Playback troubles: pixellation noise and greyed-out image

[BluRayGuy]

I'm having playback problems after using MakeMKV. After ripping several BluRay without problems, my latest rips show pixellation noise and the image greys-out completely before returning to normal -- this happens over and over as if through cycles. The same thing happened with PavtubeByteCopy,so it's obviously not MakeMKV that is the culprit. This has happened with BluRays of The Grapes of Wrath (Fox), Red Desert (Criterion) and Utamaro and his Women (Criterion). I'm wondering if it's a copy guard issue?

Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a fix? Thanks!

[Woodstock]

When you ripped the disk were there any messages about "No FUTs", and the name of a file that should be sent to svq@makemkv.com ? What you describe is similar to what happens when a disk uses a version of BD+ that MakeMKV hasn't been set up to handle. You can get more information about it here: /svq/

If this is the case, your MakeMKV data directory (found in Preferences->General) should have a .tgz file in it that Mike will need to make it work.

The other possibility for this is your playback system can't handle the video bandwidth from the MKV, and that could be anywhere in the chain from where you stored the file to where you play it. Usually, the places that have problems will move around in this case, whereas the BD+ issue will be consistently in the same places when you play it back.

[BluRayGuy]

Thanks Woodstock. I didn't see any such message. However what you say about the playback system makes sense. I just tried again making a new mov file and I projected the results through my Sony projector: it worked fine. When I tried with my mac pro ("trash can" 2013) and old mac Apple Cinema HD Display (30"), the same playback issue happened. I'll try with the other discs tomorrow. But this leaves me trying to figure out why this is the case or, to put it differently, to figure out what is the weak link in the chain... Is it possible the Cinema Display screen can't handle the video bandwidth since in both cases I'm using the same file stored in the same place (a large hard drive) hard wired to both the Sony projector (the projector is connected to a 2015 mac mini server by way of a receiver) and the mac pro/Cinema display (which is hard wired with Thunderbolt to the mac mini server that is connected to the hard disk) ?

[Woodstock]

Conversion often changes the bandwidth used for video.

My old video server worked fine for playing SD video, at least up to two players at the same time. Beyond that, I'd get video tearing and even pauses in playback. I spent the money to put a better server in (Synology 1813+, getting close to needing that 8th disk), and it can push full network bandwidth data to however many players I want.

If everything is playing from local media, you shouldn't have bandwidth-related issues. Any time you add networking, especially wireless, bandwidth raises its ugly head again.

Generally speaking, I rarely have "raw" MKV files on my media system. Everything goes through handbrake to compress the video better. It also lets me tweak the video stream to match device requirements... Things like burning in subtitles for devices that can't handle displaying them. And even with having two copies of everything, the space requirements are less than the raw video.