I’ve not been following this thread, but I can say I have (only) one 720x480 rip which I use for testing. Such DVDs are rare this side of the pond. It plays fine with software decoding and full deinterlace. Here is the mediainfo. Over the years testing on various devices it has sometimes struggled to find the right framerate but on Vero V right now - no problems.
I’ve just noticed though mediainfo reports 24Hz. Of course it plays at 29.97Hz because that’s what 480p is. Player Process Info says FF-Mpeg2video (720x480p, 1.33:1, 29.97fps) so ffmpeg must be sending 29.97fps to the display.
BTW half deinterlacing means only half the scan lines are presented and the other field is discarded.
General
Unique ID : 118764243047423667570794499129435561726 (0x5959294473D4914B46B62FB3CEE51EFE)
Complete name : T:\Films\Dylan_Other_side_of_mirror.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 4.56 GiB
Duration : 1 h 23 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 7 847 kb/s
Frame rate : 24.030 FPS
Movie name : Dylan_Other_side_of_mirror
Encoded date : 2018-11-28 19:27:10 UTC
Writing application : MakeMKV v1.14.1 win(x64-release)
Writing library : libmakemkv v1.14.1 (1.3.5/1.4.7) win(x64-release)
Video
ID : 1
ID in the original source medium : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings : CustomMatrix / BVOP
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=12
Codec ID : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration : 1 h 23 min
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 088 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 9 800 kb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.030 FPS
Original frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Scan order : 2:3 Pulldown
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.613
Time code of first frame : 00:59:59:00
Time code source : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed : Open
GOP, Open/Closed of first frame : Closed
Stream size : 2.96 GiB (65%)
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : DVD-Video
Audio #1
ID : 2
ID in the original source medium : 189 (0xBD)128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1 h 23 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 266 MiB (6%)
Title : Surround 5.1
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Original source medium : DVD-Video
Audio #2
ID : 3
ID in the original source medium : 189 (0xBD)161 (0xA1)
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration : 1 h 23 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 2 304 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS (1600 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 1.34 GiB (29%)
Title : Stereo
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No
Original source medium : DVD-Video
If I’m reading your mediainfo correctly (that’s a BIG IF), it shows your file is progressive scan, not interlaced. It’s interlaced files that are causing the problem (and subsequent attempt of the Vero to deinterlace). Let me know if you think I’m reading that wrong.
Yes and no. Officially, all DVDs are interlaced. Video which was originally progressive is encoded as two ‘interlaced’ fields with the same timestamp. This particular title has obviously been converted from 24fps film so it’s flagged as 2:3 pulldown to tell the decoder how to present it when outputting 480p. It’s the nearest I’ve got to a US-style DVD.
I don’t have much experience when it comes to interlaced playback and I can’t tell if I can be of any help here. I’ve only a couple of interlaced clips and I hardly use them for testing, mainly only if guys like @angry.sardine complain about bad playback quality .
But what I’ve learned so far about interlaced material is, that you can’t really rely on info reported by tools like ffmpeg or mediainfo. They basically tell you what’s stored in the metadata of that clip. But that need not be correct.
The truth is stored in the frames/fields in the stream. And it’s even possible that the format changes while such a clip is being played. For sure, @angry.sardine can give you some examples.
To give you an idea about how reliable such an info could be, have a look at dvdfaq.
To make a long story short: it seems nobody cares about mastering an interlaced clip so basically anything can happen.
OK. I’ve spent a bit more time with this. If I turn off the whitelist my Bob Dylan does indeed play choppily at 60Hz. If I whitelist 1080p at all refreshrates it plays well and Vero chooses 30Hz. It doesn’t get the aspect ratio right at 1080p with my current settings on the TV. If I whitelist 480p it plays well at that resolution with the correct aspect ratio.
Above you were advised by @mdkeil to use the whitelist. Have you tried that?
Is it possible this is another manifestation of the issue where Veros have trouble playing 25fps material smoothly with 50Hz output and 30fps material with 60Hz output?
Yes, I have tried the whitelist. In fact, that is how I ended up in this situation. It was just trading one set of problems for another. When I use the whitelist, the Vero outputs at 480p. Unfortunately, with some of these videos, it also incorrectly outputs the aspect ratio and severely compresses the image horizontally. It reports 1.78AR but that’s not what is really being output. The actual output is closer to 1:1. This is regardless of wide mode/zoom settings on the tv and the Vero. Changing any of the wide mode/zoom settings has a very negligible effect. It seems videos meant to be displayed 4:3 work fine in the whitelist but the 16:9’s (480i videos) do not.
If I turn OFF Allow Double Refresh Rates with software decoding it plays in the correct aspect ratio. Turning either of those two settings on, it plays in the wrong aspect ratio. This is a hot mess.
A few years back I spent a lot of time on aspect ratios and was disappointed to find there’s nothing encoded in a DVD video stream that can be relied upon. That’s with my collection of PAL rips. In the end, I could get them all to display at the right a/r but one or two would not fill the screen. So I’d be interested to get my hands on any video you have found doesn’t work.
As I said, my one 480i rip does display correctly and I can’t immediately see why a change in refreshrate would affect that. I can’t recall any other reports of this problem, from either side of the Atlantic. Are you able to upload a short sample somewhere?
Meanwhile, I said I found my 480i video would play OK at 1080p30 if I made a whitelist that did not include 480p. Yes, at 16:9, but I can fix that on the TV. Would that work for you as a temporary fix?
Edit: I guess turning off double refreshrates would have the same effect.
Me too but without some problem footage I can’t do much about it.
@grahamh, not sure if you saw it but it looks like we posted pretty simultaneously. Added a little more info about the AR. Why Allow Double Refresh Rates would change it is beyond me.
Secondly, I can try to take a clip of the new problem child. How best to provide to you?
After my testing and the feedback and reading between the lines a bit, it seems that validating that these old SD formats play correctly is not part of the standard testing procedure and that asking the Vero to upscale and deinterlace a 480i mpeg2 file in software appears to be a bridge too far. Perhaps fixing the AR issue in the whitelist is a more achievable goal.
To that end, is it better to start a different thread with a more relevant title?
The whole point of this forum is to report issues and get things solved promptly. Reporting a problem doesn’t offend me at all.
It has been busy around here and I let our great team here prod you for logs and ideas but was reading over their suggestions and your responses.
Vero V should be able to play MPEG2 in software without any issue, particularly the SD resolution content. Even a Raspberry Pi 1 from 2011 can do this for SD content – although it is a bit borderline. You’ve mentioned a problem from 2019 – I don’t remember the outcome of that case but as it had been five years I’m doubtful that the problem is necessarily related.
I think the best solution would be to provide a clip that causes such a problem so that we can see whether we can reproduce it here and if we can what can be done to improve playback
The only possible output refresh rates at 480p are 59.94Hz and 60Hz. If the video is 480i or 480p and is tagged as 29.97fps, ticking the Double Refresh Rates box allows it to be output as 480p/59.94Hz; unticking the box would make the Vero upscale it to 1080p/29.97Hz instead.
If you want your TV to give you the right AR with 480p output, incidentally, you’ll need to make sure the TV’s aspect ratio setting is set to something like Auto, and on the Vero you’ll also need to set Settings->Player->Videos->“Display 4:3 videos as” to “Use HDMI AVI signalling”. (This is covered in my whitelist guide, linked to above).
Unfortunately, the ONLY settings the result in a correct AR using the whitelist for the 16:9 files in question is putting “Display 4:3 Videos as” Normal (not HDMI Signaling), software decoding and turn off double framerates allowed. everything else compresses the screen to a 4:3 box, some with additional pillars on the side with some settings reducing it to as small as 1:1. TV wide mode settings do not correct it. It reports playing 16:9, but it isn’t.
I think this issue is probably worthy of a separate thread if the current problem (choppy playback) cannot be resolved. Probably a bit confusing to try to solve two different issues in the same thread.
I will re-read the whitelist faq again shortly to refresh my memory. Did read it before but as you can see, I have something else going on with at least one TV series.
So to close out this issue in case others are having a similar problem, I’ll let you know where I’m at. A lot of the troubleshooting was handled via private message (primarily with @grahamh) so it is, unfortunately, not visible here. I’ll provide a short summary.
Ultimately the Vero V was unable to play mpeg2 480i in software with deinterlacing active (no whitelist). A lot of stuttering and dropped frames. Both 29.97 and 25fps seem to be affected with 29.97 appearing to drop frames at a higher rate. A previous sample of various types of interlaced files provided by @angry.sardine in the below post provides a couple of examples and is similar to what I experience with my own files.
The relevant files are Earthshock and Time Flight. These are the two files of those samples that mediainfo lists as interlaced.
Given the old nature of the mpeg2 codec and other possible workarounds, I don’t think there’s an appetite to chase the issue down in the code, which I can understand. I believe having the relevant resolutions and framerates whitelisted resolves a large portion (all?) of the stuttering problem but it unfortunately causes a lot of problems with the aspect ratio on my setup. This will probably be my next issue posted to the boards.
For now, my short-term solution is to turn on hardware decoding for SD MPEG2 content. It seems to resolve the issue with the stutter. My only apprehension is that long ago I turned it off (Vero 4K+) because it was causing issues. Perhaps those have been resolved over the hardware and software evolutions. Time will tell.
A quick shout out to @grahamh and @angry.sardine. Both were very helpful in trying to understand the problem and possible resolutions.
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