CFULLHDMA: Beta 1.09.14

Announcement:

v1.09.14

  • 1. Solving the artefact issue on MKV files caused some issues at the On Screen Display: fixed.
  • 2. CFULLHDMA could not work with Twonky Media Server on Music Level due to usage of M3U by Twonky. CFULLHDMA used it as PlayList, Twonky has other purpose for it, so things got messed up: fixed.
  • 3. Issues with playing DVD’s and subtitles. It could not switched correctly (manually) and when selected it did not start at the beginning of the video. Fixed.
  • 4. IMedia entries (like NFS) could not be edited after saving it. Fixed.
  • 5. In the background errors on NFS could be created. An error causes the device to crash: fixed.
  • 6. Files with for instance dvsd codec type crashed the codec engine: dvsd is not supported, crash fixed.
  • 7. Certain movie files could not played properly (freezing video): fixed.

only available for beta testers (Check your mail. gmail accounts: it can be in your spam mailbox, Hotmail accounts are totally unknown if they get it .. Unreliable email host.

Als je het niet meer snapt

…………. dan schrijf je een weblog entry …

Ik werk met een NFS servertje en probeer deze op een linux doosje te mounten. Nu werkt dat af-en-toe via een dsl-router goed. Echter minder vaak dan me lief is. En dan heb ik het over Kernel Space NFS. Want User Space NFS heeft geen problemen, maar dat wil ik dus niet … ;-)

Dus wat doe je: je schakelt alle factoren die het probleem kunnen veroorzaken uit. Beide apparaten met een fixed ip en ze kunnen elkaar zonder meer pingen ..

NFS server – Linux doos: verbonden aan vage B merk router: werkt direct zonder problemen, keer op keer. Hoi Hoi Hoi ..

NFS server – Linux doos: verbonden aan een gigabit switch (dumb): time out

NFS server – Linux doos  1 netwerk cable, ping werkt: mount geeft time out ( grote vraagteken)

want halloo .. er zit NIETS tussen .. het is ‘auto mdi-x’ dus een switch is niet eens nodig ..

Met andere woorden: waarom werkt het via een dom B merk routertje en waarom werkt het niet als die 2 apparaten gewoon domweg simpel aan elkaar zijn verbonden. Ik dacht dat ik wel iets kon analyseren waarom iets wel en niet werkt, maar dit slaat alles..

Beta firmware CFULLHDMA 1.09.11

v1.09.11
1. speed up switch embedded MKV subtitles
2. fixed: MKV subtitle control code issue
3. fixed: Some mp4 could not be played.
4. Improved: some MKV files with artefact issue

You need to be a beta tester to get this beta-firmware. Put a comment under this entry with your real e-mail address and I’ll put you on the beta-testers list. note for GMAIL & HOTMAIL users: maybe my mail will arrive in your SPAM inbox.. check it !

Trying to understand: CH3SNAS & NFS = Help needed !

I’ve written earlier a simple howto for users with a CH3SNAS to work with NFS. UNFS is a user space implementation of the NFSv3 protocol. This is working flawlessly on the CH3SNAS with various Linux PC’s I am running (CentOS, Debian, Linux Embedded device etc.. )

but for a VMware implementation I need the READDIRPLUS procedure which is not available in UNFS. So I need to run Kernel-NFS on the CH3SNAS

Fonz fun_plug is providing Kernel NFS (enabled in the CH3SNAS) and UNFS. Installation is easy and almost fool proof.

The issue is following: on all my linux boxes (CentOS, Debian etc.. ) I get following message:

mount: mount to NFS server ‘192.168.1.60’ failed: timed out (retrying).

  • rcpinfo -p 192.168.1.60 gives all correct info
  • showmount -e 192.168.1.60 gives all correct exports
  • rpcinfo -u 192.168.1.60 gives:

program 100005 version 1 ready and waiting
program 100005 version 2 ready and waiting
program 100005 version 3 ready and waiting

  • Showmount -a 192.168.1.60 gives the mount points I ‘tried’ to use:

All mount points on 192.168.1.60:
192.168.1.100:/mnt/HD_a2

and even syslogd gives on the NFS server (CH3SNAS):

Jun 12 18:33:07 DEVELOPMENT daemon.notice mountd[1868]: authenticated mount request from 192.168.1.100:615 for /mnt/HD_a2 (/mnt/HD_a2)

  • Portmap is running at server and client!!

I am totally not understanding why I get time-outs. I do not have a firewall, I do not use iptables. Today I tried in another environment the same: always the error:

mount: mount to NFS server ‘192.168.1.60’ failed: timed out (retrying).

suddenly here at home after about 20 minutes trying to mount the NFS share, the NFS server has been mounted on my local system. But when umounting and mounting again I have again same situation. In my work environment it was totally not possible (standard Debian setup and a CentOS configuration) to have the NFS share mounted. Although it is similar setup ..

So although al tools tells me that everything is correct: I am not getting any mount :-(

Is there anyone with enough NFS knowledge who can tell me why the NFS share is not mounted?

Artefacts when playing MKV / H.264 files

This image from MediaInfo is showing the information of a MKV file which is causing artefacts on a SD 8635 based mediaplayer (like the Conceptronic CFULLHDMA).

I write this entry to have myself informed better about video encoding and get knowlegde about possiblities to find solutions getting things to work if hardware is not capable of doing due to limitations.

One of the major reasons of getting the artefacts are the amount of reference frames used in: I frame, P frame and B frame.

When we check WikiPedia for information about why we should use L4.1 or L5.1 than we can read that L5.1 should be used for high bitrates only. Even HDDVD and Blueray are encoded on L4.1 level

Although L5.1 is supported by the 8635 up to a certain extend, there will still be some clips with artefacts when playing the L5.1 profile.

Sigma Designs does not support L5.1 for their chipset. If they would say so, than they have to ensure 100% compatibility, including the ‘very’ high bitrates. The higher the bitrate, the more memory/processor power (and more) is needed to decode it. And even if we could extend memory still we would see clips with artefacts (if the bitrate would be high up to a certain level.

So if you want to ensure yourself with correct playable media you have to use these max. number of frames:

1280×720@68.3 (9), 1920×1088@30.1 (4), 2048×1024@30.0 (4) L4.1 (Source: Wikipedia)

You will not get better quality when using more stored frames when the resolution, bitrates and framerates are within the level 4.1. Even it is not understandable why some encoders / people within the ‘scene’ are using L5.1 encoding when video bitrates are <25 Mb/s. What for use has it? Even if the original source is L4.1 it has no use to bring it to Level 5.1 and I’ve barely seen people using high bitrated uncompressed masters for encoding.

A valid question could be: how to play the L5.1 encoded clip without artefacts.

My answer: the easiest way is to remux the file to a TS or a M2TS stream.

Another simple tool for users like me could be: RIPBOT264. This tool was working fine when remuxing a 150MB MKV L5.1 clip I used for testing.

more info about ripbot264 can be found here.

This tool can remux the L5.1 file to L4.1 with correct reference frames, keep the audio as it is and put it all back in the MKV… (no idea about subtitles though).

A simple guide for ripbot can be found here

if you want to remux your clip to MP4 than I advise you to use Gotsent, This program can be found here

More all-in-one tools I did not find yet. Other tools do need a bunch of other programs to accomplish the same.

So sometimes it seems that a ‘scene’ release is awesome encoded, but the performance is poor as hardware is not capable of decode it without artefacts or other issues

update: with the beta release of 1.09.11 firmware we were able to have L5.1 supported. Although not 100% of all files  can be played without artefacts (there are some reasons why it can’t be all) but I think 95% of the content we can .. And that is a huge huge improvement compared to other Sigma Designs 8634/8635 players. 

CFULLHDMA: Trying to understand decoding H.264

During the development of the CFULLHDMA I am always trying the best out of things. (= chipset + firmware). Knowing that not everything can be supported it is always a challenge to get the best.

Therefore my search for answers ..

Challenging the Sigma Designs 8635 chipset is one of the main things I like, especially as we know that the SDK of Sigma Designs is far from perfect.

SD 8635 does not support MKV, so this is added by a lot of manufactures themselves. The chip is strong in TS and MP4 .. 

We did some tests and got feedback from users: some certain files could not be played correct: during playback a lot of artefacts (squares) could be seen. In search for ansers why this happened a lot of debugging and research has been done.

In general this is what is happening: the filestream is forced to be played at H.264 High Profile @ L4.1 but the stream is a High Profile @ L5.x one and this is causing the artefacts.

The H.264 High Profile L5.x does need much more memory than the profile L4.1 (Blueray and HDDVD do use L4.1) ..  Also the ref frames have a role in this part: the more ref. frames, the more issues can be expected.

So in search for solutions it’s being checked if enough power/memory can be made available to decode the H.264 High profile L5.x

So my first suggestion is to remux the stream from L5.x to L4.x and check the amount of ref. frames.

It’s also wise to check some forums. I think the L4.1 is the profile to choose.

note: I am not H.264 expert, so if someone has more info about difference between L4.x and L5.x: please give me some hints