Sony BDP-S5100 MKV with DTS playback problem

[dmdbur]

I found there is a problem with Sony's most popular Blu-ray players that when trying to play an MKV file with DTS audio that it will completely lock up the player where you have to unplug the player from the wall socket to get it to reset. In their user manual, they show MKV is supported, but for audio codecs for MKV's they show DD, PCM, MP3. No DTS. For other file formats such as .m2ts, DTS is supported. Why would they leave out DTS for MKV files, whereas pretty much every blu ray player out there supports DTS in an MKV file?

[cv2702]

I've found a similar issue, but with a different twist. Same DBP-S5100 player. I'm streaming to the player from TVersity (tversity.com) two MKV files:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
File #1
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 1
File size : 8.34 GiB
Duration : 46mn 29s
Overall bit rate : 25.7 Mbps
Writing application : Cyberlink Matroska Muxer v1.0.0
Writing library : libebml v0.7.8 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L4.2
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / H264
Duration : 46mn 29s
Bit rate : 24.9 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 60.000 fps
Original frame rate : 59.940 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.200
Stream size : 8.09 GiB (97%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.601
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 46mn 29s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 85.1 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
File #2
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 1
File size : 753 MiB
Duration : 4mn 7s
Overall bit rate : 25.5 Mbps
Writing application : Cyberlink Matroska Muxer v1.0.0
Writing library : libebml v0.7.8 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.2
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=13
Codec ID : V_MS/VFW/FOURCC / H264
Duration : 4mn 7s
Bit rate : 24.7 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 60.120 fps
Original frame rate : 59.940 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.198
Stream size : 731 MiB (97%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 4mn 7s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 7.57 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As you can see, the audio is AC-3 on both files. When streaming the smaller of the 2 files, it plays ok. Streamin the bigger file results in the 'busy ring' revolving for ever and, yes, I need to unplug teh device.

The only apparent difference between the 2 files, beside size which shouldn't be an issue when streaming, is the use or not of CABAC on the video side. Surprisingly, it's the bigger file not using CABAC that fails.

In my case (streaming), the footnotes of the user manual often mention "The player may not play this file format on a DLNA server"; notice the '... may not ...' ?

Bottom line: who knows what Sony coded in their player.

[Ripman]

I use a little Sony portable BD player when I travel for work, which is often. It is a BDP-SX910. Decent enough unit for its purpose.

I can lockup the portable Sony with certain MKV files created with MakeMKV or HB. (These same files work fine in vlc 32/64 and my main OPPO unit.) At this point, I am most certain that it is a throughput issue in that the Sony players cannot handle very high bitrates. In my experience, I am thinking something around the 30mbps (audio+video) mark is causing the unit to freeze. And it happens mostly with DTS-HD tracks because they are usually "bigger" than other audio tracks.

I can get certain DTS HD to play fine, but again, it depends on the overall video bitrate mostly. I HB'ed The Road 2009 with video at about 9.2mbps, and that DTS HD track plays fine. I MakeMKV'ed The Swimmer 1968, and those audio tracks play fine. I HB'ed Thief 1981 with video over 20mbps, and the DTS 5.1 plays fine, but the DTS HD causes the player to lockup.

Do a search on the HB forum for "Sony BD player issues post 0.10.0" and you will see a thread where I speak about this type of problem.