Your not in the clear yet. Your close but not at the “Holy Grail” yet.
You may have found a setting that works with the Roku but you should go a step or two further and make sure your files will direct play on other devices as well (especially if you plan on sharing).
Use only h.264 4.0 level profile and nothing higher (don’t need it)
ALWAYS make the 1st audio track 2 channel AAC (every client will support this). The 2nd and additional tracks can be AAC, DTS or whatever else you need.
If you are using any of the standard programs you should probably try and use a constant rate setting of 18 (since your media was already transcoded once). You should strive to use a SLOW setting to get the best compression (on disk and while streaming).
Don’t do anything to “fix” the overall bitrate such as 8 to 12Mb. Let the program use whatever amount of bits it needs to compress correctly. Artifically overiding will guarantee you either waste bits when not needed or you won’t have enough when you need them and things get grainy. This is what happens during real-time transcoding.
Depending on the program you use to do the conversions you may need to adjust additional settings such as frames. What program are you using?
If any of your files already have h.264 you should remux those instead of transcoding them which will not affect the video track.
** At least when I am done, There will be no question, in my mind anyway, the best format to use for the best overall performance and compatibility. I will not be able to argue with what I learn… LOL
I’ve never had problems with direct playing MKV’s to my Roku. (No experience with 4K though). Always have used AC3 5.1 or DTS audio and h264 video. Remote streaming to a Roku worked as MKV equally well, as long as bitrate wasn’t beyond my system’s capabilities, though quite often the audio was converted to stereo.
I have started converting to the MP4 container (reluctantly, I just prefer MKV - old habits die hard) and adding a stereo AAC track as the first audio track for my friends who don’t have a surround sound system. I don’t re-encode the MKV’s, just re-mux them into a MP4’s container with ffmpeg. That way, almost everything direct plays to PlayStations, X-Boxes, the web app and who knows what else my grandkids have
Keep in mind it may not be the hyper visor at all. Are you using BluRay Rips by any chance?
If so many encode the video using VC-1 which can’t make use of more than one core in ffmpeg at the moment.
Well we proved my transcoder uses all 8 cores LOL.
Made connections a little iffy the other day.
I had to go in and change the affinity for my transcoder in Task Manager to only use 5 cores. Also my transcoder used CUDA GPU acceleration. (This is on my transcoding machine not the PMS Box)
Do not know about PMS’s implementation of ffmpeg but watching my performance monitor it appears PMS is using all 8 cores with the encoding I just described above. (Easy for me to tell since no other major tasks run on that box but PMS)
More test results posted in that last post of mine.
John, I know you and Carlo have been talking with Skype and Teamviewer, and he’s been helping you get all of this figured out. (Saw that in another thread…)
And I’m sure he has mentioned this, but I want to make sure you are aware of it again. H265 is still in it’s fledgling state, just as 4K is. As such there are very few devices that can actually make use of the codec. I hope you are not just making an h265 and calling it good for those movies. If you plan to ever share or use other devices you are likely going to want to make a H264 version of the media as well.
I know, I know, I know… That means maintaining more than 1 copy on disk. A lot of people hate that idea, thinking that’s why they got the huge CPU to begin with. But it prevents systems that are borderline with transcoding to have to transcode something that may well be beyond the machine’s abilities to handle.
Ultimately, this comes down to the biggest bang for the buck. If I can stream 20 items to 20 users all via Direct Play with multiple versions of the media and keep the system purring along with low heat issues, that is a win. If someone else can only get 3-4 streams out and the fans are spun up to wind-tunnel speeds, IMO, that’s a lose. Adding more HDD is a lot cheaper than putting a 20K passmark machine together. For me the biggest bang for the buck is throwing another shrimp on the barby… I mean another HDD on the NAS…
News
Results of latest tests are on my testing post on page one of this thread.
Results are benchmarks running up to 7 devices simultaneously on my local network.
Hope it is helpful
John
@MikeG6.5
Thanks for the heads up.
I do maintain 2 copies of movies I have re-mastered to 4K.
One copy for the normal HD h.264 movies and, If I feel like having the movie in 4K, I put that into a separate library.
Currently I am re-mastering my Star Trek TOS to 4K, all 12 of the Star Trek Movies, and the first 3 Star Wars films. (A couple of others as well).
I NEVER setup a share for outside my network with the 4K library visible.
Also, all my 4K devices do in fact recognize h.265, including the ROKU 4s. (I know this because the media plays direct connect via USB HDD to them)
And, if there is any chance of getting efficient streaming of 4k content, HEVC is the way it will be done In today’s world I think.
4K is not too fledgling as 4K Blu-Rays release this year starting around March, I think. A couple Blu-Ray player manufacturers already have devices on the market to play them. (I think I read that one of the first 4K movies out will be “The Martian” with Matt Damon)
@jjrjr1 you are trying to “re-master” your own videos? You can’t do this as you don’t have the raw footage to do this. The only thing you can do is upsize the video with interpolation and by applying a few filters. If this is what you are doing you are just wasting storage space, your time and probably creating a worse video experience then letting your client device or TV do this for you.
Most TV and devices will upsize the video for you. Many TVs have hardware designed to do this for you and it’s better than the results you will do with PC hardware/software.
What you have to realize is that we work in the digital world and shows/movies are shot in the analog world with film in different mm sizes and at specific frame rates. The only way to “remaster” a film is to start with the analog film and to use a newer/better method to digitize the results.
It’s the equivalent of scanning all your family photos at 300 dots per inch but then later getting a 1200 dpi scanner and “remastering” your photo library.
Yup, I agree with Cayars. Upscaling your videos is just a waste. You are adding complications by now trying to stream a 4K signal that doesn’t have the quality to really go along with it. As Cayars, said, better to let your TV do the scaling for you.
LOL guys
Sorry for using the wrong word
(is it Direct stream, Direct Play or Transcoding?? LOL I am sure you very smart guys knew what I had meant.)
in my context it means (similar to what @cayars said like film makers do) I start with my master, some source like DVD or file, then re-master (sorry not that word but upscale) to 4K. Kinda analogous to starting from raw footage and creating a new output, in my world.
Gees.
Ok, I " Upscale" the original media to 4K . (sorry we all hated the Re-“M” word.)
Yikes!!!
Hope I did not confuse anyone
LOL
Sorry I bothered to let folks know what I am learning here.
Assumed it would be of interest to someone.
Again, Sorry for my trouble.
My error.
John
BTW: here is a list of movies shot digitally
And more to come!!!
I also do not have clients for this type of work.
Mostly experimental on my part. And, if not my imagination, my upscaled videos DO look better on 4K TV than 1080p. (depending on the source material).
Also from my subjective testing, they look better than the job my TV or DVD player does upscaling.
(Actually the Oppo BDP-103 did a respectable job at upscaling)
And yes, it takes disk space. But storage is pretty cheap and many of us have ridiculously massive disk farms. I however have no intention of building a 4K library for that reason and others. Reasons like, EXTREEMLY high BW is needed to stream, making them impractical to use outside my local network. And also it takes a VERY long time to upscale them (Are you proud I did not use the Re-“M” word?), making it very impractical time wise. But 1080p is another story and that was what I took the time to test.
I do also know that movies are shot using different focal length lenses.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China???
Yup analog movies are shot on film, usually at 24fps. Do not know, off hand, the frame rates digital movies are originally filmed with. Probably around 30fps or a multiple of that.
Also WHAT do you call it when you take your original media and “transcode”, “upscale”, or " re-encode" it into 3D. (Again trying to avoid that nasty Re-“M” word.) I have experimented with that also. My software, again, does a better job than the TV. LOL I have always called that re-mastering as well. Please provide me with the correct term for that. Do not wanna make another foopa!!!
LOL.
For fun, and since I am a major Trekkie, I have Re-somethinged the entire TOS into HD 3D. I am not a real fan of 3D. (It is not quite ready for prime time yet). But it was fun to watch and I probably have one of the only Star Trek collection in HD 3D LOL. (BTW I am sure all here know that there is no such thing as 4K 3D. At least until 8K comes out. Then we all get to go thru this kind of stuff again. Like Yogi Berra said, “It’s Deja Vu all over again!”.)
With respect to my original quest…
I would like to THANK @ljunkie and other wizards in this great community for teaching me enough to, hopefully, have figured this out. With the above recipe, I am able to run 7 streams concurrently on my local network and on 6 different target device types to boot, consuming only around 50% CPU utilization on my PMS box.
LOL should I try for 14??
Keep in mind if you have a 60" 4K TV you need to sit closer than 5 feet to the TV in order to even begin to tell the difference between 1080p and 4K UHD. If you sit further back than that 4K it’s is no better than 1080p generally speaking.
3D can be the exception to this. Since they use SBS or TOB (side by side or top over bottom) they are only getting half the resolution available. By going up in resolution each “side” gets more pixels which can be clearly seen at 5 feet on a 60" TV.
To get the most out of upscaling you need to tune your whole system. Your Roku 4 (in your case) is trying to upscale whatever it can. Your TV is probably doing the same. You will want to try and turn this off on both and play a video on both. Then try letting only the Roku do this upscaling, then only the TV and see what works best. Some people don’t like the upscaling at all and think it degrades the picture quality.
The same goes for 3D. You really can’t create your own 3D versions of movies without considerable time and hand editing of scenes. Sure some TVs and some software will process a file and 3D it but it’s a bogus 3D. Everything is “spacialized” which isn’t the way true 3D is created. Studios can go back and create 3D versions of 2D films because they do it painstakingly. Sort of like how they took old black and white films and colorized them. They would do it frame by frame (or using high end IMAX 2D to 3D equipment).
There are multiple ways to shoot in 3D but the trend is to use IMAX 3D cameras which are essentially 2 cameras in one that capture the spacial difference in each lens.
As far as what hollywood producers use for film and digital goes it’s all over the board. It’s pretty typically to use multiple types of cameras on a project. You can get a different “feeling” from a particular camera. It’s not unlike a guitarist who uses multiple types of guitars recording an album or when playing live. They may each excel at different types of sounds.
These cameras can shoot up to 120 frames per second in 16:9 or up to 75 fpm (open gate) but more importantly are HDR (High Definition Range) high-temporal cameras. They can shoot in HD, 2K, 4K UHD or 4K Cine.
Many people use the ARRI’s due to the high termparal HDR they provide. These cameras can create stunning 1080P vs other camera’s true 4K versions. HDR is a thing of beauty.
What’s important to keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if the studio used an ARRI digital camera or an analog IMAX 3D camera. What we purchase from them is typically a mastered copy that is made specifically for the theater, DVD, Blu Ray or Ultra Blu Ray and will be digital in nature.
So the studio might have a 4K cina version shot at 120 fps but what we get is 1080p at 24.x fps. We can play with it, run it through filters, up-scale or down-scale it BUT we will never be able to achieve the same type of results that the studio can do working with the originals.
Now on the other hand if you were to get a digital 4K version of the file you can (using your PC) make really good 720p and 1080p copies. It’s easier to “throw out” pixels then to try and create them (up-scaling).
Upscaling to 4k seems a really, really bad idea, personally. Upscaling should never be done beyond 1.5x, and 4k is, well, 4x. If you insist, please be sure to at least do some really CPU-intensive encoding (multi-pass, slow setting, all that good stuff).
