4k x265 play back problem.

[Stuckagain]

Hi I know is not a dedicated media player, but I was hoping it should be able to play back some down load 4k video (encode with x265). It plays but judders with sound drop in and out. It's a great receiver, hoping I've missed a setting somewhere. Any one else have a good or bad experience with this. Will try to upload so meta date from the various files in question.

[joysleep1]

No mate I had the same problem with my hd51. Certain files struggle to playback and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Stuckagain]

That's a pity was hoping it was something I was doing wrong my end. It was advertised as being: Support for H.265 HEVC video decoding. May stream from the HD51 to my 4k fire stick see if that works. Is there a enigma 2 media player, as I mainly use the box for transmission torrents ( all 100% above board, I hasten to add).

[Mickkie]

That's a pity was hoping it was something I was doing wrong my end. It was advertised as being: Support for H.265 HEVC video decoding. What frame rate are files you're trying to play? I have also found some files will not show video, although audio is audible. It depends on framerate, container format and colour space. As software develops more container formats are added, but this is a moving beast.

[Trial]

Hi,
color depth and HDR can also cause problems. With the PC tools MediaInfo you can check at least the color depth (8, 10 or 12) are common.

ciao

[Stuckagain]

Video
Format....................: HEVC
Format profile..........: Main 10@L5.1@High
Bit rate....................: 49.6 Mb/s
Width......................: 3 840 pixels
Height.....................: 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio..: 16:9
Frame rate..............: 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS

[Mickkie]

Hi Stuckagain,

Video
Format....................: HEVC
Format profile..........: Main 10@L5.1@High
Bit rate....................: 49.6 Mb/s
Width......................: 3 840 pixels
Height.....................: 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio..: 16:9
Frame rate..............: 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
The above codec specification is HEVC version 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Profiles) which should play fine on a Mut@nt HD51. I think what you show above has the same spec like this video (https://4kmedia.org/ultra-hd-hdr-samsung-4k-demo-wonderland/), which plays in 4K and HDR on my Mut@nt, with no judder or audio drop. The VLC player codec tab shows this on my PC:
58935

Can you compare what the is the codec shown on VLC player, when you try to play your video on your PC? I wonder if the problem you mention is related to bad video encoding (some frames/timestamps may have been corrupted) rather than Mut@nt's ability to play it.

PS. If you provide a sample video I could try it on my Mut@nt to check if I get the same symptoms.

[Stuckagain]

My PC is very old has a hard time with 1080p, not sure how to go about getting a sample. but here is the mediainfo 58941

[Mickkie]

From what I see briefly in your mediainfo the Mut@nt should be able to play the video. However, I don't know what it would make of the Dolby ATMOS audio, if you have set it to downmix it to stereo. You can try switching this to 'PassThrough' so it does not process it, but feeds the audio stream as is to your TV/AVR, which should eliminate problems with audio processing by the Mut@nt.

[Stuckagain]

Hi Mick would it be possible for you to upload a sample file you know that works on you're Mutant HD51. That way i will know if it's a file or setup problem. Thanks

[joysleep1]

Hi Mick would it be possible for you to upload a sample file you know that works on you're Mutant HD51. That way i will know if it's a file or setup problem. Thanks

I had a mut@nt hd51 for a week or so. I sold it after it struggled to play a lot of my 4k files. See attached info from the mediainfo app

[Mickkie]

Hi Mick would it be possible for you to upload a sample file you know that works on you're Mutant HD51. That way i will know if it's a file or setup problem. Thanks
Stuckagain, please click on the "like this video" link I provided in my previous post. Download it with your PC, upload it to your Mut@nt and try to play it. There should be no juddering, tearing, or other video or audio problem and it should display in full 4k HDR on the TV. However, the audio on this sample is only stereo. I had a look on the interwebs for other samples containing H.265 video with Dolby-ATMOS audio, but couldn't find any in this instance. In any case, make sure you set your Audio settings to passthrough - see attached screenshot.
58945

[Stuckagain]

Hi Mick i've set Audio settings to passthrough, however I cant see the link for the sample mate.

[Mickkie]

Hi Mick i've set Audio settings to passthrough, however I cant see the link for the sample mate.
No probs, here you go:

https://4kmedia.org/ultra-hd-hdr-samsung-4k-demo-wonderland/

[Stuckagain]

Thanks Mick, that file worked :thumbsup:. So it must be the files I have, may be audio part or some corruption that a PC does not have a problem with. Have you had any luck with 4k DTS or Atmos files. Thanks again for all your help mate.

[ronand]

Atmos files cause problems for most e2 boxes. In theory a player that doesnt support Atmos should be able to play the TrueHD core track - while most bluray players are capable of TrueHD its not a format supported by most satellite boxes. The specs show bog standard DTS as the highest format supported. As there are no DTS core tracks in an Atmos track an e2 player cannot handle the stream and generally results in stuttered playback at best. My SF8008 can handle most of the stuff I throw at it but I have an old android box kept in a drawer which runs librelec and can pass through the TrueHD tracks perfectly.

[Trial]

Hi,
Atmos can also be packed on top of DD+ I think. Dolby is a bit different compared to DTS. DTS-HD has a real, normal DTS core which can be played by all DTS capable player. Dolby does not have such a core.

Ralf

[Mickkie]

I played some samples on the Mut@nt as a result of this thread and noticed problems playing files which contain ATMOS, or DTS-HD Master & other advanced multichannel audio, even if I set the audio to passthrough. This is even when the video is (only) H.264. Usually I get a black screen and the full passthrough audio, which my AVR plays nicely as surround sound - but no picture. On some video samples the picture does not return after the video finishes, because I suspect the sync rate on the Mut@nt cannot readjust back to what it should be for TV. The only way to get back a TV picture is to reboot the box. I suspect this problem is Mut@nt related, rather than the TV's - the TV will show a picture when I switch to a different source.

@Stuckagain, a solution I have found and which may work for you too is to use DLNA. This requires both your Mut@nt and TV to be connected to your network. Install the MiniDLNA plugin on the Mut@nt, configure it to point to where your videos are stored (e.g. /media/hdd/movie/) and then connect to it with your TV's media player app (you may need to install this on the TV if not already present). I have found sample videos play perfectly this way, but I do not have complete movies - which may have DRM restrictions. I have found BBC recordings usually play fine through DLNA on the TV, but films from other channels do not - the TV takes ages and eventually refuses to play them. The way to overcome this is to transcode the videos on a PC first - I use ffmpeg for this task - which copies over the video/audio streams to the same format (.ts) or new container (.mp4). This seems to remove whatever DRM restriction exists in the metadata and the files then play fine on the Mut@nt.

The Mut@nt has limited hardware decoding capabilities, but I suppose this is to be expected from a SoC at this price point. I just wish it would process multichannel audio streams from terrestrial Freeview transmissions, or pass them through to the TV/AVR rather than downmixing them to stereo. I'm waiting for newer boxes to come out with such capability, before I consider a replacement.

[Stuckagain]

Thanks for everyone's feed back so now I know it's not 4k it multi channel auto that's the problem.

Mick, I've had some success in the passed with playing these files via DLNA to TV. Then output the sound via a optical cable to AVR (Denon AVRX2500H) but only DD 5.1. I could try using HDMI ARC again, but find some of it behaviour odd with different manufacturers. Would have to ethernet cable for the TV for 4K I guess. Thanks

[Mickkie]

Thanks for everyone's feed back so now I know it's not 4k it multi channel auto that's the problem.

Well, it's not always the audio - there are cases where the video may also cause a problem, depending on how it has been prepared (encoded). However, in general terms I have been able to play 4k resolution videos including HDR (@10-bit color depth). The picture is stunning in all respects both using the Mut@nt as a player and using the TV's video player app over DLNA.


Mick, I've had some success in the passed with playing these files via DLNA to TV. Then output the sound via a optical cable to AVR (Denon AVRX2500H) but only DD 5.1. I could try using HDMI ARC again, but find some of it behaviour odd with different manufacturers. Would have to ethernet cable for the TV for 4K I guess. Thanks

I am not familiar with your AVR, but I understand it is a top of the range piece of kit. If you connect your TV <=> AVR using the HDMIC ARC ports on both devices and then connect the Mut@nt to the AVR over another HDMI port, you should be able to get Dolby surround sound out of your speakers, as long as the video played on the Mut@nt has dolby audio on it and the Mut@nt is set in Audio Passthrough mode. You do not need an optical cable for this, stick to HDMI, but you do need to select the correct input source on the AVR.

NOTE: Playing any video/multichannel audio over DLNA takes place over ethernet. Therefore both TV and Mut@nt need to be connected to your LAN. Using ethernet cables rather than WiFi will make sure there are no dropouts because someone else is chewing up all the WiFi bandwidth. Anyway, all channels in an audio stream will be transmitted to the TV over DLNA. The TV's media player app will then decode the audio, or pass it through to the AVR as is over HDMI. Your AVR will then decode and convert the digital audio channels into analogue so you can hear them over your speakers. I'm probably not suggesting anything you don't already know, but just to make sure we're talking about the same things and there is no misunderstanding.

[Mickkie]

I tried playing this sample on the Mut@nt:

http://4ksamples.com/elysium-2013-2160p-1-minute-sample-footage/

Although audio plays OK (in passthrough mode it is sent to the AVR where it is processed) the screen goes black. The Mut@nt then jams in the wrong refresh rate and stays black even after I finish playing the video. I have to reboot it before the screen comes back.

[Stuckagain]

Thanks Mick will give it a go.

[Mickkie]

Hmm ... actually don't! When I tried to play this sample file on my PC I got this warning:

[ffmpeg/video] hevc: Invalid default display window

The video stream is: hevc 3840x1608 23.976fps, rather than the default 4k 3840x2160. I don't know if this is what causes the Mut@nt screen to go black and not switch back to 1080 when the video is stopped. The Mut@nt is set to display wider screen resolutions as 'letterbox' so it ought to cope with it, but it seems it can't. It won't display anything until I reboot it.

I guess a lot of these samples are quite experimental at the moment and may contain encoding errors. The 7.1 audio is not compliant to the standard as reported by ffmpeg when I tried to transcode it into an mp4 container with aac audio. Some hardware will auto-correct and cope with it, others won't.