AVC/h264 1080p mkv macroblock problem on sequence transition

[djesteban]

Hi,

I use CoreAVC as my default codec with Media Player Classic and it always worked fine for me with h264 and x264 720p mkv files.
Now I just ripped my 5 Centimeters per Seconds Blu Ray (anime movie) disk and decided to create a 1080p mkv directly using the demuxed h264 file (13.8Gb) and the 4ch ac3 audio file (201mb). After muxing the two files together with mkvmerge (yes I did set the fps to 23.976) successfully. On playback, in MPC, I get a steady 23.97 all the time, but as soon as there is a shot (sequence) change in the movie (like for example a close-up on a face that changes to the image of a road after) I get at least a good 3-5 seconds of macroblocking where you see the last image of the preceding sequence and the new sequence that is starting.

My system is a Dell XPS 420: Intel Core 2 Quad proc Q9450 2.66Ghz 1333FSB, 4Gb RAM, Integrated Audio, with Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1

Now, this same movie plays fine in PowerDVD 8 from the Blu Ray drive AND from an 1:1 ISO I made (A remux ISO version with only the movie and the wanted subtitles also works flawlessly); that is with (3% CPU usage) or without (35% CPU usage) hardware acceleration. If I play the extracted h264 file in powerDVD, it also plays without a itch, but if I try it in VLC for example, it will begin to stutter after a while (but the culprit here is probably VLC).

Do you have any idea why it is doing that? Is it because the original bitrate is too high? that would be odd because I really get a constant 23.97fps with no lag or stutter at all.

Here's two screenshots of my problem:

You can see in the first picture below the last image from the previous sequence which is the face of the cartoon character and the paved road that is in the current sequence.

[poisondeathray]

Just to clarify, how did you rip the blu-ray? What process did you use to get the raw avc stream from the .m2ts? Did you use anydvd? So you did not re-encode it?

What happens if you disable coreavc temporaily and use say ffdshow instead?

[jagabo]

Do you have CoreAVC Pro? The cheaper one isn't multithreaded. You may be running out of CPU. PowerDVD is probably using your graphics card's hardware h.264 decoding. Try the DXVA option in MPC Home Cinema.

[djesteban]

poisondeathray: yes, I used AnyDVD to rip the Blu ray disk. I know the process worked fine because if I build a Blu Ray ISO from the ripped files, it works fine in PowerDVD. And yes your right, I did not re-encode it. Is this required for it to work with CoreAVC?
If I try to disable CoreAVC and use ffdshow, it doesn't work at all... nada... actually, if I use ffdshow, my MPC crashes.

jagabo: Yes I use CoreAVC Pro. As for PowerDVD, yes it uses the gfx card by default, I agree, but like I said in my original post, even if I disable hardware acceleration, it uses about 35% CPU instead of 3%, but still, it plays without a hitch.

[poisondeathray]

If you don't have enough CPU power, you usually start to drop frames, but in those screenshots, you haven't dropped any.

It's also weird that ffdshow doesn't work at all (even playback slowly or with studders)

You didn't expand on how you got the .m2ts files into an .mkv? Did you use something like tsmuxer? The ISO is expected to play fine, because the blu-ray structure is intact. I think something might have gone wrong when you took raw streams from the .m2ts?

As a test, what happens when you put the video only into .mp4 container with YAMB? Do the distorted images occur at the same time?

[djesteban]

Thanks for replying poisondeathray
Yes, let me give you a little bit more detail about the demuxing process. So I ripped the Blu Ray with AnyDVD, then I demuxed the .m2ts with txmuxer. Then I took the resulted .264 file and created the .mkv using mkvmerge. Be aware that the .264 file plays flawlessly in PowerDVD.
As for dropping frame, it's not dropping any; steady 23.97, and my CPU's are not stressed at all. Also, I tried your suggestion concerning DXVA in MPC and I don't see any changes... anyway, the fps doesn't seem to be the problem here
Did I do something wrong while making the mkv? I know when you select the .264 input file in mkvmerge, it tells you to manually type the frame rate... which I did (23.976). Does MKV support that kind of h264 raw stream?!!
I will try your suggestion to put it in a .mp4 container with YAMB and tell you if there's any difference
thanks

[jagabo]

jagabo: Yes I use CoreAVC Pro. As for PowerDVD, yes it uses the gfx card by default, I agree, but like I said in my original post, even if I disable hardware acceleration, it uses about 35% CPU instead of 3%, but still, it plays without a hitch.

But if you were using the single threaded CoreAVC 35 percent of your quad core CPU would be too much (a single core running full out could only get to 25 percent). In any case, you have the multithreaded version so that's not the issue.

Can you make a short clip available?

[djesteban]

poisondeathray, I haven't been able to create a .mp4 with YAMB... the process just says complete right away when I try to create it, but obviously doesn't create anything. I tried two version of mp4box with it.
I also tested my .mkv file on my other box. It is an old P4 3Ghz. On playback it shows the same blockiness at the same place... so I guess it is not the hardware on my newer machine.
Weirdly, if I demux the .264 from that .mkv, it play fine in PowerDVD... so I guess the stream is not corrupted.
The problem seems to come from the muxing or the decoding of the .mkv itself, though, I have no idea why.

*EDIT* I will try with another movie.... if it does the same, I will try to compress the original .264 file and see if I have the same problem with the compress file... which I shouldn't have, hopefully. Still this suck... no idea what i'm doing wrong while creating the mkv >_<

[djesteban]

jagabo... what splitter should I use to make a preview clip?

*EDIT 1* BTW... same result with another movie

*EDIT 2* I took the original .264 and muxed it into a .ts file... the movie plays flawlessly in VLC and MPC.
It pretty much confirm that the problem comes from either the MKV creation or decoding. That is a little sad, because the reason why I wanted to put the movie as an MKV was the .ass subtitle support... which .TS doesn't have.
Is there any other container that supports .ass subs?

Anyway, keep me updated if you guys know or think about any solution about my problem.

[jagabo]

You can use h264ts_cutter to extract a segment from the TS file. AviDemux might be able to extract a segment from the MKV file.

[poisondeathray]

Are you using the most recent version of mkvmerge? Maybe try uninstalling & reinstalling it? Perhaps something became corrupted in your install?

I assume you are using Haali Media Splitter along with CoreAVC?

You can try renaming the extension to .h264 from .264 for .mp4 creation. I think it supports .ssa but not .ass subs. (for some reason some progams only accept one or the other, but not mkvmerge, which accepts everything). You can also try mp4muxer.

[djesteban]

Hi guys,
Here's a sample
http://rapidshare.com/files/136936400/00001_cut.track_4113.mkv.html

don't worry about the first bug at the very start... might be related to the m2ts cut... but focus on the one between the people sitting on a bench and the next scene where you see big light projectors. Also, if you covert the mkv with tsmuxer to ts file (will take about 5 sec)..... the stream is totally fine

If anyone as any idea of what is going on ... please let me know
thanks in advance!

[jagabo]

I downloaded your sample. Indeed the picture breaks up at the transition when played from the MKV container -- with several players I tried. After demuxing with MKVExtractGui and remuxing with TsMuxerGui into a TS file it plays just fine.

Unfortunately, I have no ideas for you. Other than, don't use MKV!

[fantasyl]

I have the exact same problem. Tried tsmuxer way, and .ts are fine, but .ts support in kmplayer is somewhat buggy, and .ts are larger than mkv, so if someone could shed some light on this.....

Maybe a ram problem or related to read/write speed?

I found that if I create the mkv on a slower hard disk or reading the source SLOWLY (10mbit) from the network mkvtoolnix gives me much much less errors.

[fantasyl]

....same pc, tried installing mkvtoolnix in ubuntu 8.04, and guess what, there's no problem with mkvmerge....

....mhhhh.....

[fantasyl]

Unfortunately it was just a random success with my ubuntu box. Problem seem totally unpredictable.
If I mux the same tracks (ac3 + 720p h264 video) 5 times I get 5 "good" (no errors) report from mkvmerge.
Howewer on each encode I get 4 to 10 sequence with corrupted frames/errors (as the OP).

On each of the 5 encoding the corrupted frames/errors are NOT in the same part/timings, but they are in totally different scenes

Source AC3 and source video are perfect, no errors there. The problem is in the muxing process and is just driving me nuts. I'm trying avidemux now, hope it will temporarily "solve" my merging needs (but it's much slower than mkvmerge )

[FulciLives]

Use M2TS via tsMuxeR

Granted it has some "overhead" in that it creates a file that is larger than if you did a MKV but it's not THAT much larger plus M2TS is just as compatible on a computer as MKV.

Also M2TS is a native file format for the Sony PS3 so if you ever get one of those your files are PS3 ready already!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[fantasyl]

Thanks FulciLives, that gives perfect result, AFAI tested (I've just seen only a 30min part of a 2 hour m2ts encode, and that was perfectly fine....).

MPC has some problem reading the m2ts, however no problem with vlc....

UPDATE: the encode had same errors as before, but all were now in a much smaller time range (last 25 minutes)

[jagabo]

Try MPCHC.

[fantasyl]

both mpchc and thekmplayer had severe problems while seeking m2ts and ts files. I uninstalled haali's splitter and now all is fine.

However in the last part of the m2ts encode I made I had again many errors as the OP. This time all were in a 20-25 minutes range.

I've re-done the encode on another pc.......I'm actually checking it while posting.
I suggest the OP to check for bad mem sticks.......it's not possible avimux tsmuxer mkvtoolnix all gives the same problem....IMHO it's something related to ram.

Tonight will leave memtest running, then report back....

[jagabo]

MPCHC: View -> Options -> Internal Filters -> MPEG PS/TS/PVA (enable).

[poisondeathray]

fantasyl - you mention encoding in several of your responses - are you re-encoding something? If so, you problem might be different than djesteban's - especially since you mention a .ts stream using tsmuxer has the same problem which fixed his problem. All he did was switch containers from the original video.

The pixellation looks suspicious to a VBV error. If you update your x264.exe to a recent version and/or use different rate control settings (e.g. try an unrestricted crf 1pass encode instead of something with DXVA or device compliance) it might go away.

[fantasyl]

thanks poisondeathray, but I - VERY PROBABLY - just found the culprit of my problem (maybe helpful to other people...as symptoms were exactly as described by the OP).
1 out of my 4 geil memory sticks failed memtest! Strangely enough no error was given while muxing with all the programs I tested, and my system was perfectly stable under win and ubuntu.

I mentioned encoding because I'm encoding ac3 and then multiplexing audio and video, keeping same video of the source. Sorry if my use of the term "encodes" was misleading, but I didn't know how to call in english the multiplexed output stream with original video and re-encoded (or just muxed) ac3 audio.

Will do another "muxing"(?!?!) soon and then report back to confirm problem is 100% gone!

[fantasyl]

Just an update, my problem with mkvtoolnix was definitively memory related.....so check thoroughly your ram!