Linea said:
"Paul" <
[email protected]> schreef in bericht
Thanks very much for the links. I will look into this asap. It seems
Philips TV is supported also. Although one Philips TV isn't the same as
another, as I already learned from the Philips support site.
From the manual:
Supported DLNA-compliant media server software:
ï‚· Windows Media Player (for Microsoft Windows)
ï‚· Twonky Media (for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X)
ï‚· Sony Vaio Media Server (for Microsoft Windows)
ï‚· TVersity (for Microsoft Windows)
ï‚· Nero MediaHome
ï‚· DiXiM (for Microsoft Windows XP)
ï‚· Macrovision Network Media Server (for Microsoft Windows)
ï‚· Fuppes (for Linux)
ï‚· uShare (for Linux)
OK, I finally got Serviio working.
It was a battle. Much hair loss.
The problem turned out to be, Serviio has a "Console", but it
doesn't provide enough feedback to tell what's going on.
On the Linux machine used to emulate a DLNA TV set, the
"upnp-inspector" program was a great tool for determining
from the outside, what Serviio was doing. At least, it made
up for the "thick" interface on XBMC (the actual media player
that was supposed to prove Serviio could serve files).
Initially, I told Serviio about several folders of video
files, but absolutely nothing was coming through to my DLNA
emulator. Serviio has a "transcode" option, and there is no
feedback as to whether it's transcoding anything or not. Since
Serviio runs as a "service", it tends to hide what it is doing.
I'd hoped to see a separate process running, doing the transcoding,
but it didn't seem to work that way.
Serviio consists of two pieces. The core is Java code. I had problems
getting Java to install, to kick off the initial fun. But at least
the program didn't need the very latest edition to work. So I was
thankful for that at least.
In a folder (\lib) in the place you choose to install Serviio, is
a copy of FFMPEG.exe . That's a movie application from the free software
universe, which is excellent for transcoding. So, I noted the
application was in there.
I opened a Command Prompt, cd'ed my way down to the \lib directory,
and tried
ffmpeg.exe --help
and was greeted by a Windows complaint that msvcrt.dll did not
have certain C runtime routines in it. Great.
Next, the serviio web site, directs users to a web site that hosts
Windows builds of FFMPEG. I downloaded a statically linked copy
from that web site, and *more* complaints about missing
library stuff. I was getting a bit annoyed at this point.
While I'm not a "multimedia guy" by any stretch of the
imagination, I did have a copy of ffmpeg.exe from a previous
experiment. Only a fraction of the size of the ones used
by serviio. My ffmpeg.exe was "made by Tripp" and that
person obviously knows his/her stuff. I tested that in
my Command Prompt window, and no more bitching. The thing
ran.
So now, by moving the defective ffmpeg.exe out of \lib,
and putting in a known-working ffmpeg.exe (an older one),
I try again. This time, VOB files start showing up on
my DLNA emulator. It would seem, that serviio wants to
read the VOBs with FFMPEG, before it will offer them to
the DLNA device. That's my interpretation of what might
be happening there. But I can't be sure - I couldn't
see any evidence of what was going on.
There is a tab in the serviio interface, that controls
transcoding. When I tried my first VOB, transcoding was
set to run on one core, and Task Manager showed about
20% usage. I have no idea what the output format was,
that was being sent to the DLNA emulator. All the software
was very quiet, about what was going on.
The strangest part, is I've been unsuccessful in getting
the damn thing to transfer an AVI file (this would be
extremely high bit rate, by comparison to the VOB experiment).
Serviio could not be coaxed to serve those files.
*******
And now, the part you've been waiting for. I put a non-Hollywood
DVD in the optical drive, told Serviio to serve up E:\VIDEO_TS,
and it did! All the VOB files on the DVD, showed up on my
"fake TV set". I think it's basically treating the optical drive,
as if it's a hard drive. This has both positive and negative
attributes.
The negative attribute, is I don't think an "event" is raised,
when a new DVD goes into the drive. Serviio probably doesn't know
anything has changed. Serviio has a button to click, to "rescan"
the library folders, and at that point, I could hear the optical
drive spin and reading was going on (checking file names etc).
Then, when I went over to my DLNA emulator, I could see the
new set of VOBs show up. If you didn't want to click any buttons,
you might have to wait up to five minutes, before Serviio would
present the files to the TV. (Serviio has a "polling interval",
where it rescans the library folders for new files.)
So, the experiment was a success, but it took forever to get
it running. And the lack of feedback from the various tools,
made progress a lot slower than it had to be. The only bright
spot in the whole experience, was "upnp-inspector" in Linux
did a great job of allowing me to browse the file tree,
without having to deal with issues of the interface on XBMC.
The only negatives at this point:
1) Couldn't get it to serve a plain YV12 or HUFFYUV AVI.
2) DVD optical drive doesn't alert Serviio that a new disc
is present. May require clicking a rescan button, before
DVD will be served. I don't know if I missed some option
there or not.
The transcode of VOB into "something", used about 20% CPU on one
core of the server, which all things considered, is pretty damn good.
On my machine, running FFMPEG, I've had plenty of occasions
where an encoding event, uses the entire CPU. So whatever
it was doing, it couldn't have been using a "heavyweight"
compression option. Maybe it was just decoding the video
somehow. But I don't know what it was sending, or even
what bitrate it was using over the network.
I wanted to test the AVI file, to see whether Java could
deal with that kind of data rate over the network...
But no luck there.
Paul
