Samsung D6 Series

My Samsung D6200 claims to support Matroska as a container as well as h264 for video and aac for audio. Yet, Serviio transcodes the video and audio to mpeg2video and ac3 which causes high load on the serviio machine if multiple full HD streams are watched at the same time.

So the questions are:

• Are there any known problems with keeping h264 and aac?
• How can I change it to keep h264 and aac?
• Are there any known problems with using Matroska as a container?
• How can I try Matroska as a container?

When I dump the stream into a file using

  Code:

ffmpeg -i "rtmp://[...]" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f matroska stream_test_dump.mkv

and try to play it on the TV using miniDLNA (which has no transcoding support), the file plays fine.

Here is what ffmpeg outputs:

  Code:

ffmpeg version 0.8.1-4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 22 2012 05:09:06 with gcc 4.6.3
This program is not developed anymore and is only provided for compatibility. Use avconv instead (see Changelog for the list of incompatible changes).
Metadata:
  author               
  copyright             
  description           
  keywords             
  rating               
  title                 
  presetname            Custom
  creationdate          Sat May 12 03:40:34 2012
  videodevice           [...]
  framerate             24.00
  width                 1920.00
  height                1080.00
  videocodecid          avc1
  avclevel              51.00
  avcprofile            100.00
  videodatarate         390.62
  videokeyframe_frequency0.00
  audiodevice           VHAudioCustom
  audiosamplerate       44100.00
  audiochannels         2.00
  audioinputvolume      100.00
  audiocodecid          mp4a
  audiodatarate         312.50
  bufferSize            1600k
  maxBitrate            1600k
[...]
[flv @ 0xe8f9a0] max_analyze_duration reached
[flv @ 0xe8f9a0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 2000.00 (2000/1) -> 1000.00 (2000/2)
Input #0, flv, from 'rtmp://[...]':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 1920x1080, 1k tbr, 1k tbn, 2k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16
Output #0, matroska, to 'stream_test_dump.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf53.21.0
    Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1920x1080, q=2-31, 1k tbn, 1k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: libvo_aacenc, 44100 Hz, stereo
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Press ctrl-c to stop encoding
^Cframe=  390 fps= 24 q=-1.0 Lsize=    3678kB time=24.27 bitrate=1241.3kbits/s   
video:3218kB audio:450kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.289243%
Received signal 2: terminating.

Thanks

[jhb50]

The file is flv not mkv so the profile transcodes it.

The file is flv not mkv so the profile transcodes it.

You seem to be confusing a few things here. Please read my post again.

[jhb50]

You should read your old ffmpeg output again. It is not an mkv file.

[zip]

it's most likely transcoded because the H264 profile/level is higher than 4.2 (either in the header or based on ref frames). Normally such files don't play.

Can you post mediainfo output of the file?

You can either disable transcoding or update the profile and remove the matchers that match on level higher that 4.2

Can you post mediainfo output of the file?

Sure

  Code:

General
Unique ID                                : 119177493745636403246590363584756999638 (0x59A8C019920A25067B2CE1C021BC65D6)
Complete name                            : [...].mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 145 MiB
Duration                                 : 11mn 47s
Overall bit rate                         : 1 724 Kbps
Writing application                      : Lavf53.21.0
Writing library                          : Lavf53.21.0

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 11mn 47s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 1 000.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC
Duration                                 : 11mn 47s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : 1mn 5s
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

This file was produced as described above:

  Code:

ffmpeg -i "rtmp://[...]" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f matroska stream_test_dump.mkv

You can either disable transcoding or update the profile and remove the matchers that match on level higher that 4.2

Thanks, I guess I'll give that a try.

[zip]

the above file has High@5.1 profile. so it'll be transcoded. It's difficult to work out which is the right rule for transcoding, but maybe Samsungs don't care about the header value but only care about the ref frames.

the above file has High@5.1 profile. so it'll be transcoded. It's difficult to work out which is the right rule for transcoding, but maybe Samsungs don't care about the header value but only care about the ref frames.

Maybe the Samsungs D6 series needs its own profile. Is there a set of test files I could try to play in order to find out? Is there in general a difference between a file and a stream?

You can either disable transcoding[...]

Apparently more work is required here. Disabling transcoding does not seem to affect Live Streams. And since this is a live stream, OnlineTranscoding as well as Transcoding sections apply. I'll figure this out.

[jhb50]

As I tried to tell you at the beginning of this thread you have an flv live stream that has nothing to do with mkv. It is an H264.flv stream which must transcode to mpeg2video because the Samsung if you read your manual states "up to H264 Level 4.1 supported" and you have a level 5.1.
The C/D profile works just fine for your model and will invoke the local flv h264>4.1 rule for that stream.

[zip]

So what is it you're trying to do? Play the flv online stream? Or the downloaded and remuxed mkv version? The mkv will be transcoded because of the 5.1 profile. For online stream C/D profile only remuxes the flv stream to mpegts (there is not >4.1 rule for flv)

So what is it you're trying to do? Play the flv online stream? Or the downloaded and remuxed mkv version? The mkv will be transcoded because of the 5.1 profile. For online stream C/D profile only remuxes the flv stream to mpegts (there is not >4.1 rule for flv)

I am receiving a full HD live stream via RTMP. The video is h264, the audio is aac and the container seems to be FLV (as per viewtopic.php?p=44483#p44483).

Status Quo:

• Live stream plays fine on the TV
• Serviio remuxes FLV to mpegts (which is fine with me)
• Serviio transcodes video from h264 to mpeg2video (this seems to be because the profile is too high)
• Serviio transcodes audio from aac to ac3 (why is that even?)

Now if I take the same stream and dump it into a file (matroska container), audio and video plays fine on the TV without transcoding using MiniDLNA (as per viewtopic.php?p=44483#p44483). So in conclusion: my TV supports the video and audio the stream delivers and thus transcoding of video and audio is unnecessary.

Optimal solution:

• Live stream plays fine on the TV
• Serviio remuxes FLV to Matroska (or mpegts)
• Serviio keeps the original video stream
• Serviio keeps the original audio stream
• Coming up with a profile for the D6 series that does no unnecessary transcoding

As a result, less CPU time is wasted, less network bandwidth is wasted and more HD streams can be watched on different devices at the same time.

[zip]

can you enable detailed log and post the actual ffmpeg command it uses to transcode? I don't see anywhere that it should transcode video to mpeg2. ac3 audio yes (could probably extend the profile to avoid that but would make it difficult to maintain, and ac3 seems to be better supported than aac on the Samung devices).

Make sure you're using C/D Samsung profile.

[jhb50]

For online stream C/D profile only remuxes the flv stream to mpegts (there is not >4.1 rule for flv)

I never even thought to look. I've always assumed there was, so what happens if a level 5.1 is streamed as he claims? Why not transcode it like h263 and VP6.

And PS: Samsung only plays up to 4.1 so the current >4.2 rule needs to be changed to >4.1

[zip]

I never assumed online content can be level 5.1

I think we will have to distinguish between ref frames based level and header level and match on those separately. It looks like the TV actually doesn't care about the header value (as it can play this 5.1 content natively).

[jhb50]

I never assumed online content can be level 5.1

I doubt that any are, and I doubt that this one is without knowing the URL. The fact that he claims it is transcoded to MPEG2VIDEO indicates that some of the information is incorrect, and I have no idea what miniDLNA is doing to the file to allow it to play natively. He should be reporting what Serviio is doing with it. AFAIC Samsung cannot play 5.1 natively but if it is really a 4.1 with a bad header value it may.

I'll wait for him to disclose the URL before spending more time on this because we are just shooting in the dark here.

can you enable detailed log and post the actual ffmpeg command it uses to transcode?

ps aux | grep ffmpeg says

ffmpeg -i rtmp://199.9.255.180/app/jtv_qGqcYEtxU8X8__9x pageUrl=http://www.twitch.tv/whitera swfUrl=http://www-cdn.jtvnw.net/widgets/live_embed_player.r05fd775dce9336fd78d07346bd7e131bc2aa6342.swf?channel=whitera&referer=&userAgent=&channel=whitera swfVfy=1 jtv=e6213bfc91247b17c843e495ad59f0513534b672:{\22swfDomains\22:\20[\22justin.tv\22,\20\22jtvx.com\22,\20\22xarth.com\22,\20\22twitchtv.com\22,\20\22twitch.tv\22,\20\22newjtv.com\22,\20\22jtvnw.net\22,\20\22wdtinc.com\22,\20\22imapweather.com\22,\20\22facebook.com\22,\20\22starcrafting.com\22],\20\22streamName\22:\20\22jtv_qGqcYEtxU8X8__9x\22,\20\22expiration\22:\201337014645.2511461,\20\22server\22:\20\22ams01-video8-2\22} live=1 -y -threads 4 -async 1 -vcodec mpeg2video -b 20000k -maxrate 20000k -bufsize 20000k -r 24000/1001 -g 15 -copyts -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts pipe:

Please note: The URL can be invalid at some point.

Make sure you're using C/D Samsung profile.

Yes, this is the case.

I don't see anywhere that it should transcode video to mpeg2.

This seems to be caused by me removing the "<Matches container="flv" vCodec="h264" />" line as per the comment "<!-- looks like some (D?) devices play FLV@H264 natively so this could be removed -->" because I thought removing it was an improvement for my TV, since it is a D series (or if it fails, I'd just change it back).

However, after removal, the following case seems to match and also explains the mpeg2video.

<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="20000">
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="mpeg2video" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="vp8" />
<Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
<Matches container="avi" vCodec="mjpeg" />
<Matches container="avi" vCodec="dvvideo" />
<Matches container="flv" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
</Video>

After putting that line back in, the following is executed:

ffmpeg -i rtmp://199.9.255.241/app/jtv_o5181r1wYJLt5urF pageUrl=http://www.twitch.tv/whitera swfUrl=http://www-cdn.jtvnw.net/widgets/live_embed_player.r05fd775dce9336fd78d07346bd7e131bc2aa6342.swf?channel=whitera&referer=&userAgent=&channel=whitera swfVfy=1 jtv=a6c48125c9a9a8e3a50a8ad9c42ab8fdd2897b95:{\22swfDomains\22:\20[\22justin.tv\22,\20\22jtvx.com\22,\20\22xarth.com\22,\20\22twitchtv.com\22,\20\22twitch.tv\22,\20\22newjtv.com\22,\20\22jtvnw.net\22,\20\22wdtinc.com\22,\20\22imapweather.com\22,\20\22facebook.com\22,\20\22starcrafting.com\22],\20\22streamName\22:\20\22jtv_o5181r1wYJLt5urF\22,\20\22expiration\22:\201337015800.8844621,\20\22server\22:\20\22fra01-video5-2\22} live=1 -y -async 1 -vcodec copy -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -copyts -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts pipe:

which seems okay to me and the load dropped drastically.

Bottom line: The mentioned statement cannot be removed on its own because that just makes it worse (contrary to what I think the comment implies).

ac3 audio yes (could probably extend the profile to avoid that but would make it difficult to maintain, and ac3 seems to be better supported than aac on the Samung devices).

I guess this is not a problem as audio encoding doesn't cost as much CPU as video encoding does.

AFAIC Samsung cannot play 5.1 natively but if it is really a 4.1 with a bad header value it may.

I never assumed online content can be level 5.1

I don't know whether it really is. Maybe the header is indeed lying. How would I find out?

[...]the fact that he claims it is transcoded to MPEG2VIDEO indicates that some of the information is incorrect[...]

As per above: This seems to be partially my fault, sorry.

[...], and I have no idea what miniDLNA is doing to the file to allow it to play natively.

MiniDLNA is free and open source and the source code is available on e.g. SourceForge.

Some more info:

  Code:

ffmpeg -i "rtmp://199.9.254.242/app/jtv_na9fJvn3itXVIk5O pageUrl=http://www.twitch.tv/whitera swfUrl=http://www-cdn.jtvnw.net/widgets/live_embed_player.r05fd775dce9336fd78d07346bd7e131bc2aa6342.swf?channel=whitera&referer=&userAgent=&channel=whitera swfVfy=1 jtv=a83dc8849ba5441092780c76416758cc39b1cec1:{\22swfDomains\22:\20[\22justin.tv\22,\20\22jtvx.com\22,\20\22xarth.com\22,\20\22twitchtv.com\22,\20\22twitch.tv\22,\20\22newjtv.com\22,\20\22jtvnw.net\22,\20\22wdtinc.com\22,\20\22imapweather.com\22,\20\22facebook.com\22,\20\22starcrafting.com\22],\20\22streamName\22:\20\22jtv_na9fJvn3itXVIk5O\22,\20\22expiration\22:\201337011009.12748,\20\22server\22:\20\22fra01-video14-2\22} live=1" -y -async 1 -vcodec copy -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -copyts -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts whitera_dump.mpegts
ffmpeg version 0.8.1-4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 22 2012 05:09:06 with gcc 4.6.3
This program is not developed anymore and is only provided for compatibility. Use avconv instead (see Changelog for the list of incompatible changes).
Metadata:
  author
  copyright
  description
  keywords
  rating
  title
  presetname            Custom
  creationdate          Mon May 14 17:47:45 2012
  videodevice           XSplitBroadcaster
  framerate             25.00
  width                 1920.00
  height                1080.00
  videocodecid          avc1
  avclevel              51.00
  avcprofile            100.00
  videodatarate         390.62
  videokeyframe_frequency0.00
  audiodevice           VHAudioCustom
  audiosamplerate       44100.00
  audiochannels         2.00
  audioinputvolume      100.00
  audiocodecid          mp4a
  audiodatarate         125.00
  bufferSize            1900k
  maxBitrate            1900k
  xsplitBroadcasterVersion1.3.0.10
  xsplitCoreVersion     1.0.1204.1301 Version 1.0
  xsplitGameSourceVersion1.1.0.21
  xsplitMediaLibVersion 2.0.0.102
[flv @ 0x211e9a0] max_analyze_duration reached
[flv @ 0x211e9a0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 2000.00 (2000/1) -> 1000.00 (2000/2)
Input #0, flv, from 'rtmp://199.9.254.242/app/jtv_na9fJvn3itXVIk5O pageUrl=http://www.twitch.tv/whitera swfUrl=http://www-cdn.jtvnw.net/widgets/live_embed_player.r05fd775dce9336fd78d07346bd7e131bc2aa6342.swf?channel=whitera&referer=&userAgent=&channel=whitera swfVfy=1 jtv=a83dc8849ba5441092780c76416758cc39b1cec1:{\22swfDomains\22:\20[\22justin.tv\22,\20\22jtvx.com\22,\20\22xarth.com\22,\20\22twitchtv.com\22,\20\22twitch.tv\22,\20\22newjtv.com\22,\20\22jtvnw.net\22,\20\22wdtinc.com\22,\20\22imapweather.com\22,\20\22facebook.com\22,\20\22starcrafting.com\22],\20\22streamName\22:\20\22jtv_na9fJvn3itXVIk5O\22,\20\22expiration\22:\201337011009.12748,\20\22server\22:\20\22fra01-video14-2\22} live=1':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 1920x1080, 1k tbr, 1k tbn, 2k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16
Incompatible sample format 's16' for codec 'ac3', auto-selecting format 'flt'
[mpegts @ 0x2132860] muxrate VBR, pcr every 100 pkts, sdt every 200, pat/pmt every 40 pkts
Output #0, mpegts, to 'whitera_dump.mpegts':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf53.21.0
    Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1920x1080, q=2-31, 90k tbn, 1k tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: ac3, 44100 Hz, stereo, flt, 192 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Press ctrl-c to stop encoding
^Cframe= 2938 fps= 25 q=-1.0 Lsize=   32651kB time=126.54 bitrate=2113.8kbits/s
video:26911kB audio:2966kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 9.285373%
Received signal 2: terminating.


  Code:

mediainfo whitera_dump.mpegts
General
ID                                       : 1 (0x1)
Complete name                            : whitera_dump.mpegts
Format                                   : MPEG-TS
File size                                : 31.9 MiB
Duration                                 : 2mn 5s
Overall bit rate                         : 2 116 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 256 (0x100)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : 27
Duration                                 : 2mn 6s
Bit rate                                 : 1 818 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Stream size                              : 27.4 MiB (86%)

Audio
ID                                       : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Codec ID                                 : 129
Duration                                 : 2mn 6s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -80ms
Stream size                              : 2.90 MiB (9%)

Menu
ID                                       : 4096 (0x1000)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Duration                                 : 2mn 5s
List                                     : 256 (0x100) (AVC) / 257 (0x101) (AC-3)
Service name                             : Service01
Service provider                         : Libav
Service type                             : digital television


Thanks everyone.

[zip]

you're right about the comment and we should probably remove it, jhb50 do you remember why it was added? if not it's probably something I picked up on the forum and added not really thinking it through

[jhb50]

Yes it was added because some Samsungs (maybe all?) will play H.264 natively but this is undocumented in the manual. Problem is that if you do remove it the following rule kicks in and transcodes all flv's so you need to add vcodec=vp6 and vcodec=h263 to the flv option so that h264 does not transcode. This is an example of where an exclude option would be the best solution ie: flv exclude=h.264 so that everything but h264 transcodes, but in lieu of that I would just remove the comment and let H264.flv remux.

Also note the comment for the first rule says >4.1 which is correct but the rules themselves say >4.2 and need to be changed.

[zip]

Also note the comment for the first rule says >4.1 which is correct but the rules themselves say >4.2 and need to be changed.

Yes, but it's not really working properly anyway, so don't want to transcode even more than necessary. Will try to find some files and do it properly after 1.0.