Error during playback of Doctor Who - The Complete Specials

[miceagol]

I'm not really sure where to post this, since makemkv successfully completes the rip of this blu-ray. However, when I try to play the ripped file in VLC, Totem and mplayer, the playback quits immediately.

mplayer prints the following errors (see attached file for full output):

Code: Select all

Error while decoding frame!
[vc1 @ 0x7f537c1d9300]concealing 0 DC, 0 AC, 0 MV errors
A:   0.9 V:   0.9 A-V:  0.000 ct:  0.000   0/  0 36%  5%  2.1% 0 0 
[vc1 @ 0x7f537c1d9300]concealing 0 DC, 0 AC, 0 MV errors
A:   1.0 V:   1.0 A-V:  0.000 ct:  0.000   0/  0 35%  5%  2.0% 0 0 
[vc1 @ 0x7f537c1d9300]concealing 0 DC, 0 AC, 0 MV errors
A:   1.1 V:   1.1 A-V: -0.000 ct:  0.000   0/  0 33%  4%  4.9% 0 0

Does anyone have an idea of what is causing this, and how to rip this blu-ray successfully? I've tried ripping twice and to remove the HD audio with mkvmerge, but same result.

[Romansh]

Code: Select all

[vc1 @ 0x7f537c1d9300]Interlaced frames/fields support is incomplete

You need to build and/or link your players against a newer version of libavcodec.

[miceagol]

You need to build and/or link your players against a newer version of libavcodec.

Ah, thanks! I had a slight feeling that it could be a codec issue. I tested the file in Plex after posting, and there it played fine.

[miceagol]

Ok, so I updated ffmpeg to the latest stable realease, and I'm still having trouble with the VC-1 (interlaced) rips.

VLC now plays the file, but the video is extremely choppy and pixelated. Same result in mplayer. Plex plays the file a bit better, but also there it is choppy and a little less pixelated. I've also tried to convert it to H.264 with Handbrake, but the compressed file is also choppy and pixelated.

I've search around the Internet, and I see lots of people who are having troubles ripping BBC releases encoded with VC-1 interlaced. Has anyone had any success ripping these discs? :-/

[Romansh]

HandBrake still can't handle interlaced VC-, even in the nightlies. This will hopefully change soon though.

[vexar01]

I have been able to convert VC-1 rips on my Mac by using a Virtual Machine (I personally use VMWare Fusion) running Windows 7 Pro. To convert the MKV files generated by MakeMKV I use Ripbot. There are a lot of tutorials on using it to convert videos in Batch. The real issue I have with it is that the files generated are larger than Handbrake files (by as much as 40%-50%) and that the conversion of a 1 hour episode can take several hours. I too am working on converting the BBC versions of Doctor Who, but luckily I had to figure this out when I did the Torchwood series.

I will second the wish that Handbrake would figure out how to do VC-1, it would make it so much simpler.

I hope this helps....

[dannyboy48888]

as Romansh said VC-1 software decoding is broke still for intrlaced VC-1 in opensource decoders (most Dr. Who discs). to convert your going to need a windows box and avisynth (leaving the details out...google). for just playback ensure hardware decoding (GPU decoding) is enabled as the the player just passes the stream to the GPU and it does the proper(ish) decoding.

[dannyboy48888]

@vexar01 the reason handbrake is bigger is because it can't follow the video cycle rate and decimate properly. they took 25fps and interlaced/telecined it to 29.97fps. in avisynth with Tdecimate I specifiy cycle=6 to have it look for and drop one frame every 6 frames (5 normally for ntsc) and give me ~24.975fps out. With this at CRF16 my files are ~25% smaller than source. Handbrake has a custom detelecine field but have not yet successfully got it to work like avisynth. Speed...yep it sucks. Mircrosoft's VC-1 directshow decoding is at it's core single threaded.

[Romansh]

as Romansh said VC-1 software decoding is broke still for intrlaced VC-1 in opensource decoders (most Dr. Who discs). to convert your going to need a windows box and avisynth (leaving the details out...google). for just playback ensure hardware decoding (GPU decoding) is enabled as the the player just passes the stream to the GPU and it does the proper(ish) decoding.

Only if they're using an old libavcodec. Newer versions (libav 10 and FFmpeg 2.0 or later, IIRC) have much improved support for VC-1 with interlaced compression.

[dannyboy48888]

It has made progress but is still incomplete. The only feature left missing is b-frame support in interlaced VC-1 and the old ones do not have that. You will notice this as blocky patches in scenes that are static. In windows you may be telling it not use libav under settings which is why it works, in Linux we don't have that fallback.

[Romansh]

It has made progress but is still incomplete. The only feature left missing is b-frame support in interlaced VC-1 and the old ones do not have that. You will notice this as blocky patches in scenes that are static. In windows you may be telling it not use libav under settings which is why it works, in Linux we don't have that fallback.

B-frame support was completed a while ago. It'll be in libav's release/10 branch (currently in alpha), and is already in FFmpeg 2.0 or later.

[dannyboy48888]

I'll look into that real deep then because Doctor Who is still buggin out and I'm running the git master head with ffmpeg. thanks

(UPDATE)
system: gentoo ~amd64
rebuilt ffmpeg: ffmpeg version N-59422-g828ac6d
rebuilt all depending programs (vlc,smplayer,etc....)
build technique: unmask ffmpeg in package.unmask via ffmpeg-9999, emerge --deep --newuse --update world, (cleanup any messages or taskings that followed)

Same issue, smooth playback/decoding, but the longer a scene is static the more flat spots take over. With GPU rendering it does indeed work (not used during encoding), but with software rendering it is still borked. B-frames are reconised but not properly decoded in Interlaced VC-1

tested with Doctor Who-A Chirstmas Carol (VC-1 Interlaced)

Thanks though, this is interesting and hopfully with enough eyes we will snag the patch as soon as it is out
MakeMKV itself is doing it's job so if this needs to move elsewhere as this ain't a MakeMKV issue than cool.