Dear MC team.
After 4 days of rather intensive testing and fighting with MC-DLNA I'd like to summarize my (priority) findings.
There where is light...
To start with the "light.
On the PRO side I'd put
1. subtitle support (just as generic option though - should be turned into a dlna-server specific parameter)
2. language support (just as generic option though - should be turned into a dlna-server specific parameter)
3. raw-image-conversion (though I did experience performance issues in that area)
4. GIZMO control looks promising ( but it can't replace the local remote -- yet)
All this looks really promising. My todays reference DLNA server can't cover that.
Let's have a look at the darker side:
1. Video performance
The IMO key aspect of DLNA is delivering the maximum video/audio/image quality that a connected client
supports and the network bandwidth allows. (I'm running wired for quality video streaming - that's a must)
I know it's a challenge to cover all those devices out there - considering that every device and manufacturer is
supporting a different set of features and these features change on a daily basis with every update a device will get.
IMO fact is. MC got a pretty weak spot on the video part.
My Sony TV (from what I see other renderers are having similar issues) shows DVD quality at best on BD
material when fed by MC-DLNA.
And that stream doesn't even run smooth.
But that's nothing new. Nothing has improved since I tested the MC DLNA server last year.
The current MC DLNA revision gives me just one working (it doesn't even work with all my videos)
predefined video profile. I don't have any possibility to change/improve anything by myself.
(I do have a working ffmpeg profile at hand)
I know it can be done much better.
2. Overall performance (maybe a (the) key issue)
After thinking about this summaty and all the experiences I made another suspicion raised:
I do think MC got a performance issue in the DLNA area. Many of the issues I reported in the last few days
seems to relate to that.
Transcoding of videos leads to stuttering even at the offered low quality playback, forward and rewind of videos break the stream,
conversion of raw images to jpeg lead to inhomogeneous slideshow intervals. That could all point to performance issues.
Just to mention it: I'm running an i5 server with 8GB RAM and an SSD as system storage and MC cache device and a fad NVIDIA GPU inside.
Not the slowest machine on the the planet.
As reference DLNA server I'm running Serviio - which uses latest ffmpeg. Everything runs smooth at even a much better video quality
on Serviio on the same machine and network. I do have that reference right in front of me.
Perhaps you should have a closer look at this.
3. Forward and rewind not working
Bob rerfered to the renderer as the cause of problem. (Even though Serviio (ffmpeg) is supporting it without any problems)
4. Stereo downmix for multichannel videos
If you want to stream your videos to all kind of typically stereo devices - you need a stereo downmix option per DLNA server in the video section rather
then having it in the audio/music section only.
It's a very basic functionality.
5. Global and local parameter confusion
I do think the whole DLNA server parameter handling needs a major revision. Things like subtitles,
preferred language, stereo downmix, audio formats, asf. asf. need to be made available on a per
DLNA server basis.
If I do start to play seriously with home networking, each client needs a much
wider flexibility then what is offered today.
The local MC setup should not interfere with the DLNA server setup regarding directly related video,audio and image settings.
6. Documentation
I found several references to network wikis etc.when looking for advice how this or that feature is supposed to work.
As a matter of fact. All what's written is pretty basic stuff. Without consulting MC designers and doing endless internet research,
you'll end up at a wall after every turn. It takes hours and hours to figure out everything on a trial and error basis.
Folks -- I'm a graduated engineer. If I got problems with all this, what is a normal user supposed to do???
7. Caching
When running 20G+ films, hundreds or photos MC is using quite intensively cache space on the SSD/HDD.
That means there's plenty of IO traffic ongoing. Parallel: READ-WRITE-READ-DELETE en masse.
My idea was to use a 2GB RAMDISK as temporary cache device to
a. improve overall performance
b. to reduce weardown effects on SSD/HDD.
c. to save space on SSD
It works on the RAW images side already. There you can limit the cache size with a global parameter.
Unfortunately there's no parameter to limit the cache on videos. Trying to use my ramdisk as video transcoding
cache filled it up and stalled the playback.
Obviously MC would have to introduce some kind of circular video cache transcoding buffer to get this handled properly.
Note: I did notice slight performance improvements (on e.g. camera moves) when using the RAMDISK cache until it stalled.
Wrap up:
I don't expect you guys to get the issues settled for MC17. Though I hope that you get it under control in MC 18.
One year back you guys promised to do something about it. And it didn't work out for me until now. That's a long time.
I hope you consider my little feedback of constructive nature, rather than criticizing your product. That's not my intention. I run MC since 2006.
I currently do not have time to look deeper into the subject. I did spent quite some time one it already.
I'm sure that as soon as you put some priority on the DLNA subject, you'll get the issues under control.
Bottom line.
Since the video quality and video performance issues are the top level priorities on my list, I have to switch back to Serviio
for the time being.
THX for listening.
Cheers
SC
Author
Topic: DLNA-General: Summary ( for now) (Read 1558 times)