Can anyone tell me why this file won't direct play on aTV3?

[pjv]

I see a spinner for a few seconds and then it gives me the "An error occurred loading this content. Please try again later" error. This when the transcoder is set to either Auto or Direct. It plays fine if I switch to Transcode. 

 

Here is the mediainfo:

Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom
File size                                : 3.68 GiB
Duration                                 : 2h 14mn
Overall bit rate                         : 3 925 Kbps
Writing application                      : Lavf55.23.103
Video

ID                                       : 1

Format                                   : AVC

Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile                           : High@L4.1

Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames                : 16 frames

Codec ID                                 : avc1

Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding

Duration                                 : 2h 14mn

Bit rate                                 : 3 471 Kbps

Width                                    : 854 pixels

Height                                   : 356 pixels

Display aspect ratio                     : 2.40:1

Frame rate mode                          : Variable

Frame rate                               : 23.976 fps

Minimum frame rate                       : 23.810 fps

Maximum frame rate                       : 24.390 fps

Color space                              : YUV

Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0

Bit depth                                : 8 bits

Scan type                                : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.476

Stream size                              : 3.25 GiB (88%)

Writing library                          : x264 core 138 r2358 9e941d1

Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=16 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.05:0.10 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-5 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=0 / crf=17.5 / qcomp=0.70 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=38000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.80

Language                                 : English
Audio

ID                                       : 2

Format                                   : AC-3

Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3

Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)

Codec ID                                 : ac-3

Duration                                 : 2h 14mn

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                              : 430 MiB (11%)

Language                                 : English
Text

ID                                       : 3

Format                                   : Apple text

Codec ID                                 : text

Duration                                 : 2h 14mn

Bit rate mode                            : Constant

Bit rate                                 : 0

Stream size                              : 224 Bytes (0%)

Language                                 : English

[baa]

Does it work, when streamed through iTunes?

[pjv]

Does it work, when streamed through iTunes?

Weird, no. When I try to stream it with iTunes, I get the same error. iTunes also won't play the file on my mac. It loads and looks like it is "playing" (the play button turns into a pause button), but it doesn't make any progress into the file - the counter/clock doesn't iterate.

But if I open it with Quicktime player on the same mac, it plays fine.

EDIT: So i took a look in the console on the mac and I can see that it is an audio format/codec issue. Console has a few error lines, but the most significant one, I think, is this:

1/25/14 12:40:53.617 PM iTunes[22627]: AudioCodec returned an output channel layout incompatible with its output format.  6 != 2

The file was originally an MKV container which I converted to MP4 with ffmpeg using a command similar to:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4

[baa]

I guess we could force an "audio" transcode on AC-3 if it's more than 5 channels?

This is getting into a lot of details here. I wonder, why iTunes wouldn't complain about it.

>>But if I open it with Quicktime player on the same mac, it plays fine.

Quicktime - on your Mac - would have a far bigger repertoire on available codecs...

[pjv]

I think there must be something wrong with some metadata in the file. It is supposed to be a standard 5.1 AC3 audio stream. And that's how it plays in various apps and when I play it on the ATV transcoded from PMS, the audio stream comes as 5.1 Dolby surround and works perfectly on the receiver.

But somehow iTunes is seeing it as 2 channel audio. Quicktime and VLC both see it as 5.1:

But mplayerX (another mac video player) also seems confused (though it does play it with no trouble):

So i think that there must be some borked metadata in the file somewhere. Wish I knew more about video containers and whatnot. Anyway, probably nothing that can or should be done about it in PlexConnect.

[baa]

Ok. Fair enough.

Let's see if we face this issue more often.

Thanks for your feedback!