Panasonic tv unable to play 1080p or 720p movies..Distortion in b/w scenes.

[akshatkharbanda]

I just bought a panasonic LED TH-32e3D Full HD tv.

I had problem in playing 1080 or even 720p movies from USB drive.

There is distortion and alot of haziness while scenes switch, Where as it plays 1080p video songs nicely..

Help me....Is this a problem with panasonic tv or It should be in specific format to see 1080 movies...?

Regards

[Baldrick]

Movies as in what? mkv with h264 video?

Your tv doesn't support everything and some videos might be too "complex" that may cause strange playback.

[jman98]

Baldrick alluded to this, but I'll be more blunt.

What consumers think - "I just bought a TV that will perfectly play EVERY video I have now or ever will have in the future!"

The reality - Your TV has severe limitations in what it will play and it's NOT a "plays everything" device.

It could be that the videos you have problems with weren't made very well or that they have encoding options that cause problems for your TV. If your TV plays BluRays and your TV feed fine, then it's something to do with your movies.

Finally, do note that a lot of consumers don't realize that USB connectors on TVs don't put out much power. If you have an external disk drive attached via USB and the drive enclosure does NOT have a power supply, your problem may simply be that your drive needs more power and your problem may vanish if you use a powered enclosure for the disk drive. This problem is so common that I do not own any disk enclosures that do not come with power supplies.

[akshatkharbanda]

My movies are mostly in mkv or mp4 format.....

and @jman98 then what can e solution to pendrive or external harddrive ....?

and well which is the simplest encoding format that panasonic LED TH-32e3D Full HD tv can support...?

[Hoser Rob]

Well, the files seem to be playing, even if the quality isn't good. If the video is playing seems to me the codec is supported.

I also suspect the video is poorly encoded or is in the wrong profile. I'm actually not 100% sure what you mean by 'distortion', but haziness at scene changes sounds like a dead giveaway for crappy encoding to me.

I also don't know what the source of these videos is. Videos downloaded from the web are often terrible quality and use codecs that are supposedly correct but are actually not really compatible. Sometimes programs that will play just about anything (like smplayer or vlc) will have problems with them. That's why I use both players. A tv will have a much harder time.

And sometimes the bit rate is just too low. The file size is directly proportional to bit rate, and there are all kinds of 700Mb 1080p feature length videos floating around. You can't get high quality 480p video at that size let alone 1080p. What looks OK on a small screen may not look so good on a larger one.

[Baldrick]

You could just try reconvert a file that causes problems with for example vidcoder. Use the Normal preset. And see how it looks like. But reconversion takes time and you will lose a bit quality...

[akshatkharbanda]

Haziness means like the previous scene get to be seemed in the present screen on tv...

My tv supports almost all major codec....but like only short music videos play good...

I have tried converting to many codec like a AVCHD and AVI in which file size increases to 4gb but the problem remained...

Is there any known solution to theses..??

[jagabo]

Your TV may support the codec but that doesn't mean it supports all features of the codec. Properties like too many consecutive b-frames, too many reference frames, too high a bitrate, and non-mod16 frames sizes are likely to cause problems with the TV's decoder. You will have to reencode the video in these cases.

[akshatkharbanda]

Then can anyone temme what should i do .....how to re-encode or troubleshoot this problem...? Anyone...?

[jagabo]

MediaInfo can give you information about the files you have. The TV's manual probably gives you some idea of what the TV can handle. Beyond that you have to build your own test files to find its limits. You could use a program like Xvid4psp or handbrake to create small test files.

[yoda313]

You could use a program like Xvid4psp or handbrake to create small test files.

I would start with using the UNIVERSAL preset in handbrake. I used the universal preset with h264 in a mp4 file and I was able to play the files on a cheap velocity cruz tablet that is pretty picky about the types of files it plays.

If you use other conversion programs be sure to use base level 3 (ie the profile level) for h264 and try to keep the bitrate relatively low on test files. You can always crank it up later but lower bitrates are better to see what the device can handle first.

Stay away from cabac all together if possible and use the least amount of reference frames to make sure the device can handle it.

ALso ac3 or aac audio is your best bet for sound compatibility. Though stay away from 5.1 aac as personally it doesn't seem to be widely supported on non computer devices. But ac3 should be, at the very minimum stereo ac3 and stereo aac should be what you start with. Than work up to 5.1 ac3 but avoid 5.1 aac. ALso remember hd audio isn't as widely supported yet in file playback so I'd try to stick to sd audio maxing at 448kpbs for ac3. You MIGHT be able to get away with 640kpbs ac3 but start small then go higher in your test files to ensure maximum compatiblity.

The TV's manual probably gives you some idea of what the TV can handle.

Unfortunately it seems like dvd players and other devices that aren't considered to be mainly file playback devices are often quite vague on what the unit can and can't playback.

Beyond that you have to build your own test files to find its limits.

Yep that will be the only way to know for sure. If you haven't been able to find benchmarks online on other forums yet than you will have to work it out for yourself.

Also note whether or not your tv can do ntfs or fat32 drives. I guess more and more devices are able to use ntfs so that shouldn't be as much of a concern these days.

Good luck.