transcoding issue, Web & Chromecast

[Guest]

When I play some files through the web app (lan) or android app > chromecast (lan), i get a very low bit rate output

 

I've attached a sample log file of web UI playback, and some screenshots.

 

I'm running two servers which are affected, 3.0.5943.0 and 3.0.5933.0 but to be honest the issue has been present for months. I can't really say what the common issues are, though it typically occurs for 720p content, and not SD or 1080p. I would also guess it affects MKV but I can't be certain. The occasions i can think of are all MKV, and seem to be 1024x### resolution.

 

other files transcode perfectly fine.

 

 

 

transcode-ff633ff7-73cf-4006-a707-0dab43af15c0.txt

[Luke 42083]

Hi, the input bitrate of the source is 207530, and so the output bitrate is limited to that amount. We generally don't try to increase the bitrate when transcoding. You won't see this with higher quality videos.

[Guest]

Thanks for the response Luke

 

So if i understand correctly, something that is compressed very well, will always be necessarily reduced in quality by the  transcoding process? is there a way to control this behaviour?

 

If this is the case, i would have expected a wide variety of loss, ranging from acceptable to extreme. I would classify the effects i have noticed as always being extreme, but in all other cases the output quality is as expected (or so close as to be indecipherable.

 

Are there any other ways to influence the transcoding behaviour? I have plenty of CPU available on the rig, as well as LAN bandwidth.

[Guest]

Didn't there used to be a setting which determined the LAN and WAN transcoding desired bitrates?

[Luke 42083]

Yes and we still have settings in-app as well as server side, but they are intended to correspond to network limitations. In other words, they are not used to increase quality from the source. i will have to consider how we might handle this type of file. thanks.