AVI Transcoding Quality

Gents,

To get AVIs to work with my Panasonic Plasma from Costco, I had to add the following to the PROFILES.XML file:

<Profile id="30" name="Panasonic Viera With AVI Support" extendsProfileId="1">
<ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>org.serviio.upnp.service.contentdirectory.PacketVideoDLNAMessageBuilder</ContentDirectoryMessageBuilder>
<Transcoding>
<!-- Transcode h264 videos with profile level > 4.1 to mpegts with ac3 audio -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" maxVBitrate="20000">
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" profile="high" levelGreaterThan="4.2" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" profile="main" levelGreaterThan="4.2" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" profile="high" levelGreaterThan="4.2" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" profile="main" levelGreaterThan="4.2" />
</Video>
<!-- remux VORBIS/FLAC/LPCM in MKV/MP4 to AC3 -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3">
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" aCodec="flac" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" aCodec="vorbis" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" aCodec="truehd" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="lpcm"/>
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" aCodec="aac"/>
<Matches container="3gp" vCodec="h264" />
</Video>
<!-- Remux MPEG-TS with no transcoding -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts">
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="mpeg2video"/>
</Video>
<!-- Remux WTV files to MPEG-PS with no transcoding-->
<Video targetContainer="mpeg">
<Matches container="wtv" />
</Video>
<!-- unsupported codecs will be transcoded into mpeg-ts, mpeg2 video and ac3 audio -->
<Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="17000" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" forceInheritance="true">
<Matches container="avi" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="mjpeg" />
<Matches container="mp4" vCodec="mpeg4" />
<Matches container="mpeg" vCodec="mpeg1video" />
<Matches container="matroska" vCodec="mpeg4" />
<Matches container="asf" />
<Matches container="flv" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
<Matches container="3gp" />
</Video>
<!-- unsupported audio will be transcoded into lpcm audio -->
<Audio targetContainer="lpcm">
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
<Matches container="asf" />
<Matches container="adts" />
</Audio>
</Transcoding>
</Profile>

It does work but the main issue is the quality of the picture when playing the AVIs. If I use a Mac or PC and play them directly off the NAS where they are stored, quality is great.
When Serviio kicks in and transcodes them so the TV can play these, I can definitely see lots of artifacts on the picture.
What can be done to get the maximum transcoding quality? I tried the setting on the Serviio console and same thing.
There must be something I can set on the profile to maximize the quality or to tell it to keep the original resolution (it seems like it is using much lower resolution when transcoding).
The machine where this is running has TONS of power to spare so whatever setting you think will bog down this PC will not do anything I am sure.
It has two Xeon CPUs with 4-cores each, SSD storage and 32GB of RAM. Running either Windows 7 or Mac OSX 10.7.X.

Please help Obi Wan.

CR

[zip]

It will keep the same resolution. Obviously each reencode is lossless, but the quality should be reasonably the same.

You could try to update to the latest FFmpeg, or even transcode to h264 instead of mpeg2video.

It will keep the same resolution. Obviously each reencode is lossless, but the quality should be reasonably the same.

You could try to update to the latest FFmpeg, or even transcode to h264 instead of mpeg2video.

Thanks for the reply. That is what I have been trying, to transcode to h264. As soon as I change mpeg2video to h264 on the profile.xml, for that one specific profile, Serviio does not start and I can see in the log it is complaining that h264 is not valid.
What would be the correct procedure to go for h264 transcoding instead of mpeg2video?

Thanks!

CR

[zip]

You can use h264, see http://serviio.org/index.php?option=com ... icle&id=24

What is the error you're seeing?