Videos don't play, just a black screen

[gkai]

In my case, the data is stored directly on the internal sata disk of my computer....so it is probably not that.
I also suspect it is not related to performance of the CPU (core 2 duo 3 GHz here) nor of the network (wired 100 Mbit ethernet, with 1 switch between PS3 and the server).
The PS3 itself is a 80 Gb model, firmware 2.60....If this help.
I can provide more information if needed, if there is linux network diagnostic tools that could help in debugging I can try and send the results...

Maybe I should also try a previous version of PMS, to check if the change is recent....

[gkai]

BTW, I tried to build PMS from svn, so that I can check if the lastest of the lastest still have the problems found in 1.03....but I failed....
It is the first time I try to build a java project so I am a little bit lost here.
Installed eclipse, and ant builder comes with it, it seems it is able to use the build.xml
launching "ant" or "ant PMS" seems to launch the build, but I have various java errors which I do not have tried to solve yet (as do not know java, it would be difficult )

Is it possible to build from source on linux, or is it too complex? as I said, I am a complete java beginner, but I know c, c++, python and can do classic unix installs...so if the build process is not too arcane I should be able to do it

Au fait, vous (shagrath) parlez français? Il vaut mieux que je poste en français ou en anglais?

[gkai]

Just tried the same file, with PMS 1.02, and the problem seems similar, although I do not see "connection closed" in debug.log...
Also, I tried txmuxer to play the file, but the PS3 told me the data is corrupted (données endomagées), and the error is reported in the log.
BTW, with 1.03, I did not have the possibility to select txmuxer...which is strange also, no?

I added the tgzified debug.log, to decompress it use tar -zxvf debug.tgz

[gkai]

Ok, a last for tonight , I think this one is not related, even if the symptoms are similar: The movie start correctly, and after maybe 10s it stops and the screen keeps black forever....
I think here it is linked to an mencoder error, and I know that the mkv file is corrupted (limited to 4Gb, the end was dropped).
However, mplayer is able to play the "amputated" mkv, so I hoped that the transcode would have worked, except maybe for the last minutes or so...
mplayer is not able to jump around the file, though, except if I add the -idx option...which is common on partial files without the end section...I do not know well mencoder, but maybe there is a similar option (i.e. "-idx"), to ask to regenerate the missing file index, that could help?

Hehe, indeed, adding -idx in the custom option of Mencoder (to force it to rebuild the index, if it is missing), helpsed! restarting PMS, now my partial mkv file play nicely

OK, I will try the other file which was blank, to check if it help, but it is, I think, a valuable trick already, maybe this option should be activated by default?

Bingo, the previously black movie now run!!!!! there is still a sound/video synchro issue, but I will try to solve it, I guess playing with other Mencoder options may do it...

Great, I hope this solution (add -idx in the Transcode settings/Video files engines/Mencoder/custom options ) will help others too

I still add the debug.tgz of the partial mkv file, that played for 5s before going black without the -idx option, for the record

[gkai]

Well, after playing some more, it seems the -idx is not the silver bullet
I got it to play again, eventually, but most of the time the problem subsist, stop after 5s....either to a black screen, or sometimes repeat, from the beginning, playing again and again those 5 minutes. The avi that was not playing without -idx, and played with synchro issues with -idx, never played again...:-/ Restarting the PS3, PMS, changing -idx to -forceidx did not allow me to play the file again, either wtih PM1.03 or PM1.02, so I still think -idx can help, but there is, maybe, another issue, maybe a timeout after which the PS3 kill connection if it do not receive data....and this timeout is exceeded because of the building of the index?

I will try some more, maybe rebuilding the index and reincode a new file with correct indexing, to check if that solves the issue...
But for now, i am stuck, and even more puzzled than before..

[pnieles]

I have the same problem streaming XVID and DIVX videos which don't need to be transcoded since they run fine if I attach a harddisk directly to the PS3, what's very odd is that 720p files in mkv format which need transcoding work fine without a sweat. All files are stored on the same harddisk
Additionally sometimes the PS3 looses connection to the PSM even thought the PSM says that it has connection.
I'm running on a Cat6 in-house network with GB switching, so network is definetly not the issue.

[shagrath]

I have the same problem streaming XVID and DIVX videos which don't need to be transcoded since they run fine if I attach a harddisk directly to the PS3, what's very odd is that 720p files in mkv format which need transcoding work fine without a sweat. All files are stored on the same harddisk
Additionally sometimes the PS3 looses connection to the PSM even thought the PSM says that it has connection.
I'm running on a Cat6 in-house network with GB switching, so network is definetly not the issue.

ps3's divx/xvid playback is broken: try sniffing the network, you will see the mess :\
some servers seems to have a better behavior on this... don't know is this is Java related or a network option/code I should have done

[gkai]

I tried after rebuilding the index of the file with mencoder, and it does not solve the problem...
However, I observed something that is repeatable: if I start the transcoding by starting the movie on the PS3, I have a blank screen and no sound....and if I stop PMS, killing the media server with the close button while the PS3 is "reading" the movie, cutting the stream somewhat harshly I guess, then the PS3 output maybe 1s of movie sound (undistorted, as much as I can judge for such a short sound burst). Because I can not see my TV from the PC, I do not know if there is a similar video burst...
The avi is large, but not really HD: 720*400, this is good DVD resolution, so it should not stress my CPU or network too much

Here again, I enclose the debug.log of the session....

[shagrath]

didn't saw you were on Linux... try updating mplayer packages from there https://launchpad.net/~rvm/+archive
default ones on Ubuntu are way too old

[gkai]

didn't saw you were on Linux... try updating mplayer packages from there https://launchpad.net/~rvm/+archive
default ones on Ubuntu are way too old

Thanks for that, it solved the partial mkv file problem (Lord of the rings), now mencoder deals without any problem with , as do TxMuxer.

The avi file, though, still exhibit exactly the same behavior (black screen, 1s sound when closing PMS)...and looking at the trace, the reason is the same: the connection is closed just after attempting to stream the movie...