Ripped DVDs are giving me a headache
July 13, 2014 2:34 PM Subscribe
Ripped DVDs look juddery. I converted them to mp4 and smooth pans of the camera seem to "stick" multiple times a second. Is this a mismatch between the mp4 fps and the tv's? If so, how can I fix it?
I cleverly ripped almost my entire DVD collection to mp4 files and only then checked to see if they look good.
The problem is when I watch on the tv (tablet is fine). The video is "juddery". I'm assuming that this is because I ripped the DVDs to mp4s at the DVD framerate, which is 24fps, and the tv is showing them at 30fps, getting the missing frames by duplicating every 4th frame. Regardless, that's what it looks like. A smooth pan of the camera seems to stop briefly, multiple times a second. My wife can't see it, but it drives me apeshit.
I'm watching on a newish Samsung lcd smart tv (7100 series). The video is streamed from my NAS, which is not high-powered enough to support Plex.
What can I do to fix this?
Is there some way to tell my tv what the real fps is and have it show that? Do I have to re-rip the files at 30fps (and assume my DVD ripping software can do decent interpolation)? Is there some format other than mp4 that would do a better job? Should I drink more before watching the videos?
I'm planning on experimenting, but I figured I'd ping the hive-mind first.
I cleverly ripped almost my entire DVD collection to mp4 files and only then checked to see if they look good.
The problem is when I watch on the tv (tablet is fine). The video is "juddery". I'm assuming that this is because I ripped the DVDs to mp4s at the DVD framerate, which is 24fps, and the tv is showing them at 30fps, getting the missing frames by duplicating every 4th frame. Regardless, that's what it looks like. A smooth pan of the camera seems to stop briefly, multiple times a second. My wife can't see it, but it drives me apeshit.
I'm watching on a newish Samsung lcd smart tv (7100 series). The video is streamed from my NAS, which is not high-powered enough to support Plex.
What can I do to fix this?
Is there some way to tell my tv what the real fps is and have it show that? Do I have to re-rip the files at 30fps (and assume my DVD ripping software can do decent interpolation)? Is there some format other than mp4 that would do a better job? Should I drink more before watching the videos?
I'm planning on experimenting, but I figured I'd ping the hive-mind first.
What are you using? CloneDVD?
posted by Hermione Granger at 2:51 PM on July 13, 2014
posted by Hermione Granger at 2:51 PM on July 13, 2014
I have this tv! I fucking hate its built in video player!
I'm assuming that this is because I ripped the DVDs to mp4s at the DVD framerate, which is 24fps, and the tv is showing them at 30fps
Nope, it's a 240hz tv(although it only reveals 120hz to the end user through hdmi, it is internally 240hz). Meaning that it can directly and correctly play 24p content.
That said, the first thing i'd try is putting the movie files on a flash drive and playing them directly on the tv. That's solved problems for me several times.
The second thing i'd try is playing the video files off of a laptop or a game console or something connected to the TV. The tv seems to switch off some of its video processing awesomeness when it's playing things on its own video player(and you'll notice certain video settings in the menus aren't revealed except when playing from an external device, ugh). Video from my PS3 always looks a bit nicer than video played internally.
Is there some way to tell my tv what the real fps is and have it show that?
This is kind of what auto motion plus "clear" does. The everything else to 240hz smoothing is completely off if you switch off auto motion plus. It doesn't need to be in "smooth" stupid-soap-opera-effect mode, set it to "clear". This function exists specifically to clean up these sorts of problems.
The same caveat as above applies though, it works flawlessly when video is played from my PS3... but less intensely/consistently when played from the media player, or netflix, or whatever. Still, turn it on. As i said, it's not the stupid "fake super high FPS" thing, it looks like a normal frame rate and motion looks normal... it just kills this kind of judder entirely.
As a closing note though, god do i hate the stupid video playing/local file streaming over DLNA functions of this tv. It works like shit randomly. I bought it intending to quit using my power-sucking, hot, somewhat janky PS3 and i find myself never even bothering with the TVs video playing functions anymore because i've had so many weird problems with it, including it consistently inexplicably quitting halfway through a movie being streamed from PS3 media server on my imac basically every time(and yes, i've tried every DLNA server i can think of including just letting it directly play the files). I can't believe how terribly some functions of this TV work for how expensive it was, and how incredibly stupid some parts of the interface are.
To be clear though, i'm almost positive it's the TV if the files play fine on your tablet. I've had repeated problems with this TV being stupid with certain files(and especially some ancient ass VHS rips in some super deprecated mpeg format) and just tons of general issues and glitchiness with it playing video from within its own smart features.
posted by emptythought at 2:53 PM on July 13, 2014
I'm assuming that this is because I ripped the DVDs to mp4s at the DVD framerate, which is 24fps, and the tv is showing them at 30fps
Nope, it's a 240hz tv(although it only reveals 120hz to the end user through hdmi, it is internally 240hz). Meaning that it can directly and correctly play 24p content.
That said, the first thing i'd try is putting the movie files on a flash drive and playing them directly on the tv. That's solved problems for me several times.
The second thing i'd try is playing the video files off of a laptop or a game console or something connected to the TV. The tv seems to switch off some of its video processing awesomeness when it's playing things on its own video player(and you'll notice certain video settings in the menus aren't revealed except when playing from an external device, ugh). Video from my PS3 always looks a bit nicer than video played internally.
Is there some way to tell my tv what the real fps is and have it show that?
This is kind of what auto motion plus "clear" does. The everything else to 240hz smoothing is completely off if you switch off auto motion plus. It doesn't need to be in "smooth" stupid-soap-opera-effect mode, set it to "clear". This function exists specifically to clean up these sorts of problems.
The same caveat as above applies though, it works flawlessly when video is played from my PS3... but less intensely/consistently when played from the media player, or netflix, or whatever. Still, turn it on. As i said, it's not the stupid "fake super high FPS" thing, it looks like a normal frame rate and motion looks normal... it just kills this kind of judder entirely.
As a closing note though, god do i hate the stupid video playing/local file streaming over DLNA functions of this tv. It works like shit randomly. I bought it intending to quit using my power-sucking, hot, somewhat janky PS3 and i find myself never even bothering with the TVs video playing functions anymore because i've had so many weird problems with it, including it consistently inexplicably quitting halfway through a movie being streamed from PS3 media server on my imac basically every time(and yes, i've tried every DLNA server i can think of including just letting it directly play the files). I can't believe how terribly some functions of this TV work for how expensive it was, and how incredibly stupid some parts of the interface are.
To be clear though, i'm almost positive it's the TV if the files play fine on your tablet. I've had repeated problems with this TV being stupid with certain files(and especially some ancient ass VHS rips in some super deprecated mpeg format) and just tons of general issues and glitchiness with it playing video from within its own smart features.
posted by emptythought at 2:53 PM on July 13, 2014
How big are your files? I noticed this with really high-quality rips, same setup. NAS streaming. Plays well on the local computer, streams poorly. Freezes up every few seconds, or just looks like it's skipping frames.
I honestly can't be more specific about the files. I assume it has to do with the NAS buffering or the speed of my local network. Audio doesn't skip so that might cross out the latter explanation.
posted by phaedon at 3:23 PM on July 13, 2014
I honestly can't be more specific about the files. I assume it has to do with the NAS buffering or the speed of my local network. Audio doesn't skip so that might cross out the latter explanation.
posted by phaedon at 3:23 PM on July 13, 2014
I have a different setup, but when this was happening for me some time back I solved it by making sure I forced handbrake to use a constant bit rate.
posted by rhizome at 3:34 PM on July 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 3:34 PM on July 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Are you streaming over Wi-Fi?
The thing people don't tell you is that Wi-Fi sucks even when it appears to be good, and we only use it because it's convenient as hell compared to wired networks. Wireless networks are vulnerable to all sorts of problems, especially interference from other nearby WiFi routers, which causes it to lose and have to resend information. If you're in an apartment or other dense residential housing, get a wifi analyzer app in your phone and take a look at what's nearby-- most people will be on channels 1, 6, or 11 in the 2.4GHz band (for technical reasons it's best to stick with those for best signal, even if others use them), and all over the map in the (much wider=many more channels) 5GHz band. If possible (supported by your TV, Wifi Router, and other devices), find a quiet band in the 5GHz area and switch to it. (Possibly your wifi router may be able to talk to devices on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands at the same time.)
Try lower bitrate rips = lower target filesize, which is one possibly way the dvd ripping software will present the option. If you were to re-rip the same video at half the bitrate and play it back, and you get an improvement, then you've got a case of poor network connectivity causing frame drops.
However, since you're seeing frame drops during high motion, that's suggestive of an Encoder issue. Is the Encoder maxing your computer's resources during encoder? Are you doing anything during encoding that could deprive your encoder software of resources, such as playing another video, gaming, processing images or sound? And have you tried another DVD ripper/transcoder? If you need some, Doom9.org is the place to look for DVD backup software and help.
posted by Sunburnt at 4:21 PM on July 13, 2014
The thing people don't tell you is that Wi-Fi sucks even when it appears to be good, and we only use it because it's convenient as hell compared to wired networks. Wireless networks are vulnerable to all sorts of problems, especially interference from other nearby WiFi routers, which causes it to lose and have to resend information. If you're in an apartment or other dense residential housing, get a wifi analyzer app in your phone and take a look at what's nearby-- most people will be on channels 1, 6, or 11 in the 2.4GHz band (for technical reasons it's best to stick with those for best signal, even if others use them), and all over the map in the (much wider=many more channels) 5GHz band. If possible (supported by your TV, Wifi Router, and other devices), find a quiet band in the 5GHz area and switch to it. (Possibly your wifi router may be able to talk to devices on both 2.4 and 5GHz bands at the same time.)
Try lower bitrate rips = lower target filesize, which is one possibly way the dvd ripping software will present the option. If you were to re-rip the same video at half the bitrate and play it back, and you get an improvement, then you've got a case of poor network connectivity causing frame drops.
However, since you're seeing frame drops during high motion, that's suggestive of an Encoder issue. Is the Encoder maxing your computer's resources during encoder? Are you doing anything during encoding that could deprive your encoder software of resources, such as playing another video, gaming, processing images or sound? And have you tried another DVD ripper/transcoder? If you need some, Doom9.org is the place to look for DVD backup software and help.
posted by Sunburnt at 4:21 PM on July 13, 2014
Response by poster: Answers to some questions:
I'm using Aimersoft to do the ripping. I picked constant bit-rate, 5mbps, and I'm streaming over powerline ethernet. Netflix plays like a champ over the same connection.
The problem isn't related to high motion, I think. It's probably there if you see two people sitting there and talking, but it isn't obvious. It's easiest to see it when the camera is panning, because smooth movement becomes not so smooth movement (I just saw it today on the opening part of Beauty and the Beast, which shouldn't tax the system at all).
I'll try emptythought's idea of playing off of a flash drive and I'll fiddle with the auto-motion settings.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:05 PM on July 13, 2014
I'm using Aimersoft to do the ripping. I picked constant bit-rate, 5mbps, and I'm streaming over powerline ethernet. Netflix plays like a champ over the same connection.
The problem isn't related to high motion, I think. It's probably there if you see two people sitting there and talking, but it isn't obvious. It's easiest to see it when the camera is panning, because smooth movement becomes not so smooth movement (I just saw it today on the opening part of Beauty and the Beast, which shouldn't tax the system at all).
I'll try emptythought's idea of playing off of a flash drive and I'll fiddle with the auto-motion settings.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:05 PM on July 13, 2014
As a quick comment on playing from the internal "smart" system vs an external device, i just watched sailor moon crystal on hulu from the smart app. It was doing this HEAVILY during panning sequences.
Playing that show, or attack on titan from PS3 there's instantly no issue. This is streaming the same "files" from the same streaming services(netflix and hulu). I picked those because anime tends to do those flat, horizontal motion only wide slow panning shots a lot which really make this painfully obvious.
I really think that something is fucky with the way the TVs OS/GPU+video decode acceleration handle this. It's not every file, and it's not every format. It's not a bit rate related thing either because some very high mbps files play fine, and some very low bitrate/simple files do this heavily. It happens consistently at the same speed regardless of frame rate too, and it happens at something just north of 1hz, since it's ever so slightly more than once a second.
This isn't something that's always there, and you just only notice it sometimes. It really does only happen on certain streams/files.
It's also worth noting that my partners parents have the D series equivalent of this model from a few years ago, and its internal smarthub player does not experience this at all. I really think there's just something screwy with the hardware or software on the f71xx TVs...
posted by emptythought at 11:20 PM on July 13, 2014
Playing that show, or attack on titan from PS3 there's instantly no issue. This is streaming the same "files" from the same streaming services(netflix and hulu). I picked those because anime tends to do those flat, horizontal motion only wide slow panning shots a lot which really make this painfully obvious.
I really think that something is fucky with the way the TVs OS/GPU+video decode acceleration handle this. It's not every file, and it's not every format. It's not a bit rate related thing either because some very high mbps files play fine, and some very low bitrate/simple files do this heavily. It happens consistently at the same speed regardless of frame rate too, and it happens at something just north of 1hz, since it's ever so slightly more than once a second.
This isn't something that's always there, and you just only notice it sometimes. It really does only happen on certain streams/files.
It's also worth noting that my partners parents have the D series equivalent of this model from a few years ago, and its internal smarthub player does not experience this at all. I really think there's just something screwy with the hardware or software on the f71xx TVs...
posted by emptythought at 11:20 PM on July 13, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by instead of three wishes at 2:48 PM on July 13, 2014