PMServ - PS3 Media Server Linux Distribution

[vyrticul]

download this file

Extract it to /usr/bin/ and run the following commands:

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sudo yast2 -i libpng12-0 libjpeg6 libass4 libmad0 libbz2-devel liba52-0 libbs2b0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libbz2.so /usr/lib64/libbz2.so.1.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/liba52.so.0 /usr/lib64/liba52-0.7.4.so
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/mencoder-mt /usr/bin/mencoder_mt


Hopefully I got all libraries needed. If you try and run mencoder-mt from the command line, you should get a message saying 'No file given, Exiting...'. If not let me know what error you get.

Then add the following lines to PMS.conf:

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nbcores = 2
mencoder_mt = true


Oh yeah, obviously restart ps3mediaserver

Also, this is untested so don't be suprised if it doesn't do anything

[Joksi]

Thank you very much!
I have followed your instructions to the letter, and this is the ouput I get when running mencoder-mt from the command line.

mencoder-mt: /usr/lib64/libjpeg.so.62: no version information available (required by mencoder-mt)
MPlayer git-ab94fc6-4.4.3 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
No file given

Exiting... (error parsing command line)

It seems correct?
However, it doesn't seem to make any difference!
I'm trying with the same video, to be sure, and it starts to stutter at the same time...
When running "top" i get approx. the same CPU utilization (~60-70%) as before, and the top most tasks in the list is mencoder (not mencoder-mt) and java.

[Joksi]

Now something is happening!

I think your code example was a little bit wrong, I tried it like following instead.

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 mv /usr/bin/mencoder /usr/mencoder
ln /usr/bin/mencoder-mt /usr/bin/mencoder

And now the CPU utilization have gone up to 85-90% and the first 3 min of the movie that I'm testing didn't stutter!
Will though have to let it run for a little bit longer to really confirm that it have done enough difference, but at first look it seems it was something wrong with the symbolic link and that it's truly using the multithreaded Mencoder now...

[Joksi]

More news... I have tried some more and it seems it holds on a couple of minutes but then starts to stutter at last.
I then tried switching back to 1Gbps connection and removing the 50Mbps bandwidth limit, and this time I got longer in the movie (about 10 min) without a single stutter!
The bandwidth is pending between 45 and 75Mbps, with some scenes spiking at 100Mbps+ but it seems to be easier on the CPU then forcing it to transcode at 50Mbps, as I have the available bandwith there is actually no need to limit.

Maybe vqmin=2 would let it handle it at 100Mbps connection limited to 50Mbps.. I'm stubborn and want to make it run at keyint=1:vqscale=1:vqmin=1 (lossless) But as I said, it seem to work on 1 Gbps so who cares!

Just a wonder, the symbolic links and packages installed are they persistent after a reboot too?

[meskibob]

There are cases documented on the forum (can't find the mentions ATM) where MEncoder actually runs into issues when doing the 1:1:1 transcode to MPEG2. There is no real degradation with the 1:1:2 transcode, the bandwidth isn't nearly as excessive, and it is more stable.

Also, if you're really trying to stress test your system, Big Buck Bunny is a good candidate (from the first post of the tutorial thread):

media files
here you can find free media files of different file types and resolution for testing your setup, e.g. to see how streaming/muxing/transcoding works...

big buck bunny video: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/

test files from mplayer project: http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/

In my setup with a gigabit connection, BBB goes more than 100mbps on some scenes at 1:1:2, and 1:1:1 baseline is ~75mbps.

[Joksi]

So there is no noticeable difference? Well, if you say so it's great to know
I will though continue try with 1:1:1 on gigabit, as it seems to handle it just about OK now with Mencoder-MT!
I've just also tried with 1:1:2 on 100Mbit connection, it does handle it well now with Mencoder-MT too..

I have tried the BBB sample, it works good at both gigabit and 100mbit, with and without bandwitdh limit set at 50Mbps (even before Mencoder-MT). No problems!
The movie I'm testing with now is 300 1080p...

What concerns stress testing a system, I think the BBB sample is nothing compared to the famous Birds-scene! I have another, main PC, with three cores and it cannot handle it at all while transcoding!

[meskibob]

The problem with the Planet Earth "Flock of Cranes" scene is that it's VC-1 video, which requires high individual clock speeds as VC-1 is not multicore capable with MEncoder-mt. BBB is a good stress test for AVC/H.264 files (most HD material seems to be H.264), which will actually utilize multiple cores through MEncoder-mt.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3507&start=90#p39334

[Joksi]

I see... well, your talking about the H264 version, but for me it seems the MP4 version is harder on the CPU?

[vyrticul]

wow a lots happened since I last saw your post saying it didn't work. Glad to hear it's working a lot better now.

I'm quite happy it worked because this was a definite hack job. For whatever reason I can't get mencoder-mt to compile (normal mencoder compiles just fine). So I took the mencoder-mt file from a package meant for Ubuntu. Because the libraries are named slightly different on debian machines, making those symbolic links to the opensuse libraries was a nice fix

Anyways, as for your question, yes the symbolic links and packages are persistent through a reboot (if you installed to the hard drive).

That's strange that the mencoder_mt link didn't work. The 'mencoder_mt = true' PMS.conf option is supposed to make PMS use /usr/bin/mencoder_mt instead of /usr/bin/mencoder.

So let me make sure, your PMS.conf has:

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nbcores = 2
mencoder_mt = true


and /usr/bin/mencoder links to /usr/bin/mencoder-mt ?

I'll get this put into a new version so in the future this is a lot more automated

[Joksi]

Yes, you got it absolutely right!