New H.264 specification which breaks the WD TV HD

[IceBone]

Hey, there, everybody.

I seem to have stumbled upon a new sort of H.264 spec, which not only can’t play on the WD TV, it prevents any other file to play afterwards and requires a reset.

I’ve tried looking at the codec specifications, but I can’t find a difference between them and videos that do play. They aren’t corrupt, as they do play on the PC. If I transcode with Handbrake, it’s fixed, but that takes far too long.

Anyone have any idea where for the problem?

[TonyPh12345]

It might be a good idea to tell us exactly what this “New Spec” is.

[IceBone]

Well, that’s the thing, I don’t know what it is. All I have are a few movies that do this and a bunch that don’t. mkvinfo doesn’t tell me anything, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place.

[TonyPh12345]

MKVinfo won’t help much…   Try MEDIAINFO

mediainfo.sourceforge.net

[IceBone]

Ok, here are 2 examples of a working and a non working video:

Working:

ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 31s 406ms
Bit rate                         : 21.2 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.425
Stream size                      : 79.2 MiB (91%)
Title                            : x264 - crf encode
Language                         : English

Not working:

ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP             : M=3, N=16
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1mn 2s
Bit rate                         : 9 253 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 040 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.193
Stream size                      : 69.2 MiB (84%)
Language                         : English

The only thing I see different is the resolution, which isn’t full 1080p.

[TonyPh12345]

I don’t see High@L4.0 mentioned in the supported codecs, but I don’t know first-hand if 4.0 isn’t supported…

[RoofingGuy]

IceBone wrote:> I seem to have stumbled upon a new sort of H.264 spec, which not only can’t play on the WD TV, it prevents any other file to play afterwards and requires a reset.

 

Anyone have any idea where for the problem?

I’d bet quite a lot of money that it isn’t the codec, but the header compression issue.

The only difference between High@L4.0 and High@L4.1 is the bitrate – 4.0 allows up to 25 mbit and 4.1 allows up to 50mbit.  So, it’s possible that a player could handle 4.0 but not 4.1, but the other way around is quite unlikely.  That’d be like an audio player that could handle 320kbit mp3 files but couldn’t play 192kbit files.

And it wouldn’t be a "new spec. " 4.1 is newer than 4.0.   I think that’s why they don’t have to list 4.0, since they list 4.1.

[IceBone]

That’s what I thought, I was just thinking there were some new settings, which aren’t supported. I know that some old divx players couldn’t play xvid with more than 2 consecutive b-frames or GMC.

So… about your header compression issue… how could I check for that?

[l_l]

IceBone, look this: http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-HD/Petition-for-Gen2-new-Firmware-fix-Matroska-mkvtoolnix/td-p/91634

[IceBone]

Thanks! At least now there is a quicker way to fix a movie than transcoding. I’ll sign my name to the petition anyway!

[PixelPower]

You could try re-muxing one of your “broken” files in MKVmerge GUI.  What version do you have?  If it’s 4.1.0 or later, you’ll just need to disable header compression and save as a new file, shouldn’t take long.

Alternatively, there’s a tool specifically for fixing MKVs on older WD players available here:

http://www.matroska.org/downloads/mkclean.html

The package includes a commandline tool called mkWDclean.  Don’t have first-hand experience with this one (was never affected by header compression issue).

[IceBone]

Yeah, I tried remuxing, but without knowing to disable header compression, it didn’t fix anything. I’ll try it out in a few days when I get the time.

[bumrocks]

Refer to the second post in this thread on a program which will fix the header compression.  The post also includes a screenshot which shows which box to check in the options window to properly fix the issue when you remux…

http://community.wdc.com/t5/WD-TV-HD/Petition-for-Gen2-new-Firmware-fix-Matroska-mkvtoolnix/td-p/91634

[vannostrom]

i’ve had this problem, if i demux and remux with mkvmerge it fixes it.