Jump when Transcoding

[jhb50]

I know I can jump in a file when played natively, but does Serviio also support jumping when a file is being transcoded in real time?

[tvkdlna]

Yes it does, at least with Bravia. Think it depends on the renderer too.

[jhb50]

Well my D series TV and BR player will not jump when a file is transcoded to mpeg-ts. Also I have been unable to get any MPEG-PS file to jumpon the TV or BR although mpeg-ts files will jump on both TV & BR. Go figure.

[tvkdlna]

For me it's just the opposite. If I play native mpegts (DVB-T recordings), jump is disabled and I only have ffwd functions available. But if I play content that's transcoded to mpegts, jumping works just fine.

Really, go figure.

[moltra]

Can you guys give us your render model and firmware information.

[tvkdlna]

Model: Sony Bravia KDL-32W5500
Firmware version: 1.741EA (14/07/2010)

[jhb50]

Samsung 64" PlasmaTV PN64D550 and Feb/11 Firmware 1009
Samsung HT BR/Amp Combo HT-D5330 Sept 28/11 Firmware 1008

Any chance my inability to jump is due to a Serviio bug? I don't know enough about DLNA yet to pinpoint where/how this works.

[zip]

This has been discussed before, but again:

serviio supports time-based seeking for transcoded content and byte-range seeking for native. Depending on what type the renderer supports it will either work or not.

[jhb50]

Well its going to take me a bit of learning to understand this and chase it down. Searching on "Transcode seek" has given me some places to start.

I'd appreciate knowing how to determine what my TV supports. I see this info on "Seek" in Device Spy : TRACK_NR, REL_TIME, ABS_TIME, ABS_COUNT, REL_COUNT, X_DLNA_REL_BYTE
Does this mean it only supports RelByte using DLNA? If so is it reasonable to request an enhancement to provide a profile option to switch transcoding from time based to rel byte?

[zip]

Well its going to take me a bit of learning to understand this and chase it down. Searching on "Transcode seek" has given me some places to start.

I'd appreciate knowing how to determine what my TV supports. I see this info on "Seek" in Device Spy : TRACK_NR, REL_TIME, ABS_TIME, ABS_COUNT, REL_COUNT, X_DLNA_REL_BYTE
Does this mean it only supports RelByte using DLNA? If so is it reasonable to request an enhancement to provide a profile option to switch transcoding from time based to rel byte?

these are some Sony specific values I think. Normally it's included in ProtocolInfo (at least on the server side), something like DLNA_OP=11 (both), 10/01 (only one of then, not sure which is which from the top of my head).

Serviio will not change that behaviour as:

1) byte range is more precise that time-based on native files due to FFmpeg not always giving accurate duration
2) byte range is not possible for transcoded content as we don't know the future file size, so reverting to the (possibly not so precise) time based seek based on average transcoded bitrate

[Illico]

Yes in fact for sony:

Bravia has four arrow buttons to change position: left/right – to fast forward/reverse and up/down – to moving cursor and set time position (something like goto).
If DLNA.ORG_OP=11, then left/right keys uses range header, and up/down uses TimeSeekRange.DLNA.ORG header
If DLNA.ORG_OP=10, then left/right and up/down keys uses TimeSeekRange.DLNA.ORG header
If DLNA.ORG_OP=01, then left/right keys uses range header, and up/down keys are disabled
and if DLNA.ORG_OP=00, then all keys are disabled
DLNA.ORG_CI= 1- media is transcoded

[jhb50]

How about for the Samsung?

[zip]

I can ffwd/rew on my Samsung (B), but it depends on the file played, some codecs/formats the TV doesn't support.

[jhb50]

"I can ffwd/rew on my Samsung (B), but it depends on the file played, some codecs/formats the TV doesn't support."

Zip, please explain. I would assume the codecs/formats the TV does not support are being transcoded. Are you saying that the ability to jump that transcoded mpeg-ts file depends on the source codecs as well as the ability of the device(TV) to support time-based seeking ? ie: An AVC/Vorbis.to ts might jump but an MPEG2VIDEO/mp3.ts might not?

If you are able to jump some transcoded files, I assume that means Samsung does support Time-based seeking on the B, so I doubt they wold have dropped it in the D models. Can you post what codec/formats do jump with transcoding so I can try a similar file on my D. Right now neither the D TV or BR will jump my transcoded mpeg-ts files, and I would like to find a combo that works.

[zip]

Zip, please explain. I would assume the codecs/formats the TV does not support are being transcoded.

Some codecs that the TV plays natively behave like this. You might search the forum for more details, I don't remember exactly. It might also be not just a codec but the way it's been encoded.

Can you post what codec/formats do jump with transcoding so I can try a similar file on my D. Right now neither the D TV or BR will jump my transcoded mpeg-ts files, and I would like to find a combo that works.

Sorry, don't have time for this but someone else might help you or again, search the forum, there might be some details somewhere.

[jhb50]

Zip, I know that natively played files/codecs/formats are able to be jumped/ffwd/rew via DLNA. On my D Samsung, everything jumps natively except mpeg-ps, as I posted and reported to in http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2714&p=16816&hilit=jhb50#p16816

I created this thread however to try and determine if anyone has found that files transcoded (ie to mpeg-ts) on Samsung are also able to be jumped. Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation in these forums so the only way to establish knowledge is to seek examples and verify them.

Your responses have confused me because while you first indicated that it was dependent on device support for timebased skipping, you now seem to be addressing jumps on natively played files, so I'm not clear on whether your B can also jump transcoded files, and if it can, is it also dependent on the codecs included in the mpeg-ts (ie: does time-based support also vary by codec)?

Yours is the only post that indicates Samsung (B) can skip transcoded files, but in order to verify that I'd appreciate just one example that works for you so I can try and repeat it here.

[zip]

is it also dependent on the codecs included in the mpeg-ts (ie: does time-based support also vary by codec)?

I'm not sure, it might be.

Yours is the only post that indicates Samsung (B) can skip transcoded files, but in order to verify that I'd appreciate just one example that works for you so I can try and repeat it here.

Ok, I'll try at home, hopefully tonight.

[zip]

Ok, so I tried a couple of transcoded files and both work with time seek. They don't seek on my C series though. I noticed that duration of transcoded file is 11:50 on the B series TV, but 534:55:00 (ie invalid) on the C series TV, so possibly because it cannot establish video duration it disables time based seek. I think I'm passing all the Samsung-only data, incl. duration, but it's not working (but I think it works for audio files - can you confirm with a flac file?)

[jhb50]

So just to confirm your tests were transcoded to mpeg2video in an mpeg-ts container and not just remuxed eg: h264.mkv into an mpeg-ts container. If so, your C series is replicating the behaviour of my D series, and not skipping the transcoded files. Like you, all my transcoded to mpeg2video files have incorrect durations, but they are all in a very close range to each other regardless of the source duration, but that duration range changes if I change the maxVBRate value, even though as I stated in the bug post the file sizes do not change when I chage maxVBrate. So it looks to me like the device is getting some kind of duration value, based on maxbitrate even though that value is not used in creating the transcoded file size. I also get identical durations on both TV and BR transcodes for the same files. Seems strange that Samsung would have the same bug in different firmwares.

flac transcodes to audio/L16;rate44100;cha... but duration is incorrect 1:25:02 vs 4:26 actual and it cannot be jumped.
I have not used audio before, but playing an mp3 native does not offer any jump buttons either..just play and pause, not much of a music player.

[zip]

Ok, I'll look into fixing this, will probably be caused by the duration information being incorrect.