Hi,
So, the short of it: I am experiencing very inconsistent results across different players for the same media; and even within a single player I experience different results for media that, as far as I can tell, is set up the same. What I’m hoping someone can help with is a) figuring out how I can programmatically identify what files might have issues and b) what would be the most “supported” way to remedy them.
Longer: I have been collecting together all our old videos, recorded across a variety of devices over many years. I use 3 main players: Plex Web, where everything just works (at least on my Linux boxes); Plex Android (where some files fail to display video, or the first frame is frozen); and Roku TV on a TCL tv, where I have no video issues but a lot of files have audio sync and/or missing audio.
I’ve worked through a couple of issues already: for example, I had some encoded with 4:2:2 h.264, and I was getting no video on the Roku; and I re-encoded those and now I have video. But I was able to identify that issue b/c I could see how the file differed from another that worked. With my current issues, I’m not able to identify a clear pattern.
Examples:
Summary
Let’s start with no video on Android. Here’s the mediainfo for two files, both from the same source device, one of which has video on android, and the other of which does not:
*has video on Android - no issues
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : 3GPP Media Release 4
Codec ID : 3gp4 (3gp4/3gp6)
File size : 171 KiB
Duration : 2 s 884 ms
Overall bit rate : 486 kb/s
Law rating : 0x00000000
Released date : 0
Encoded date : UTC 2010-05-09 17:21:14
Tagged date : UTC 2010-05-09 17:21:14
Classification : 0x00000000
Video
ID : 1
Format : H.263
Format profile : BaseLine@4.0
Codec ID : s263
Duration : 2 s 884 ms
Bit rate : 461 kb/s
Width : 352 pixels
Height : 288 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 16.990 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 8.333 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 22.727 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.267
Stream size : 162 KiB (95%)
Writing library : pvmm Revision 1
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AMR
Format/Info : Adaptive Multi-Rate
Format profile : Narrow band
Codec ID : samr
Duration : 2 s 696 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 12.7 kb/s
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 8 000 Hz
Bit depth : 13 bits
Stream size : 4.19 KiB (2%)
Writing library : pvmm
Language : English
- has no video but seems to be encoded the same
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : 3GPP Media Release 4
Codec ID : 3gp4 (3gp4/3gp6)
File size : 290 KiB
Duration : 5 s 957 ms
Overall bit rate : 399 kb/s
Law rating : 0x00000000
Released date : 0
Encoded date : UTC 2010-03-13 13:47:49
Tagged date : UTC 2010-03-13 13:47:49
Classification : 0x00000000
Video
ID : 1
Format : H.263
Format profile : BaseLine@4.0
Codec ID : s263
Duration : 5 s 957 ms
Bit rate : 379 kb/s
Width : 352 pixels
Height : 288 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 20.648 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 10.309 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 52.632 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.181
Stream size : 275 KiB (95%)
Writing library : pvmm Revision 1
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AMR
Format/Info : Adaptive Multi-Rate
Format profile : Narrow band
Codec ID : samr
Duration : 5 s 776 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 12.8 kb/s
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 8 000 Hz
Bit depth : 13 bits
Stream size : 9.00 KiB (3%)
Writing library : pvmm
Language : English
- Another which has frozen video on Android (and, I’d note, has audio sync issues on the TV):
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 7.27 MiB
Duration : 54 s 80 ms
Overall bit rate : 1 127 kb/s
Writing application : Lavf58.29.100
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 54 s 0 ms
Bit rate : 1 054 kb/s
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 640 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 0.750
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.114
Stream size : 6.78 MiB (93%)
Writing library : x264 core 157
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=23.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 54 s 80 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 69.1 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel(s)_Original : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 16.0 kHz
Frame rate : 15.625 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 456 KiB (6%)
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1
- And finally one which is fine on Android, but has audio issues on Roku TV:
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 3.88 MiB
Duration : 14 s 118 ms
Overall bit rate : 2 306 kb/s
Movie name : Susan_&_Tyler,_2008
Encoded date : UTC 2008-12-09 20:40:54
Tagged date : UTC 2008-12-09 20:40:54
Writing application : HandBrake 1.1.0 2018042400
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 14 s 0 ms
Bit rate : 2 273 kb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 24.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.103
Stream size : 3.79 MiB (98%)
Writing library : x264 core 152 r2854 e9a5903
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=2 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=30 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=22.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=20000 / vbv_bufsize=25000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2020-10-10 18:02:22
Tagged date : UTC 2020-10-10 18:02:22
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 14 s 118 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 45.5 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel(s)_Original : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 11.025 kHz
Frame rate : 10.767 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 78.5 KiB (2%)
Title : Mono / Mono
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1
Encoded date : UTC 2020-10-10 18:02:22
Tagged date : UTC 2020-10-10 18:02:22
That last one was one I had to re-encode b/c of the 4:2:2 encoding before, fwiw.
Anyhow, does anything jump out at you as to why I’d have the different issues I’m having? Thanks for any suggestions you can offer.
