Summary thread: Samsung C-Series and Serviio!

[sampath.mamilapo]

Hi,

I want to consolidate the many - often contradicting - posts about Samsung C-Series TV. What features does Serviio support, what features are unsupported at the moment and what features are never going to happen due to technical impossibilities?

1. Fast Forward and Rewind of mkv, mp4 and all other video files. (it definitely works via the USB Player)
2. Resume from last position (seems finally to work solidly with 0.52)
3. Set a resume time-stamp in the Serviio console for a certain video file. If you play it on TV it will ask if you want to resume. This way I can start watching a movie on my desktop and resume watching it from there on TV.


Cheers,
Sampy

[Cerberus]

1. Fast Forward and Rewind of mkv, mp4 and all other video files. (it definitely works via the USB Player)

works already

2. Resume from last position (seems finally to work solidly with 0.52)

works already

3. Set a resume time-stamp in the Serviio console for a certain video file. If you play it on TV it will ask if you want to resume. This way I can start watching a movie on my desktop and resume watching it from there on TV.

not gunna work.

[sampath.mamilapo]

Fast Forward and Rewind works already?

Are we talking about streaming video from Serviio to my UE46C6200? In this case Fast Forward should work? Any clue why it does not work for me? It tell me "function not available".

[Cerberus]

Fast Forward and Rewind works already?

Are we talking about streaming video from Serviio to my UE46C6200? In this case Fast Forward should work? Any clue why it does not work for me? It tell me "function not available".

Cause ur not pressing the < and > arrow buttons rather than the << and >> buttons ..

[Cerberus]

All the currently working features on the C-series samsung....

1. Fast Forward and Rewind.

Works slight different to normal as you have to press the < and > arrow keys and not the << and >> ones by the pause button.

2. Resume from last position.

Press the BLUE button at it will resume to last played positon

3. Picture Size

There is only 2 picture sizes availible for the Samsung and that is " mode 1 (Original)" and " mode 2 (Fit)" these can be access by pressing the TOOLS button on the remote

4. Subtitles

Currently only external subtitles work .SRT files ( other subtitle extensions may work but i have not tested them )

5. Navigation in the menus.

<< and >> buttons can be used to skip forward and backwards a page at a time through your files.

[sampath.mamilapo]

All the currently working features on the C-series samsung....

1. Fast Forward and Rewind.

Works slight different to normal as you have to press the < and > arrow keys and not the << and >> ones by the pause button.

Wait a second. Are you talking about that ridiculous excuse for a Fast Forward/Rewind I get with the < and > arrow keys? That is not Fast Forward, it is super slow 20 sec. forward. It takes forever to skip 20 sec. I can just keep watching and get further in the time I wait to skip 20 sec. forward.

I was talking about real Fast Forward. Like when I copy the same file on a USB stick and press the >> button. I can choose 3 different forward speeds and I see images while Fast Forwarding.

It seems to me Fast Forward is the single most important feature at the moment. Will it ever be possible or is it a limitation of my Samsung UE46C6200 ???

On a side note: my mobile together with the Twonky DLNA player allows fast forwarding or jumping to a random position in the video when I use Serviio as a DLNA server. This means, my mobile sends a time-code back to the Serviio server and Serviio will start sending the video from that position. As a practical solution we could just use the > button on the Samsung remote to skip 5 min and the >> button to skip 30 min. This way it would be manageable to live without fast forwarding. The current 20 sec. skip is a joke.

[Cerberus]

All the currently working features on the C-series samsung....

1. Fast Forward and Rewind.

Works slight different to normal as you have to press the < and > arrow keys and not the << and >> ones by the pause button.

Wait a second. Are you talking about that ridiculous excuse for a Fast Forward/Rewind I get with the < and > arrow keys? That is not Fast Forward, it is super slow 20 sec. forward. It takes forever to skip 20 sec. I can just keep watching and get further in the time I wait to skip 20 sec. forward.

NO if you hold the button the size of the jump increases more and more and that is set by SAMSUNG and not serviio

I was talking about real Fast Forward. Like when I copy the same file on a USB stick and press the >> button. I can choose 3 different forward speeds and I see images while Fast Forwarding.

We are talking about DLNA not from USB which is a whole different subject.

It seems to me Fast Forward is the single most important feature at the moment. Will it ever be possible or is it a limitation of my Samsung UE46C6200 ???

This is limited by the firmware on ALL c-series products.

On a side note: my mobile together with the Twonky DLNA player allows fast forwarding or jumping to a random position in the video when I use Serviio as a DLNA server. This means, my mobile sends a time-code back to the Serviio server and Serviio will start sending the video from that position. As a practical solution we could just use the > button on the Samsung remote to skip 5 min and the >> button to skip 30 min. This way it would be manageable to live without fast forwarding. The current 20 sec. skip is a joke.

what the button on the remote do is controlled by the firmware of the product not by serviio so this simply isnt possible.

P.S. Please stop trying to make out your model is some how magicly different from every other C-series product out there as it is not and if you continue to do this i will end my input in this topic.

[sampath.mamilapo]

I am not trying to say my model is special in any way, at least not intentionally.

As for the fast forward function you described I just tested it but I am still not sure if I use it correctly.

I press on the '>' button and keep it pressed. It first skips ahead ~20 sec, next time ~1 min, next time ~3 min, etc. I am not sure about the times but it seems to skip ahead more and more.

The annoying thing is that it still takes a long time since I have to wait for a long time until the next skip takes place. Even worse I have to keep pressing the '>' button, otherwise it will just skip ~20 sec. the next time I press '>'. I kept the '>' pressed about 1 min. to skip ahead 6 min. I wonder how fast that constant button pressing will drain the remote's batteries. Moreover the user-experience of skipping ahead is very bad since it takes me a long time to do the actual skipping and I just have to sit there and constantly keep the button pressed. Also I don't see the video fast forwarding but just the 'busy' animation.

Now, I am not criticizing Serviio here but merely describe my experience with it. If anything I am criticizing Samsung. I wonder if what I describe above is the expected behavior or maybe I used it wrongly?

In any case, I don't think we are stuck with this annoying behavior dictated by Samsung. When I press the '>' button it will ask Serviio either to skip ahead a certain number of seconds or just ask Serviio to send back video starting at a certain time code, correct? Do you know exactly what the TV is sending to Serviio? Maybe you have the exact protocol logged somewhere?

What Serviio actually decides to send back is up to Serviio. It could just start serving the video file from the middle. One solution to make this skipping more useful is to skip ahead about ~10% of the video lenght. A 2 hour film would then start at minute 12 with the first skip. Minute 24 with the second skip and so on. It would take me 5 skips (without constantly pressing the '>' button to jump to the middle of the video).
If I want to go somewhere to the end of the movie, I press the 'up' button, which will skip to the end of the movie and then the '<' button a couple of times. This solution is not perfect but much better I think then the constant pressing of the '>' button and starting with a ~20 sec. skip. Honestly, who wants a ~20 sec. skip if he has to wait 15 sec. until the video starts playing again? My suggested solution is not perfect but I think it is a start (at least if it is realizable and Samsungs TV doesn't allow it.)


Cheers,
sampy

[Cerberus]

I am not trying to say my model is special in any way, at least not intentionally.

As for the fast forward function you described I just tested it but I am still not sure if I use it correctly.

I press on the '>' button and keep it pressed. It first skips ahead ~20 sec, next time ~1 min, next time ~3 min, etc. I am not sure about the times but it seems to skip ahead more and more.

The annoying thing is that it still takes a long time since I have to wait for a long time until the next skip takes place. Even worse I have to keep pressing the '>' button, otherwise it will just skip ~20 sec. the next time I press '>'. I kept the '>' pressed about 1 min. to skip ahead 6 min. I wonder how fast that constant button pressing will drain the remote's batteries. Moreover the user-experience of skipping ahead is very bad since it takes me a long time to do the actual skipping and I just have to sit there and constantly keep the button pressed. Also I don't see the video fast forwarding but just the 'busy' animation.

Now, I am not criticizing Serviio here but merely describe my experience with it. If anything I am criticizing Samsung. I wonder if what I describe above is the expected behavior or maybe I used it wrongly?

In any case, I don't think we are stuck with this annoying behavior dictated by Samsung. When I press the '>' button it will ask Serviio either to skip ahead a certain number of seconds or just ask Serviio to send back video starting at a certain time code, correct? Do you know exactly what the TV is sending to Serviio? Maybe you have the exact protocol logged somewhere?

What Serviio actually decides to send back is up to Serviio. It could just start serving the video file from the middle. One solution to make this skipping more useful is to skip ahead about ~10% of the video lenght. A 2 hour film would then start at minute 12 with the first skip. Minute 24 with the second skip and so on. It would take me 5 skips (without constantly pressing the '>' button to jump to the middle of the video).
If I want to go somewhere to the end of the movie, I press the 'up' button, which will skip to the end of the movie and then the '<' button a couple of times. This solution is not perfect but much better I think then the constant pressing of the '>' button and starting with a ~20 sec. skip. Honestly, who wants a ~20 sec. skip if he has to wait 15 sec. until the video starts playing again? My suggested solution is not perfect but I think it is a start (at least if it is realizable and Samsungs TV doesn't allow it.)


Cheers,
sampy

ok for the last and final time cause even im gettign bored of this now. We have no control over how long the skip points are that is done completely by the renderer and NOT serviio, end thread.

[zip]

Do you know exactly what the TV is sending to Serviio? Maybe you have the exact protocol logged somewhere?

The TV sends request for a byte range, that's all. We don't know if it's a ffwd/rev request or it the TV simply asks for the part of the file because it ran out of content to play. You can see the requests coming in if you enable detailed logging. You can thank Samsung for their rubbish ffwd implementation.

[sampath.mamilapo]

I turned on logging and pasted the region below which I think is part of the fast forward. Maybe I am wrong. Still I see some byte values there which probably correspond to positions:

Is this the correct section of the log?

2011-05-14 23:26:33,314 DEBUG [WebServer] Incoming connection from /192.168.178.29:38994
2011-05-14 23:26:33,315 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] GET /resource/21/MEDIA_ITEM/MATROSKA$0 HTTP/1.0, headers = [Range: bytes=171551304-,getcontentFeatures.dlna.org: 1,transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming,Host: 192.168.178.25:8895]]
2011-05-14 23:26:33,315 DEBUG [RendererDAOImpl] Reading a Renderer with ip address 192.168.178.29
2011-05-14 23:26:33,316 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Resource request accepted. Using client 'IPAddress=/192.168.178.29, Profile=Samsung TV / player (C/D-series)'
2011-05-14 23:26:33,316 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Request for resource 21 and type 'MEDIA_ITEM' received
2011-05-14 23:26:33,316 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Reading a MediaItem (id = 21)
2011-05-14 23:26:33,317 DEBUG [VideoDAOImpl] Reading a Video (id = 21)
2011-05-14 23:26:33,318 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering item '21' for client 'IPAddress=/192.168.178.29, Profile=Samsung TV / player (C/D-series)'
2011-05-14 23:26:33,318 DEBUG [VideoDeliveryEngine] Delivering file 'sample.x264.mkv' in native format
2011-05-14 23:26:33,318 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Getting file of media item 21
2011-05-14 23:26:33,320 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Creating stream entity with length: 4526477582
2011-05-14 23:26:33,320 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] Sending file back
2011-05-14 23:26:33,320 DEBUG [ResourceTransportRequestHandler] HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content, headers = [[Content-Type: video/x-mkv,Content-Range: bytes 171551304-4698028885/4698028886,Content-Length: 4526477582,Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 21:26:33 GMT,Server: Windows 7, UPnP/1.0 DLNADOC/1.50, Serviio/0.5.2,Cache-control: no-cache,contentFeatures.dlna.org: DLNA.ORG_PN=MATROSKA;DLNA.ORG_OP=01;DLNA.ORG_CI=0;DLNA.ORG_FLAGS=01500000000000000000000000000000,transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming]]
2

[Cerberus]

ok i give up on this thread as its clear you can not understand that what you are asking is not possibleand never will ebpossible not matter how much you go on abotu it. You have turn a thread that could of been very usefuly into one that has now become pointless, what a shame.

[sampath.mamilapo]

I was actually replying to 'zip', so excuse me, that I am trying to find out how the communication between TV and Serviio works. Not all the details but just the protocol basics. The TV (DLNA player) has to request some byte-value that corresponds to a position in the video when fast forwarding. Serviio satisfies this request.

Let's say we just play a movie on the Samsung TV. Serviio is simply serving the movie and knows at any moment the byte-value of the video it is serving. Let's assume further the user presses the '>' button on the remote. The Samsung TV will request a different (bigger) byte value to the one Serviio was just serving. Serviio will satisfy this request.

My question is,

1. can one somehow derive logically from the byte-value Serviio is currently serving what button was pushed on the remote when a new byte-value is requested. and
2. could Serviio just ignore the request and start serving the movie at a different byte-value then was requested by the TV? Or would the TV complain somehow about it?

Cheers,
Sampy

[Cerberus]

1. can one somehow derive logically from the byte-value Serviio is currently serving what button was pushed on the remote when a new byte-value is requested.

NOPE

2. could Serviio just ignore the request and start serving the movie at a different byte-value then was requested by the TV? Or would the TV complain somehow about it?

NOPE

[zip]

No to both of your questions