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After playing an MKV video file on my Panasonic DX650 Series TV, the video starts freezing at about 10 minutes past the beginning, but there's no problem with the audio and subtitles. Everything is fine until the first 10 minutes and the video plays smoothly, after 10 minutes, the video looks like a photo slide show; frames change every 10 seconds until the end of the video.

I've tried fixing this issue by using Meteorite v0.11, nothing changed.

Here's some info about the MKV file by using MediaInfo:

General
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4 / Version 2
File size                                : 1.41 GiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 42 min
Overall bit rate                         : 1 958 kb/s
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v6.6.0 ('The Edge Of The In Between') built on Dec  1 2013 17:55:00
Writing library                          : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 5 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 42 min
Nominal bit rate                         : 1 765 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.047
Writing library                          : x264 core 135 r2345 f0c1c53
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1765 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : HE-AAC / LC
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC
Duration                                 : 1 h 42 min
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz / 24.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 23.438 FPS (1024 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

There's no problem in playing the video file in Windows 7 using VLC Media Player. I've also tried using different USB flash drives, USB 3.0 and external HDD; All the same.

What's causing this problem? How to fix it?

EDIT: I tried another MKV file with the following specifications and it played smoothly, but it's a black and white movie so I'm not sure if it's a fair comparison.

What is exactly wrong with the first MKV file?

General

Format                           : Matroska
Format_Version                   : Version 4 / Version 2
FileSize/String                  : 2.15 GiB
Duration/String                  : 1 h 58 min
OverallBitRate/String            : 2 607 kb/s
Encoded_Date                     : UTC 2016-10-04 14:49:32
Encoded_Application/String       : mkvmerge v9.2.0 ('Photograph') 64bit
Encoded_Library/String           : libebml v1.3.3 + libmatroska v1.4.4

Video
ID/String                        : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format_Profile                   : High@L5
Format_Settings_CABAC/String     : Yes
Format_Settings_RefFrames/String : 4 frames
CodecID                          : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration/String                  : 1 h 58 min
BitRate/String                   : 2 500 kb/s
Width/String                     : 1 920 pixels
Height/String                    : 1 440 pixels
DisplayAspectRatio/String        : 4:3
FrameRate_Mode/String            : Constant
FrameRate/String                 : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
ColorSpace                       : YUV
ChromaSubsampling/String         : 4:2:0
BitDepth/String                  : 8 bits
ScanType/String                  : Progressive
Bits-(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.038
StreamSize/String                : 2.06 GiB (96%)
Encoded_Library/String           : x264 core 148 r2694 3b70645
Encoded_Library_Settings         : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=2500 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default/String                   : Yes
Forced/String                    : No

Audio
ID/String                        : 2
Format                           : AAC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Audio Codec
Format_Profile                   : LC
CodecID                          : A_AAC
Duration/String                  : 1 h 58 min
BitRate/String                   : 105 kb/s
Channel(s)/String                : 2 channels
ChannelPositions                 : Front: L R
SamplingRate/String              : 48.0 kHz
FrameRate/String                 : 46.875 FPS (1024 spf)
Compression_Mode/String          : Lossy
Video_Delay/String               : 9 ms
StreamSize/String                : 88.6 MiB (4%)
Language/String                  : English
Default/String                   : Yes
Forced/String                    : No

Text
ID/String                        : 3
Format                           : UTF-8
CodecID                          : S_TEXT/UTF8
CodecID/Info                     : UTF-8 Plain Text
Duration/String                  : 1 h 56 min
BitRate/String                   : 41 b/s
ElementCount                     : 1523
StreamSize/String                : 35.4 KiB (0%)
Language/String                  : English
Default/String                   : No
Forced/String                    : No
Improve this question
3
  • According to this link, the best file format that a Panasonic TV can handle is AVI, as it's the most compatible.
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Apr 4, 2017 at 18:48
  • @Kaizerwolf But then you'd have to re-encode the file to a legacy codec, sacrificng quality or size. Adrian, is this only affecting this particular file or all MKV files using H.264 as video codec?
    – slhck
    Commented Apr 4, 2017 at 19:39
  • @slhck I tried another MKV file and it played smoothly. I edited my question with the MediaInfo report on the second MKV file.
    – Adrian Machin
    Commented Apr 8, 2017 at 12:57

1 Answer 1

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0

The file that plays actually has higher demands than the one that doesn't, in terms of higher average bitrate and a higher H.264 level. So it's not like your TV doesn't support it. It could be a bug in the parser of your TV, which is only triggered by the particular bitstream you're trying to play.

You can try re-muxing the file:

ffmpeg -i broken.mkv -c copy output.mkv

This will not change the bitstreams themselves, but it may help if something in the MKV container wasn't right.

If that doesn't work, you can try re-encoding the file that doesn't work:

ffmpeg -i broken.mkv -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -crf 23 output.mkv

This will use a constant-quality encoding mode (CRF), which makes the encoder choose a proper bitrate for your input video. If the re-encoded video is of too low quality, choose a lower CRF (like 18–21).

Then try again with the newly encoded file.

Improve this answer
2
  • Thanks. I used the second command and it worked. Would you please explain what happened that fixed this problem? Is there an explanation on why the original MKV file had that issue only after the first 10 minutes past the beginning and it was fine in that first 10 minutes?
    – Adrian Machin
    Commented Apr 11, 2017 at 11:04
  • It's hard to troubleshoot. My guess is that either the bitstream was malformatted (could have been a single flipped bit), which other players happily ignored, or that the Panasonic TV contains a bug in its bitstream parser which was only triggered by your particular video.
    – slhck
    Commented Apr 11, 2017 at 12:12

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