2010 Bravia EX series (HD aspect ratio fix & Mac setup)

[tuscarora]

Hi, first of all big thanks to the developers for their hard work and to all those who have contributed to supporting the software.

I recently got a Bravia 40EX403 and was gutted when it would play jack over the DLNA but plenty from USB! After going through about four servers I found PS3MS and finally had success - mostly.

Most things worked brilliantly straight away, I only found aspect ratio problems in non 1920x1080 HD files (ie. 1920x872, 1920x800 and so on) which would compress vertically. After fighting with the code I think I've got a catch all for this which goes in mencoder custom parameters -

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(width) == 1920 :: -vf expand=1920:1080::::1: -mpegopts vaspect=16/9

(for anyone who's interested this tells the program to automatically add whatever black borders are neccesary to expand any movie that is 1920 wide, regardless of height, to 1920x1080 then tells the mpeg stream that it's 16/9, also stops sub overlapping)


If you were having trouble with 720p movies I reckon that adding the following line would work -

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(width) == 1280 :: -vf expand=1280:720::::1: -mpegopts vaspect=16/9

This is the only code I'm running at the moment, TV seems to deal with 4/3 OK.


The -vf expand code explained -

expand[=w:h:x:y:o:a:r]
Expands (not scales) movie resolution to the given value and
places the unscaled original at coordinates x, y. Can be used
for placing subtitles/OSD in the resulting black bands.

<w>,<h>
Expanded width,height (default: original width,height).
Negative values for w and h are treated as offsets to
the original size.

EXAMPLE:
expand=0:-50:0:0
Adds a 50 pixel border to the bottom of the
picture.

<x>,<y>
position of original image on the expanded image (default: center)

<o>
OSD/subtitle rendering
0: disable (default)
1: enable

<a>
Expands to fit an aspect instead of a resolution (default: 0).

EXAMPLE:
expand=800:::::4/3
Expands to 800x600, unless the source is
higher resolution, in which case it expands
to fill a 4/3 aspect.

<r>
Rounds up to make both width and height divisible by <r>
(default: 1).

Here's a link to the MEncoder/Mplayer manual (for all yer available commands) http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1.txt


For those on a mac, you can get the EX conf file from the PC beta build and put it into the Mac version. Right-click on the app name and "Show Package Contents" and drop the conf file in PS3 Media Server.app/Contents/Resources/Java/renderers/

I think I needed to add the the EX4 to the header before it picked up the tv, so if your TV is EX4 the relevant part of the conf file should be edited to read

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UserAgentAdditionalHeaderSearch=(BRAVIA KDL.+EX4)|(BRAVIA KDL.+EX5)|(BRAVIA KDL.+EX7)|(BRAVIA KDL.+NX7)

BraviaEX.conf.zip

I've attached mine to save you extracting it yourself.

(1.54 KiB) Downloaded 561 times

I had to make sure that in tsMuxer and MEncoder the Force FPS/framerate parsed from FFMpeg was checked.

Also found it easier to disable tsMuxer and make sure that everything's being transcoded - uncheck "Switch to tsMuxer when h624..." option in MEncoder.


Rock on and thanks again for making such an awesome program - brilliant idea to make it in Java too! I couldn't believe that the best DLNA server out there worked on Mac as well - I'm running a hackintosh so am well pleased I don't have to boot into Windows just to stream movies to my TV.


*Edit, just settled down to watch a TV show before bed and found out that the TV doesn't deal with non-HD stuff properly! This code should fix it, and you should never have to change setting from Wide.

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(width) < 1280 :: -vf expand=::::1:16/9: -mpegopts vaspect=4/3

[Toph24]

Thanks for all the info. I agree, this is a great app and I appreciate all the effort that goes into from the developers and everyone here on the forums.
I too am having the same problem with 1080p on my Bravia, granted I'm not using an EX, rather a KDL55NX810 and I'm running Windows.

I've been using the following code to resolve this particular problem, but it stretched the video horizontally to fill the screen and looks awful for video at 1920 but less than 1080...

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((double) width / height) >= 1.7 && ((double) width / height) <= 2.4 :: -mpegopts vaspect=4/3

I tried removing my code and adding two lines from you (below) to the mencoder expert settings and followed your instructions, making sure to check "enable framerate..." and uncheck "switch to tsmuxer..." under mencoder (which were already done), but now I don't have any video, only audio on my Bravia.
The code you provided as an edit works great for my SD content and I get audio and video with those using mencoder. Kudos!

Do you have any idea why I'm getting audio but no video with the two lines that I got from you...?

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(width) == 1920 :: -vf expand=1920:1080::::1: -mpegopts vaspect=16/9
(width) < 1280 :: -vf expand=::::1:16/9: -mpegopts vaspect=4/3

As a side note, I use the Bravia and PS3 as separate DLNA clients. Do you know of a fix for the Bravia aspect ratio problem that could be applied to the Bravia conf file so as not to interfere with the PS3 which already plays back video at the correct dimensions?

Thanks for your help.

[tuscarora]

Hi Toph, I had audio but no video before on some files when the video scaler was enabled in MEncoder prefs, so make sure it is off. Other than that I'm not sure, is it only HD video you're having problems with? How many files have you tested?

Unfortunately I can't help you with any mods to the conf file, although someone else may know if you're able to add conditions that apply only to one renderer.

[ExSport]

It is not needed to specify special parameters for every resolution.
Try using this:

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Transcoding settings / MEncoder / Custom options: -vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9:2 -mpegopts vaspect=16/9

It will expand picture to 16/9 aspect ratio whatever resolution it is. It will automatically compute final resolution to be 16:9 and add correct black bars.
16/9 can be changed, it depends on TV used. If TV is 4:3, change it to 4/3, if TV is 16:9(as most) use 16/9.
softskip is used to avoid picture corruption with some files.
:1: means rendering subtitles to black bars and it also fixes overlaping subtitles when :0: or nothing used
:2 means that final computed resolution will be dividable by 2. Some codecs have problems(and also slower encoding) when resolution is not multiple of 16/8/4 or 2. Default is 1 so I used 2 for compatibility purposes.
When video is already 16:9, no black bars added so it can be used for every resolution, not only for non 16:9 files.
If more renderers used, I made patch which is already in official trunk, which can define custom options on renderer level and not on global level(for every renderers)

[tuscarora]

Thanks for the info and the explanation ExSport, made for some interesting reading.

However I found that my Bravia did not work properly with full 1080 HD files and vf expand to 16/9 - it only worked with putting the resolution in. It should work either way and I found that it didn't. Same with the 4/3 part for <1920, that's not the way it should work (I reckon it's because of a bug) it's the way that it does work.

As an additional note though, I found that the same rule does not apply for 720 videos so these days I'm using -

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(width) == 1920 :: -vf expand=1920:1080:::1:: -mpegopts vaspect=16/9
(width) < 1920 :: -vf expand=::::1:16/9: -mpegopts vaspect=4/3

Since I've set these codes I haven't found a file yet that doesn't play with the proper aspect ratio.

I'll add in the softskip code incase it helps with any troublesome files down the line though.

EDIT: How did you set options only for specific renderers?

[Wolf]

I’m using

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-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9,dsize=4/3

and it has never failed me on my 37EX500.

[ExSport]

EDIT: How did you set options only for specific renderers?

This patch is already in official build (ehm...maybe in SubJunk build only which is precedence before functional patches are added to official trunk):
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7930

[Illico]

Hi,
Are you sure this Custom option work for all input resolution?
Because on Sony Bravia TV (2010), I found out that the TV doesn't deal with non-HD stuff properly so I need to expand/upscale to a HD : 1280x720 resolution.
For example, what's going on there for a 640x336 avi input image? What is the output result, 640x360? Are you sure all pixel are displayed? I found out that some pixels are not displayed on the left/right side.

[ExSport]

Sure, it works as expected. It always makes correct AR independent on source video AR.
If you don't see some pixels, it is overscan so if available on your TV, minimize it in settings.
Also I don't think new Sony TV's doesn't support SD resolution. It must.
Anyway I never used upscaler, only black bar adding by:

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-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9:2

or

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-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9:2 -mpegopts vaspect=16/9

[ptavasci]

After trying all the settings mentioned in this thread, this was the only option that fixed the aspect ratio of standard 720p series like Lie To Me.

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-vf softskip,expand=::::1:16/9,dsize=4/3