1080p Playback Problem

[jameswhite82]

I am a new SageTV user. I just received my HD100 today. I installed SageTV and SageMC in less than 10 minutes. I then hooked up the HD100. That took like 5 minutes. I was done in less than 15 minutes with the whole project. I could not believe it, it just worked out fo the box for everything. Nice job Sage!

Now to the problems.

I can play all my 720p .mkv files with ZERO problems. When I play the 1080p .mkv files I have problems with ALL of them.

-The video stutters like it is being underpowered (I thought the HD100 was supposed to be powerful enough)

-The video has weird black blocks that move around like when a sattelite dish loses a signal due to bad weather

I tried both Component and HDMI cables. The SageTV server is a Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 running just SageTV, no other services. I am running the SageTV 6.3.5.159 version downloaded from the website. The server has a Dual Core E6300 with 2GB RAM. My understanding is this is enough to stream 1080p.

My TV is only a 720p TV. That might explain the video black blocks, but not the slow playback and freezing. I will be getting a 1080p TV soon, but want to make sure the HD100 works with 1080p first.

Any ideas? I bought this device in hope that 1080p would work. It replaced two Dell XPS Desktops that were not powerful enough to do 1080p playback.

Please help.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by jameswhite82

I am a new SageTV user. I just received my HD100 today. I installed SageTV and SageMC in less than 10 minutes. I then hooked up the HD100. That took like 5 minutes. I was done in less than 15 minutes with the whole project. I could not believe it, it just worked out fo the box for everything. Nice job Sage!

Now to the problems.

I can play all my 720p .mkv files with ZERO problems. When I play the 1080p .mkv files I have problems with ALL of them.

-The video stutters like it is being underpowered (I thought the HD100 was supposed to be powerful enough)

-The video has weird black blocks that move around like when a sattelite dish loses a signal due to bad weather

I tried both Component and HDMI cables. The SageTV server is a Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 running just SageTV, no other services. I am running the SageTV 6.3.5.159 version downloaded from the website. The server has a Dual Core E6300 with 2GB RAM. My understanding is this is enough to stream 1080p.

My TV is only a 720p TV. That might explain the video black blocks, but not the slow playback and freezing. I will be getting a 1080p TV soon, but want to make sure the HD100 works with 1080p first.

Any ideas? I bought this device in hope that 1080p would work. It replaced two Dell XPS Desktops that were not powerful enough to do 1080p playback.

Please help.

I have the same problems with my 1080p files, although I don't know if it's because of the x264 parameters that were used. How did you encode them? Can you share the avinaptic report or the x264 command line (if used)? to create them?

-Robert

[jameswhite82]

Originally Posted by valnar

I have the same problems with my 1080p files, although I don't know if it's because of the x264 parameters that were used. How did you encode them? Can you share the avinaptic report or the x264 command line (if used)? to create them?

-Robert

I had a buddy do these for me, since I do not have a Blu-Ray drive for my PC. They played fine on his HTPC using Windows Media Center after he ripped them. Is there something I can do to the file to gather the information you need? Send the me the instructions and I will give you the results.

[valnar]

Download this file and print the report here on one of those MKV files.

avinaptic-20071118-full-fixed.zip

-Robert

[jameswhite82]

Here are two different reports.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Last Action Hero.txt

troy.txt

[valnar]

Originally Posted by jameswhite82

Here are two different reports.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

OK, thank you for that.

Tell him to re encode those again and turn off b-pyramids and set ref 3, bframes 3 and level 4.1.

Here are the major command line parameters:

--keyint 250 --bframes 3 --qpmin 10 --qpmax 51 --no-psnr --mixed-refs --trellis 1 --ref 3 --filter -2,-1 --subme 6 --direct auto --vbv-maxrate 25000 --me umh --level 4.1 --weightb --b-rdo --bime --analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct

There are others of course depending on CRF, 2-pass, AQ, etc.

See if that helps. I now (finally) have an HD extender, but no 1080p sources to try myself.

-Robert

[jameswhite82]

Is there something I can do the .mkv files I already have to make them H100 freindly? This would save me a lot of time. If so, let me know the software and commands to use.

If not, I will purchase a Blu-Ray Rom Drive to re-rip these myself. I can get a 4x Blu-Ray drive for $140 all over the net. This will take some time to re-rip all these discs.

Let me know please. Thanks!

[valnar]

Originally Posted by jameswhite82

Is there something I can do the .mkv files I already have to make them H100 freindly? This would save me a lot of time. If so, let me know the software and commands to use.

If not, I will purchase a Blu-Ray Rom Drive to re-rip these myself. I can get a 4x Blu-Ray drive for $140 all over the net. This will take some time to re-rip all these discs.

Let me know please. Thanks!

Unfortunately not. You can change the level to 4.1 with a couple different programs, but I don't think that will solve it.

Robert

[jameswhite82]

What program should I try? I would like to give it a shot before starting to re-rip 50 discs. Thanks!

[valnar]

Originally Posted by jameswhite82

What program should I try? I would like to give it a shot before starting to re-rip 50 discs. Thanks!

I like AutoMKV the best.

Here is the profile file I use. You'll need to make it an .xml file and put it in the appropriate folder. Call it ConstantQuality-CRF_CQ_L41.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<VideoProfile xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Name>_CQ_Robert_Q2_eq(crf)</Name>
  <Settings xsi:type="x264Settings">
    <EncodingMode>9</EncodingMode>
    <BitrateQuantizer>18</BitrateQuantizer>
    <KeyframeInterval>250</KeyframeInterval>
    <NbBframes>3</NbBframes>
    <MinQuantizer>10</MinQuantizer>
    <MaxQuantizer>51</MaxQuantizer>
    <Turbo>false</Turbo>
    <V4MV>false</V4MV>
    <QPel>false</QPel>
    <Trellis>1</Trellis>
    <CreditsQuantizer>40</CreditsQuantizer>
    <Logfile>.stats</Logfile>
    <CustomEncoderOptions />
    <FourCC>1</FourCC>
    <Zones />
    <MaxNumberOfPasses>3</MaxNumberOfPasses>
    <NbThreads>1</NbThreads>
    <NoDCTDecimate>false</NoDCTDecimate>
    <PSNRCalculation>false</PSNRCalculation>
    <noFastPSkip>false</noFastPSkip>
    <NoiseReduction>0</NoiseReduction>
    <MixedRefs>true</MixedRefs>
    <X264Trellis>1</X264Trellis>
    <NbRefFrames>3</NbRefFrames>
    <AlphaDeblock>-2</AlphaDeblock>
    <BetaDeblock>-1</BetaDeblock>
    <SubPelRefinement>6</SubPelRefinement>
    <MaxQuantDelta>4</MaxQuantDelta>
    <TempQuantBlur>0</TempQuantBlur>
    <BframePredictionMode>3</BframePredictionMode>
    <VBVBufferSize>-1</VBVBufferSize>
    <VBVMaxBitrate>25000</VBVMaxBitrate>
    <METype>2</METype>
    <MERange>16</MERange>
    <MinGOPSize>25</MinGOPSize>
    <Profile>2</Profile>
    <Level>4.1</Level>
    <IPFactor>1.4</IPFactor>
    <PBFactor>1.3</PBFactor>
    <ChromaQPOffset>0</ChromaQPOffset>
    <VBVInitialBuffer>0.9</VBVInitialBuffer>
    <BitrateVariance>1.0</BitrateVariance>
    <QuantCompression>0.6</QuantCompression>
    <TempComplexityBlur>20</TempComplexityBlur>
    <TempQuanBlurCC>0.5</TempQuanBlurCC>
    <SCDSensitivity>40</SCDSensitivity>
    <BframeBias>0</BframeBias>
    <Deblock>true</Deblock>
    <Cabac>true</Cabac>
    <WeightedBPrediction>true</WeightedBPrediction>
    <AdaptiveBFrames>true</AdaptiveBFrames>
    <BFramePyramid>false</BFramePyramid>
    <BRDO>true</BRDO>
    <biME>true</biME>
    <ChromaME>true</ChromaME>
    <P8x8mv>true</P8x8mv>
    <B8x8mv>true</B8x8mv>
    <I4x4mv>true</I4x4mv>
    <I8x8mv>true</I8x8mv>
    <P4x4mv>false</P4x4mv>
    <AdaptiveDCT>true</AdaptiveDCT>
    <Width>false</Width>
    <Sar>false</Sar>
    <aq-strength>false</aq-strength>
    <aq-sensitivity>false</aq-sensitivity>
    <deadzone-inter>false</deadzone-inter>
    <deadzone-intra>false</deadzone-intra>
    <fpel-cmp>false</fpel-cmp>
    <me-prepass>false</me-prepass>
    <SSIMCalculation>true</SSIMCalculation>
    <Interlaced>false</Interlaced>
    <Lossless>false</Lossless>
    <QuantizerMatrix />
    <QuantizerMatrixType>0</QuantizerMatrixType>
  </Settings>
</VideoProfile>

Robert

[jameswhite82]

I will give this a try this weekend and report back results. Thanks.