Another question which I have sorted of asked in another thread for the changes/bug fix list... but as nobody else is talking about about, maybe its just me.
My movies, when I can get them to play, are displayed with a bog fat border around them. See the attached screen shot of my TV with Thor the Dark World (or whatever it is) playing...
We have the TV plastic border, the movie, and then the movie, and then the border around the movie - dead screen space.
I know that I will get it sometimes at the top and bottom of the screen depending on the aspect ratio, but why at the sides of the screen. I dont get this on any other media player. And I never used to get this on the DLNA player on the PS3
See the attached screen shot - I have shown the dead space with lines and arrows at the top and left (but its the same at the bottom and right).
Are you talking about the PS4 settings > Display > Boundaries??? If so, makes no difference.
Tried changes the boundries, the display resolution in the PS4 settings (is set to 1080i, then down to 720, then down to 480) - in each setting, the borders are in the exact same position.
And there are no scale or border settings in the PS4 app that I can see.
I suspect it is the unusual aspect ratio (1.66) in the details you posted.
The 720X 480 makes me think it is a DVD rip, and the top and bottom black borders have not been cropped. Usually this would be an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.78.
As an experiment, I created a short video file from a DVD rip and forced the 1.66 aspect ratio into the encoding and it resulted in a picture with borders similar to what you have displayed on all clients and all players on my computer. That is, black borders all the way around, it looks like the picture does not fill the screen. Another encoding with the proper aspect of 16:9 eliminated the borders on the sides and left the borders on the top (which, as you said, is to be expected)
A video with aspect of 1.66 would show on your TV at approx 1796X1080, your TV is 1920X1080, the difference is 124 pixels, so a border of 62 pixels appears on the sides of the video
If thats the case, why is it only a problem with PLEX???
WDTV = only top/bottom border
PS3 DVLA player = only top/bottom border
Android media player = only top/bottom border
Pc Windows Media player = only top/bottom border
Also.... if thats the case, I am buggered with PLEX - I dont want to have to re-rip 1100 DVDs to get around something that other players can deal with (however they do it) and plex cannot.
I was only suggesting the aspect ratio for that file was unusual, and in every player I tried including a WDTV, an Android Phone, an Android Tablet, and on Windows using VLC,MPC-HT, and Windows media player the black borders on the sides were visible when there was a 1.66 aspect ratio. There is also a black border using Plex with Roku, PHT, and the web interface, so it all to be consistent to me.
The PS3 apps and PS4 apps are not available here in Canada yet, so honestly, I can not say how the apps would deal with the file thru PLEX and in that respect, I probably spoke out of turn, and my previous comment should be considered a guess rather than a fact.
No no, dont take my frustrated words as any criticism or anti-vibe towards you.. you have been most helpful. I just expected more of the PLEX PS4 app than it provides.. more akin to the DLNA native player on the PS3 which was a pain to find movies (and didnt add the Plex nice movie info), but allowed all kinds of playback options, always worked, always fitted the screen and looked fab.
As I type, my PC is currently running 20 or so christmas movies through an app called "Videogo" which is changing the aspect to 16:9.... to see how this looks. But with each movie taking an hour or two to process, and with 1100 movies in my collection, its going to big A LOT of processing.
Rather than re-ripping, you can try re-muxing the files. I tried an MP4 file with My MP4Box GUI and just changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and the new file played correctly without the borders. Took about 2-3 minutes for a full length movie. Also tried with MKV Toolnix GUI - changed the aspect ratio and remuxed and within a minute or two a new file without the borders. Basically, this method just changes the aspect ratio without re-encoding.
I'm sure there are tools to edit just that individual piece of data embedded in the file to make the process even quicker, but I haven't looked ...
Rather than re-ripping, you can try re-muxing the files. I tried an MP4 file with My MP4Box GUI and just changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and the new file played correctly without the borders. Took about 2-3 minutes for a full length movie. Also tried with MKV Toolnix GUI - changed the aspect ratio and remuxed and within a minute or two a new file without the borders. Basically, this method just changes the aspect ratio without re-encoding.
A quick google makes it appear that there are no MP4 'editing' tools for changing file parameters. However, I have downloaded MP4Box and I am running it on my christmas movie collection now. I will let you know how I get on. Thanks for your continued help.
Well....... some interesting results after the aspect change....
Tried playing 4 christmas movies using the PLEX web browser, a PS3 DLNA player and the PLEX app....
1) On the PLEX web browser the edge border is gone, its also not there on the PS3 player (but then never was)
2) But on the PLEX app, the border is still as it was before, all the way around, playing the exact same movies using the exact same server - so there is a display difference between the plex web browser and the PS4 plex app
3) Despite selecting a PAL:16:9 format in MyMP4Box GUI, the all movies are now reporting an AR of 2.20
4) Which means that in the Plex WEB player, they are really, really, really letterbox squashed (lucky I too a backup of the files) - but still look fine on the PS3 player
Running it through MyMP4Box sort of sorts it out, but to get it sorted out on all devices and to work without any borders, I have to run them through the VideoGo re-processor. All christmas is done, now processing Pixar movies, then will move from class to class until they are all done.
I'm probably spending too much time on this, for something that will likely end up as a bug in the PS3 app - sigh
Short version: End result, instead of using 16X9 PAL, try 16X9 NTSC, using your original rip.
Long Version: Your original file was 720X480 (usual NTSC DVD rip - I think PAL is usually 720X540) I think the black borders at the top are encoded into the video, not cropped. I created a file 720X480 with an aspect ratio of 1.66, as your original file was. It left borders all the way around, as expected. Then I dragged the file into My MP4Box and set the aspect to 16X9 PAL. To my surprise, the result was a video with 2.2 aspect ratio. Then, I set the aspect ratio to 16X9 NTSC and the result was a video with 16X9 aspect ratio. And it displayed as it should with borders only on the top, and none on the sides. (i actually re-ripped Thor the Dark world - LOL)
SO - if you haven't given up completely, try dragging your original rip into My MP4 box, adjust the aspect ratio to 16X9 NTSC (even though you live in PAL land) and see if it gets better results. It worked for me, and again, I have no idea how the PS3 app will handle it, because we are still waiting patiently for all the bugs to be worked out so it can be released in North America glitch free :D
If my above post works, it will save you some time, but you will likely have to determine if the original file is PAL or NTSC and set aspect accordingly. Personally, I would hate re-encoding all of my videos to get them to work properly on all of the devices.
Thanks again - trying NTSC on a few movies now... will let you know.
My problem is, my movies come from all kinds of places. 95% of them are rips from DVDs using IMTOO so that I can stream them from a NAS drive and remove DVD physical storage. But for those where they come on those blasted ultaviolet BluRay disks and you have to do the silly song of dance of entering codes to rip them (and then they wont play on most devices), they come from 'other sources' if you know what I mean.
Still, if I can find a simple solution without having to re-rip, then I am all for that, so giving it a try now.
As you say, may be doing extra work for a bug in the PS4 PLEX anyway.
leelynds, that looks to have cracked it. Still going to take a while to mux all my files again (they are on a NAS, to network reads and writes mean that they average 10 minutes per move x 1100 movies = A LONG TIME), but its all background processing, so I can leave it running.
I suspect you found the same bug as I reported to the developers on launch day. The reason for this happening is that The PS3/4 require Plex to do the sizing automatically, and I almost heard the devs moan when I reported this. I suspect this is a pain in the butt to solve :/
They did file the bug in their internal tracking system. So I hope they can solve it in the upcoming months.
@Atrus - if a video file has an aspect ratio reported at 1.66:1 wouldn't the logical process be to resize it according to the aspect ratio set in the file? For example, "The Nightmare before Christmas" is supposed to be 1.66 aspect ratio. So to be displayed properly, there should be small borders on the left and right sides. Personally, I would be annoyed if it was stretched to 16X9 just to fill the screen. Not that I would necessarily notice the tiny amount of stretching, but the fact that I know it's not supposed to fill the screen. I wouldn't want to be the programmer trying to figure out when it's appropriate to ignore an aspect ratio, and when to apply the aspect ratio. :wacko: Of course, I'm not sure what bug you reported, but in this case it seems to me it was resized properly (according to the aspect ratio) It didn't fill the screen because the aspect ratio was not the correct one.
@jaffab - I'm glad we got it figured out, and hopefully any changes that happen because of the bug Atrus reported don't screw things up later. Just an aside I'm sure you're aware of, if you have older 4X3 rips that need to be adjusted or rips that have the black borders cropped out, just applying the 16X9 aspect ratio will likely end up with results you won't be happy with
@Atrus - if a video file has an aspect ratio reported at 1.66:1 wouldn't the logical process be to resize it according to the aspect ratio set in the file? For example, "The Nightmare before Christmas" is supposed to be 1.66 aspect ratio. So to be displayed properly, there should be small borders on the left and right sides. Personally, I would be annoyed if it was stretched to 16X9 just to fill the screen. Not that I would necessarily notice the tiny amount of stretching, but the fact that I know it's not supposed to fill the screen. I wouldn't want to be the programmer trying to figure out when it's appropriate to ignore an aspect ratio, and when to apply the aspect ratio. :wacko: Of course, I'm not sure what bug you reported, but in this case it seems to me it was resized properly (according to the aspect ratio) It didn't fill the screen because the aspect ratio was not the correct one.
@jaffab - I'm glad we got it figured out, and hopefully any changes that happen because of the bug Atrus reported don't screw things up later. Just an aside I'm sure you're aware of, if you have older 4X3 rips that need to be adjusted or rips that have the black borders cropped out, just applying the 16X9 aspect ratio will likely end up with results you won't be happy with
Oh, I thought you guys had the same bug. Mine is that it has four borders. Black on all edges. Sorry.
Oh, I thought you guys had the same bug. Mine is that it has four borders. Black on all edges. Sorry.
No... that is the same as me. See screen shot at the top. Black borders, all the way around. But changing the aspect ratio has widened the picture to the left and right edges, leaving just the (expected) top and bottom borders.
No... that is the same as me. See screen shot at the top. Black borders, all the way around. But changing the aspect ratio has widened the picture to the left and right edges, leaving just the (expected) top and bottom borders.
Ok. Yeah there is something funky with some "unusual" ratios and resolutions, and I know mseeley has it on his todo-list to look into it. Hopefully they can find something because I agree that it should attempt to play it back as intended.
My video that is giving me issues has the tag:
aspectRatio="1.78"
And is at a resolution of width 960 and height 720 (which gives 1.333).
