Serviio

jshake1 wrote:Is there a work around in Serviio for the limitation that Samsung TVs have in displaying movies or music? In the Samsung TV display you're limited to 100 screens of 10 items. For movies this isn't too much of a problem because if I use the Title option, the possibility of having 1000 movies that start with the same letter is very remote. But for music this is a real problem. I'm trying to find out if there's a way around using Serviio menus.

jshake1 wrote:I have a C series as well with 1800 movies and you're right; it's not an issue. Music is the problem. If it listed artists in folders like it does movies that would work. But it doesn't. If you have too much music it doesn't display. Am I making sense?

jshake1 wrote:Are you a lawyer in real life? The basic problem is Samsung's firmware that limits the number of items that can be displayed in each category. Because the MOVIES can be categorized by TITLE, you would have to have 1000 movie titles that start with the same character before it would become an issue. MUSIC is categorized differently. When categorizing by ARTIST, is there no way to get it to group it by the first letter in the Artist's name like movie TITLES? I know this is very confusing but if you're using a Samsung C series TV and have a lot of music, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

jshake1 wrote:that's interesting. It sounds like we may have different firmware. I also have a Sony TV that lists all movies/music one line at a time and will scroll continuously until the end. My Samsung lists movies/music one screen full at a time; with 10 items per screen. There's a maximum of 100 screens which comes out to 1000 possible items. How does your firmware display movies/music? I don't know how to capture a TV screen; I guess I could take a picture and attach it so you can see what I'm talking about.

zip wrote:I think my B series has the same limitation, 100 pages of 10.

Cerberus wrote:
ok managed to test this on music, god i hate my big library at times lol and i can confirm i have 101 pages so no limit on my c-series so my only recommendation is to upgrade your firmware to the latest version.

wagstaff wrote:

Cerberus wrote:
ok managed to test this on music, god i hate my big library at times lol and i can confirm i have 101 pages so no limit on my c-series so my only recommendation is to upgrade your firmware to the latest version.

Actually, for Samsung C-Series devices (and presumably B-series as well based on zip's comments), there is a firmware limit of 1000 items which can be displayed for any menu folder. This yields a maximum of 101 pages to be displayed since the first page of any display only shows 9 items due to the presence of the "Upper Folder" icon and action while all other pages show the full ten items ((9 x 1) + (10 x 99) + (1 x 1) = 1,000 total items).

As has been stated, this issue only comes to light in very specific scenarios. It can and does manifest itself under movies as well as music. It is just that, most folks will have a far greater number of music files than they do movie files, so the likelihood is far greater on average for music than for movies.

How to reproduce the issue:
1.) Select a major category (Music is usually easier)
2.) Pick a sub-category in which there is likely to be more than 1000 items to be displayed (Titles beginning with 'S' works well in many cases)

Once the Samsung firmware reaches the 1000th item, it truncates the list. The more items above the 1000 item limit, the easier the truncation is to see for most.

This problem is caused by a limitation in the Samsung firmware (at least in B-series and C-series - no knowledge of D-series yet). I have the latest Samsung firmware for my C-Series TV, and the limitation is still there. It has been present through all the firmware versions I have tried (4 versions so far including the latest). As a result, I find it highly unlikely that Samsung (not the easiest tech support to deal with) will be changing this limitation anytime soon.

The only way to practically deal with this firmware limitation (other than to somehow convince Samsung to increase the limit or remove it altogether) is to have the serving software (Serviio, etc.) break up the lists it sends to Samsung devices into batches of less than 1000 items in number. For alphabetic listings, this might mean something like breaking a typically large category like "Title beginning with 'S' " into smaller categories like "Titles beginning with 'SA' thru 'SC' ", "Titles beginning with 'SD' thru 'SH' ", etc. I am not sure how difficult or practical a programming exercise that might be, but without Samsung's cooperation, I do not see many other alternatives.

Cerberus wrote:
im sorry wagstaff but you are wrong i have OVER 1000s item in each section, and as i said maybe different models have slightly different firmwares for c-series devices.

wagstaff wrote:

Cerberus wrote:
im sorry wagstaff but you are wrong i have OVER 1000s item in each section, and as i said maybe different models have slightly different firmwares for c-series devices.

So your C-series displays more than 101 pages for certain categories? Or displays more than a single item on page 101?

Cerberus wrote:
There is more than 1 item on page 101 making that a total of 1009 items.

wagstaff wrote:

Cerberus wrote:
There is more than 1 item on page 101 making that a total of 1009 items.

This means that not all C-series Samsung devices are afflicted by this 1000-item limitation. In an effort to narrow things down a bit, your signature block indicates that you have both a C-series TV and a C-series blue ray player. Have you confirmed that the 1000-item limit does not exist for you on both devices?