PMS SubJunk Build

[mkvguy]

I'm having problems with zombie mencoder processes. I'm watching a TV series and every time I stop an episode (I stop at the ending credits, so I don't allow it to end on its own) and then try to start a new episode, the new episode doesn't usually start because my computer is out of memory. This happens because the past 5-6 episodes that I've already stopped are left as zombie processes and haven't closed, eating up all my memory, eventually the system can't open up any more mencoder processes.

I know this problem has been discussed in the past and some patches tried to fix this issue, but this is a real problem for me. Every time I watch a movie or episode, I have to walk to the computer to kill the mencoder process by hand. Eventually I get bored and watch as many episodes as I can until the computer runs out of memory and then I kill them all at once.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Coltaine79]

I have a side by side monitor setup. My HDTV/PS3 combo for one monitor, and my PC runs the other monitor. I tend to do a lot of PC work when I am viewing movies, sitting back with my wireless keyboard and mouse, or even my Android to control my PC. When I have to transcode, my PC is basically useless.

Transcoding-------> 90+% CPU usage for PMS, and a non-functioning PC at that point. Fine late at night, but not during the day/evening when I need to use my PC.

Remuxing --------> avg. 15-20% CPU usage for PMS. Totally functional PC while still watching high definition movies with DTS.

Big difference in my books. And I tend to watch a movie, pause it if I have to, do what I have to do, then press play. Or I stop the movie and use the 'Go to' function to quickly get back where I was. I don't bounce back and forth often, so I never see sync issues at least not so far.

Now that I installed SJ49, man everything seems golden. And after a reboot of my PC, and setting up SJ49 as a service, I am pretty much having zero troubles (other than .rar's don't work) meaning no more zombie mencoder.exe or javaw.exe processes.

In fact, watching a 11 GB copy of Green Lantern streaming from the same PC I'm writing this on, as I am batch re-naming and obtaining cover art for all my movies, with uTorrent just a humming and several other programs running like Skype and such. This wasn't even close to possible with the last few builds when tsMuxer wasn't working.

I am a happy camper now. Thanks SJ !

I hear you when it comes to CPU usage of mencoder. Sadly, I am one of those people who upgrades more often than he needs to (meaning my CPU is always pretty recent & fast) so after I made the switch from tsmuxer to mencoder last year, I have to say that I didn't notice my PC becoming unusable while streaming via PMS (sometimes a friend will watch a show while I Compute). That said, I haven't tried "gaming" while my PC is mencoder-streaming; perhaps I'll notice a difference in that situation.

Regardless, I think the best scenario for minimal impact to your PC is a good old AVI file. The PS3 just reads that natively, whether it's got an MP3 soundtrack or AC3. I don't even think that's considered remuxing, more like "PS3 playing an AVI off a network share". The added bonus is that you have full (blazing fast!) scene search functionality (square button) as well as fast-forward and rewind.
Of course, AVI is not the preferred format these days, especially for HD, but that's a different story...

[Val Killmore]

Regardless, I think the best scenario for minimal impact to your PC is a good old AVI file. The PS3 just reads that natively, whether it's got an MP3 soundtrack or AC3. I don't even think that's considered remuxing, more like "PS3 playing an AVI off a network share". The added bonus is that you have full (blazing fast!) scene search functionality (square button) as well as fast-forward and rewind.
Of course, AVI is not the preferred format these days, especially for HD, but that's a different story...

That is why I need tsMuxer. My average movie size nowadays is probably about 8-10 GB, and generally with DTS audio.

Of course AVI or MP4 files are less straining on the CPU. Unfortunately, going with native files either forces me to lower my standards ( DivX w/AC3, or MP4's w/AAC or AC3 streams, M2TS w/AC3 stream), or to do a bunch of 'external' remuxing and encoding (MPG w/ DTS wrapped in Linear using MKV2VOB), which PMS was designed specifically to avoid, and tsMuxer accomplishes 'on the fly' when it's working.

Put it this way. About 40-50 % of my 4 TB of movies requires remux or transcode. Movies like the Watchmen @ 19 GB, Transformers3 @ 12GB, Avatar @ 18+ GB, Saving Private Ryan 13GB, several TV series in 720 HD, some Planet Earth style series episodes in 1080, Coral Sea shows etc etc. All these files plus countless others in "non-native" MKV format.
The other 3 TB is native media, some of which actually isn't native because of shoddy encoding. So, if I have to transcode all this media............

If you had the option of running your car in 1 st gear for the whole trip, or cruise control, and all you needed was to get the cruise control button fixed, what would you want to do ?

[Madoka]

Thanks to SJ and the rest of the PMS team for making PMS the awesome program it is today!

[SubJunk]

I hear you when it comes to CPU usage of mencoder. Sadly, I am one of those people who upgrades more often than he needs to (meaning my CPU is always pretty recent & fast) so after I made the switch from tsmuxer to mencoder last year, I have to say that I didn't notice my PC becoming unusable while streaming via PMS (sometimes a friend will watch a show while I Compute). That said, I haven't tried "gaming" while my PC is mencoder-streaming; perhaps I'll notice a difference in that situation.

Already replied with a solution to this on the previous page:

For those of us who have audio sync problems with tsMuxer but also encounter the high CPU usage that Val Killmore described, just set the "Number of cores used for transcoding" setting on the Transcoding Settings tab to lower

And Val, not sure why you insist on giving analogies that miss the point. It's great that tsMuxer produces good audio sync for you, but for others it produces files that are very noticeably out of sync, and sync trumps speed. So while it makes sense for you personally to use tsMuxer it doesn't make sense for me and others who have these issues with it.

[Val Killmore]

And Val, not sure why you insist on giving analogies that miss the point. It's great that tsMuxer produces good audio sync for you, but for others it produces files that are very noticeably out of sync, and sync trumps speed. So while it makes sense for you personally to use tsMuxer it doesn't make sense for me and others who have these issues with it.

Basically making a point that if tsMuxer fails, then the build is no good for me. The whole purpose of PMS is then lost. I might as well uninstall it. People telling me AVI is better does nothing for my current library giant of HD MKV movies that have been playing successfully for two plus years now.

I am actually kind of curious as to why I don't really ever have issues with sync. Virtually never with tsMuxer and on VERY rare occasions with MEncoder when I have been forced to transcode.

[SubJunk]

But if tsMuxer did fail for you, why couldn't you just change the number of cores used for transcoding? That stops it from slowing down other programs.

[Val Killmore]

But if tsMuxer did fail for you, why couldn't you just change the number of cores used for transcoding? That stops it from slowing down other programs.

I have a 2CoreDuo 2.00GHz processor. Pausing the movie every so often is already a problem during transcoding of high bitrate HD material. What would it be like reducing the number of cores?

[SubJunk]

It's lucky tsMuxer works for you, then
At some stage we might want to look at an alternative to it

[Val Killmore]

It's lucky tsMuxer works for you, then
At some stage we might want to look at an alternative to it

Now you see why I am such a pro-ponent of tsMuxer......it's function in PMS at least. The external GUI....not so much. I often get sync issues with the GUI so it's better to keep my files in MKV and let the PMS/tsMuxer team do the work.

It's been a lifesaver for the last two/three years of PMS use. After attempting to use Tversity for so long with HD material, only to pull my hair out, finding PMS with it's remuxing capabilities was a life saver.

Now, with it working with SB49 and all the kick ass options it has, I can now retire the old 'stable' version I was rocking.

Lovin' this build