Video Pixels Pulsing?

[endboarder15]

Hello all,

Im new on the forums, but i've been using PS3 media server for a while. I just built a new computer and I seem to be having an interesting issue with MKV videos on the PS3. As you can read from the title, my video is pulsating when played through the PS3. I'm not having any issues with buffering the video, or playing the subtitles though. The videos are between 150-500 mbs in size. I didnt have this issue before I built my new computer. I definetely have enough power in my machine and bandwidth over my network for playback.

I'm wondering if anyone else has ever had this issue, or has any idea how to fix it. I have tried rolling back versions all the way to 1.53, but that doesnt seem to have any effect ont he problem.

So here is the issue in a nutshell:
-Pixelated picture (seems to be showing at a lower quality than it should be)
-Pixels seem to be pulsing

Any suggestions or help would be great. Let me know if you need additional information!

[Paxxil]

I have the same issue.
All videos are playing smoothly without stutter, but some are pixelated and pulsated... especially ugly are the animated movies (for instance Big Buck Bunny).

I have tried most of the FAQ things.

PC setup: Intel i5, 16GB DDR3 RAM, WIndows 7 SP1 64bit
PMS version: 1.70.1
Streaming directly to Sony KDL55EX500 TV (another issue is slow menu browsing, but not so annoying as bad quality picture).
Connection: PC gigabit <-> gigabit Switch (HP ProCurve 1810G-24) <-> Sony TV (100 mbit)
Java: 64 bit Version 7 Update 7

I run PMS with PMS.bat:

Code: Select all

start javaw -Xmx4g -Xms4g -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -classpath update.jar;pms.jar net.pms.PMS

PMS settings:
General Configuration:
http://shrani.si/f/v/SS/2uPzVerW/capture1.png

Common Transcode Settings:
http://shrani.si/f/2H/Cx/lFGTHrz/capture2.png

MEncoder settings:
http://shrani.si/f/u/Bp/2nrbtteD/capture3.png

I have tried:
- Remux videos with tsMuxeR (i get A/V sync issue or stuttering on some videos)
- most of the FAQ suggestions, but produce no change or are even worse.

Video quality is normal on my PC with VLC, MPC, WMP (with K-Lite Codec Pack).

Big Buck Bunny Video Info:

Code: Select all

General
Complete name                            : G:\Storage\Big Buck Bunny\big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi
Format                                   : AVI
Format/Info                              : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile                           : OpenDML
Format settings                          : rec
File size                                : 886 MiB
Duration                                 : 9mn 56s
Overall bit rate                         : 12.5 Mbps
Writing application                      : AVI-Mux GUI 1.17.7, Aug  8 2006  20:59:17

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                           : Simple@L1
Format settings, BVOP                    : No
Format settings, QPel                    : No
Format settings, GMC                     : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default (H.263)
Codec ID                                 : FMP4
Duration                                 : 9mn 56s
Bit rate                                 : 12.0 Mbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 24.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.241
Stream size                              : 853 MiB (96%)
Writing library                          : Lavc51.44.0

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : 2000
Duration                                 : 9mn 56s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 31.9 MiB (4%)
Alignment                                : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration                     : 64 ms (1.54 video frames)
Interleave, preload duration             : 192 ms

Debug LOG with TRACE:
http://pastebin.com/vuFqh38t

Picture on TV
http://shrani.si/f/G/MF/2hXXfEaX/untitled-1.png

Picture on PC
http://shrani.si/f/2P/Fv/19hP4M9r/untitled-2.png

Thanks!
-M

EDIT: added / changed INFO

[chocolateboy]

FAQ: How can I supply details to help diagnose my problem?

[Paxxil]

I've added / edited the INFO

Thank you!
-M

[Paxxil]

I've fixed the aspect ratio with:

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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

but pixelation and pulsing are still there.

-M

[Paxxil]

I found out that setting

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keyint=300:vqscale=1:vqmin=2

under Video Quality Settings produce much better quality picture and stops the pulsing.
There is still some pixelation, but much much better.

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keyint: keyint is solely for trading off file seekability against coding efficiency. By default, keyint is set to 250. In 25fps material, this guarantees the ability to seek to within 10 seconds precision. If you think it would be important and useful to be able to seek within 5 seconds of precision, set keyint=125; this will hurt quality/bitrate slightly. If you care only about quality and not about seekability, you can set it to much higher values (understanding that there are diminishing returns which may become vanishingly low, or even zero). The video stream will still have seekable points as long as there are some scene changes.

I care about quality a LOT more.

Is there any other option for better quality? I've tried playing with vqscale and vqmin but there were no changes (or worse).

-M