24p playback issues

On my PAL CRT 23.976 runs fine without any stutter.> * * *
vertical wrote:
Yesterday I watched another new movie, and stutter like **bleep**…

Can you upload a clip to Mediafire?

Dampard wrote:

Just thinking if WDTV PAL/NTSC makes a difference here.

I had several 23.976 fps clips but had a PAL system.

I played those clip through my laptop via HDMI was real smooth.

With WDTV (PAL) it was ok, but can see bits of choppy comparing with laptop quality.

Laptop I used Roxio player FYI

 

I have read that PAL version could never match 23.976 FPS clips.

 

Is that true?

PAL and NTSC are mostly a thing of the past now. HDTVs support mutiple refresh rates, including the 50 and 60hz of the old PAL and NTSC standards. Many recent HDTVs also support 24p playback, which relates to the problem myself and others are having with 1080/24hz playback on the WDTV. The issue is that the WDTV isn’t playing certain files smoothly at 24hz, despite playing them fine at 60hz (with 3:2 pulldown). 

Techflaws wrote:

On my PAL CRT 23.976 runs fine without any stutter.> * * *
vertical wrote:
Yesterday I watched another new movie, and stutter like **bleep**…


Can you upload a clip to Mediafire?

I uploaded to ul.to. The link is here. What to look for: After 45", wait for the scene inside the car. When the camera follows the couple on the back and the image scrolls from right to left and you see the faces of the guys inside the car, you can see some breakups.

Mmh, I don’t see any difference between the scene played back in VLC and on the WDTV. The panning shot is a little bumpy on both but that really looks intentional to me.

Does your TV definitely support 24p playback, Techflaws? Many early HDTVs accept it but can’t play it, applying 3:2 pulldown instead.

I have tried the file you have uploaded on my unit… it stutters/drops frames for sure.

I have had an issue with 24fps files for about a year now - i have been trying to get WD to accept there is an issue with 24fps files yet i am still no further.

Just wish they would get their act together and solve the problem.

Since the Auto function does not work too well with my TV, I’d set one old LIVE to 23,976 (possible on 1.02.21) and the other to 60hz and got not judder. However, when I tried the SMP on 1.13.18 on another TV, I also got the stutter. So yes, autoframe is still an issue.

Further to my earlier post, my Live is currently running 1.02.21 and I see no stutter whatsoever.

I had a chance to test a friend’s Live on the weekend (with my TV) that’s running 1.04.22 which was the first firmware to introduce the auto framerate functionality.

With auto framerate on, the TV correctly switched to 1080p/24 but there was stutter.

With auto framerate off and video output set to 1080p/24, there was also stutter.

So, I wonder if this problem was introduced at the same time as the auto framerate functionality and has been present in all Live and SMP firmwares ever since?

Just to highlight the issue, two videos

-1080p@24

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxf5wo_wdtv-live-gen-3-1080p-24_tech

-1080p@50

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxf5wt_wdtv-live-gen-3-1080p-50_tech

At the first video, see at around 11" when the woman is walking in front of the camera and McGregor. You will see frame(s) skipping. At the 50Hz video, it doesn’t skip frame(s) but overall the playback is inferior to ‘proper’ 24Hz.

Also, I need to clarify something. I never ever had this issue with WDTV Live gen 3 up until 3-4 weeks ago. I am very picky to what I see and if there was frame skipping at 24Hz, I would have noticed. I use the smp to play mainly matroskas at 720p or 1080p, mainly at 23.976fps (most are at this rate) or 24. And the problem is not happening with all files. Mostly with newer files. And the WDTV Live is connected since day one to the same TV that supports 24Hz. Honestly, I didn’t have this with match frame rate ON and 23.976/24 fps material in the past. The methodology I used is to play files either through USB or Windows Shares, jumped to the point I wanted in the movie using the magnifying glass (same point all time) and the movie played.

Is there any posts in the Issue Reporting subforum about this?

I’ve started a new Issue Report here:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Streaming-Issue/Dropped-duplicate-frames-during-playback-of-MKV-files-at-24Hz/idi-p/541420

I’ve tried to be as clear as possible about the problem. There was another report that was possibly related to the same issue, but it’s marked as solved, mostly due to people confusing totally unrelated issues.

Cool. I also added links to my videos in case it helps WD people.

I’ve been noticing this problem since I first got an SMP over a year ago. I think it goes unnoticed by a lot of people because they just aren’t very sensitive to framerate and video quality.As a result, the issue continues to be unaddressed.

I notice an intermittent stutter on some mkv files, while others play just fine.

I see that WD just released a new player. I wonder if it will suffer from the same problem.

The problem is worse in the last month or so. I am not sure why but as I said, I am very picky in what I see. And I am sure I didn’t have this as bad as it is now., actually, never had an issue I asked people in another forum, and they verified that they reviewed/checked the smp thoroughly a month ago, and now they cannot watch a single matroska without issues. Beside opening forums, I will contact Western Digital hoping to get an answer. I am sure they will ask me to downgrade to a previous f/w (and god help me with this because I don’t want to break the smp) but I want them to know that MKVs are unwatchable.

The question is, why don’t the same files muxed to m2ts stutter? Hard to imagine that all mkvs are muxed badly.

I second that… Only WD can tell us. And frankly, not sure what changes from the MKV to M2TS conversion. I already sent this to support and waiting for an answer. I included links to both this topic and the report with links to videos, downloads and MediaInfos.

a

Those who tried the tsMuxer to mux the MKV to m2ts, can you please try one more thing? Download MKVMerge, open the ‘fixed’ m2ts file and remux it to MKV. Is the problem back?

Personally, I used tsMuxer to mux a matroska file to m2ts, checked it and worked fine, then with MKVMerge, remuxed it back to MKV and I had the exact same problem at the exact same place.

I don’t, which is why I’m still not entirely convinced it’s not the original files. Here’s what I’ve tried with automframe set to on and a TV capable of this*:

  • original mkv: judder

  • mkv muxed to m2ts: no judder

  • mkv muxed to mkv: judder

  • m2ts muxed to mkv: no judder

The fact that m2ts works, suggests that the internal streams are okay and that the original container is “damaged”. The fact that mkvs remuxed from a working m2ts do work, suggests that the MKV container itself is also fine. Maybe when muxing from one mkv to another, whatever causes this problems (some weird/new setting) is also transferred?

*

CE video identifiers (VICs) - timing/formats supported
    1920 x 1080p at  60Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1) [Native]
    1920 x 1080p at  50Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1280 x  720p at  60Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1280 x  720p at  50Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1920 x 1080i at  60Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1920 x 1080i at  50Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
     720 x  480p at  60Hz - EDTV (16:9, 32:27)
     720 x  576p at  50Hz - EDTV (16:9, 64:45)
    1920 x 1080p at  24Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1920 x 1080p at  25Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    1920 x 1080p at  30Hz - HDTV (16:9, 1:1)
    NB: NTSC refresh rate = (Hz*1000)/1001

Techflaws wrote:

I don’t, which is why I’m still not entirely convinced it’s not the original files. Here’s what I’ve tried with automframe set to on and a TV capable of this*:

 

  • original mkv: judder
  • mkv muxed to m2ts: no judder
  • mkv muxed to mkv: judder
  • m2ts muxed to mkv: no judder

 

The fact that m2ts works, suggests that the internal streams are okay and that the original container is “damaged”. The fact that mkvs remuxed from a working m2ts do work, suggests that the MKV container itself is also fine. Maybe when muxing from one mkv to another, whatever causes this problems (some weird/new setting) is also transferred?

 

Which program did you use (and which version) to remux m2ts->mkv? Also which one for mkv->m2ts?

TSMuxerGUI and MKVToolnix 5.8.0 (cause I was anticipating something like this).