Having trouble with high bitrate HDR content seeking/ff/rw and stability

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hoping someone can help me troubleshoot. This is a regular Vero 4k.

File that I’m trying to playback is large – doesn’t really have any trouble buffering and plays back initially OK but eventually just stops playback and returns me to the menu. I’m not able to FF/RW or skip chapters to the resume point (I just get the blue spinning ball indefinitely.)

File is located on my UnRaid server. Everything is hard wired and I’ve got my NFS shares mapped on OSMC via fstab.

Here’s mediainfo:
General
Unique ID : 152450380209161917298791922389079060333 (0x72B0E00EEDEC85A5A29ED01589446F6D)
Complete name : .mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 35.2 GiB
Duration : 1 h 55 min
Overall bit rate : 43.4 Mb/s
Movie name : 4K
Encoded date : UTC 2018-04-14 22:33:47
Writing application : mkvmerge v22.0.0 (‘At The End Of The World’) 64-bit
Writing library : libebml v1.3.5 + libmatroska v1.4.8
IsTruncated : Yes

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L5.1@High
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 55 min
Width                                    : 3 840 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0 (Type 2)
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Writing library                          : ATEME Titan File 3.8.13 (4.8.13.0)      
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics                 : PQ
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries        : Display P3
Mastering display luminance              : min: 0.0050 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                           : MA / ES Matrix / Core
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 55 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable / Constant / Constant
Bit rate                                 : Unknown / 1 509 kb/s / 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels / 7 channels / 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: L R, LFE / Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: C, LFE / Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless / Lossy / Lossy
Title                                    : DTS-HD MA 7.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Text #1
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Title                                    : English (SDH)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Text #2
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Title                                    : Spanish (Latin American)
Language                                 : Spanish
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Text #3
ID                                       : 5
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Title                                    : French
Language                                 : French
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Thoughts?

2

Hi,

Have you tried playing it back locally on the vero4k on a usb stick?

Thanks Tom.

3

I will try that. I have run iperf and I’m getting 94.1mb/s between my server and the Vero4k. This sounds like about the limit of the 100mb ethernet port.

4

Seeking will be tricky at 100Mbps.

Sam

5

Try a USB 3.0 > Gigabit adapter, it will solve your problem, I was in the same position myself when I had a Vero4k.

If you search there is a thread in here with the correct type to use (certain chipset) that works at best speed.
I used a Techrise branded one and it worked great speeds of ~330mbps .
Was about £7 off amazon.

You will read a lot on here about the100mbps interface should be fast enough for all 4K stuff etc etc and if it doesn’t it’s your network or your mounting method.

However proof is in the pudding though and a USB 3.0 > Gigabit adapter has solved many many many peoples high bitrate playback issues !!

Oh and if 100mbps really is enough… why do we now have the Vero4k + :wink:

6

Basically: marketing.

When Pi did it, we had to do it too.

There’s absolutely no need for it, just like 2GB RAM is completely unnecessary; but it sells to the otherwise unconvinced masses.

For the same price as Vero 4K: we doubled eMMC performance; improved Ethernet performance by a factor of 10; improved analogue audio; reduced thermal footprint and fixed a couple of pain points (bright LEDs) along the way.

If you’re fast forwarding through HDR, then you’ll want a higher bitrate than even a USB adapter can provide. But for playback, you’ll be fine with the 100M adapter.

3 Likes
8

In my experience of 50 plus 4K HDR movie rips and multiple high bitrate 4K HDR 60fps test clips, the USB adapter provided adequate fast forward and seeking.
For the sake of a few ££ I’d recommend anyone with a Vero4k make this upgrade if they watch a lot of 4K stuff !!!

9

In my experience, the built in 100M interface is more than enough to watch 4K content.

10

Just to chime in - I had many months of problem-free playback of 4K HDR content but my Vero 4K got tripped up recently by a 1:1 remux of the first Pacific Rim.

If you watch the bitrate level during playback, it gets into the high 90s (Mbps) a number of times during the film. Step-searching, chapter-skipping or seek-searching can create additional very high peaks well above this into the 100s, exhausting the capability of the 100MbE adapter. Even without any searching, regular playback was breaking up for me…

This is all on my fstab-mounted NFS export with consistent bidirectional iperf of 95Mbps to/from my NAS. I basically needed to use a USB GbE adapter.

11

Yeah i’d say that the 100M interface is ‘adequate’ for watching 4k, but with the occasional stutter here and there with very high bitrate stuff, and skipping/seeking can be very slow.

USB> Gigabit adapter is ‘Perfect’ for 4k stuff as it has loads of head room (330m vs 94m) and also allows fast and seamless seeking and skipping !!!