Getting Remux Working...

[sharkus]

First off, I would like to state my deepest appreciation for all of the work that has gone into PMS!

I've had great success getting PS3 Media Server up and running under Windows Vista 64 (other than having to download Java every time I run it). They key feature is the remux (without reencode), so I have disabled subtitles so that remux is always used.

Now, I'm moving use PMS on my Ubuntu Linux media server box. Since it's headless, I'm using the conf file (updated with new paths) from my working windows configuration. The good news is that everything is generally working. However, I cannot get the remux functionality working. Video is always re-encoded to MPEG2, even when streaming the same videos that are remuxed on the windows version.

I tried compiling a more recent version of mplayer/mencoder (rather than the older one that is installed with apt-get), but the same thing happens. (I did notice that x264 was not included in my build.) Are there any specific dependencies or build options required for the remux capabilities? For remux functionality, is mencoder the only thing that matters?

Any help or hints would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharkus

[Jagged]

First off, I would like to state my deepest appreciation for all of the work that has gone into PMS!

I've had great success getting PS3 Media Server up and running under Windows Vista 64 (other than having to download Java every time I run it). They key feature is the remux (without reencode), so I have disabled subtitles so that remux is always used.

Now, I'm moving use PMS on my Ubuntu Linux media server box. Since it's headless, I'm using the conf file (updated with new paths) from my working windows configuration. The good news is that everything is generally working. However, I cannot get the remux functionality working. Video is always re-encoded to MPEG2, even when streaming the same videos that are remuxed on the windows version.

I tried compiling a more recent version of mplayer/mencoder (rather than the older one that is installed with apt-get), but the same thing happens. (I did notice that x264 was not included in my build.) Are there any specific dependencies or build options required for the remux capabilities? For remux functionality, is mencoder the only thing that matters?

Any help or hints would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharkus

Do you have a debug.log you can post? Also, do you have ffmpeg installed on your Linux server?

[ratatoskr]

at least copy past what the trace says.

[sharkus]

Sorry about not posting logs originally.

Yep, I have ffmpeg installed (using Ubuntu's apt-get). Here's the version info:

FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-swscaler --enable-pthreads --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libogg --enable-libgsm --enable-dc1394 --disable-debug --enable-shared --prefix=/usr
libavutil version: 1d.49.3.0
libavcodec version: 1d.51.38.0
libavformat version: 1d.51.10.0
built on Mar 12 2008 14:31:53, gcc: 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu4)

Attached is a debug log, but it doesn't include actually streaming anything (so I'm not sure if anything can be gleamed). I'll post one with some streaming later when I get home.

Would it be possible to get some high level details on which components are used for the remux operation? Is it a combination of TSmuxer and mencoder, or does FFMPEG get involved as well? Also, do these components have specific feature requirements (e.g. does x264 need to be included in the mencoder build?)

Thanks,
Sharkus

[Jagged]

Sorry about not posting logs originally.

Yep, I have ffmpeg installed (using Ubuntu's apt-get). Here's the version info:

FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-swscaler --enable-pthreads --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libogg --enable-libgsm --enable-dc1394 --disable-debug --enable-shared --prefix=/usr
libavutil version: 1d.49.3.0
libavcodec version: 1d.51.38.0
libavformat version: 1d.51.10.0
built on Mar 12 2008 14:31:53, gcc: 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu4)

Attached is a debug log, but it doesn't include actually streaming anything (so I'm not sure if anything can be gleamed). I'll post one with some streaming later when I get home.

Would it be possible to get some high level details on which components are used for the remux operation? Is it a combination of TSmuxer and mencoder, or does FFMPEG get involved as well? Also, do these components have specific feature requirements (e.g. does x264 need to be included in the mencoder build?)

Thanks,
Sharkus

ffmpeg is used to determine what the video/audio streams are and if they are PS3 compatible. If it isn't able to determine this, it'll fallback to reencoding to mpeg2.

That said, the one thing I notice is that ffmpeg is a little older and I don't see --enable-libx264 in the list. However, I'm not sure if that is needed. I don't see anything in the debug.log, but I think if you post one after trying to stream something, it'll show what's happening.

[sharkus]

I decided to compile my own x264, ffmpeg, and mplayer/mencoder. Transcoding is now working the same as with the windows version... Now to figure out why the PS3 doesn't like most of the movies I've encoded with Handbrake. Thanks for the help and hints!

[Jagged]

I decided to compile my own x264, ffmpeg, and mplayer/mencoder. Transcoding is now working the same as with the windows version... Now to figure out why the PS3 doesn't like most of the movies I've encoded with Handbrake. Thanks for the help and hints!

tsMuxeR 1.7.3 has some issues. try the latest one. I've had good luck so far with it in the testing I've done tonight. Assuming you're attempting to remux them with tsMuxeR and that they work fine from Windows..

http://www.smlabs.net/tsMuxer/tsMuxeR_1.8.33(b).tar.gz

[sharkus]

Thanks Jagged. Both the new and old tsMuxeR seem to work fine (at least for me). For some reason M4v files created with handbrake are not supported by the PS3 (seems to be a known issue over at the handbrake forums). If I force a transcode for M4V files, PMS repackages things and I can get video to work, but the 2 channel AAC audio doesn't work. However, 5.1 AC3 audio works fine.

Looks like I'm going to reencode my kid's movies into MKV file. Those files seem to be a lot more stable when going from PMS->PS3 (and play better on my WDTV as well).

[Jagged]

Thanks Jagged. Both the new and old tsMuxeR seem to work fine (at least for me). For some reason M4v files created with handbrake are not supported by the PS3 (seems to be a known issue over at the handbrake forums). If I force a transcode for M4V files, PMS repackages things and I can get video to work, but the 2 channel AAC audio doesn't work. However, 5.1 AC3 audio works fine.

Looks like I'm going to reencode my kid's movies into MKV file. Those files seem to be a lot more stable when going from PMS->PS3 (and play better on my WDTV as well).

Offhand I don't know why forcing a transcode would cause audio not to work. The debug log might give you some insight on that.

PMS should be able to pass an m4v video to the ps3 without transcoding, so it would seem that there is probably something about the m4v container that the ps3 doesn't like (you mention that it's a known issue @ the handbrake forums). It might be worth remuxing to a new mpeg4 container (perhaps using MP4Box).