Serviio

How much CPU does Serviio use when streaming a mkv h.264 (1080p) to a Sony BDP-S370? I assume you have to transcode it, but I have heard different things and am having trouble finding a good answer in thread

Well here is the problem. Sony TVs and BlueRay players have bandwidth issues when playing MKV files via DLNA. This is a "Sony Thing". If the SAME video and audio streams are "extracted" from the MKV and then "placed" in a M2TS container (aka transcoding without re-encoding the data) the TV/BlueRay player will usually have no problem playing the higher bitrate files. This can be done by serviio in realtime without actually creating another huge file.

The "issues" come in when the MKV files have DTS audio or other content that Serviio does not support. If this is the case then your only option is to transcode the file outside of Serviio. This transcoded file can then be streamed, usually, without the stuttering and other problems when sending the MKV file directly to the device.

So in short, Sony products have internal issues with higher bitrate MKV files. To resolve these issues files should be transcoded to M2TS, either directly by Serviio in realtime or manually outside of serviio. Until there is a public version of serviio that supports transcoding files with DTS audio, automatic MKV transcoding will need to be limited to files with AC3 files.

To the CPU usage question:
There should be little impact on your CPU when you are simply "repacking" MKV content into an M2TS file. If you choose to re-encode the video or audio into another format, then CPU usuage can be a problem. I would NOT want to re-encode MKV files. The Sony products support h.264 video so you go should be to get the content there in the most efficient manner possible and let the Sony device take care of decoding and displaying it.

As an example, I use an old P4 3Ghz computer as my serviio server. When "transcoding" mkv files that average 5-7mbps with burts to 15-20mbps my cpu usage stays between 20-25% use. To me, since a P4 is NOT a modern CPU, this is little to no usage on a modern "Core" type processor.

Awesome product! Thanks.

I tried Tversity and PS3 Media Server w/o successful results berore following patter's link to serviio. It works flawlessly, same stutter issue with FF HD videos, but that's the only issue.

As a side note I have a Promise NS4600 with DLNA built in and it serves out music and pictures out to the blueray player but it did not see the videos.

Great!

You could use INTEL Tools to spy your NS4600 NAS Server.

Sweet. Promise asked me to send them some outputs. Is the s470 DLSA 1.5 compliant? I got the latest firmware (708 i believe)

Does Cinavia DRM affect DLNA media on the player?

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.c ... at_pirates

ffmpeg crashes in Windows -- I get the standard 'application has crashed -- would you like to report it to Microsoft' error. I'm running the ffmpeg.exe that came with Serviio on a Windows XP 64-bit machine.

ffmpeg is giving me the message "Seems stream 1 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate", along with some file info. Here's what's in the Serviio log:

2010-12-19 21:52:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySSDPMessageListener] Received a valid M-SEARCH message for search target upnp:rootdevice from address /192.168.177.77:1237
2010-12-19 21:52:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySearchResponder] Sending 1 M-SEARCH response message(s)
2010-12-19 21:52:51,843 DEBUG [WebServer] Incoming connection from /192.168.177.101:62260
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] HEAD /resource/37099/MEDIA_ITEM/MPEG_TS_SD_NA_ISO HTTP/1.1, headers = [Host: 192.168.177.77:8895, Accept: */*, getcontentFeatures.dlna.org: 1, X-AV-Physical-Unit-Info: pa="Blu-ray Disc Player", X-AV-Client-Info: av=5.0; cn="Sony Corporation"; mn="Blu-ray Disc Player"; mv="2.0", ]
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Resource request accepted. Using client 'IPAddress=/192.168.177.101, Profile=Sony BD Player 370'
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Request for resource 37099 and type 'MEDIA_ITEM' received
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Reading a MediaItem (id = 37099)
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDAOImpl] Reading a Video (id = 37099)
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Retrieving resource information for item 37099, format MPEG_TS_SD_NA_ISO and profile Sony BD Player 370
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Getting media info for transcoded version of file testfile.asf
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Found Format profile for transcoded file testfile.asf: MPEG_TS_SD_EU_ISO
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Found Format profile for transcoded file testfile.asf: MPEG_TS_SD_NA_ISO
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Found Format profile for transcoded file testfile.asf: MPEG_TS_SD_KO_ISO
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Sending HEAD response back
2010-12-19 21:52:51,937 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] HTTP/1.1 200 OK, headers = [Content-Type: video/mpeg, Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2010 04:52:51 GMT, Server: Windows XP, UPnP/1.0 DLNADOC/1.50, Serviio/0.4.2, Cache-control: no-cache, contentFeatures.dlna.org: DLNA.ORG_PN=MPEG_TS_SD_NA_ISO;DLNA.ORG_OP=10;DLNA.ORG_CI=1;DLNA.ORG_FLAGS=01500000000000000000000000000000, transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming, ]
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] GET /resource/37099/MEDIA_ITEM/MPEG_TS_SD_NA_ISO HTTP/1.1, headers = [Host: 192.168.177.77:8895, Accept: */*, TimeSeekRange.dlna.org: npt=0-, getcontentFeatures.dlna.org: 1, X-AV-Physical-Unit-Info: pa="Blu-ray Disc Player", X-AV-Client-Info: av=5.0; cn="Sony Corporation"; mn="Blu-ray Disc Player"; mv="2.0", ]
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Resource request accepted. Using client 'IPAddress=/192.168.177.101, Profile=Sony BD Player 370'
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Request for resource 37099 and type 'MEDIA_ITEM' received
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Reading a MediaItem (id = 37099)
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [VideoDAOImpl] Reading a Video (id = 37099)
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering item '37099' for client 'IPAddress=/192.168.177.101, Profile=Sony BD Player 370'
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering file 'testfile.asf' using transcoding
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] A suitable transcoding job already exists, re-use it for client 'IPAddress=/192.168.177.101, Profile=Sony BD Player 370'
2010-12-19 21:52:51,953 ERROR [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Error while processing resource, sending back 500 error. Message: FFmpeg execution failed
2010-12-19 21:53:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySSDPMessageListener] Received a valid M-SEARCH message for search target upnp:rootdevice from address /192.168.177.77:1237
2010-12-19 21:53:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySearchResponder] Sending 1 M-SEARCH response message(s)
2010-12-19 21:54:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySSDPMessageListener] Received a valid M-SEARCH message for search target upnp:rootdevice from address /192.168.177.77:1237
2010-12-19 21:54:28,328 DEBUG [DiscoverySearchResponder] Sending 1 M-SEARCH response message(s)


If it's just a bad file then no big deal -- thanks for any help!

Please post the "ffmpeg -i" complete result.

Here it is -- let me know if anything else would be helpful. Thanks!

D:\Program Files (x86)\Serviio\lib>ffmpeg -i g:\testfile.asf
FFmpeg version SVN-r23012, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 3 2010 19:05:24 with gcc 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --disable-ffserver --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --enable-w32threads --extra-ldflags=-L/static/lib --extra-cflags=-I/static/include
libavutil 50.15. 0 / 50.15. 0
libavcodec 52.66. 0 / 52.66. 0
libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0
[wmv3 @ 028e0ee0]Extra data: 8 bits left, value: 0

Seems stream 1 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 1000.00 (1000/1) -> 29.97 (30000/1001)
Input #0, asf, from 'g:\testfile.asf':
Metadata:
title :
author :
copyright :
comment :
Frame Size : 16x9
WMFSDKVersion : 11.0.5721.5145
WMFSDKNeeded : 0.0.0.0000
IsVBR : 0
Duration: 00:17:57.63, start: 5.000000, bitrate: 1566 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Audio: wmav2, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream #0.1(eng): Video: wmv3, yuv420p, 720x406, 1500 kb/s, 29.97 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc
At least one output file must be specified

At first I though that when transcoding/repackaging cpu usage would be at a constant level while streaming, but after some limited testing, from what i've seen am I right in saying this:

When serviio sends mkv as m2ts, it passes it to ffmpeg which starts repackaging it as quickly as it can (rather than only doing what is imediately needed) and saves it to the temp folder and on my pc the repackaging finishes long before i've actually finish watching the video. While ffmpeg is working, serviio reads that temp file and streams it to the client.

One effect is if you try to fastforward very quickly right when you start playing, it doesn't work as ffmpeg hasn't finished repackaging that part of the video yet, if you wait a little bit first though it works fine.

I've also noticed that if you stop playing the video, before ffmpeg has finished, it will continue until its finished transcoding/repacking the whole file.

At the moment i'm trying to work out if a Atom will be capable of streaming 1080P mkvs, and if the behaivor that i noticed is correct, I don't see why the atom wouldn't be able to cope. Although you may not be able to say fastforward to the last 10 min of a film striaght away while you wait for ffmpeg to finish.

Maybe serviio could have a setting where you could tell it to keep the last x transcodes, so you can stop watching somethign then come back to it serviio could use the already created temp file

Ha ha. That must be my "I'm giving up with this, Serviio's much better" post over on the PS3 Media Server forum

So in the 0.5 release notes it says:


Does this mean you still have to transcode files with dts audio to ac3 outside of serviio, or will it do it for you now?

If they're already m2ts files, they'll play directly in 0.5. However, for mkv files that are remuxed, FFMPEG cannot properly remux dts audio (you get a file that's missing the audio stream when the BDP plays it) so we have to force transcode to ac3 for now.

Hi all,

here's some brief information on the subject "Problems with Sony BDP-S370": We won't have any DLNA probs with the new S380, as the latest Sony base model doesn't support DLNA at all. And because there is a new model out, I'm pretty sure we're stuck with whatever our current firmware does (or doesn't).

In the new Sony range, DLNA starts with the S480. The S380 does only stream from the internet.

CU,
Low

Well its certainly a (pleasant) surprise to see Sony support MKV containers at long last. Unfortunately it wouldn't be Sony without a sting in the tail somewhere if you check the fine print in the manual (page 29) you will see a *5 next to MPEG-4 AVC MKV/MP4/M4V/M2TS and if you check that it states...

*5 The player does not play this file format on a DLNA server.

So Sony have intentionally crippled/disabled playing those formats over their DLNA client. Not much you can do other than complain to Sony.

What is more worrying is that sony "supports" Serviio as mentioned on the serviio home page. I think it's more like stiffle the competition and customer satisfaction at the low end of the consumer market. I mean why should you get satisfaction from community development right? Let's close it off and introduce it as being consumer friendly...No wonder their network got hacked, as they couldn't be bothered to invest in their customer's details being kept safe on their network. Shame on you sony! Help protect serviio from corporate greed and short sightedness. Long live Serviio!

Sorry for not reading through all the 18 pages in this topic but what's the status with MKV files and this player? I just tried one file I created with Handbrake and Sony complains the file is corrupt. MP4 plays ok with the same settings.

Makis,

sorry you cannot learn as much about Serviio and Sony BDP from my post as you could have learnt from the past 18 pages (and other threads, e.g. those about profiles): MKV files play fine here.
Have a nice one,
Low

Were the stuttering problems after fast forwarding ever resolved?

Hi,

I want to share some more regarding MKV playback on S370 via DLNA.

Besides the "stuttering after FF" problem another weird behavior occurs.
When I try to resume playing a MKV file after stopping it I receive
a "File is corrupted ..." or something like that message. If I try once again to play
the file or play ANY other MKV file (not sure about other formats) I get the
Pink Screen Of Death and my player restarts.

The work around I have found is to play some music before that.

Do you think that might be a problem with the MKVs themselves instead of a problem with player?

Thanks