Mediatomb transcoding mkv to PS3

[enceladus]

Hi,

I have a PS3, a "server" running Mediatomb, and some x264 720p .mkv files (that need to be transcoded for the playstation). The .avi files from Mediatomb play just fine on the PS3.

Mediatomb is version 0.12.1, ffmpeg is 0.5_p20373, vlc is 1.0.6

With VLC transcoding, the PS3 will start to play the file but the colors will be wrong (black will be light gray, etc). Then it pauses and when it starts playing again it is all scrambled.

With ffmpeg transcoding, the first frame (maybe first couple of frames?) will show up on the PS3 before the PS3 puts up the pause icon. It does not play any farther than this. The colors are correct though.

I have also tried the mediatomb-transcode script from the Mediatomb wiki. On the Playstation, I get "Media Server Error: A network error has occurred. (00000000)"

"server" info: Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz, 2GB RAM
Linux server 2.6.28-hardened-r9 #1 SMP Tue Apr 27 16:14:34 EDT 2010 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get this working? Is the server just not beefy enough to transcode 720p on the fly? Perhaps I have overlooked something or just not found it yet?

Current config.xml

[Jaglover]

Why you need to transcode. Can't it play MPEG-4 video (x264)? If Matroska is the problem all you need is to remux.

[enceladus]

I don't need to transcode, it just seems like less effort down the road.

I have enough of these mkv files (and expect more) that I don't want to remux all of them, since it seems I need to remove the audio and video streams from the mkv and then put them into an mp4.

[Jaglover]

[enceladus]

I'm trying to avoid touching these files as much as possible. With transcoding, in theory, I can put them in the folder for mediatomb to pick up, and then when the PS3 goes to play them, it plays.

I don't see an easy way to remux a single file, let alone multiple files by multiple people on a regular basis. Ffmpeg keeps giving me non monotone timestamps errors when trying to go from mkv to mp4.

This server doesn't have an X server, so that seems to limit some of the tools available (I keep seeing avidemux mentioned).

[gregool]

hi,

i use mediatomb as well, here's the transcoding part of the config.xml

[enceladus]

[gregool]

here:

[enceladus]

That script works! And the quality is pretty good.

Some of the files play pretty smoothly for a little bit and then start stumbling; some of them are stumbling from the beginning. I'm assuming this is hardware limitation on the server, since it's all wired.

I'll worry about that later. After I stop being impressed that it works.

[gregool]

that might be HW limitation indeed, never had any issues like this, you can try to lower the VIDEO_BITRATE a bit...

that could help

[enceladus]

Changing the video bitrate isn't preventing it from pausing/stumbling, it just slightly changed how far it went between pauses.

[gregool]

while the video is playing did you take a look at your server's load average?

[azp]

I've had scripts that has been working OK for me, but by updating them to what's in the links below they now work even better. The sound for MKV files has improved, especially for the 5.1 files.

This guy has posted his config files (in part I) and his improved script in part II, so just grab them and enjoy. I found them on the mediatomb-site.

Part I - http://www.vanalboom.org/node/14
Part II - http://www.vanalboom.org/node/16
Mediatomb page with some info - http://mediatomb.cc/dokuwiki/transcoding:transcoding

Good luck!
_________________
Weeks of coding can save you hours of planning.

[ludite]

[biomecanoid]

Hello,

I realize that this is an ancient topic, but this is one of the most relevant i could find.

whenever i tried to playback movies with DTS on my Thomson UHD TV i get and error message "audio is not supported".

Can anyone help me transcode only the audio part on the MKV from DTS to AC3 ? the video is playing OK

I used to have miniDLNA but i moved to mediatomb and it works far better with my TV.

I installed mediatomb on a CentOS headless embedded board with dual code intel atom

Thanks

[azp]

[biomecanoid]

Hello,

miniDLNA has no transcoding whatsoever it just serves you the original files. On the other hand mediatomb does have transcoding.
mediatomb has better a better way of updating its library ( timed, inotify etc ) haven't seen any such settings on miniDLNA

When i switched to mediatomb my TV can playback movies (Without transcoding) that previously could not with miniDLNA.
The only problem that remains is that the TV doesn't support DTS audio and i would like to find a way to transcode ONLY the audio and leave the video as it is.

I just tried the script:

#!/bin/bash

FFMPEG_PATH="/usr/bin/ffmpeg"
INPUT="$1"
OUTPUT="$2"
VIDEO_CODEC="mpeg2video"
VIDEO_BITRATE="4096k"
VIDEO_FRAMERATE="25"
AUDIO_CODEC="mp2"
AUDIO_BITRATE="192k"
AUDIO_SAMPLERATE="44100"
AUDIO_CHANNELS="2"
FORMAT="dvd"

exec "${FFMPEG_PATH}" -i "${INPUT}" -vcodec ${VIDEO_CODEC} -b ${VIDEO_BITRATE} \
-r ${VIDEO_FRAMERATE} -acodec ${AUDIO_CODEC} -ab ${AUDIO_BITRATE} -ar ${AUDIO_SAMPLERATE} \
-ac ${AUDIO_CHANNELS} -f ${FORMAT} - > "${OUTPUT}"

And it works fine just my NAS has a Dual Core Intel Atom CPU which is too slow for the task.
Another drawback of the script is that it transcodes all MKV files regardless if they have DTS audio or not.

i want a script that will leave the video as it is and transcode only the DTS audio to AC3. ( if the audio is not DTS it should not transcode )

Then i think the NAS will be able to cope with the load since it will transcode only the audio and not the video as well.

I will try modifying the script and port back the results

if you have any ideas let me know

Thanks

[BT]

The following transcoding profile may be useful:

[diggity801]

Guys, can you help me out? I have been following the directions on here and made a config file and another script called meda-transcode-video-ffmpeg but I am getting the following error no matter what I do:

INFO: Loading configuration from: /opt/etc/mediatomb/media-transcode-video-ffmpeg
ERROR: Error parsing config file: /opt/etc/mediatomb/media-transcode-video-ffmpeg line 1:
not well-formed (invalid token)

config:

[Hu]

This is the second time this thread has been raised from the dead. Could someone familiar with the subject matter comment on whether diggity801's post should be split from this into a new thread? The posted samples (now in code blocks) look similar to the reference data that enceladus posted in the start of the thread, but that does not necessarily mean the problem is sufficiently similar to justify keeping it in this thread.