Sony Bravia 46KDL-W905A abruptly stops playing videos.

[ZikO]

I hope this is a correct place for this topic. The topic is related to play videos on hardware.

I have a TV Sony Bravia 46KDL-W905A. According to its manual, it is supposed to play a video + audio encoded by XviDs, H.264, in containers such as MP4, MkV, and AVI. The audio can be AC3 e.g. The files can be provided by removable media such as USB stick or USB HDD. Some technical information are here:

http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/index.html
http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/13HG900111/EN/codeclist.html#5

Unfortunately, the TV has problem to play videos encoded by x264 and muxed into MKV container. I don't know whether it is a container or a codec itself. The symptom is videos start normally but after random time like 30 secs, 1 min, 5 mins etc., they stop and TV reports that video cannot be played. I could fast forward a video to a different frame and the same thing would at different location. As much as I could do to investigate this issue, I created 18 1min videos and encoded them using 18 different configurations:

6 videos: Constant Quality set to 16, combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)
6 videos: 2pass, 4Mbps, the same combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)
6 videos: 2pass 2Mbps, the same combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)

and none of them stopped o_O

Then I tried one of the settings that "worked" simply using Target set to Blu-ray, Tuning set to None, 1Mbps, 2Mbps and 4Mbps, different audio encoding of AC3 (448Khz, 384 kHz) and all videos stopped again with the same error.

At the moment, I am completely clueless about what to do next.

I hope someone can bring some ideas. This is truly crazy :/

[poisondeathray]

Is the time really "random" ? ie. If you take a video known to "fail", does it always fail in the same spot at the same time ? e.g. if it fails at 30 seconds, stop and play it again from the beginning does it fail at 30 seconds again ? If yes, this suggests an encoding settings compatibility issue. If no, this suggests a problem with your hardware

There are container differences in MKV, which might cause problems. You can try muxing with an older version of mkvmerge . v4.0 is old and very stable with most hardware

Does it only affect MKV ? Is MP4 affected ? If you remux a video known to "fail" into MP4 does it fail at the same spot ?

Did your 18 different configuration videos that all work have audio ?

[ZikO]

Hi poisondeathray,
Thanks for your answer.

Is the time really "random" ? ie. If you take a video known to "fail", does it always fail in the same spot at the same time ? e.g. if it fails at 30 seconds, stop and play it again from the beginning does it fail at 30 seconds again ? If yes, this suggests an encoding settings compatibility issue. If no, this suggests a problem with your hardware

The same videos failed at the same location. However, I also tried encoding with different settings, e.g. 4Mbps instead of 2Mbps. Such files failed to play at different locations, sometimes sooner sometimes later. It is difficult to come back to beginning of the movie. Somehow, the TV resumes from the location where it failed but it never pass the time spot. So it repeatedly stops , it always fails to continue once it reaches the certain location. I am not expert in all this so I cannot really think about what settings I should consider. This is why I provided links to specifications. Perhaps someone can help looking at the manual.

There are container differences in MKV, which might cause problems. You can try muxing with an older version of mkvmerge . v4.0 is old and very stable with most hardware

I have used the newest MeGUI to do everything: index file into d2v, prepare AVS script with hardsubbed captions, and mux a video with original audio.

Does it only affect MKV ? Is MP4 affected ? If you remux a video known to "fail" into MP4 does it fail at the same spot ?

It does not affect AVI containers and XviD but I have not tried MP4.

Did your 18 different configuration videos that all work have audio ?

Yes, they had audio! All files were cut to 1 min including audio but the audio was re-encoded in MeGUI. I did try different audio bits such as 448 kHz and 384 kHz. The 1 min videos did not stop. This is where I am confused :/

[johns0]

If the videos have embedded subtitles that could cause issues.

[ZikO]

No. There are no subtitles in a container. They are hard coded into video.

[ZikO]

Hello again.

First of all, I would like to quote myself here.

6 videos: Constant Quality set to 16, combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)
6 videos: 2pass, 4Mbps, the same combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)
6 videos: 2pass 2Mbps, the same combinations of Tuning (None, Film), and Target (Default, AVCHD, Blu-ray)

and none of them stopped o_O

I stated that none of these videos stopped. I was wondering why full movies cannot be played while I did not have any problems with these videos. It turns out that these 6 movies where encoded on my computer at work using MeGUI v. 2525, just for testing. Then, because 1 min movies did not cause problems, I tried to re-encode all of them at home, again at 1 min long and a few of them stopped!!!! I just lost motivation to test them all. It's been very weird and frustrating.

I tried to go further and do one more test. So I encoded a couple of full movies at work and it turns out they all can be played without any problem. To be certain that I work on the EXACTLY same version of MeGUI v.2525 at work and at home, I simply copied the whole MeGUI folder from work computer to mine. Then, I tried to encode one of the same movies I had already encoded at work that worked and it stopped!!!!!

It looks like my computer is faulty :/ These are specifications of both computers:

At work (working):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Edition.
	Windows 7 Enterprise. Service Pack 1.
System.
	Processor:		Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz  3.40 Ghz
	Installed memory:	8.00 GB (7.88 GB usable)
	System type:		64-bit Operating System

At home (faulty):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Edition.
	Windows 7 Home Premium
System.
	Processor:		Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz  2.80 Ghz
	Installed memory:	6.00 GB
	System type:		64-bit Operating System

If anybody can see any sense of all this, I will be grateful for any comment or help on that.

PC. One of the differences I can say about is that, at work, the MEGUI is located on C:\ drive, whereas at home it is on D:\ Other than that, I have no idea what could be wrong!