[OLD] ServiiGo - Android 3G/Wifi Playback App - Beta

[will]

I'm a little confused. I'm using 10PRE with MX player and the subs work great.

When I play an avc in original mode, it transcodes the audio to mp3 and I am getting various audio glitches, sometimes 5 sec on 5 sec off, other times just 1 sec off's every minute or so.. also video lags audio by 5 sec, and cannot skip.

When I play in medium or low mode or anything other than AVC where it transcodes the video to mpeg2video, I am getting the same problems plus there is an "Unsupported time range request, sending back 416" error that occurs 3 times before the transcoded video starts to play.

So I changed the ServiiGo Profile to play Originals natively and everything works perfectly including mkv,mp4,divx.avi,mpg,asf and flv (except bit rates at 19.8mbps..10mbps play fine).

All this leads me to the question of why you are transcoding at all if Android 2.3 and MX Player work without it?

After some limited testing I copied and adapted the flash player profile, but I stated very early on that it was by no means the ideal profile/that I wouldn't be able to test it with enough different files. I've also only had a phone that could play anything greater than Low for a few weeks now, so I was previously never able to test medium/original. But since then all the videos I had tested worked fine under orignal. Also I don't think there were any other problems except for one that I think was solved.

If you think it isn't needed then post your changes and I'll ask zip to include it in 1.0, but I would want more users to test it first including anyone with android 2.2.

[jhb50]

If you think it isn't needed then post your changes and I'll ask zip to include it in 1.0, but I would want more users to test it first including anyone with android 2.2.

I don't know enough about android hw & sw to give a definitive solution.
As I see it there are different cpu's which I assume have different capabilities. My nextbook uses an ARMv7 which has an H264 decoder, so can play many streams natively. Perhaps others like your phone cannot and you must transcode. Similarly perhaps the different androids have different capabilities my Gingerbread 2.3 works fine natively. Finally I assume the player, in my case MX integrates well with the hw and sw so native works fine. As a result my profile for ServiioGo has nothing in the Transcoding section but I doubt it will work for all the other situations. Seems you almost need some kind of profile selection mechanism or else just transcode everything as it currently does and work out why the glitches.

The same is true using Serviio natively on Android via a UPnP program with MXplayer. I have an "Android" profile similar to my ServiiGo profile and the console provides the ability to select various versions if they are required for different setups. I have also noticed that with native Serviio playback begins within a few seconds, whereas with ServiiGo it takes about 60 seconds.

[will]

Yes I did think of possibly having a few profiles that could be selected from the settings, otherwise in the future the quality selection could possibly be expanded further. Realistically, it needs more testing before hand though.

Re playback starting, i've never seen that problem, it always starts very quickly < 5-10 seconds, maybe 15 or so over 3G.

@zip any thoughts about the audio problems?

[will]

I'm trying to put together some artwork. Any thoughts/suggestions? This would be the banner on google play (1024x500, no transparency). If you are particulaly good/want to help I can email you the basic assets and you can put together whatever you think looks good/simply jaz up this mockup as I'm not too happy with it.

[mavika]

...I'm here again.

...as I'm not too happy with it.

Maybe the title with different font (serviio style)? And with ServiiGo logo on the left side?

[jhb50]

Re playback starting, i've never seen that problem, it always starts very quickly < 5-10 seconds, maybe 15 or so over 3G.

I'm just on local wireless lan.. ServiiGo startup playing 1280x720AVC.mkv took 35 sec, 640divx.avi took just 6 sec, online YouTube 40 sec, online rtmp live stream 80 seconds. Compared to 3/11/5/7 sec for Serviio.

What I see with the live stream is that with ServiiGo, Serviio says "sending file back" and then there is a long period of data being sent to ServiiGo before the stream starts to play on the screen, whereas with Serviio DLNA the stream starts to play almost immediately. In both cases these are the default transcoded to AC3.mpegts played by MX so the only difference is ServiiGo.

[mavika]

  Code:

==== RC 1 ====
*Added new app theme
*Added automatic subtitle support for MX Player
*Fixed duplicate content on tablets when rotating before selecting anything
*Added an option to clear the playlits when playing audio tracks
*Added an action item to view the movie on IMDb
*Added better sizing of thumbnails for videos with no online metadata especially on hdpi/xhdpi devices
*Added a first run setup guide and a dialog with info about video players
*Added support for the upcoming donate/unlock key
*Added ads to free version :(
*Updated ABS to version 4.1
*Lots of little minor changes


I really like the new first-run-setup-guide! Very good idea! (But there isn't any other way, to leave it once opened, just by clicking next-next-next-next?)

"You will be able to review this help information at a later date via Menu->Help."
This is true, but before this works, you must logout to get the Menu->Help option. It was not obvious for the first time.

Some feature request for the next version after 1.0:
Is it possible to prefetch some of the image thumbnails when browsing images? Now only the displayed thumbnails are loaded on demand.
If scrolled down it takes a bit to load the remaining thumbnails. I know, loading all the thumbnails in a large folder takes up a lot of bandwith,
but this could be an option too...
While viewing images preloading the next(/previous) image would be also be cool.

"Sorry", but I can't test the ads because i have no ads at all - thanks to my adblock settings.

That's all for now, just downloaded a few hours ago the RC1 Serviio, testing it and ServiiGo/Droid too.

[will]

I really like the new first-run-setup-guide! Very good idea! (But there isn't any other way, to leave it once opened, just by clicking next-next-next-next?)

"You will be able to review this help information at a later date via Menu->Help."
This is true, but before this works, you must logout to get the Menu->Help option. It was not obvious for the first time.

Some feature request for the next version after 1.0:
Is it possible to prefetch some of the image thumbnails when browsing images? Now only the displayed thumbnails are loaded on demand.
If scrolled down it takes a bit to load the remaining thumbnails. I know, loading all the thumbnails in a large folder takes up a lot of bandwith,
but this could be an option too...
While viewing images preloading the next(/previous) image would be also be cool.

"Sorry", but I can't test the ads because i have no ads at all - thanks to my adblock settings.

That's all for now, just downloaded a few hours ago the RC1 Serviio, testing it and ServiiGo/Droid too.

Well the guide only relates to initial setup really, and you might as well read all of it.

Prefetching of images thumbnails won't work because the list view only creates the views as they come into view. Having said that, I plan to extend my image manager to load multiple images at once which should speed it up a little. For the slideshow it is possible as I preload images from memory a bit, but don't yet pre-load from the network.

sent you a pm with images.

[jhb50]

I have finished my Android Profile, which is actually for the BubbleUPnP renderer which Serviio is able to detect, and I have replaced your ServiiGo profile with the same profile.

The"Transcoding" section is empty since my ARMv7 has an H264 decoder and the MX player contains the software to play all containers and files. This eliminates the previously reported audio gritches and a/v sync problems.

The "OnlineTranscoding" section uses the inherited rules from the generic profile and and transcodes everything else to "mpegts" with AC3" plus it transcodes the video for VP6.flv and mms streams to mpeg2video.

This allows everything to play using Serviio DLNA with BubbleUPnP or using ServiiGo. I switch between the two solutions and play my files with ServiiGo because of its subtitle support, and play online streams both static (YouTube) and live with Serviio DLNA because the streams start much faster as previously posted.

Attached is the modified RC application-profiles.xml I am using if anyone wants to try it. I'd be interested to know what happens when used with other hardware and Android versions.
EDIT: Replaced by V2 further on.

The standard "Android" profile is posted in a new "Android Support" thread which I hope zip wll make a sub-forum.

[will]

But you deleted the alternative qualities which are essential to using ServiiGo away from home for most users. You also removed the audio transcoding which for some formats will be needed.

How about this as an inbtween.

  Code:

<Profile id="serviigo" name="ServiiGo" extendsProfileId="1" alwaysEnableTranscoding="true" selectable="false">
      <Transcoding>
         <!-- Wrap h264 video up in mpegts to gain HW decoding on some devices -->
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts">
            <Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="mpegts" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="3gp" vCodec="h264" />
         </Video>
         <!-- Transcode audio for the music player -->
         <Audio targetContainer="mp3">
            <Matches container="mp4" />
            <Matches container="flac" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
            <Matches container="lpcm" />
            <Matches container="adts" />
            <Matches container="asf" />
         </Audio>
      </Transcoding>
      <OnlineTranscoding>
         <Video targetACodec="ac3" targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video">
            <Matches vCodec="vp6" container="flv"/>
            <Matches container="asf"/>
            <!-- to support mms:// streams -->
         </Video>
         <Video targetACodec="ac3" targetContainer="mpegts">
            <Matches container="flv"/>
            <Matches container="mp4"/>            
         </Video>
      </OnlineTranscoding>
      <AlternativeQualities>
         <Quality type="MEDIUM">
            <Transcoding>
               <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="1000" maxHeight="480">
                  <Matches container="*" />
               </Video>
            </Transcoding>
            <OnlineTranscoding keepStreamOpen="false">
               <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="1000" maxHeight="480">
                  <Matches container="*" />
               </Video>
            </OnlineTranscoding>
         </Quality>
         <Quality type="LOW">
            <Transcoding>
               <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="22050" maxVBitrate="500" maxHeight="240">
                  <Matches container="*" />
               </Video>
            </Transcoding>
            <OnlineTranscoding keepStreamOpen="false">
               <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="500" maxHeight="240">
                  <Matches container="*" />
               </Video>
            </OnlineTranscoding>
         </Quality>
      </AlternativeQualities>
      <SubtitlesMimeType>text/srt</SubtitlesMimeType>
   </Profile>


EDIT: Just tried a YouTube video and I get no sound using the original quality part which is the bit I coped from your posted one. Did you have this problem as well?

[jhb50]

But you deleted the alternative qualities which are essential to using ServiiGo away from home for most users. You also removed the audio transcoding which for some formats will be needed.
How about this as an inbtween.

See Below

<!-- Wrap h264 video up in mpegts to gain HW decoding on some devices -->

This causes my device player (MX) to switch to software decoding and brings back the audio drop outs and a/v sync problems for me.

<!-- Transcode audio for the music player -->

Agree

<OnlineTranscoding>
<Video targetACodec="ac3" targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video">
<Matches vCodec="vp6" container="flv"/>

Wondered why you removed the maxVBitrate="4000"

<AlternativeQualities>
<Quality type="MEDIUM">
<Quality type="LOW">

Agree

Just tried a YouTube video and I get no sound using the original quality part which is the bit I coped from your posted one. Did you have this problem as well?

No YT plays fine for me with my original profile. What YT was it? Perhaps it was a VP6 or H263 rather than AVC? I note that if Quality=Low is set in the console that it limits what is available to ServiiGo. What quality do you have in the console?

[will]

OK i'll have a test of my videos tonight/at the weekend to see what I can find out. Can everyone please try the alternative profiles and anything inbetween to see what works best for your devices.

Re max bitrate, didn't mean to miss it out, how did you come up with that number?

Worst case I will put together a profile that works for most cases but leave lots of comments explaining the tradeoffs so users can edit it a bit, although I had hoped that there wouldn't be issues like this so close to release.

I have online content set to high in the console, was a 720p simon's cat video not sure what format that will be.

[jhb50]

Makes sense. I'll test out the YT. I'm surprised others have not reported the glitches or A/V sync problems.

[jhb50]

OK i'll have a test of my videos tonight/at the weekend to see what I can find out. Can everyone please try the alternative profiles and anything inbetween to see what works best for your devices.

I would suggest that we compare notes on these 3 specific tests. These are the ones that I reported before but I will test again and compare my profile with your changed one.
1) a 640x480 divx.avi movie
2) a 1280x720 avc.mkv movie
3) This live stream "rtmp://cp105185.live.edgefcs.net:1935/live/ swfUrl=http://www.citytv.com/swf/NowPlaying.swf pageURL=http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/video/liveplayer playpath=Citynewsch_online@15402 live=1"

Re max bitrate, didn't mean to miss it out, how did you come up with that number?

Just standard DVD bit rate 4mbps

Worst case I will put together a profile that works for most cases but leave lots of comments explaining the tradeoffs so users can edit it a bit

It is still not clear to me if all android devices have hardware AVC decoders, but it seems that MX Player does not care and will use it if available or convert as required. That is why I had no "transcoding" rules and let MX player deal with it, rather than have Serviio remux. If this is correct there should be no reason to change the profile.

I had hoped that there wouldn't be issues like this so close to release

I am surprised that you have had no feedback from all your other testers regarding video and online streams. Clearly live streams did not work at all until the fix zip made in the RC. Perhaps they are primarily "IPOD" audio users.

I have online content set to high in the console, was a 720p simon's cat video not sure what format that will be.

The YouTube plugin will return the "22" AVC.flv static feed for those. I'll test it as well.

[jhb50]

In response to further testing and the determination that "force inheritance" in profile 1 does not extend to the application-profiles, I have modified the profile again as per the attached. This includes your mods except for the remux of h264's to mpegts which does not work for me, and per my last note I question the need for.

[will]

OK thank you for testing, i'll try that profile now. Any reason for your choice of ac3 audio + bitrate of 384 for online streams?

Re HW decoding, in most cases it should give reduced battery usage and on edge case devices that don't have a good enough cpu, but do a gpu, facilitate playback. However it obviously causes problems so I will have it in there but commented out so that users can add it back if they want.

[jhb50]

OK thank you for testing, i'll try that profile now. Any reason for your choice of ac3 audio + bitrate of 384 for online streams?

New profile just stayed as close to generic profile as I could for equal comparison between. Serviio,ServiiGo and Mediabrowser. Lower it if need be.

Re HW decoding, in most cases it should give reduced battery usage and on edge case devices that don't have a good enough cpu, but do a gpu, facilitate playback. However it obviously causes problems so I will have it in there but commented out so that users can add it back if they want.

I'm confused here. With no "Transcoding" rules my HW decoder is used and I get no problems, but with your remux to mpegts ,SW decoding is used and I get glitches. You imply the opposite that no "Transcoding" rules trigger sw decoding and you need to remux to mpegts to enablesHW decoding. We agree that we want HW decoding if possible, so we need to resolve this.

[will]

New profile just stayed as close to generic profile as I could for equal comparison between. Serviio,ServiiGo and Mediabrowser. Lower it if need be.

OK seams fair.

I'm confused here. With no "Transcoding" rules my HW decoder is used and I get no problems, but with your remux to mpegts ,SW decoding is used and I get glitches. You imply the opposite that no "Transcoding" rules trigger sw decoding and you need to remux to mpegts to enablesHW decoding. We agree that we want HW decoding if possible, so we need to resolve this.

OK well my phone is the oposite way round to your tablet, maybe due to MX Player not realising it could use the HW decoder. At this point I doubt we will get enough input from other usres to build up a proper picture of codec/container vs hardware to see what is and isn't supported so for now 'Original' will be don't touch the video at all, but i'll leave the fix I have in but commented out with an even more comments.

I think in a later version we should proably have a few ServiiGo profiles in a addition to the default one, each targeting specific hardware support on devices to maximise to use of hardware decoding while minimising transcoding. But for now I think it is best to just wait and see how the majority of users use it, and what works best for them.

Thanks again for your help btw.

OK so the final version is shown below (same as yours but with comments):

  Code:

   <Profile id="serviigo" name="ServiiGo" extendsProfileId="1" alwaysEnableTranscoding="true" selectable="false">
      <Transcoding>
         <!-- Some devices support HW decoding when h264 is wrapped in mpegts, while others do not.
            If HW decoding does not work for you when playing back h264, you can try to uncomment
            the below Video block. -->
         <!-- Video targetContainer="mpegts">
            <Matches container="matroska" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="mp4" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="avi" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="mpegts" vCodec="h264" />
            <Matches container="3gp" vCodec="h264" />
         </Video -->         
         <!-- Tanscode audio for the Media Player -->
         <Audio targetContainer="mp3">
            <Matches container="mp4" />
            <Matches container="flac" />
            <Matches container="ogg" />
            <Matches container="lpcm" />
            <Matches container="adts" />
            <Matches container="asf" />
         </Audio>
      </Transcoding>
      <OnlineTranscoding>
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" >
            <Matches container="flv" vCodec="h264"/>
            <Matches container="mp4"/>
                <Matches container="applehttp" vCodec="h264"/>
         </Video>
         <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" maxVBitrate="4000">
            <Matches container="flv" />
            <Matches container="asf"/> <!-- to support mms:// streams -->
            <Matches container="rtp"/>
            <Matches container="rtsp"/>
            <Matches container="applehttp"/>
         </Video>
         <Audio targetContainer="mp3" aBitrate="384" >
            <Matches container="flv"/>
            <Matches container="asf"/>
            <Matches container="rtp"/>
            <Matches container="rtsp"/>
            <Matches container="mp3"/>            
         </Audio>
      </OnlineTranscoding>
         <AlternativeQualities>
            <Quality type="MEDIUM">
               <Transcoding>
                  <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="1000" maxHeight="480">
                     <Matches container="*" />
                  </Video>
               </Transcoding>
               <OnlineTranscoding keepStreamOpen="false">
                   <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="1000" maxHeight="480">
                      <Matches container="*" />
                   </Video>
               </OnlineTranscoding>
            </Quality>
            <Quality type="LOW">
               <Transcoding>
                  <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="22050" maxVBitrate="500" maxHeight="240">
                     <Matches container="*" />
                  </Video>
               </Transcoding>
               <OnlineTranscoding keepStreamOpen="false">
                  <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="mp3" forceStereo="true" aSamplerate="44100" maxVBitrate="500" maxHeight="240">
                     <Matches container="*" />
                  </Video>
               </OnlineTranscoding>
            </Quality>
         </AlternativeQualities>
      <SubtitlesMimeType>text/srt</SubtitlesMimeType>
   </Profile>   


[will]

Anyone good with words. I need something like this but don't really know the best way to describe the not at home part of it.

With this app you will be able to browse and stream the media stored on your Serviio server at home or over the internet using either WiFi or 3G/4G.
With this app you will be able to browse and stream the media stored on your Serviio server at home or away using either WiFi or 3G/4G.

[jhb50]

Minor point: Detail screen for live stream says:

Live steam: v
Resolution: 768x364
Date: Date

sb
Live stream: v <-- add r
Resolution: 768x364
Date: Live Now