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The test ive done so far with serviio

PostPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:55 am
by remlei
All test Ive done is running under arch linux with serviio v1.9 14day trial

been using it for 4 days now and this is what ive experience so far, all test are done on local network, no internet related traffic

- any media cant be seeked for some reason regardless if I viewed it via mediabrowser or via any dlna client
- terrible for gapless tracks, the delay is just too long (1-2 seconds of silence :( on a gapless remix)
- no support for JIS filenames, this is why almost 75% of my library (specially music) didnt show up. I think even a special character on the file name can also cause the same thing.
- metadata is sooo terrible, I can ignore this if it was editable like in plex but no, I cant do that without messing with that database thing
- no easy way to edit the friendly name of the DLNA and instead it views as serviio (PCNAMEHERE). Im not sure if this going to be fixed in pro version but heck its trial so dunno.

* not to mention that I use this software blindly since it was badly documented specially on linux side. The only thing it had is installation guide which is pretty obvious, for experienced linux user, but the simple thing as how to access the console and whatnot is not mentioned anywhere, most of the time the documentation assumed that I used the windows version of serviio.

All of those experience I had is compared with ReadyMedia Transcode, which is flawless when it comes to all those issues I mentioned above except the metadata. The first 3 issues are critical to me and made serviio useless for me.

Re: The test ive done so far with serviio

PostPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:57 pm
by atc98092
I can't answer all of your questions, but can catch some.

Fast forward and rewind will not work with files that are transcoded. Depending on the player, this could be a few types or almost everything. It is dependent on video and audio codec, as well as the container.

The advertised name can be easily changed by editing the Profiles.xml file in the config folder. Line 12 has this tag (mine has already been edited here): <FriendlyName>Test_Serviio</FriendlyName>. Whatever text you enter between the FriendlyName tags is what Serviio advertises across DLNA. The Serviio service has to be restarted after the file is edited for the change to take effect.

Console access is identical across OSs. Open a browser on the computer and go to http://localhost:23423console, or from any other computer on your network by using the computer name/ip address in place of localhost. The Windows OS also has a small app that opens a browser window to the same address.

Metadata is downloaded from Internet databases, and accurate metadata requires your files to be named following a specific convention. Servers such as Plex require the same file naming. You can even use the IMDB media tag if you have a problem file. See this web page for more detailed information: http://serviio.org/index.php?option=com ... icle&id=12

The standard and Pro version are virtually operationally identical. The biggest difference is that Pro gives you the MediaBrowser, but there are a few other things. This page outlines the rest. For playing media to your Smart TV, media streaming player or Blu Ray Player, they are identical. Just a couple of controls in the console.

Re: The test ive done so far with serviio

PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 5:30 am
by remlei
my friend actually recommend me serviio because of the DLNA support transcoding thing and great UI, he was using still the v1.6 and let me tell you, seeking on the track works fine it takes time to process the video but it certainly works!! v1.9 for some reason stopped working this simple feature that used to work. And for some reason even if I select the "original" option on the quality, serviio still transcodes for some reason, it should be streaming the media as raw.

for metadata, i Just give it up on that, most of the wrong metadata that i had is animation shows from japan, some of the western movies that i had have the metadata right but not all (take note there are 20ish movies that i had metadata it wrong, while plex got it right). (if im going to compare the accuracy of metadata, plex has it better) not to mention that they also added various metadata sources which helps a lot specially on my Japanese drama and anime, some korean dramas too.

still that lack of non-ASCII support on serviio is a killer.

Re: The test ive done so far with serviio

PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:27 am
by atc98092
If you have burned in subtitles enabled, then everything will transcode. It's required to add the captions to the video. So that is one reason you might be getting transcoding.

With DLNA clients, you have to ensure the correct profile is assigned. Not all clients identify themselves accurately enough for Serviio to assign the correct profile. Yours might be using the wrong profile. You have not identified any of your players, so I can't make suggestions about the profile to use. For a test, you could use the Generic profile, which does not transcode anything. If you can't play anything with that profile, then your files are not in a format that your player accepts.

Can't make any comparisons with your friend's setup, as his videos might be in different containers, with different video and audio codecs.

You will never get accurate metadata from the Internet if a) your files are named incorrectly, or b) your titles are not contained in the databases that Serviio uses (themoviedb and thetvdb). With other DLNA servers, it will be pretty much the same.

I'm not certain what non-ASCII you are attempting to use, but Serviio does support multiple languages, and for captions supports different character encoding.