Serviio

Just got this Blu-ray player and hooked it up to Serviio v1.3.1 running on a headless Ubuntu 12.04.3 Server. I have an LG 3d tv that plays everything using Serviio (including the mkv files that won't play on the BD89). I've tried all the different profiles and everything seems to play fine except for a few avi files which I'm just going to replace. The real problem I'm having is mkv files. It plays mkv files natively and I can play them using the network drive connection but would really like everything to be through the DNLA server. There are a few profiles that will display the mkv listing but none will play a mkv. I've tried multiple mkv's made from different formats but no mkv file that I've tried seems to play. The Panasonic BD Player profile lists all the available files but plays nothing. I have the best luck with the generic profile. As this player is located in a different room I'd really like to get the mkv format working.

To get the ProtocolInfo from the player I had to turn on the players network remote device option (I've also been through all the profiles using this turned on also) and this is what it outputs:


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is the player supposed to play MKV over DLNA ? It doesn't mean that it should work when it works via USB. Do you have a manual that states it's supported?

Thanks for the reply. The manual gives a list of 4 containers (AVCHD, MP4, PS, TS) that DLNA can play. So I assume that MKV is not directly playable via DLNA. I guess I'm confused that I was under the assumption (yeah, I know... never assume) that Serviio would transcode any non-native playable videos if I could get a profile to work correctly.

I guess that is the question now... a working profile that isn't the generic one. I started working on one but it has no transcoding applied... only 2 media format lines lines really. After these 2 I spent all my time trying to get MKV to play (which now I know it needs to be transcoded). Also the player comes up with a really odd Device Name but only when the network remote device option is turned on. I can provide that name once I get home if it would be of any use. Here's my start of a profile



Any suggestions on how to continue would be very greatly appreciated.

Here's a link to the manual with the DLNA stuff on page 34:

Note however that sometimes the manuals are not correct - for example according to your manual you should not be able to play any AVI files over DLNA, and yet you have been able to. The Protocol Info from the player is the better info, or simply set to the Generic Profile and see what doesn't play (the Generic profile does not transcode anything).

For starters you may want to add this to your profile (just below the </MediaFormatProfiles> statement):

This will remux any matroska (MKV) files into a mpeg2 ts container, transcoding audio to dolby digital (AC3) if required. Unfortunately, this may stuff up the aspect ratio for some videos (those higher than 16:9) - if that happens then you will need to use this instead:

You can then add to either one other "Matches" to transcode other files that are not played natively eg.
ps. you can also try <MediaFormatProfile mime-type="video/x-msvideo">AVI</MediaFormatProfile> or simply <MediaFormatProfile mime-type="video/avi">AVI</MediaFormatProfile> and see if that provides any better support for AVI's.

Thanks for the reply and info but the Matroska stuff did not work. I put them in inside the <Transcoding> block (1 at a time, not together). The player would see the file but when selected the player would act like it was loading (a screen with just the wallpaper showing) and then a message saying "Can not play".

This got me to thinking (lots of trouble comes about when that happens)... will Serviio need the matroska codec installed on the linux box to be able to transcode? Or any of the codecs for that matter. Since my linux box is running Ubuntu Server 12.04.3 with no gui the codecs wouldn't necessarily be installed. So the question branches out to... Do I need to install the codecs on the server?

No, Serviio does not require any codecs on your server. It uses ffmpeg to transcode.

Should have worked according to your manual - I'm wondering if your box doesn't support the AC3 audio in an mpeg2-ts container (despite the manual). Try playing with the transcoding targets eg. try a mpeg-ps container type:

or, retaining the mpeg-ts container ("mpegts"), try changing the audio type (eg. targetACodec="AAC" or targetACodec="lpcm" - delete the aBitrate part with these). Have a read of http://www.serviio.org/index.php?option ... icle&id=24 - its a matter of finding the right combination of container, video and audio targets to transcode to.

I finally got to take a look into this and I was checking the serviio.log and here ffmpeg was not getting loaded. So I went through the steps in the Wiki and followed to get everything setup. On my server I had to configure x264 with --enable-shared set before ffmpeg would compile. Using --disable-opencl had no effect when compiling ffmpeg. Now to see if I can get transcoding to work.

Okay,

I got mkv files to run but it is unwatchable due to the speed of transcoding (I think). Is there any way to speed up the transcoding? The server is running on an AMD x2 w/4gb ram and using a temp directory w/200gb+ of space.

This is the profile I'm using with relative comments:

you could set target video bitrate to the trancoding block. Also check the quality setting in the console (transcoding tab)