MakeMKV 1.17.3, Debian 11, FFMPEG 4.3.5, VLC Playback Distortion

[FerrusBueller]

Newbie here trying to test direct (no ripping) bluray playback using VLC/MakeMKV.

Video and audio start to play well and then after playing the movie for a few minutes, the video image starts to distort. This can be expedited by jumping into the middle of the videos after initial startup. If I jump around the beginning of the movie, there is no distortion.

I have tried multiple discs and they all behave the same way. CPU and memory utilization monitored by htop is very low during playback.

I have searched the web and tried various things, but distortion still persists after the beginning of the movies. Any suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks much.

P.S.

FWIW, might want to update the 1.17.2 release thread subject line to version 1.17.3.

HW/SW Configuration:

• Debian 11-XFCE/64-bit with the latest backports kernel 6.0.0-0.deb11.6-amd64

• MakeMKV 1.17.3

• FFMpeg 4.3.5

• VLC 3.0.18 - set to 1080P

• Intel i7-9700 8-core 4.7GHz, 32GB 2666 DDR4, NVMe boot

• GT 1030 with 2GB DDR5

• Internal SATA Plextor PX-B950SA

Drive Information
OS device name: /dev/sr0
Current profile: BD-ROM
Manufacturer: PLEXTOR
Product: BD-R PX-B940SA
Revision: 1.08
Firmware date: 2010-03-26
Highest AACS version: 42

LibreDrive Information
Status: Possible, but very unlikely to happen
Drive platform: Pioneer RS1014
Firmware version: ID17

Disc Information
Label: RED_BIRD_2D_WW
Timestamp: 2010-03-11 12:01:05
Protection: AACS v16, BD+ v2010.3
Data capacity: 46.61 Gb
Disc type: BD-ROM
Number of layers: 2
Channel bit length: 74,5 nm (25.0 GB max. per layer)

[FerrusBueller]

Tried the latest version of Linux Mint (with kernel 5.15.0-60) and get the same behavior.

DVDs play fine in both Debian and Mint with VLC.

The beginning of BluRays play fine for a while and then a few (5 or 10) minutes into the movie the video starts to distort and immediately distorts if I start to jump around the disc. Jumping around DVDs does not distort the video.

As for the "Direct Blu-ray playback with VLC" instructions found at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7009, libmmbd.so.0 is installed directly into /usr/lib, so there doesn't appear to be a need for the symlink.

• sudo ln -s libmmbd.so.0 /usr/lib/

Should I make a link to some other names (e.g. without extensions or libaacs/libbdplus entries) ???

Again, any suggestions would be helpful.

[mediacable]

Is the codec on the BluRay the VC1 codec? If so many hardware decoders do a poor job decoding VC1 which can result in artifacts.

You can try disabling hardware decoding in VLC and replaying the file to see if that makes a difference.

[FerrusBueller]

@mediacable, Thanks for the response.

The video codec in the Avatar disk appears to be H264, not VC1.

Tools / Preferences / "Input / Codecs" / Hardware-accelerated decoding: Automatic

The setting was on automatic and I just tried disabled. No change.

The distortion starts @ 15 minutes into the movie on this disk.

I did find other disks that played with no problems (including jumping around) like Pacific Rim.

I think I should make a list of disks that work and don't work.

[mediacable]

I've just encountered this with Anastasia (1997) which is h264 video / DTS audio, but this is from an ISO backup streaming from a HDD and not the optical disk, so that "layer" doesn't appear to be the problem - maybe its during the decryption process as it is an encrypted ISO and not a decrypted folder backup from MakeMKV. I'll have to make a backup of it that way and play it through VLC to see if the problem persists.

VLC command line output when artifacting starts to occur, where this repeats throughout the video:

Code: Select all

[h264 @ 0x7fd50407ea80] left block unavailable for requested intra mode
[h264 @ 0x7fd50407ea80] error while decoding MB 0 26, bytestream 22960
[h264 @ 0x7fd50409b500] cabac decode of qscale diff failed at 98 36
[h264 @ 0x7fd50409b500] error while decoding MB 98 36, bytestream 15454

Edit (Apr-3rd-23): This also seems to be preventing MakeMKV from ripping the title, I made a thread for that under viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30691