode

Added debug files for those tests.

[SubJunk]

Thanks for testing, there's another version in between those (2.5.0), can you please test that too? It will make it easier for me to narrow down what caused it http://code.google.com/p/universal-medi ... -2.5.0.exe

Edit: Also, please follow these instructions when getting logs since I need the trace info too viewtopic.php?f=9&t=556

[dadish]

Sorry it took awhile for me to test this. Was away for the weekend. I have tried and changed the log to TRANCE. Transcode works with 2.5.0 as well.

Here are the logs. If you need me to try anything else just write it up and i'll try it out.