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[kls]

Hi folks.

I'm running a new SONY Bravia HX925.

I just tried to configure  the MC  DLNA feature. (MC 17.0.38-beta)

For the video part I've been following this or that advise I found over here.

1. Always transcode
2. MPEG2/DVD  ( I'm wondering if that needs to be DVD PAL for Europe??)
3. DLNA
4. DLNA Extra
5. Overwrite MPEG2 MIME Type.

Not any of the files I have -- m2ts, avi, mkv, ts --- is available, thus not playable.

On Serviio (I tested that one during the last 2-3 days) with the 2011-Bravia profile in place most of the videos were running.

However. My main issues with Serviio were and still  are that a. it wouldn't play videos that are splitted into several files and b. no subtitle support (those had to be hardcoded). These are must have feature for me.
And on the images side it wouldn't support .nef transcoding. That's luckily already working on MC.

I'd really appreciate your advice.

Cheers

P.S: All video formats incl. subtitles play great on my MC setup on the PC.

[kls]

Bump.

No ideas???

[bob]

Bump.

No ideas???

Being PAL, you should use MPEG2/DVD PAL for the conversion and the video DLNA override has to be different. you could try just MPEG_PS or MPEG_PS_PAL. It could also be MPEG_PS_SD.

[kls]

Hi Bob.

THX I'll check it out.

When changing server properties do I need to restart the MC-DLNA server or MC?

Cheers

[bob]

When you change the server properties it restarts the server when you hit OK so you don't have to restart MC.

[kls]

Thx for the feedback.

Meanwhile I've been trying your suggestions...

...which got me one step further!

MPEG_PS_PAL was the only option, which would let me select a file on the Sony.

However.

As soon as I start playback it pauses immediately and the screen stays black. I just tried a .m2ts (AVC/h264 + DTS 1080p ) file. Any ideas ??


BTW: Is there an option to choose audio conversion on videos?? & Multichannel to stereo conversion ?  (I do have that function on Serviio.)

Cheers

[kls]

I tried another one : MPEG4/AC3 as mkv works.

Bandwidth issue on tha above .m2ts?

[kls]

* DVD rips (.ts) didn't work either

* on-the fly transcoding .srt embedding them  into MPEG4/AC3 .mkv didn't work. ( I selected the subtitle option under advanced options) There are subtitles in the mkv and also as .srt in the folder.

I do think that I need to hardcode the subtitles into the stream to get them shown. I'm wondering if that's possible on-the-fly.

[bob]

Are you still set to always transcode video?
If so, the limiting factor would be the ffmpeg transcoder being unable to produce the mpeg2 pal stream from the input file.
This stuff is in flux, currently we are transitioning to our own video transcoding but for now that only works for mpeg2/DVD (NTSC).

You might also want to try turning video conversion to never, leaving in the mimetype/DLNA override and see what plays then. The Bravia can actually play more formats than it is has DLNA certification for.

[kls]

I'll check it out tomorrow.

I'm just getting myself into all that.

Could easily be that I forgot to tick off  this or that option.


Thx Bob.

P.S: looking forward to the mpeg2/DVD "PAL" decoder.

[soundcheck]

Bob.

Just read at Meezmo in a post

that this format

Container: mpegts
Video channel: h264 (Main), level 41, max 6M video bitrate
Audio channel: ac3, max 448000 audio bitrate

would be the best quality the Bravia would accept via LAN.

It should be better then mpeg2/DVD, shouldn't it ?!? Is there a way to get native BD data transcoded this way.


THX.

[soundcheck]

kls = soundcheck btw. (Just figured that I had two accounts over here )

[soundcheck]

Update.

I just made playback work. I created a new server. Selected the Sony BD/TV profile and changed MPEG_PS_NTSC to _PAL.

Permanent decoding  MPEG2/DVD PAL set to ON.

Here we go. It works. (I'll do some more tests)

Unfortunately the playback quality at this level is not what I'd call mindblowing.

I'm wondering if you guys could offer another working option (see two posts above) !?!?


BTW. Even at those rather low quality levels I experience a short bump (hickup) once in a while. I do own a pretty fast server (Windows performance level 7.2) and running a Gbit network..
        I guess it'll be hard to tell what's causing those hickups.

Cheers

[bob]

Update.

I just made playback work. I created a new server. Selected the Sony BD/TV profile and changed MPEG_PS_NTSC to _PAL.

Permanent decoding  MPEG2/DVD PAL set to ON.

Here we go. It works. (I'll do some more tests)

Unfortunately the playback quality at this level is not what I'd call mindblowing.

I'm wondering if you guys could offer another working option (see two posts above) !?!?


BTW. Even at those rather low quality levels I experience a short bump (hickup) once in a while. I do own a pretty fast server (Windows performance level 7.2) and running a Gbit network..
        I guess it'll be hard to tell what's causing those hickups.

Cheers

Your hardware should be more than fast enough. There have been issues reported about the bitrate for dvd conversion being too high for some renderers. Perhaps that's what you are seeing. If you turn conversion off can you play some of the formats you've got? You can always just create 2 servers, one with conversion on and the other with it off.
The info on the mpegts container is interesting. If you wanted to play with it you could try adjusting the encoding profile in ffmpeg.xml for the <upnp_mp2_high> and select that for your conversion format.

[soundcheck]

If you turn conversion off can you play some of the formats you've got? You can always just create 2 servers, one with conversion on and the other with it off.
The info on the mpegts container is interesting.

Yep. I'm just doing it. Because suddenly I'm back to 0. Playback won't start anymore. I can't remember that I changed anything from last night until today afternoon. Hmmh. 

If you wanted to play with it you could try adjusting the encoding profile in ffmpeg.xml for the <upnp_mp2_high> and select that for your conversion format.

You're talkin in riddles. Where can I find that file?

Cheers

[bob]

Yep. I'm just doing it. Because suddenly I'm back to 0. Playback won't start anymore. I can't remember that I changed anything from last night until today afternoon. Hmmh. 

Sometimes the renderer can get into a confused state. You might try power cycling it.

You're talkin in riddles. Where can I find that file?

Cheers

In win7 or vista, App Data-> Roaming ->JRiver->Media Center 17->Plugins->FFmpeg
You need to be a bit of an ffmpeg guru or perhaps get a suggestion for the ffmpeg command line to use from the place you got the format information.

[soundcheck]

Sometimes the renderer can get into a confused state. You might try power cycling it.

It happend several times after starting a video ( after I started another video first) that it cycled on its own.

I can imagine that streaming high bandwidth data will put the TV pretty much under stress.

Thx for the hint.

[soundcheck]

Hi Bob.

Would it be possible for you to compare the Serviio transcoding performance to the MC performance.

The transcoded videos with Serviio are at a much better quality.   ( That's why I use Serviio now)

Serviio is using ffmpeg. It shouldn't be that difficult to get it fixed on the MC side.

Cheers   

[bob]

Hi Bob.

Would it be possible for you to compare the Serviio transcoding performance to the MC performance.

The transcoded videos with Serviio are at a much better quality.   ( That's why I use Serviio now)

Serviio is using ffmpeg. It shouldn't be that difficult to get it fixed on the MC side.

Cheers   

There is still a lot of work going on in our video transcoding. Our goal is to ditch ffmpeg so we aren't planning on changing the ffmpeg transcoding profiles. If you have a ffmpeg command line that works from serviio and you put it into the profile in the ffmpeg.xml file you should get the same results...

[soundcheck]

Let see if I can figure that out.

Do you guys got a timeline on your rather radical DLNA reshuffling?

[soundcheck]

Hi there.

The whole stuff gets a bit complex.

I tried to edit the ffmpeg.xml. No success.

You need to get the DLNA_PN fixed etc. You need different profiles for different formats etc for each dlna-renderer.
All that goes over my head and exceeds my time budget. I did have the impression that I couldn't solve all that by just editing that file.

Obvisously the profiling is the key quality factor for a DLNA video server.
serviio does as pretty good job at that profiling point on a per vendor/product/format transcoding basis - at least for my Sony Bravia.
Serviio delivers real good streaming video quality for most of the material you throw at it.

For now I'll stay with serviio on the video part.  MC will handle the .nef  raw-images part.

I'd love to see a combination of both servers.

Let see what your earlier announced dlna-server upgrade will change on the current situation.

Cheers