Problem with UHD rips from BE16NU50 - Visual Blocking & Stuttering

[vila2k]

I tell you: I am pissed!! You sounded that all files were processed flawlessly and now you come up with this.
Stealing other people's time to help you. Moron!

In my opening post i stated that AV Sync errors where found in Star Wars but that most of the 30 discs i ripped didnt have errors - perhaps you didnt read that bit.

Id still like to know what type of AVR will decode and play h.265 from a USB?

[Coopervid]

You need to solve your problems yourself. You never indicated issues with the files and blah-blah didn't help that the problem was on your site ripping good and flawless copies. I will not respond anymore to any of your posts.

[vila2k]

You need to solve your problems yourself.

Or perhaps other people are happy to engage and your not the only person on the forum ?

You never indicated issues with the files and blah-blah didn't help that the problem was on your site ripping good and flawless copies.

Did I not?

I ripped them all over the last week. Some of the discs had AV sync errors (The Star Wars Discs spring to mind)
AV sync issue in stream 1 at 0:02:27.564 with duration of 1.666ms : 2 frame(s) dropped to reduce audio skew to -0.016ms
AV sync issue in stream 1 at 0:52:33.484 with duration of 1.666ms : 2 frame(s) dropped to reduce audio skew to +0ms
AV synchronization issues were found in file 'Star Wars- A New Hope_t04.mkv' (title #5)

I will not respond anymore to any of your posts.

Thanks.

[dcoke22]

I watched, twice, the first 4 minutes of The Rise of Skywalker on my TV in HDR10 via Plex on an Apple TV 4K. My TV is a 65 inch LG C9 OLED. I did not see any stuttering or frame drops or macro blocking. I didn't see any flaws.

MediaInfo tells me I ripped this with MakeMKV 1.15.2 back in August, 2020. I used a LG WH16NS60 drive with 1.02 firmware to rip. My Plex server is a Raspberry Pi 4 connected via gigabit ethernet. The Apple TV 4K is on gigabit ethernet too. It is connected directly to the TV via a fancy, high-speed, category 2 HDMI 2.0 cable. The audio uses eARC out to a receiver that is not new enough to do the latest lossless audio formats like Dolby TrueHD. As such, I use MakeMKV to transcode the lossless audio to FLAC, which Plex on the Apple TV 4K can deal with.

It might be the case that 1.15.2 has something to do with it, but I don't think so. I can try pulling the disc off my shelf and ripping it again with 1.15.4.

Could it be that somewhere in your playback chain is a dodgy HDMI cable? 4K is demanding on HDMI cables and HDMI is hard to do well over a long run.

I think you also mentioned that the files exhibit the same errors when played back using VLC on your computer? And presumably displayed on a monitor, not on your projector?

As an experiment, what happens if you make a rip without selecting the TrueHD lossless audio? Does that change the playback performance?

[vila2k]

I watched, twice, the first 4 minutes of The Rise of Skywalker on my TV in HDR10 via Plex on an Apple TV 4K. My TV is a 65 inch LG C9 OLED. I did not see any stuttering or frame drops or macro blocking. I didn't see any flaws.

Thanks for checking- i certainly dont think it would be anything inherent in the files as the blocking and jumps are very noticeable.

I might me able to work out how to 'nip out' the opening 5 mins of that encode to upload for other to try but not sure if thats allowed.

Could it be that somewhere in your playback chain is a dodgy HDMI cable? 4K is demanding on HDMI cables and HDMI is hard to do well over a long run.

I think you also mentioned that the files exhibit the same errors when played back using VLC on your computer? And presumably displayed on a monitor, not on your projector?

Im pretty sure all my HDMI cables are good - the bulk of the ones in the system are HDMI 2.0 - I'm 'only running 4k 24P with Chroma 4:2:2 so well with in the limits of those cables.

The Longer HDMI cable is fibre optic and good for 8k.

Haven notices any problems on any other 4k content and yes the same problems occurred at the same point when played back on my MacBook.

As an experiment, what happens if you make a rip without selecting the TrueHD lossless audio? Does that change the playback performance?

I do want the Atmos tracks as I have an Atmos system, I can give this a whirl if it might help to identify something.

But as Im about to post below i think ive narrowed the problem down slightly.

[vila2k]

Last night I tried to rip some but in windows (via bootcamp) using the same drive and 3 of the same discs that i ripped before that had skips macroblocking and AV Sync errors.

This included 'Star Wars A New Hope' which i had previously tried to rip 3 times in the OSX version of makemkv each time with errors.

All 3 discs ripped first time, no errors and playback correctly.


I am going to rip some more discs this way to check this isn't a fluke but it seems to indicate the problems lies either in my setup on OSX or the Mac version of makemkv?

Not sure if it might make sense to move the thread to the 'MakeMKV for Mac OS X' or Start a new thread there as I would really like to be able to get this working in OSX.

[dcoke22]

That's interesting. I use macOS Mojave 10.14.6. Which version do you use?

I'm sure you want the fancy audio on the disc. I just made that suggestion because TrueHD/Atmos audio has been a topic of discussion on this forum and a thing MakeMKV has been evolving & working on in recent releases.

[vila2k]

That's interesting. I use macOS Mojave 10.14.6. Which version do you use?

I'm sure you want the fancy audio on the disc. I just made that suggestion because TrueHD/Atmos audio has been a topic of discussion on this forum and a thing MakeMKV has been evolving & working on in recent releases.

I have Bigsur 11.1 on a MacBook Pro 2019

Ive just done a rip of A New Hope, only with a stereo audio track in OSX, rip went through with no AV Sync errors and file seems to play back with no issues unlike previous rips in OSX.

[dcoke22]

I have a Big Sur 11.1 machine, but it is an Apple Silicon MBA. I connected my external ASUS drive via an Apple USB-A to USB-C dongle. MakeMKV 1.15.4 runs in Rosetta 2 and seems to work just fine. I made a decrypted backup of The Rise of Skywalker. From the backup, I made a .mkv file of the movie with English audio and subtitle tracks. It had a couple of AV Sync messages.

Code: Select all

005014:0000 Saving 1 titles into directory file:///Users/me/transcode/rips
<DEBUG messages excluded>
004007:0010 AV synchronization issues were found in file 'file:///Users/me/transcode/rips/Star Wars- The Rise of Skywalker_t00.mkv' (title #1)
004047:0010 AV sync issue in stream 3 at 0:00:00 : 0 frame(s) dropped to reduce audio skew to +14.833ms
004008:0010 AV sync issue in stream 3 at 0:00:00 with duration of 14.833ms : encountered overlapping frame, audio skew is +14.833ms
<DEBUG messages excluded>
THDSF: [truehd @ 0x7f812418a800] End of stream indicated.
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580] audio_mix: 7.1 to mono
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580] matrix size: 7 x 1
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580]   0.212   0.212   0.425   (SKIP)  0.038   0.038   0.038   0.038 
FFDEC001: [truehd @ 0x7f8124020e00] End of stream indicated.
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580] audio_mix: 7.1 to mono
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580] matrix size: 7 x 1
FFMIX002: [FFM_AudioMix @ 0x3089da580]   0.212   0.212   0.425   (SKIP)  0.038   0.038   0.038   0.038 
DEBUG: Code 0 at f~LMew-?IB-^8*qr:29402210
004008:0010 AV sync issue in stream 2 at 0:02:01.913 with duration of 6.541ms : encountered overlapping frame, audio skew is +6.541ms
004008:0010 AV sync issue in stream 3 at 0:02:01.905 with duration of 31.997ms : encountered overlapping frame, audio skew is +46.83ms
THDSF: [truehd @ 0x7f81241a2000] End of stream indicated.
004007:0000 AV synchronization issues were found in file 'file://Star Wars- The Rise of Skywalker_t00.mkv' (title #1)
004001:0000 Forced subtitles track #5 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file
004001:0000 Forced subtitles track #7 turned out to be empty and was removed from output file
005005:0080 1 titles saved
005036:0104 Copy complete. 1 titles saved.

I'm guessing 'stream 2' refers to the first audio track selected, which in this case was the English TrueHD. Stream 1 is probably the video. Stream 3 is probably the lossy core of the TrueHD track.

I used an Apple Silicon native build of MPV (installed today via Homebrew) to play the resulting .mkv file. I watched the first few minutes.

Code: Select all

me@mba rips % mpv ./Star\ Wars-\ The\ Rise\ of\ Skywalker_t00.mkv
 (+) Video --vid=1 (hevc 3840x2160 23.976fps)
 (+) Audio --aid=1 --alang=eng (*) 'Surround 7.1' (truehd 8ch 48000Hz)
     Audio --aid=2 --alang=eng 'Surround 5.1' (ac3 6ch 48000Hz)
     Audio --aid=3 --alang=eng 'Stereo' (ac3 2ch 48000Hz)
     Subs  --sid=1 --slang=eng (hdmv_pgs_subtitle)
     Subs  --sid=2 --slang=eng (hdmv_pgs_subtitle)
File tags:
 Title: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
AO: [coreaudio] 48000Hz stereo 2ch s32
VO: [libmpv] 3840x2160 yuv420p10
AV: 00:02:01 / 02:21:53 (1%) A-V:  0.000
[ffmpeg/audio] truehd: Lossless check failed - expected 00, calculated 9e.
(Paused) AV: 00:03:50 / 02:21:53 (3%) A-V:  0.000

Exiting... (Quit)

You can see I had the TrueHD audio track selected (even though only stereo was coming out of the laptop's speakers). But notice the ffmpeg message about lossless check failed at 2 minutes and 1 second. That's about right when Kylo Ren's scene with the lightsaber starts. I did not see any macro blocking or hear any audio hiccups, but there's something interesting about that spot in the file. It sure looks like the same place MakeMKV logged a message about an AV sync issue in that stream.

When I watch my earlier 1.15.2 rip on a Mojave 10.14.6 Intel machine using mpv, I get a similar Lossless check failed message at the same timestamp. I don't hear anything or see any visual artifacts.

[dcoke22]

Last night I tried to rip some but in windows (via bootcamp) using the same drive and 3 of the same discs that i ripped before that had skips macroblocking and AV Sync errors.

This included 'Star Wars A New Hope' which i had previously tried to rip 3 times in the OSX version of makemkv each time with errors.

All 3 discs ripped first time, no errors and playback correctly.

Other folks on this forum have seemingly been using MakeMKV on Windows and have had troubles ripping these Star Wars UHDs.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21835&start=135#p100879

I noticed when I installed MakeMKV on a new computer that there is an option to show AV sync messages in Preferences and it defaults to off. How is it set on your boot camp install? I believe you when you say the resulting .mkv files played back without errors.

[dcoke22]

I made some more rips (from my same decrypted backup). There are 3 English audio tracks, the TrueHD track, the lossy DD core and a DD stereo track, which is the descriptive audio. I made 3 rips, each with only one audio track selected. In two of the three, I got an AV Sync error in 'stream 1' at about 2 minutes, 1 second. I got that message in both rips where I only had a DD track selected. I did NOT get the message when I had only the TrueHD track selected.

When playing the resulting rips in MPV, however, only the rip with the TrueHD track posted an error message:

Code: Select all

AV: 00:02:01 / 02:21:53 (1%) A-V:  0.000 Dropped: 1
[ffmpeg/audio] truehd: Lossless check failed - expected 00, calculated e1.

This tells me a couple of things. First, I need to revise my previous guess about 'stream 2' being the first audio track. I don't think that's the case. I think it is referring to the second audio track. When I rip The Rise of Skywalker I only get AV Sync error messages for the Dolby Digital audio tracks, not the TrueHD lossless audio track. Second, only the TrueHD audio track spits out an error during playback in MPV. When I played a rip with multiple audio tracks but was not playing the TrueHD track, MPV did not show any error messages.

This makes me wonder two things. One, the AV sync messages might be a red herring. Two, is something wonky with the TrueHD audio track in the .mkv file and does that cause some players to behave badly? MPV only spits out an error; I don't notice any visual or audio problems. But other players might not tolerate as gracefully whatever is wrong with the TrueHD track, which might lead to other problems.

The Rise of Skywalker consists of two segments. The first segment is about 2 minutes, 1 second long. That implies this is occurring at a seamless branching point. It is tempting to suggest that MakeMKV has a bug here, but it could be the case that there's something 'out of spec' with the authoring of my UHD. (Even if that is the case, the burden still probably falls to MakeMKV to try to do the right thing.)

[vila2k]

I noticed when I installed MakeMKV on a new computer that there is an option to show AV sync messages in Preferences and it defaults to off. How is it set on your boot camp install? I believe you when you say the resulting .mkv files played back without errors.

I checked and neither the OS X or the windows boot camp install had that preference selected in make mkv.

I also received a new Blu Ray drive today - A BH16NS55 with WH16NS60 FIrmware v1.02mk

I ran this drive with ‘ A New Hope’ first in OSX which came up with the same AV sync errors

Then in Windows which again ripped without error.

[dcoke22]

I have now played the first couple minutes of vila2k's rip of The Rise of Skywalker. That file has serious problems. Assuming the authoring of the UHD isn't screwed up (it probably is fine), something gets mangled between the bits on the optical disc and the resulting .mkv file. I don't think the fault lies in the playback chain.

As I understand it, these errors have been produced using two different drives, one of them being new. MakeMKV 1.15.4 on MacOS always seems to produce the errors, but when vila2k uses the same discs, on the same drives with the same cables, on the same computer (a MacBook Pro) but running Windows (via Boot Camp), the rips produced are correct and without errors. This suggests that the disc, drive, cables and computer hardware are fine and probably not the source of trouble. What then follows is it must be something in the MacOS software stack that is the source of error.

I have made rips from my own copy of the disc using two separate Macs on two different versions of MacOS on two separate drives and other than the one audio error message from MPV (that seems to correlate to an AV Sync message during the rip), I don't see any of the errors like I see in vila2k's clip. This suggests that there isn't something inherently broken with MacOS or with MakeMKV on MacOS. I think that leaves something specific to the software stack on vila2k's Mac as the most likely culprit.

I suppose the easiest thing to try is to delete and reinstall MakeMKV 1.15.4, verifying the download from makemkv.com using the hash file on the downloads page. After that, the only thing I can think of is reinstalling MacOS, or installing a new MacOS on an external drive (just to test), or trying on a different Mac altogether (commandeering a friend's Mac perhaps).

[vila2k]

Just as a follow up and for information of anyone that finds this thread - following a number of PM's with jonghotti and dcoke22 I went to try the process on another Mac.

Downloading MakeMKV onto the second Mac i realised that Makemkv v1.15.4 was the version now available.

The proceeding rip of 'A New Hope' worked without AV Sync error messages and played back fine.

I deleted Makemkv v1.15.3 and installed v1.15.4 on my own Mac and again was now able to rip 'A New hope' without error and have gone on to rip a further 8 discs that previously all had problems.

[jonghotti]

Great great news. Sounds like it's time for a release of 1.15.4...