UK HD DVR, HDHR5-4DT HDHomeRun - Plex identifies as Progressive and not Interlaced?

Live TV & DVR
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(Edit) I’m about to head out of the house, so will be AFK for the rest of the day. I’ve taken screenshots of my finding, just not had time to crop and post. So you shouldn’t really need the original file. I wonder how MediaInfo and PMS get different results when scanning the files :man_shrugging:

@ChuckPa After getting side tracked on (a) other projects, (b) ffmpeg, I’ve come back around full circle to looking at the DVR .TS files and PMS.

Straight off the bat - what does PMS use to analyse files? Is it a version of MediaInfo, or something else?

Slowing going through the Rugby Six Nations .TS (DVR) files, PMS is identifying all of them as being “Interlaced” (which should be correct, I think) apart from 2 files. These 2 files are the ones that prompted me to make this post originally.

I picked one files and did some more testing… MediaInfo, both original v19.09 (for Ubuntu 20.04) and latest v22.12, state it’s Interlaced.

I attempted to use ffmpeg to chop out a section that was actually from the match, but I need to do more digging as the resulting file was marked as “Scan type, store method : Separated fields” rather than “Interleaved fields”. The resulting file will play in Plex but is not deinterlacing correctly. And Jellyfin throws a fit and won’t play it LOL. Ideally I’d like to just chop off the first 55mins, and see how PMS handles re-scanning the file.

Just on Jellyfin, it too states that the original file is Progressive.

I would try and chop down a piece of the file and post it here (or a link to it), but as soon as I try and chop bits out (as I mentioned above), it seems to break. I need to mess around some more.

I can post the whole file, but maybe I post a password protect link (via DM?), incase there are copyright issues? The whole file is over 6gb in size (over 3hrs of TV).

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If you’re finding, in multiple tools, that it’s reporting as interlaced but FFMPEG on multiple media servers is reporting as progressive,

File a bug report with FFMPEG.

Show them mediainfo output (show the versions).
Show them ‘ffmpeg -i’ output (show versions)

Include small sample or link for them to confirm it’s a bug.

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The thing is, PMS (and Jellyfin) say it’s Progressive, but mediainfo says it’s interlaced. But I know from the other files/experiments, that it’s definitely Interlaced. So PMS is incorrect :man_shrugging:

It seems, though can’t prove it (until I can reliably ‘cut’ the file down) that these file checks only look at the start if the file… They don’t take into account that when the recording started (e.g. set as “start 5mins before air time/date”) it could be looking at (or recording) a commercial that is 1080p, and the main event will be in 1080i.

It seems that a “one scan fits all” isn’t enough. There needs to be a proportional scan of the file, to work out if it’s mainly (e.g. as a percentage) 1080p or 1080i, or a frame-by-frame check is needed, so PMS or client apps can react accordingly. Especially now that we know that a stream (at least in the UK) can switch formats whenever it likes :man_shrugging:

If I can trim the known “incorrectly identified” files(s), so that the 1080i streams is at the front of the file, I can prove what is being incorrectly “decided” :man_shrugging:

I know, without screenshots, I’m not proving anything. :wink:… But the previous files I did post, fully support how TV streams can switch formats, thus showing how a scan of a start of a file (my hypothesis) can be incorrect… Which is why I did ask, how does PMS scan files as its not using MediaInfo (so ffmpeg?)?

Hopefully, Monday, I can post up the screenshots of the scanning (PMS analysis + MediaInfo) and have a working cropped/trimmed/truncated .TS file to help explain when I am witnessing.

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That’s why I said to take the first block of the file (50 MB is enough).

Give it to the FFMPEG developers to look at.

They have the tools to look at it frame by frame.

At that level, they’ll instantly know if it’s progressive, or interlaced, or interlaced with a progressive header slapped on it (which happens and is cheating)

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Hi all :wave: Thank you for your efforts here. :pray: If I understand correctly this is the issue that is causing Live TV to pixelate on 1.30 and not on 1.29? Are there requests for information from users to help diagnose? I haven’t upgraded to 1.30 because of this issue and am starting to get nervous we’re missing out on security updates and the like. Please let me know if there is any information that I can provide to assist here. :+1:

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@Mike-E though I’m not 100% sure, but believe its not connected, this issue with DVR and Interlaced .TS files ad how they interpreted by PMS. The potential transcode issues of +1.30.xx. is something else… That said, do you know of a pixelation issue between the versions?

The main issue, that I’ve found but not had time to document here in this post, is that DVR 1080i/1080p, at least here in the UK, can be miss identified as the streams can be interchanged during a live broadcast. E.g. recording 5mins before the main event, could be streaming 1080p. This is misidentified as “the whole recording is 1080p”, when actually the main show/event was/is 1080i.

When this happens there is a smearing of the image during playback and if you pause the video during a fast moving scene, you’ll see horizontal “ghosting” lines.

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Thank you for the input @Minxster and pardon the chatter here. This is in regard to this thread, which in turn mentioned this one Plex Media Server 1.30.0.6359 - New Transcoder Preview - #67 by ChuckPa

However, I see that there were some additional comments after being directed here that I didn’t get notifications about, and see them now :man_facepalming:

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@ChuckPa I’ll try and grab a short clip from the start of the recording and see if I can post it up to the ffmpeg people. The thing is, it’s clear the streams here (in the UK) can and do switch between the two formats… So I’m not sure what the ffmpeg people will say, though it’s really interesting to see that MediaInfo seems to will get it right? I’m assuming, but have no idea, the MediaInfo scan more than just the start, maybe it scans a few places through-out the file; who knows LOL

I managed to finally extract a section of the main DVR recording (for the rugby match) and having a clean file it’s being identified correctly as 1080i (with Interleaved Fields) and Plex then plays it fine. I do feel that there is still room to up this to double the Hz/fps (in my case 50fps), which would the clear-up the image massively!!

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@Mike-E There’s defiantly a lot going on with PMS just now, so keep yourself connected to as many key threads as you can. I too have had issues with versions above 1.29, so I kept on 1.29 until a recent beta version plexmediaserver_1.31.3.6819-2ef591a4c_amd64.deb. This beta seems to have fixed the transcoding issues I had, but, and Ive not posted this anywhere, this latest beta does have a problem with playback of DVR files: If I start watching a recording, all is good, if I skip forward, all is good; if I skip backwards PMS seems to hang/crash!.. Again, I’ve not mentioned this anywhere and have kept quiet about it, only as there is soooo much going on and I don’t want to burden @ChuckPa with “something else” I’ve found, especially since I’ve working on a beta :wink:

Again, just keep checking in on things as things progress :+1::wink:

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@ChuckPa I’ve done with I can (so far) with ffmpeg, in that I’m attempting to report a/the bug:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/10284

I have no idea if any of this (reporting to ffmpeg) will work, and I’m not able to upload any files just now as they’re over the 2.5mb file size limit. Hopefully they will come back to me with some better options to get examples uploaded to them.

If you have the time to take a look at the ticket, you’ll see the ffprobe, ffmpeg idet and mediainfo commands I’ve run against the “problem” file. And it does seem clear that there is miss-identification. But I’m not sure what this will mean for Plex, especially if ffmpeg deem this out of scope for their product? :man_shrugging:

I’ve witnessed how slow a full file “idet” analysis can take, but there must be a quicker (or more crude) way for PMS to scan files, especially if it knows they’re from a DVR? Scanning multiple sections of a recorded file maybe? All to try and better figure-out if PMS should assign Interlaced or not to a file? Maybe even monitoring the steams as it comes in and get written to the file?

I don’t know if it would be better to - though I doubt it?:

  • PMS scan the streams during transmission and then step-in to transcode if it sees the stream change formats?
  • Have the clients be aware to monitor streams as they are being received and make adjustments if needed?
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From our meeting:

  1. When I asked if Transcoder team wanted to see the “Interlaced that thinks it’s Progressive”, there was immediate intrigue. They want to see it.

  2. We submit to the Engineering/PMS team. They will handle pushing back to FFMPEG upstream.

I will take the samples we have and get them submitted.

ALSO, although not 100% related to this thread,

I’ve been tasked with the high bitrate EAC-3 5.1 testing for BSD (FreeNAS/TrueNAS).
If their proposed solution works then we (Linux) get an almost immediate media driver update which will correct the problem.

Anyone who has FreeNAS/TrueNAS and PMS, Please create a new thread and ping me ( @chuckpa ) so we can work there.

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Hi @ChuckPa that’s pretty interesting to hear :wink::+1:

  • I’m not sure if the files I linked previously have the full “I’m Interlaced”, but I’m a little more familiar with ffmpeg now, so I’ll try and chop down the one of the files/recordings I have; unless you want the whole file?

  • TrueNAS - are you needing a H/W transcoding TrueNAS box (Nvidia/Intel QSync)? If just CPU based transcoding is ok, I’ve used TrueNAS for years and currently run one for my main storage (though as an ESXi VM with hardware HBA/PCI pass-through. I’m happy to help if this is of use to you at all, if so what do you need for me to open a new thread with and do you have some files you’d want me to test with? Also, I’m guessing with TrueNAS you’d be looking at just a jail/plug-in?

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I’m looking to confirm whether or not an update runs on FreeBSD.

I tried to install PMS on TrueNAS in a VM.

It got as far as “50% - FFMPEG” and then stared at me like I was an idiot.

LOL

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LOL… When you say an update are you just meaning a library update? Anywho, since it’s not H/W transcoding, I can help with this. Do you want me try just run the Plugin, as that’s the simplest, or do you really need it as a VM in TrueNAS? (I’ll get the plugin running, the non-beta version(?))

I truncated my rugby match down to something a little more sensible in size, 320mb… ffprobe says it’s Progressive and in PMS it identifies as Progressive. You have to skip forward to around the 7min mark, but right in the last ~20 seconds you can see the horizontal lines (when you see a bit of a rugby match)

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I think I found a way around TrueNAS. I don’t need that as much as I need FreeBSD.

FreeBSD in a VM , vanilla installation, with a KabyLake & PCIe passthrough is golden. Install PMS and presto “Bob’s your Uncle” :slight_smile:

As for “update”, once I get my work confirmed, they’ll update the one of the main video drivers in PMS. It will then be included in the next PMS release.
(and fix the EAC-3 5.1 High bitrate problem among others)

It’s already been confirmed for Linux. The only hold-up is BSD; which I’ll do.

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Keep me posted… I went through my TrueNAS server and realised I never had it setup for VMs or plug-ins, since I use ESXi… A few bridge configs later and boooom, 4 hours of messing around to get it working again and it actually took out my whole network! I’m not sure why, but I finally managed to undo TrueNAS then fix it properly.

So I finally got the PMS plug-in work :rofl: Plus a few patch installations and update since it’s 04:45 here and I should have been in bed hours ago :man_shrugging::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Let me know if you need anything… If you had tried to download from my nextcloud server, it’s been offline until now, since I broke my network :rofl:

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