Serviio

Both of my BDP-S3100 players were doing just fine with my ripped DVDs and Blu-Rays. Most are in MKV containers, but some BDs are M2TS. The Sony plays these without transcoding.

About a couple of weeks ago, I have suddenly had issues with BD rips, regardless of container. It doesn't matter if I use MakeMKV (MKV) or MovieRescuer (M2TS). Sometimes the Sony shows them in the correct container (the video list shows container type, or if transcoded, the transcode container), some will show MPEG instead of the actual container, and some won't be listed at all. If I open Media Browser, the video is listed there (and will play), so it's not a Serviio issue. If I use my Roku or Panasonic, the video appears and will play (of course, both require transcoding). Finally, even many videos that have worked fine suddenly hit around 15 minutes or so and freeze. The player hasn't frozen, and I can hit stop and the play to resume the movie at the same place. However, once the freeze happens, it now repeats itself every 5 minutes or less. Makes the movie pretty much unwatchable.

I haven't to my knowledge updated the firmware that recently, but I'm wondering if they had something embedded that started recognizing ripped videos and is kicking in some sort of blocker. So far, it has only affected my BD rips. DVD rips are playing fine. Can older firmware be installed, or does Sony block firmware versions older than what is installed?

Anyone else encountering issues playing back movies without interruption? I am seriously considering replacing the Sony players with another brand, if anyone has suggestions about playing the files without transcoding.

Here's the current Device Spy info from my BDP-S3100. Can anyone find a reason for some files to sometimes appear, and other times not be listed? I admit that I get lost in these lists. There's no pattern to what video won't appear. WMV, M2TS, HD and SD.

The correct profile for this player is "Sony BDP-Sx100 (2013)". This profile correctly allows M2TS to play without transcoding, but some videos (that used to appear) have vanished. I've tried a multitude of other profiles, but they either still don't show the videos or won't load the server at all (message: "Cannot find the server. Cannot load data")

Looking at Media Browser shows the videos in the listings, so they are there, and will play fine through MB. They appear in my Roku and Panasonic menus. They've just disappeared from my Sony players. I am seriously looking at the Samsung BD players. I want something that will play M2TS without transcoding, because it's the only way to get captions from my Blu-ray rips.



Here's one example of a video that used to appear, but now is missing from the Sony menus:

Your M2TS file is a MPEGTS container with VC1 (advanced@L3) video stream with multiple audio tracks, AC3-TrueHD, AC3.

I'm not sure that Sony BDP supports this VC1 video format.

Other standard M2TS file format is MPEGTS/H264/AC3 (supported by BDP device).

BDP-S380 BDP-S1100 : Video format supported -XviD / WMV9 / MPEG-1 / MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 AVC

I believe the Sony does support this format. If I play the same video via Windows Media Streaming (same computer, just WMS instead of Serviio feeding it), it plays flawlessly, with multiple captions and audio tracks selectable. Yes, the Sony shows VC-1 as the video stream and Dolby TrueHD as the audio, and my AV receiver shows the audio bitstream being decoded. I do have problems with some videos that contain DTS Master Audio. Some play fine, others completely lock up the player after about 20 seconds or so and the power cord has to be unplugged to restart it. The Star Wars BD rips are the worst.

I could be sinister but it might not be.

I have two Sony TVs; an old KDL-32EX600 and a newer KDL-48W600B.

The EX600 is working nicely with all my content. The 600B is refusing to play a subset of my files that all come from the same source. Stream connects but never gets beyond second 0. So I was feeling pretty paranoid.

After trying a few things (but not too exhaustively) I tried out the UMS server, which is on a separate server, different OS, ffmpeg, etc. The same files then played but broken; looks like they're playing at approximately 20x normal speed and the sound is a long beep.

I'm concluding that it isn't some DRM PITA but some rendering fault. Next step will be more exhaustive tinkering.

BTW: UMS failed to play anything on the EX600; the 600B seemed to generally work except for the aforementioned subset. Generally, my opinion of the DLNA "standard" is lessening

Hi slunggo.

What is strange is that the Sony players had been working perfectly until the last couple of months. I don't remember doing a firmware update, but then I forget lots of stuff

I do know that I hadn't made any changes to Serviio in that time, so I feel I can discount any issue there. I think I might try grabbing the latest version of FFMPEG to see if that might have something to do with it. I did change versions a while ago to clear up an issue with the Roku players, but it didn't coincide with the Sony problem appearing. Of course, these files aren't being (or at least shouldn't be) transcoded, in which case FFMPEG isn't even fired up, so who knows...

OK, now the Sony players have gone off the wall. I can not play ANY video without it pausing about ten minutes after starting. At first it will start again after about 5 seconds, but it keeps doing it and eventually freezes completely, requiring pulling the power cord. It doesn't matter if the file is SD or HD, MKV, M2TS, MP4, or if it's being streamed from Serviio or Windows. The same videos play fine on the Roku, so there's no file problem. Plus, some of these files I ripped over 2 years ago and have played numerous times with no issues. The only thing I haven't tried was turning DLNA on for my Plex servers, but I think all that will do is transcode everything. There hasn't been a Sony firmware update in many months, but I can't discount two players both exhibiting the same problem almost simultaneously.

Time for a new media player. I prefer using BD players, for the option of inserting a disc if desired. The most important thing is it won't be a Sony any more. Unfortunately, this limits my selection, as I need to keep Amazon Video streaming available, and it seems a lot of companies have dropped their Amazon support. Looking at their web site, other than Sony there are few new BD players supported. Quite a few older ones, but I would of course prefer keeping the most current capabilities as far as supported file types.

Any suggestions?

And now, everything works again!

I tried resetting one of the players to factory defaults with no change. The only suggestion that I got from a Sony forum (that hadn't already been tried) was to delete all the media servers listed in the player and repopulate the list. The reset should have done this, but I tried it anyway. Son of a gun, it worked. I cleared the list in the one I reset, and it also resumed working. I played a ripped BD video (the ones that were the first to act up) and went over 40 minutes without a freeze. Played a DVD rip and also made it past 30 minutes without a problem. It was too late last night to watch a complete movie (I get up too early in the morning!), so I am not 100% certain it is fixed.

While one of the players was still connected to the network, I had taken the cat5 cable off the other when I installed my new TV for its connection. I just linked it back to the WiFi to try this after the first one started working again. So, I can't say Sony did anything to the box over the past few days.

Now I have my new Samsung 4K TV that I didn't need to buy (but I'm not going to return ) as well as the Sony players. Since I'm still trying to get a transcoding profile working for the Samsung, it's probably a good thing they work again.

EDIT: just froze at 17 minutes on a BD rip. Looks like last night may have been a fluke.