FFMpeg stutter every second and mencoder audio delay

[Leopardi]

I just changed to a new PC and as also UMS itself seems to have made long progress so I can't tell what causes this. I'm streaming to PS3 and it happens with both wired and wireless.

With FFMpeg the video has a stutter every second, which seems to appear only when skipping to different parts of the video instead of letting it play from the beginning.

With Mencoder it works, but the audio becomes constantly delayed in about 5-10 minutes.

What could I try? Are there some essential transcoding settings that have changed in the last years, that I could roll back to "old settings"?

[Leopardi]

I downloaded 13.6 UMS as I saw some people having success with it and now it works.

It also detects the subtitles which were missing with the newest non-beta version. Although it doesn't detect the language in the subtitle selections so you have to guess the correct subtitle, but hey at least it works.

[mik_s]

I don't know what could be causing this so I would have to see your logs to know what is happening. see the section in red above.

I suspect the issue is the "defer to Mencoder for problematic subs" option that is on by default.
There may be another issue too as we discovered here and can be fixed by a tweak of the conf till the proper fix is done in UMS.

The sync issue when using Mencoder is a common problem but I think this will be relied on less in the future as FFmpeg can handle subs quite well.
The only downside with FFmpeg is it can take a few seconds for it to get started when there are many subs so the renderer can time out before it has the chance to start receiving data. Usually playing the video again will make it work as FFmpeg has cached the sub data and start sooner so that may be preferable over it being out of sync.

[Leopardi]

I don't know what could be causing this so I would have to see your logs to know what is happening. see the section in red above.

I suspect the issue is the "defer to Mencoder for problematic subs" option that is on by default.
There may be another issue too as we discovered here and can be fixed by a tweak of the conf till the proper fix is done in UMS.

The sync issue when using Mencoder is a common problem but I think this will be relied on less in the future as FFmpeg can handle subs quite well.
The only downside with FFmpeg is it can take a few seconds for it to get started when there are many subs so the renderer can time out before it has the chance to start receiving data. Usually playing the video again will make it work as FFmpeg has cached the sub data and start sooner so that may be preferable over it being out of sync.

I've attached the log. I also tried disabling the "defer to Mencoder" option, it didn't remove the small FFMpeg stutter every second.

I know the Mencoder sync issue, but with 14.12 its not like the usual issue, it's consistent and happens every time, just like the FFMpeg stutter.

PS3 is also showing two universal media servers for some reason on 14.12, the other one just gives an error.

[mik_s]

I'm not sure what is happening, I don't see any of the usual suspects in the logs.

One thing that may be a bit odd is the network speed test for the PS3 is 282.2528 Mb/s which is really good, probably too good as I get about 40Mb/s on my PS4 wired.
Then again my router may just not be that fast

It does appear the PS3 is terminating the connection as I can see the transcoding command several times as it attempts to start again and this may be what yo see as a stutter
It is certainly not the computer that is unable to keep up as it is transcoding at over 30x speed so I suspect it is a network bottleneck or more data than the PS3 mediaplayer can handle.

Code: Select all

Using video bitrate limit from the general configuration (90 Mb/s)
Reading HalveBitrate: true (default: false)
Adjusting the video bitrate limit to 89000 kb/s to make room for audio

Since the PS3 needs to use half bitrate as set in the conf the limit should be 44000kb/s not 89000kb/s (-1000kb/s for audio)

Try turning off automatic max bitrate and the default 90 for max bitrate should be more than enough to play without stutter. If you still get some try reducing this to 45.

The second server is a mystery. Do you have UMS installed on another computer on your network?
You could change the name of the server and see if only one on the PS3 changes, if so then something else is running UMS too.

[Leopardi]

Changing network speed to 90 or 45 didn't work (although it only seems to save the set value visibly in web GUI only). After today's 14.12 reinstall the mystery 2nd server seems to be gone. 282mb/s speed has been there for years with my fiber optic internet router and CAT6 cabling and it never caused issues (and still doesn't cause in 13.6).

Also note for FFMpeg it only begins when using the time function to skip to some part in the video (doesn't matter if its just a few seconds or a 30 minute jump). It's stutter free until you use the time menu. Then it starts doing the stutter exactly once per each second.

[Leopardi]

I can confirm the new 14.13 update has fixed the stutter issue.

EDIT: mencoder still gets out of sync at 10 minute mark each time. I think it has better image quality, so it's a shame if it's not usable anymore with newer versions.

[mik_s]

I'm not sure what has changed in 14.13 but glad it it fixed this for you

The sync issue with Mencoder is why I don't recommend people should use it like I explained previously.
I don't think the devs know why it is happening and may be a problem with Mencoder itself.
FFmpeg should have the same quality depending on network bandwidth but that should not be an issue for you.