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[soundcheck]

Hi folks ( and Bob).

Some time (months) back ( and then another year before that )  I've been looking into MC video streaming.
And was more then disappointed about its performance, features and about the complete lack of documentation.

I made several improvement propoals.

Q:
Is there a summary what has changed in MC18 regarding video streaming?? I can't find any documentation ,description, help and nothing on the Wiki.

Now the actual issue:

I just tried to stream a Hires HD MPEG2 M2TS >17000kb/s film.

I only made it work with MPEG2/DVD autofps   (I'm in PAL region)  -- always convert. 
The result is worse then any HD TV station.


I'd like to know if somebody has managed to stream a HD stream to a Bravia (2011) PAL TV?

All MPEG2TS options with autofps are just giving my block graphics.

Note:  My Serviio DLNA server is doing HD - the same data files - without any problems at highest quality.

Data:
Container is MPEGTS
VideoCodec should be MPEG2
Region is Europe -> PAL
Maximum videobitrate the TV would accept is 17000 - higher stuff should be transcoded
Audio should be transcoded to ac3 - stereo

THX a lot.

Cheers


Comments:

I'm wondering why the current DLNA video conversion options are that inconsistant when it comes to PAL, NTSC and autofps in particular?? 
Some options are PAL some are NTSC,  some  do not specify anything and other autofps. That's IMO more then confusing, especially without documentation!!!

BTW: What means high ,medium ,low bandwidth?? Each device allows for a particular bandwidth. Why not specify that??

[soundcheck]

Hmmh. Not any feedback. Very strange.


It seems that no other inmate has the issue and the MC staff is not interested to get HD streaming (1080p) properly working for its customers.


I for myself am back to Serviio Media Server for the time being enjoing serious high quality HD video streaming.


Enjoy.

[bob]

Sorry we just haven't been having any trouble with this and our Bravia 46NX810, it just works.

Try "convert always" and the H264-TS very high bandwidth stream autofps.
The picture is great and it can use all of your CPU cores. It's 1080p and you'll need at least a core 2 quad or faster to stream in real time.
Some Bravias seem to need the MPEG video mimetype override set.
This is what I have:
mimetype: video/vnd.dlna.mpeg-tts
DLNAType: AVC_TS_HD_50_AC3_ISO

Very high = 1080p
High = 720p
Medium = 480p
Low = 240p
DVD = 480/576

[soundcheck]

Bob.

1. Why not documenting above properly on the Wiki pages?? The whole stuff is pretty tricky.
2. There are numerous MIME type conversions (per TV family ) required.  I know that from looking at the Serviio profiles. ( I mentioned before that you should have a look of how they are doing it)
    You can't seriously ask your users to change manually all kind of MIME types and not to forget also to change TV specific conversion rules!?!?
     All that needs to go into a properly done TV profile that you need to provide.
3. "Always convert" -- Is a kind of black hole. I don't know what the system is doing then.
4. There is no way for the user to manipulate the TV profiles properly. That option is required. This way you might get full working profiles from the community.
    When it comes to different Bravia Models. Usually you only need to differentiate between 2010/2011/2012 families.
5. Now its H264-TS autofps for an Mpeg2TS file. You got me confused with your profile naming conventions.

Cheers

[soundcheck]

Just tried your settings.

It makes some files start at least @1080p. Others won't.

Those that start might run smooth for a couple of seconds and then get choppy.


I'm running a 4-core  i5 with 8GB RAM and a SSD as root and cache device.

[bob]

Bob.

1. Why not documenting above properly on the Wiki pages?? The whole stuff is pretty tricky.
2. There are numerous MIME type conversions (per TV family ) required.  I know that from looking at the Serviio profiles. ( I mentioned before that you should have a look of how they are doing it)
    You can't seriously ask your users to change manually all kind of MIME types and not to forget also to change TV specific conversion rules!?!?
     All that needs to go into a properly done TV profile that you need to provide.
3. "Always convert" -- Is a kind of black hole. I don't know what the system is doing then.
4. There is no way for the user to manipulate the TV profiles properly. That option is required. This way you might get full working profiles from the community.
    When it comes to different Bravia Models. Usually you only need to differentiate between 2010/2011/2012 families.
5. Now its H264-TS autofps for an Mpeg2TS file. You got me confused with your profile naming conventions.

Cheers

Thanks for the feedback.
The wiki should be updated of course.
We do test using several servers including Serviio to test against for our renderer, controller, etc.
I also agree that is would be good to have a way to do a custom profile. I would say that for the average user though, Serviio is way too complicated.
Some of us think that the best option would be to convert always to a playable format (either H264-TS or MPEG2-TS) and ditch the non-conversion entirely to get out of the chasm of renderer inconsistency. Also eliminate almost all of the options in the DLNA section.
The profile renaming is to try to better reflect what's the container and codec. Therefore, H264-TS is H264 in a mpeg2 Transport Stream and MPEG2-TS is MPEG2 in a mpeg2 Transport Stream. Devices are only required to support MPEG2 in a PS.
Obviously for the best quality in the lowest bandwidth, the H264-TS streams are preferable but many devices can't play them.

Your test sounds interesting, my machine which is only a 4 core core2 should be significantly slower than yours.
Can you try starting a video then hitting pause on the TV, wait 15 seconds or so and then hit play to see if it's an encoding CPU issue vs something else?
You could also try stepping down to HIGH (720P) to see if the encoder keeps up. Thanks.

[soundcheck]

Hi Bob.

No. I won't step down to 720p. I rather got to step back from MC.

MC doesn't seem to have performance, feature and documentaion issues only. MC even doesn't play all my movies.

To me the media streaming section is all but mature. And that's the case since 1.5 years at least.

That's a pity, considering how well you guys are doing and how quickly you're fixing issues in the stationary audio and video area.


Serviio:

Serviio (1.2.1) installation was a no-brainer, when it comes to selecting a TV specific profile:

Serviio automatically recognized my 2011 Bravia immediately.

There was not any configuration related to the profile required!!

And Serviio plays all my movies at best quality.


So. I agree with you. Offer TV specific options (with advanced options for expert users). And then offer e.g. (name it) 1080p,720p,DVD,native.
But do it! All this stuff is not new.


Hint: Serviio designers are giving very precise instructions what data to deliver, if people report that a movie wouldn't play!!!


I figured and also mentioned it over here a couple months back, that I thought MC got perfomance issues in the media streaming area.

I'm not sure if MC uses all modern processor related performance  options available on a 64bit platform. After all it is still a 32 bit app afaik.
And video recoding is an awful intensive task.

Anyhow.

I'm sure you'll do something about the subject -- sooner or later.


Feature wish:

Consider adding a subtitle (on/off/burn in)  and a prefered language option per streaming/TV profile.


Good luck.

Cheers

[yinmeout]

I am new to the forum - I's just like to add a 'me too' to this request. To provide a more granular TV rendering configuration.

I have a high def solution with Serviio which I had to "tweak  myself" to get working at the maximum definition.

Your product seems to lack the required granularity, in this department to be workable at a decent quality with my television. 2010 Sony 32ex703
Currently I can only deliver via JRiver at standard ~756 lines in otherwords PAL. When I select the recommended settings, "MPEG2/DVD PAL(or NTSC) Stream" (NTSC is obviously even less lines).
So my beautiful 1080p Hi def movies come out blocky and low quality :-( though the J River server. (which I want to use and pay for - like the others who have raised this).

Specifically:

Sony TV's DO support H264 and AAC encoded content up to level 4.1 (32000 (X x Y x frames)/256 is the formula ) (and others as per the Sony website) - and a max of 17000 bps.
What they are fussy about is the 'transport container' that those streams are wrapped into.
They require an m2ts transport stream at the point of delivery. That is to say a 'remux' not a transcode.

This is where JRiver seems to fall down - it insists on transcoding everything -
I run Serviio on an intel atom with 1 4TB disk - it delivers to multiple TV's faultlessly. (Over wired Gig network).

(Electricity is no longer cheap in Europe I do not want to burn watts twice.)

This command line will produce a file at maximum quality for the TV and it will not require a transcode to be rendered, only a remux (which is in essence amounting to an identical copy of the original file at the point of delivery).

ffmpeg -i myfile -acodec aac -ac 2 -strict experimental -ab 192k -ar 48000 -vcodec h264 -crf 18 -preset slow -level 4.1 -f mpegts "C:\myfile.m2ts"

The options you provide in the "video mode" section of the DNLA servers configuration tab IMHO are too simplistic to accommodate all the DLNA rendering devices out there.
Please please please - remove the transcoding module from the main exe back into ffmpeg and write some rules in an xml file that we can all customise - that would solve it - once and for all.
Also some decent logging options would be a bonus.

This is such a pity as I am so impressed with the product, overall which I have been evaluating for just 24 hours.
You guys would be killer with this feature!

[JimH]

JRiver insists on transcoding everything

You can control this in the DLNA Server settings.  Tools/Options/Media Network/Advanced.  Edit the server.

[yinmeout]

Right - that is encouraging - and it seems I am wrong!!! You might want to sticky this somewhere for the other SONY TV users.

After more fiddling - I have got two exclusive scenarios which work differently and give different results.
One hi def no transcoding (assuming original files in correct format as previously listed) and one not.

If I select in the DLNA settings / Video:
Mode: Specified Output format (= transcode)
Format: MPEG2/DVD PAL Stream (= stream format i.e. the remux)
Advanced:
Check "MPEG video mimetype override" and then set:
video/vnd.dlna.mpeg-tts
AVC_TS_HD_60_AC3_ISO

The TV will display all the content the server has in it's library - and list said content as MPEG
It will also play it back all be it at a lower resolution that it is stored in, since it's set to transcode via the first setting.

However!
If I set MODE = original (= do not transcode)
Then I set the advanced Video DLNA Override to:

AVC_TS_HD_EU

Hey presto - it works exactly the same as Serviio does.
Full HD render and no transcoding on the server side - problem solved.

Note for others I looked up the correct formats here

"http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=sony_bravia_tv"

Click on the appropriate year and you will see a list of all the DLNA profiles your TV will support.
You also need to correctly encode the video files before hand. H264 AAC is the smallest and highest content combination hence why I listed how to do that before below.

Right I am in for a purchase then. Awesome product!

[ssands]

Then I set the advanced Video DLNA Override to:

AVC_TS_HD_EU

Jim (or someone), can you provide a link that explains how a string like the above is determined? What are the possible values? How does one determine which to use?

At this point, it seems like there is some magic combination of letters that one must scour the internet to reveal.

I have to believe there is a better way!