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Old 11th May 2016, 19:34   #821  |  Link
videofan3d
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Originally Posted by BlackSharkfr View Post
Hello,
I bought a Sony BDP S4500 BluRay player with 3D capability...
Wow, interesting observations - I have never did any such research
Maybe other members of this forum will comment their experience with proper encoding parameters.

Just a comment to -vbr: it should have 2 parameters
-vbr bitRate maxRate

e.g. -vbr 10000 15000
the first is requested average bitrate,
the second is requested maximum bitrate.
Attention! It specifies bitrate of both (main and dependent) streams together! Not only for main stream!

Question: how exactly did you manage to play .m2ts file on your Sony BDP S4500 in 3D ? Does it play the .m2ts files in 3D directly from network storage or from USB - without having BDMV navigation structure?

Last edited by videofan3d; 11th May 2016 at 21:16.
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Old 12th May 2016, 17:32   #822  |  Link
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I did not set the maxbitrate value and it encoded fine.
As I said it was just a test.
I guess the maxrate becomes important if you want to use a much higher average rate, you have to make sure the maxrate matches the capabilities of the BluRay3D format.

I do not know what value is used by default if nothing is entered.

I could use the USB input, but I play my files through the network.
I store my video library on a Synology NAS, and I use the DLNA madia server application to share my audio and video library over my LAN which the Sony BDP-S4500 accesses over Ethernet. There is a different version of this player (BDP-S5500) which also has WiFi but it's more expensive... and I don't need Wifi since I wanted to use a wired connection from the very start.
The DLNA server app is configured to only serve the original files and never reencode.

The m2ts files appear like any other shared video : the displayed name is the "title" metadata. The actual file name mentionned only appears if the "title" metadata is missing, and the icon displays the file type (MPEG is drawn in the icon instead of MKV or MP4).
When I play the file, the BluRay player automatically activates the 3D mode. Just like with my side by side squashed mkvs (if the stereoscopic tag is properly set).

Note that I only tried to play the file in the m2ts container. I did not try to play it in an mkv container (I definitely should try that, I'm curious).
I also tried to add BluRay PGS subtitles in the m2ts : the player just refuses to load the video file.
I did not try SRT subs, I know they work fine in side by side mkvs, I'm curious to see if they work with MVC too (although the font chosen by Sony is really ugly)

One interesting thing to mention : there is a button on the remote to display technical information while playing a video (audio and video codec, number of audio channels and current audio and video bitrate).
When I play a BluRay disc : the video codec says "MVC".
But when I play the m2ts file it only reports AVC (even though it is actually playing the full MVC file in 3D).



I also noticed I cannot switch 3D off (can't play the base view in 2D only). I guess that's probably a bug on Sony's side. I should write to their tech support : they appear to care a lot for this little player : they update the firmware every tree months.

Last edited by BlackSharkfr; 12th May 2016 at 18:08.
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Old 13th May 2016, 08:11   #823  |  Link
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Given the symptoms described in your first post, I would suggest that the encoded AVC and/or MVC use a level incompatible with your players, but is flagged with a lower level. That may explain why the players accept to play the file, but fail to do it properly. However, I'm really not sure it's the correct explanation, because if I understand correctly, your hardware player plays it correctly. Usually, the hardware players are much more picky than the software players, and most software players can play AVC/MVC with the highest levels.

I don't know if FRIMEncode has a setting to control the level, but if it's the case, I would try to set it to level 4.1 (Blu-Ray compatible) or even below, and see if that solves the problem. Just a suggestion. I'm not sure that will work.
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Old 16th May 2016, 16:28   #824  |  Link
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I don't think the encoded level has anything to do with it since I know the software H264 decoders on my computer can easily decode level 5 which the BluRay player has a very strict limit at level 4.1 (it refuses to play the 3840x1080 side by side file, it does not even try).

My guess would be that Sony added extra filters in their player to 'improve" the picture : add extra deblocking if the player detects a lack of deblocking (mpeg 2, mpeg 4 asp, etc...) or an incorrect amount of deblocking in AVC/MVC.

It's just a guess based on experience with TVs vs computer monitors.
TVs tend to have lots of filters because they word all the time with very dirty sources (like low bitrate mpeg 2 HD broadcast).
I guess the same logic probably applies to consumer BluRay players.
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Old 17th May 2016, 18:32   #825  |  Link
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I don't think the encoded level has anything to do with it since I know the software H264 decoders on my computer can easily decode level 5 which the BluRay player has a very strict limit at level 4.1 ...
I tend to agree. Setting level is only marking the stream, i.e. to announce that it complies with a norm, with relevant bitrate limit and resolution. But actual bitrate itself can be forced higher.

I personally use FRIMEncode only for my own 3D videos(i.e. not for ripping and recompressing of BD3D). And I don't care too much about diskspace, so I always use setting -vbr 28000 40000 giving average 28 mbit/s with maximum 40 mbit/s (this is even higher than what my source material has). And with this setting I didn't observe any artefacts neither in Stereoscopic Player, MPHC (in 2D mode only) nor on 3D plasma (Panasonic) nor on 3D projector (Optoma).
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Old 18th May 2016, 09:09   #826  |  Link
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I tend to agree. Setting level is only marking the stream, i.e. to announce that it complies with a norm, with relevant bitrate limit and resolution. But actual bitrate itself can be forced higher.
I know that. It's why I wrote "... MVC use a level incompatible with your players, but is flagged with a lower level". And the fact that the level written in the header does not necessarily reflect the real level is IMO the cause of many problems. I consider it as a very big bug (of most h264 encoders). BTW, there are mods of the x264 encoder that fixes that bug, and limit the bitrate according to the specified level. Anyway, it is a fact that currently, it is almost impossible to know exactly the level of a particular encoding if you don't know the command line that has been used. It's why I tend to suspect level problems.

I have had some playback problems (choppy playback and abrupt stops) with my TV when I encoded with x264 level 4.1 without specifying the max bitrate. The TV trust the level and tries to play the file anyway, but cannot do it properly. However, I agree that the level problem is probably not the cause of the bad decoding here. But what BlackSharkfr has noticed is so strange that there must be an explanation. I supposed that all decoders must decode a properly encoded movie (with a compatible level) properly. It appears that it's not the case (al least with h264 streams encoded with the Intel encoder). If the level is not the culprit, what could be the reason?
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Old 18th May 2016, 10:34   #827  |  Link
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.....I have had some playback problems (choppy playback and abrupt stops) with my TV when I encoded with x264 level 4.1 without specifying the max bitrate. .....
Both --vbv maxrate and --vbv-bufsize must be set Blu-ray compliant to avoid stutter during playback.
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Old 19th May 2016, 13:24   #828  |  Link
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If I did not miss any setting relative to the deblocking issue, the only possible explanation I can find is that intel simply did not think people would encode MVC at anything lower than BluRay bitrates, thus causing their encoder fall apart at *cough* "low bitrates" *cough* (10Mbps).
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Old 19th May 2016, 18:15   #829  |  Link
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If I did not miss any setting relative to the deblocking issue, the only possible explanation I can find is that intel simply did not think people would encode MVC at anything lower than BluRay bitrates, thus causing their encoder fall apart at *cough* "low bitrates" *cough* (10Mbps).
I cannot comment nor judge if this statement is true or not :-)

But: If you want to have really working, realistic 3D, you MUST have big screen. And if I say big, I mean really something bigger than 80" (!). It is SIGNIFICANT visual difference in 3D perception once you move from small TV (50-55-65") to 3D projection (90-100-110"). Really, believe me.
And for big screen you need to have high quality signal, which implies you need to use Bluray 3D bitrates, i.e. something above 24 and more mbit/s.
I recommend not to save few GB (which costs nowadays only few bucks) but rather enjoy high quality 3D picture on big screen.

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Old 19th May 2016, 21:06   #830  |  Link
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Old 20th May 2016, 10:16   #831  |  Link
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If you want to have really working, realistic 3D, you MUST have big screen. And if I say big, I mean really something bigger than 80" (!). It is SIGNIFICANT visual difference in 3D perception once you move from small TV (50-55-65") to 3D projection (90-100-110"). Really, believe me.
And for big screen you need to have high quality signal, which implies you need to use Bluray 3D bitrates, i.e. something above 24 and more mbit/s.
I agree. 3D does look fantastic on a big screen.
I use a DIY passive dual-projector system with a 110" screen.

Even though files with higher bitrates do look best, I also have a lot of content with much lower bitrates that look perfectly acceptable. (Mostly YouTube sbs clips)
The thing is : x264 is so good a low bitrates (yes even YouTube's super fast settings), you get a shock when you switch to other less capable encoders.

I wanted to try MVC for 3 reasons :
1 was being able to play the same video both in 2D on the regular 2D monitor and 3D on the big screen without having to fiddle around with the pan/zoom controls of my media player (practicality)
2 was to take advantage of the alledged 30-50% nitrate advantage of MVC over AVC for 3D stereo. (File size)
3 Being able to play my full-resolution side by side clips on the BluRay player (I currently must use the computer to play them) (practicality again)

It turns out #2 is currently not achievable with free tools. I'll have to wait until some very nice person adds MVC encoding to x264. (I may have to wait a looooong time)

It turns out that

Last edited by BlackSharkfr; 20th May 2016 at 10:19.
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Old 20th May 2016, 11:42   #832  |  Link
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#2 You can probably squeeze more 3D compression out of x264 if you use frame sequential/interleaved encoding (--frame-packing 5). In principle it is similar to MVC.
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Old 21st May 2016, 08:01   #833  |  Link
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#2 You can probably squeeze more 3D compression out of x264 if you use frame sequential/interleaved encoding (--frame-packing 5). In principle it is similar to MVC.
I tried it when the feature was introduced, I obtained terrible results :
Not only there is very little software capable of playing this content (basically, only stereoscopic player),
not only did I obtain no bitrate reduction for the same quality setting,
but the picture was heavily distorted as x264 mis-interpreted parallax as extreme horizontal shaking motion : the farther in depth the objects in the scene are to the screen depth, the more blurry x264 would make them.

And finally I suspect frame sequential files to have a weakness to frame loss. If for whatever reason the player isn't capable of keeping an accurate frame count across the entire movie (let's say when seeking), you'll get a 50-50% chance of a stereoscopic eye-swap + 1-frame lag between the eyes.

I never tried it again, ever.
And I don't want to try again. The drawbacks just outweigh any benefit.

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Old 21st May 2016, 08:59   #834  |  Link
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....not only did I obtain no bitrate (file size) reduction for the same quality setting......
You can't expect a significant bitrate (file size) reduction just from the packing method because x264 does not produce a dependent MVC stream for the second view. The bitrate (file size) saving would be achieved by sharing the same I (reference) frames for the 2 views.
Even the Intel MVC encoder is not very strong regarding file size reduction for the dependent view. It is however still the only free MVC encoder which is available today AFAIK, and it produces reasonable quality at sufficiently high bitrates. So the choice is between intel (FRIM) MVC or x264 SBS/TB still. If low file size is the premium target, x264 SBS (or TB) is the choice IMHO.

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Old 21st May 2016, 12:09   #835  |  Link
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You can't expect a significant bitrate (file size) reduction just from the packing method because x264 does not produce a dependent MVC stream for the second view. The bitrate (file size) saving would be achieved by sharing the same I (reference) frames for the 2 views.
The x264 devs say:
Quote:
Tests consistently show that interleaved frame packing is by far the best way to compress 3D content.
It gives a ~35-50% compression benefit over separate streams or top/bottom or left/right coding.
http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264/x264...b0f6b99af5959c
Which is expected. AVC is not designed for any top-bottom/side-by-side optimization.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackSharkfr View Post
And finally I suspect frame sequential files to have a weakness to frame loss. If for whatever reason the player isn't capable of keeping an accurate frame count across the entire movie (let's say when seeking), you'll get a 50-50% chance of a stereoscopic eye-swap + 1-frame lag between the eyes.
x264 writes a SEI to every frame to mark the view so players don't have to keep count.
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Old 21st May 2016, 13:18   #836  |  Link
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The x264 devs say:

http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264/x264...b0f6b99af5959c
Which is expected. AVC is not designed for any top-bottom/side-by-side optimization.


x264 writes a SEI to every frame to mark the view so players don't have to keep count.
It looks like they made a few patches since the last time I tried this feature.
I'll need to try again to see if they corrected the issues.
By the way, I never tried frame sequential content on the Sony BluRay player.
I know for sure that Sony does have frame sequential support AVC in mp4 file working on the PlayStation3. I wonder if they implemented it in their BluRay players too.
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Old 21st May 2016, 13:35   #837  |  Link
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Isn't frame sequential packing one of the alternatives in the Blu-ray standard which is for whichever reason just not being used for commercial Blu-ray discs? If it's part of the standard, every player with the Blu-ray label should be able to play frame packed content. Maybe I am wrong ...?


Edit for clarification:
Blu-ray does not support frame sequential packing. It only supports MVC with 2 muxing formats:
- ssif structure based on 2 individual base and dependent .m2ts files
- muxing of the base and dependent streams into one single .m2ts file

tsMuxeR supports both principles.

Last edited by Sharc; 25th May 2016 at 07:53.
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Old 21st May 2016, 16:07   #838  |  Link
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The x264 devs say:

http://git.videolan.org/?p=x264/x264...b0f6b99af5959c
Which is expected.
They expect an interleaved 3D source, if I read this correctly. What exactly is it? 2 independent source streams for left and right view? Or an AVC and MVC interleaved stream? The --frame-packing 5 just tells x264 how the stereo source is packed. I couldn't produce any watchable result so far with frame-packing 5, just a blocky picture for both 2D and 3D viewing with MPC-HC (2D) or Stereoscopic Player(3D). Not sure how they define the 35....50% file size reduction. Anyway, I probably misunderstand something ..... never mind
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Old 21st May 2016, 17:45   #839  |  Link
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I can't say for the BluRay formats.
MVC was all new and shiny designed specifically for BluRay3D.
It claimed significant bandwidth improvements over separate parallel streams. But parallel streams was never a popular format for distribution.

The most commonly used formats for distribution were interlaced video MPEG2 (from the few 3D DVDs released in this format) with the left and right views stored in the odd/even fields. And side by side for everything on the internet.

X264 frame-packing 5 expects a frame sequential video as input.
It's the same principle as interlaced 3D but with full-resolution progressive pictures.
1st frame is left eye, 2nd frame is right eye, 3rd frame is left, etc... (Typically provided by some avisynth script since I don't know any software that outputs frame sequential stereoscopic video.
The x264 team chose the name for this option very poorly since it adds to the already very confusing HDMI frame packing transmission format (only exists within the HDMI cable, not a file format, not a picture format)

Last edited by BlackSharkfr; 21st May 2016 at 17:54.
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Old 22nd May 2016, 10:26   #840  |  Link
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It looks like they made a few patches since the last time I tried this feature.
I'll need to try again to see if they corrected the issues.
Have you noticed this ? :
Quote:
Note that x264 will not do this optimization unless --frame-packing 5 is used to tell x264 that the source is interleaved 3D.
The blurry parallax problem you have experienced might be caused by the missing --frame-packing argument.
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