Synology DS214Play - Hardware transcoding test: help needed

Hi,

Sorry to hassle you with this, but after spending a lot of time reading a lot of different forums, I think I am missing something crucial that I'm pretty sure you already know.

I have been looking at buying the Synology DS214Play which supposedly does video transcoding, but this in itself lends to much confusion.

To not waste your time (any further), I'll give a couple of examples and what I am expecting and if you could confirm or squash, that would be greatly appreciated.

1) I have a stack of video files on the NAS. They may be .avi's, .mkv's and DVD rips.
On the DVD rips, each directory has a number of .vob files + some .ifo and .bup's.

On the player side, I have a WD TV Live (which can handle all these via a network share), some Panasonic equipment (Blu Ray Recorder, smart TV's) and various tablets (iOS).

Now, I want to play these various files on the devices mentioned.

Previously, I had a basic D-Link, so for the players:

- WD TV Live: all fine using Network Share (not Media Server)
- Panasonic equipment (Blu Ray Recorder, smart TV's) - Can handle playing individual files, which is fine for the .avi's etc. but not useful for the ripped DVD's as you would have to watch each .vob separately (somewhat ruining the experience)
- various tablets (iOS): No good at all

So, I was assuming that with the DS214Play's transcoding, that from the:
- Panasonic equipment: Select the NAS as the Media (DLNA) server, and it would allow seemless access to all the content as well as the DVD rips (as a single continuos view)
- various tablets (iOS): I'm assuming they don't support DLNA so a Synology app that does the same as the DLNA for the Panasonic gear above.

If the above all works as I am expecting, I'm not sure why you are doing what you are doing. Similarly, people are discussing Plex Server's and how they don't support/make use of the DS214Play's hardware transcoding, so all in all, I'm thoroughly confused.

Thanks in advance,
Ken

[patters]

Let's imagine you had extracted and decrypted a Bluray disc. They're not all encoded in H.264, some use VC-1 video. Your iPad is not going to play VC-1.
Let's imagine you want to burn subtitles into the video stream, because you TV doesn't support SRT subtitles. You need an encoder to do this.
The DS214Play offers the ability to do this without tying up the CPU since it has a hardware video codec that's built for this purpose, only none of the media servers currently support this apart from the Synology one which is very limited. This is why I went ahead and did it, because I'm probably someone with more experience of compiling FFmpeg for embedded systems than most.

... apart from the Synology one which is very limited.

OK, I understand, thanks for the reply.

So when you say the "Synology one", what is the Synology one? Is it built in or is it something that you have to download?

Is it a DLNA server?

"... which is very limited": What exactly does it do (or does not do, whicherver is easier)?

As a side issue, I downloaded Plex for Windows and installed it on my Fujitsu Laptop (i7-2620M 2.70GHz, 8GB RAM, Win 7 63bit). It seemed to work fine streaming things to some of my devices until I tried my iPhone. I downloaded media:connect which could see the server fine but then asked me to download RFlexPlayer as the source file was an .mkv (created from a DVD rip). It then said it couldn't play without buying .mkv drivers, but I thought the idea of Plex was that it would transcode to say .mp4 which the device understands. Am I totally wrong or is there some further setup on the server that I have to do?

Thanks
Ken

[patters]

The Synology VideoStation application is a DLNA server. However, it cannot play content with DTS audio, nor can it encode AC-3 audio (Dolby Digital) due to licensing constraints. These licence holders will only issue licences to devices that do not have disk storage - they see these as encouraging piracy or something.

I suggest asking your Plex questions separately on the Plex forum, or in the General Discussions section here. But in short, no - you shouldn't need to buy anything for Plex to play MKV.

OK, all good now, thanks for your input.

I have found a method from google search.
This chinese guy had a way to make video station to decode DTS
I tried it and it works.

让DS214play支持DTS解码
http://www.chiphell.com/thread-1096072-1-1.html
(出处: Chiphell - 分享与交流用户体验的最佳平台)


Hope this help to you guys.

[patters]

I would say it's very likely that he's done the same thing as I have just done - re-compiled FFmpeg from source with the missing options added. I've gone one further and added the additional bits that Serviio needs (librtmp and gnutls for online media streams, and libass for subtitles). I wonder whether it's possible to get Videostation to encode AC-3 audio when transcoding from DTS, rather than AAC by modifying its profiles.

Can you run /var/packages/FFmpegWithDTS/target/bin/ffmpeg after installing that and paste the screen output on here? I'm curious to see whether he has the hardware encoding stuff compiled in as well like my binary.

That's what I get when I run ffmpeg from said directory, hope that helps:

  Code:

ffmpeg version 2.0.2 Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Apr 22 2014 16:37:56 with gcc 4.6.3 (crosstool-NG 1.17.0)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/pkg --incdir='${prefix}/include/ffmpeg' --arch=i686 --target-os=linux --cross-prefix=/usr/local/i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu- --enable-cross-compile --enable-optimizations --enable-pic --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-libfaac --enable-encoders --enable-pthreads --disable-bzlib --disable-protocol=rtp --disable-muxer=image2 --disable-muxer=image2pipe --disable-swscale-alpha --disable-ffserver --disable-ffplay --disable-devices --disable-bzlib --disable-altivec --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libmp3lame --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-encoder=zmbv --cc=/usr/local/i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-ccache-gcc --disable-shared --enable-static --enable-yasm --enable-libx264 --enable-encoder=libx264 --enable-libh264_smd --enable-smd --disable-filter=hqdn3d --extra-libs='-lgdl -losal -lpal -lsven -lismd_core -lismd_audio -lismd_viddec -lismd_videnc -lismd_vidpproc -lplatform_config -lffmpeg_plugin'
  libavutil      52. 38.100 / 52. 38.100
  libavcodec     55. 18.102 / 55. 18.102
  libavformat    55. 12.100 / 55. 12.100
  libavdevice    55.  3.100 / 55.  3.100
  libavfilter     3. 79.101 /  3. 79.101
  libswscale      2.  3.100 /  2.  3.100
  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder
usage: ffmpeg [options] [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...


[patters]

That does indeed have the hardware transcoding support included. Thing is, he's violating the terms of the GNU Public Licence by distributing that binary since it's got non-free components included. I'm careful not to do that.

I wonder whether it's possible to get Videostation to encode AC-3 audio when transcoding from DTS, rather than AAC by modifying its profiles.

I own an apple TV and tried the patched FFMPEG, it plays stereo indeed when playing a DTS file.

However I changed a line in /volume1/@appstore/VideoStation/etc/TransProfile:
"mpegts_remux_lame_ab256_ac2": "-threads 0 -vcodec copy -vsync 2 -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -acodec libmp3lame -ab 256k -ac 2 -f ssegment",
into
"mpegts_remux_lame_ab256_ac2": "-threads 0 -vcodec copy -vsync 2 -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -c:a ac3 -b:a 640k -f ssegment",

Seems to pass AC3 now

Source: https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/ ... ntry695292


Hope this helps

[patters]

I suspect that's an example of Synology leaving the settings in a text file deliberately to facilitate people sidestepping the constraints of their licensing issues.

I posted the following in reply to that message that was posted on the Plex forum:

Jeppo (or anyone else who might know), I wonder if you could help me...

Disclaimer: sorry, I don't know that much about ffmpeg

My issue is this: I have a lot of MPEG-2 .ts files that were DVR'ed off of cable TV in the US so they come with ac3/dolby digital. I would like to play them on my Roku using Synology's DSVideo Roku app. The problem is that even if I tell the app not to remux the audio, it does so anyway, changing the stream to stereo.

Looking around the videostation files, for a particular file (recorded off of FOX TV/720p MPEG-2 AC3), I realized that this profile entry is controlling the stream:

"mpegts_hd720_h264_smd_vb2500_mp3_ab128": "-threads 0 -vcodec h264_smd -vsync 2 -vprofile high -s hd720 -bf 0 -b 2500k -acodec libmp3lame -ab 128K -ac 2 -f ssegment",

So, I tried to change it to the following:

"mpegts_hd720_h264_smd_vb2500_mp3_ab128": "-threads 0 -vcodec h264_smd -vsync 2 -vprofile high -s hd720 -bf 0 -b 2500k -c:a copy -f ssegment",

Well, now when I try to play the file through VideoStation with the DSVideo roku app my audio reciever switches from Stereo to Dolby Digital but then the file load gets stuck and I see no video.

Any ideas what am I doing wrong? BTW, I did not install the patched FFMPEG becuase I don't think I need DTS, just DD.

However, I have yet to receive a reply over there and I am wondering if there is someone here who might know why this isn't working?

BTW, I am willing to test and report back on this new serviio package on the DS214play if needed.

Also, just as an FYI, Synology also recently released a four-bay version of this NAS.

[patters]

I think I know the answer. The stock Video Station FFmpeg lacks the Dolby AC-3 encoder. Now although that profile modification is asking for the AC-3 stream to be remuxed (not strictly encoded) I think it probably still needs the encoder to ensure that the stream metadata and time stamps are correctly written. I suspect that if that person uses the modified FFmpeg binary then it will work.

I think I know the answer. The stock Video Station FFmpeg lacks the Dolby AC-3 encoder. Now although that profile modification is asking for the AC-3 stream to be remuxed (not strictly encoded) I think it probably still needs the encoder to ensure that the stream metadata and time stamps are correctly written. I suspect that if that person uses the modified FFmpeg binary then it will work.

OK, thanks. I was hoping that because I was using "copy" it would just pass it through. The interesting thing is that Synology has a special "pass AC3 to AppleTV" setting in the VideoStation server settings but I don't know how they're implementing it, or (since I don't have an AppleTV) if it even works for that matter. However, given that they do have such a (rather unusual) setting I would assume that apparently enough folks who own AppleTV devices have complained about this issue that they must have done something "special" for them. Looking at the various profiles for VideoStation in the text files though, I couldn't spot see any AppleTV ones that do any sort of no-muxing on the audio, so, if this option does indeed work they must be achieving it in some other way.

[patters]

Doing some more testing, but found another fairly significant setback for Serviio. The hardware encoder segfaults when writing out H.264 to a Flash container - effectively making it useless for FlowPlayer on the Media Browser. It is working nicely for iOS clients though which use native playback of HTTP Live Streaming (H.264 in segmented mpegts).

I wonder - in theory an h264_smd bitstream should be no different to one produced by libx264 so perhaps I can find where the video tags are being filtered in the flv container part of the source code and add a new definition...

Just to let you know - maybe you know that already - but I am using another great piece of software on my NAS and it is DVBLink from DVBLogic (for streaming transcoded Live TV using DVB-C tuner) and they too have some issues with serving the HW transcoded stream to various containers/browsers. I am not an expert, maybe it is something completely different, but it might as well help...
They are using HTML5 player, so the only working solution for web clients and transcoded stream is currently IE11 on Win8, but it works very well using VLC as client. I can do some research on my DS214play using DVBLink if it would be of any help...

I just installed Serviio today and so far I like it better than original Video Station by Synology.
Cheers!

[patters]

Yeah I found that Video Station worked on my Surface 2 (IE11 on Win 8.1) but the performance was awful, significant frame drops all over the place when transcoding to different quality, but fine on Original. It doesn't work properly on Windows Phone using the DS Video app, nor on Safari on Mac OS. You can only watch Original quality. I've fed this back to Synology. Pretty disappointing that this product is sold on this feature and it more or less doesn't work. More reason to get Serviio up and running!

Somewhere I read that the main reason for not having Plex with HW transcoding for the play was the lack of FFMPEG support. In the meantime however, a user managed to compile a package for ffmpeg for all current syno's that supports DTS ánd with hardware transcoding support for the DS214Play and DS415Play. After installing this package all native syno apps will support DTS.
 
Wouldn't this be part of the solution to get Plex running with hw transcoding on the play models? 
 
For the ffmpeg package you can add this package source: http://packages.mdevries.org/

What about this?

[patters]

Plex can't use this FFmpeg because they heavily modified the FFmpeg sources. So they would have to back hack all their changes into the Intel SMD build for it to be any use.

[patters]

Doing some more testing, but found another fairly significant setback for Serviio. The hardware encoder segfaults when writing out H.264 to a Flash container - effectively making it useless for FlowPlayer on the Media Browser. It is working nicely for iOS clients though which use native playback of HTTP Live Streaming (H.264 in segmented mpegts).

I wonder - in theory an h264_smd bitstream should be no different to one produced by libx264 so perhaps I can find where the video tags are being filtered in the flv container part of the source code and add a new definition...

Synology support got back to me on the FLV container issue and provided a sourcecode patch. Although this prevents the segfault, there is something wrong with the authored video stream when muxed into FLV. It's all corrupt and only shows a single garbage frame every 20-30 seconds approx. I kinda need this to be fixed before I can release the Evansport Serviio build otherwise Media Browser won't work.