Hardware Problem with converted mp4s with Mediacoder

[DiscostewSM]

I had recently been trying to convert videos so I can play them on my WiiU. They seem to play fine, except when I go to seek to a different spot in the video, it plays for about 30 seconds and then gets stuck into a loading loop. I was thinking it was because of the recent update, but videos already as mp4 that I didn't convert work fine when seeking. The converted videos I made would also on occasion bring up an error that it couldn't load the video. So, I was wondering if anyone has used Mediacoder and had videos successfully converted with seeking working having specific settings, or if there is a better program for this?

 

[trumpet-205]

Specification for the video? What codecs did you use? How many reference frame did you pick? FPS?

 

[DiscostewSM]

Here's the information of the MKV I'm trying to convert from

General
Format                         : Matroska
Format version                 : Version 2
File size                      : 7.65 GiB
Duration                       : 1h 41mn
Overall bit rate               : 10.8 Mbps
Writing application            : mkvmerge v4.1.1 ('Bouncin' Back') built on Jul  3 2010 22:54:08
Writing library                : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0
 
Video
ID                            : 1
Format                        : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC        : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 5 frames
Codec ID                      : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                      : 1h 41mn
Bit rate                      : 9 304 Kbps
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                        : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio          : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                    : 23.976 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling            : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)            : 0.250
Stream size                    : 6.43 GiB (84%)
Writing library                : x264 core 129 r2245 bc13772
Encoding settings              : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / 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=0 / 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=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=9304 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                      : English
Default                        : Yes
Forced                        : No
 
Audio
ID                            : 2
Format                        : DTS
Format/Info                    : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                      : A_DTS
Duration                      : 1h 41mn
Bit rate mode                  : Constant
Bit rate                      : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                    : 6 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                      : 24 bits
Compression mode              : Lossy
Stream size                    : 1.07 GiB (14%)
Title                          : DTS
Language                      : English
Default                        : Yes
Forced                        : No
 
Text #1
ID                            : 3
Format                        : UTF-8
Codec ID                      : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                  : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                          : English
Language                      : English
Default                        : No
Forced                        : No
 
Text #2
ID                            : 4
Format                        : UTF-8
Codec ID                      : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                  : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title                          : English
Language                      : English
Default                        : No
Forced                        : No
 
Menu
00:00:00.000                  : en:00:00:00.000
00:07:12.140                  : en:00:07:12.140
00:16:34.910                  : en:00:16:34.910
00:27:07.501                  : en:00:27:07.501
00:37:25.952                  : en:00:37:25.952
00:44:46.684                  : en:00:44:46.684
00:48:45.130                  : en:00:48:45.130
00:51:36.009                  : en:00:51:36.009
00:58:56.032                  : en:00:58:56.032
01:09:07.893                  : en:01:09:07.893
01:13:39.623                  : en:01:13:39.623
01:15:56.802                  : en:01:15:56.802
01:18:52.978                  : en:01:18:52.978
01:21:53.742                  : en:01:21:53.742
01:27:25.365                  : en:01:27:25.365
01:33:10.543                  : en:01:33:10.543

Here are the settings I'm trying to use for transcoding to MP4 with MediaCoder...

Video
Rate Mode: Average Bitrate (3800Kbps)
Format: H.264
Encoder: x264
Source: MEncoder
Profile: High
Level: 4.1
Preset: Fast
Tune: Normal
GOP: 25 ~ 250
B-Frames: 3
Ref. Frames: 4
 
Audio
Format: LC_AAC
Encoder: Nero Encoder
Source: Default
Resample: Original
Bit Depth: Original
Rate Mode: CBR
Bitrate/Quality: 160Kbps

And here is the information of the converted MP4

General
Format                         : MPEG-4
Format profile                 : Base Media
Codec ID                       : isom
File size                      : 2.79 GiB
Duration                       : 1h 41mn
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 3 951 Kbps
Encoded date                   : UTC 2013-03-23 21:31:18
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-23 21:31:18
 
Video
ID                             : 1
Format                         : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                 : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 3 frames
Codec ID                       : avc1
Codec ID/Info                  : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                       : 1h 41mn
Bit rate                       : 3 800 Kbps
Maximum bit rate               : 29.9 Mbps
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                         : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio           : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                     : 23.976 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)             : 0.102
Stream size                    : 2.68 GiB (96%)
Writing library                : x264 core 130 r2273 b3065e6
Encoding settings              : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / 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=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / 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=30 / rc=abr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3800 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date                   : UTC 2013-03-23 21:31:18
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-23 21:34:57
 
Audio
ID                             : 2
Format                         : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                 : LC
Codec ID                       : 40
Duration                       : 1h 41mn
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                       : 160 Kbps
Maximum bit rate               : 168 Kbps
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode               : Lossy
Stream size                    : 116 MiB (4%)
Encoded date                   : UTC 2013-03-23 21:34:24
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-23 21:34:57

As I said, the video after conversion runs fine from start to finish on the Wii U, but if I decide to skip to a different section of the video, it will play for about 30 seconds at most and then it will go into a continual "loading" loop. I can seek to a different part of the video from that, but the same thing happens as a result.

I have attempted to use a different converter, such as Handbrake, but I'm having problems converting with that as well. Using the "High" preset for it. The video doesn't seem to have the seek problem as MediaCoder does, but it also stops encoding at a certain part of the video every time. I found out that was due to something in the MKV container, as I used MkvToMP4, then tried Handbrake and it encoded completely. Unfortunately, that ended up desyncing the audio by a smidgen, which I think is because it sets the audio to Variable bitrate rather than Constant with no option to change it.

 

[trumpet-205]

I have attempted to use a different converter, such as Handbrake, but I'm having problems converting with that as well. Using the "High" preset for it. The video doesn't seem to have the seek problem as MediaCoder does, but it also stops encoding at a certain part of the video every time. I found out that was due to something in the MKV container, as I used MkvToMP4, then tried Handbrake and it encoded completely. Unfortunately, that ended up desyncing the audio by a smidgen, which I think is because it sets the audio to Variable bitrate rather than Constant with no option to change it.

Pick Constant Quality under Video tab, set it to 22 RF.

Under Audio tab in Handbrake, you should be able to pick audio bitrate (64/80/96/112/128/160....).

Select it to output to .mkv.

If that still caused the audio to de-synched, use mkvtoolnix (mkvextract) to extract DTS audio file from that source .mkv file. From there use LameXP to convert DTS to AAC (put Nero AAC encoder under the same folder as LameXP). Finally use mkvtoolnix (mmg) to add AAC audio back to the de-synched .mkv file.

After that, simply convert .mkv to .mp4

 

[DiscostewSM]

I made some big progress into what the problem is. I had extracted the video stream from the mkv and converted it to mp4 (so no audio), and that seemed to play just fine on the Wii U. When I went to convert the audio and mux the streams together, the video stopped working correctly as explained above with seeking. So, I'm glad it isn't the video stream, because that takes so long to transcode compared to the audio. So, I'll give your method of extracting the DTS and using LameXP to convert to AAC a try to see if that works.

 

[DiscostewSM]

It seems I was wrong in my last post. The MP4 containing only the video stream worked, but attempts to use it alongside AAC from different compressors keeps causing problems. I was referred to DVDVideoSoft by a friend, and its conversion, while working on the Wii U, is slightly worse quality and with desyncing. I tried Yamb with a mixture of video and audio streams, and I've concluded that it is the video stream made through MediaCoder. When alone, it runs fine, but when contained alongside an audio stream, it messes up, to which I have no idea.

What I did notice was that DVDVideoSoft was using GPU encoding for its transcoding, so, when I switched to CUDA encoding on MediaCoder, the output was also worse (for reasons explained by various experts on GPU encoding), but the video played with no problems whatsoever.

So the question is, what is CPU encoding doing that is causing this problem that GPU encoding isn't, and is the difference between the two allowing the video transcoding quality to be better with CPU encoding at the same bitrate? If it is purely to make CPU encoding to run faster than it normally would, then I'd love to know what to set/disable, as I'm not too worried about time. But, if it has something to do with improved compression, then that would be a problem.

Here are the settings I used for CUDA encoding with MediaCoder

Preset: BD
Profile: High
Level: 4.1
B-Frames: 3
Device: 0
Offload: Full
Use GPU Memory: checked
CABAC: checked
SPS: checked
Dynamic GOP: unchecked
Deblocking: checked

 

[trumpet-205]

GPU encoding doesn't work while CUDA works? That doesn't make sense at all. Both is using GPU to do the encoding, one is OpenCL while the other is CUDA.

The only hypothesis I can came up was that Wii U choked on decoding that video file. When you switched to different encoders with different encoding settings, some features were not used. Wii U doesn't have a hardware H.264 decoder (unlike PS3 and Xbox 360), so everything is done on software acceleration/CPU level. Maybe too many features were enabled that caused Wii U CPU to choke.

As for why CPU encoding has better quality than GPU encoding, it is because both OpenCL and CUDA only excels at one thing, simple calculation at rapid speed. CPU encoding can do complex calculation (GPU can't and have to use simple calculation in place), which helps it retain the quality better.

AAC sounds worse when you drop its bitrate. At low bitrate, even MP3 will sound better than AAC, but you cannot use MP3 inside MP4 container.

Can you try this? Using handbrake, disable CABAC (lessen decoding stress but larger files).

 

[DiscostewSM]

Hmm, I thought the x264 video encoder in MediaCoder was all CPU......

Anyways, while I haven't tried disabling CABAC in Handbrake for encoding (for one reason, playback had no problem with encoding on that, but converting the MKV stopped prematurely), I did try something different with MediaCoder, and that was trying a different Preset. By default, it was set at Medium. I set it to Ultra-Fast (which disables CABAC, though the settings page did not reflect that, I had to check with MediaInfo after the conversion), which encoded about 4 times faster at the expense of a little less quality and gaining about 1.5GB on the final filesize. The video, however, did play just fine on the Wii U with no seeking problems, so it would seem it can only handle so much, though I am perplexed how that can be the case when seeking would cause the problem while playing from start to finish with no seeking wouldn't. Makes me think that while CABAC contributes to the overall problem, I think something else might be contributing to it too (since converting with Handbrake + CABAC enabled did not have problems).

I'm currently attempting the Fast preset (73% done atm), which is between the Ultra-Fast and Medium presets. It does have CABAC enabled, but might have other features disabled. I'm also waiting for responses on the official MediaCoder forums, to see if they have any insight on this.

edit:

Just tested the transcoded version using the Fast preset on the Wii U, and I have yet to experience the problem within the 5 minutes of playback testing after seeking. Will do an extensive test in the morning. Quality was even less dissimilar from that encoded with Medium, and filesize is just about the same as Medium as well. If I continue to have no problems with this preset, then it'll likely be what I use for encoding Wii U videos from now on.

Thanks for your help.

 

[trumpet-205]

Mind posting information about that MP4 after converted with Fast preset. I want to see if there is any feature that was disabled.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Here ya go.

General
Format                        : MPEG-4
Format profile                : Base Media
Codec ID                      : isom
File size                      : 2.94 GiB
Duration                      : 1h 41mn
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate              : 4 161 Kbps
Encoded date                  : UTC 2013-03-27 06:22:39
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-27 06:22:39
 
Video
ID                            : 1
Format                        : AVC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC        : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames      : 3 frames
Codec ID                      : avc1
Codec ID/Info                  : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                      : 1h 41mn
Bit rate                      : 3 997 Kbps
Maximum bit rate              : 36.8 Mbps
Width                          : 1 920 pixels
Height                        : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio          : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                : Constant
Frame rate                    : 23.976 fps
Color space                    : YUV
Chroma subsampling            : 4:2:0
Bit depth                      : 8 bits
Scan type                      : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)            : 0.107
Stream size                    : 2.83 GiB (96%)
Writing library                : x264 core 130 r2273 b3065e6
Encoding settings              : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=4 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / 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=20 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date                  : UTC 2013-03-27 06:22:39
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-27 06:26:20
 
Audio
ID                            : 2
Format                        : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                : LC
Codec ID                      : 40
Duration                      : 1h 41mn
Bit rate mode                  : Variable
Bit rate                      : 160 Kbps
Maximum bit rate              : 168 Kbps
Channel(s)                    : 2 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L R
Sampling rate                  : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode              : Lossy
Stream size                    : 116 MiB (4%)
Encoded date                  : UTC 2013-03-27 06:26:09
Tagged date                    : UTC 2013-03-27 06:26:20

I let this video run now for a good 20 minutes after seeking to a different part of the video, and it has had no problems, so that's good.

I also let my computer run over night encoding the same video under the same Preset, except I increased the bitrate on both the video and audio (4,636Kbps for video, 320Kbps for audio). Unfortunately, that seemed to generate the same seeking problem as before. Though I'm not sure what's going on, what I'm going to do before I head to work is use Yamb, and try a combination of the 2 transcoded MP4s, one with only the video bitrate increased, and the other with only the audio bitrate increased, and then test them, just to see if anything crops up from them.

edit:
Just finished testing those 2 remuxes. the one with the lower video bitrate and the higher audio bitrate seems to work fine, but the higher video bitrate and lower audio bitrate does not after seeking.