Confused about Transcoding

I was playing a 3D mkv video last night on my Samsung D6420 TV. The playback began to stutter and stop/go, which surprised me because I've been having good success with Seviio for quite some time now. I went to my PC and noticed it was transcoding the file. So I turned transcoding off just to see what would happen. With transcoding off the TV played the file without the stuttering problem. And from what I understand, Samsung D series supports native playback of mkv files.

So my question is, why was Seviio transcoding in the first place? I thought Serviio would only transcode if it was streaming a file to the TV which wasn't natively supported by the TV?

[Cerberus]

as good as i am i cant tell you without the information of the file u were playing.

I'll get the media info to you over the weekend.

[jhb50]

Sounds to me that either you are not using the Samsung C/D profile or the mkv file is falsely labled > level 4.2 which will cause serviio to transcode it even though the TV will play it natively. Run Mediainfo to check and the utility to reset the avc level.

Using the right profile (Samsung C/D).

I've included the Media Info description. Is the video file ok?

  Code:

General
Unique ID                        : 204584130312354646414906896760996683206 (0x99E97863B681F41793B8D4FCF4A0DDC6)
Complete name                    : C:\Users\Ross\Videos\Movies\Animation\Despicable Me 3D 2010.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
Format version                   : Version 2
File size                        : 8.68 GiB
Duration                         : 1h 34mn
Overall bit rate                 : 13.1 Mbps
Movie name                       : DESPICABLE_ME
Encoded date                     : UTC 2011-01-20 22:36:01
Writing application              : DVDFab
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.8 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 2 frames
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 1h 34mn
Bit rate                         : 11.3 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.228
Stream size                      : 7.51 GiB (86%)
Writing library                  : x264 core
Default                          : Yes
Forced                           : No
Color primaries                  : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics         : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients              : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : DTS
Format/Info                      : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                         : A_DTS
Duration                         : 1h 34mn
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                        : 24 bits
Compression mode                 : Lossy
Stream size                      : 1 023 MiB (12%)
Default                          : Yes
Forced                           : No

Menu
00:00:00.000                     : en:(01)00:00:00:000
00:03:22.410                     : en:(02)00:03:22:410
00:06:31.891                     : en:(03)00:06:31:891
00:12:05.099                     : en:(04)00:12:05:099
00:13:50.496                     : en:(05)00:13:50:496
00:18:38.826                     : en:(06)00:18:38:826
00:23:06.843                     : en:(07)00:23:06:843
00:25:56.221                     : en:(08)00:25:56:221
00:30:40.839                     : en:(09)00:30:40:839
00:34:48.753                     : en:(10)00:34:48:753
00:39:43.047                     : en:(11)00:39:43:047
00:43:38.365                     : en:(12)00:43:38:365
00:48:19.187                     : en:(13)00:48:19:187
00:52:52.502                     : en:(14)00:52:52:502
00:56:46.111                     : en:(15)00:56:46:111
01:02:08.015                     : en:(16)01:02:08:015
01:09:23.868                     : en:(17)01:09:23:868
01:16:25.455                     : en:(18)01:16:25:455
01:22:41.581                     : en:(19)01:22:41:581
01:27:35.375                     : en:(20)01:27:35:375
01:34:48.432                     : en:(21)01:34:48:432

[PMI]

I've included the Media Info description. Is the video file ok?

It's not the video file. Since you kindly posted the Media Info for the file, we can see that Media Info detected the video as Level 5.1. The profile uses the Level as a filter to decide which files to transcode. Any file with H.264 video and Level > 4.2 is transcoded.

The profile does not take into account whether the video is 3D or not.

The Level 4.2 is only a rough way of deciding what video needs transcoding. The reason why you can play the file with transcoding turned off, is that in this particular case, transcoding was not really required. Since you can play the file in its native format, the video is ok.

A better question would be, why does the transcoded video stutter?
(To answer that you need someone "as good as Cerberus", )

[Cerberus]

I've included the Media Info description. Is the video file ok?

It's not the video file. Since you kindly posted the Media Info for the file, we can see that Media Info detected the video as Level 5.1. The profile uses the Level as a filter to decide which files to transcode. Any file with H.264 video and Level > 4.2 is transcoded.

The profile does not take into account whether the video is 3D or not.

The Level 4.2 is only a rough way of deciding what video needs transcoding. The reason why you can play the file with transcoding turned off, is that in this particular case, transcoding was not really required. Since you can play the file in its native format, the video is ok.

A better question would be, why does the transcoded video stutter?
(To answer that you need someone "as good as Cerberus", )

answer is bad encoder use this tool http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=avceditor to change profile lvl to 4.1 and your sorted.

Ok thanks guys, I used the tool and all is ok now.