Serviio

Hello again,

So, seems issues are continue. When i tryed video in shop was all okey. Same thing at home as well when i powered up tv. The point is when to start tv then first movie i play in 4K works fine. The second and the rest ones will not run anymore smoothly until next tv restar.
From one movie i removed Dolby TrueHD and tryed. No changes. The same movie after restart works fine. Seems its somehow tv issue itself. I spent some time to google but didn't found much. There one German forum what i read with google translate.
I very hope that someone can take a time and take a look on that forum. http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-328-11.html There are issues and technical data written.
As much i understand it can be a issue about bitrate but i cant understand if its a bitrate issue then why it works in the beginning as first played video.
If i could be able to reduce bitrate in serviio for testing somehow. Maybe then problem will be solved.
Overall try to avoid buy a philips tv for dlna. Picture is very good but you will be not able normally look 4k videos At least with this current tv model.

atc98092... How to add that bitrate limit to the profile?

When I get home this evening I'll try to provide more detail. In the meantime, you could look over the transcoding support page (http://www.serviio.org/index.php?option ... icle&id=24) and see the options available. What you're looking for is the maxVBitrate setting. There are quite a few existing profiles that use this setting, so you can see how it's used. I believe I use it on the Roku TV (non-4K) profile, and I know Chaneru uses it as well. There are likely others.

Hi, yes i looked on profile file. If honestly cant understand much it. I tryed to play with roku 4k profile. It play but in some time like buffering and sound is cutting about every 2 sec.

In my earlyer post i writted one forum link. From that forum i found this information. Maybe its useful in my case.

Here's an example of a transcoding section that limits bitrate. I'll walk you through each section:


The first line is telling Serviio the codecs and container to use for the transcoded file. It also contains any restrictions you want applied to the transcoded file. In this case, we are using an MPEG-TS container, the video codec will be H.264, and the audio codec will be Dolby Digital with an audio bitrate of 512 kbps. Notice the MaxVBitrate tag. This limits the video bitrate to 20 Mbps (20,000 Kbps) and it also has a tag that forces the video to be transcoded. Notice the information on your TV says video bitrate shouldn't exceed 20 Mbps and total bitrate (video, audio and any captions) shouldn't exceed 30 Mbps. But you don't need to worry about limiting the audio bitstream. Even lossy DTS is only about 1.5 Mbps, so plenty of headroom there.

The matches lines are to identify files to be transcoded by their normal codecs. The first line matches any container but only the VC-1 video codec. The second line captures all H.265 content, and the third captures H.264 that is most likely 4K.

It took me a while to get the hang of transcoding parameters, and I still run across something I don't understand or hadn't seen before. That's when DenyAll or Zip gently corrects my mistakes.

Can you make a whole profile?

It's kind of difficult to create a profile for a device I don't have. What profile has worked best for you, and with that profile what still has issues? Once we know what is working best, then we can attempt to tweak it to catch what still isn't working.

So, experiment with as many of the TV profiles as you can, find the one that plays the largest number of files, keep track of what doesn't play, then provide the media info on the files that don't play so we can develop some new matches statements for you.

Okey, ill take a time and try to find best match from a profiles. Then ill come back here.

Btw... I tryed to play media files with PS4 from nas. These 4K movies didn't worked. Might be because its not a PS4 pro (PS4 pro is a 4K). Just was interesting to see what will happent then with these huge files. But let it bee... Lets keep focus on current Philips profile.

Hi again,
So finally i found time to check the best profile... It is a Generic If i could have a Generic profile with transcoding what limits bitrate then it maybe works. Second problem how i can update that file in nas because its complicated and almost impossible with new synology update. I just cant access to that profile file. Only possible update is with installation probably.
So, at the moment it seems like mission impossible I dont know... feels like i have to start search some other alternatives.

Well, there is already a profile that is pretty much that. The DirecTV HD-DVR simply takes the generic profile and transcodes everything into MPEG-2 video (which your TV supports), MP2 audio (I can't say if the TV supports it) with a max bitrate if 8192 Kbps, forces stereo sound and a max image size of 1920x1080 (full HD). The only real question is if you need a different audio codec. However, from what I can find I think it should be OK. So, try that profile and see what you get. If it works, then there's nothing to modify. If it needs to be tweaked, there must be some way to upload a file onto your NAS. I can't remember if PuTTY works on them, but it might be one to try.

Maybe I've lost part of the conversation here, but my understanding is everything works except for any file with a resolution greater than 1920x1080?

If that is the case the DirectTV profile will result in you transcoding a whole lot of media you don't need to, which is not optimal and on a NAS in particular, to be avoided. Having said that the only way to fix this (in Serviio - seems the real issue is with the TV) is via a new profile, and that can only be done if you can get to the folder that contains your profiles.xml file.

As atc98092 says try using putty to get access to the NAS. If you can access the folder that contains your profiles try copying the attached file to it. You will need to restart Serviio (or your NAS) for this file to take hold and once done assign the profile manually to your TV in Serviio Console.

The attached file contains a new Phillips 55POS9002 profile:
This will limit transcoding to only those files with a width greater than 1920 (that is, to UHD (4K) files). Now if you have:

• problems with the aspect ratio of the resulting file add DAR="16:9" after the targetVCodec="mpeg2video"in the above
• a file still doesn't play you may still need to limit bitrate in the transcoded file. If you do then add maxVBitrate="20000" after the [i]targetVCodec="mpeg2video" in the above

I still think were missing something - I cant read German but it makes no sense that the TV will play the file directly after a reset, but wont play it if its the second file played????

Hello,

About profile file edid in NAS i found solution finally. I hope it works and not a problem anymore. At least i was able to copy it to windows machine for edit.

DenyAll wrote:

No. All HD files 1920x1080 are working fine with Generic profile. Problem is with 4K files.
4K files working as well untill bitrate goes too high. Then it starts to hang.

DenyAll, Can i have same profile without transcoding and just with bitrate limit?

Yes, I understood that. I have limited transcoding to those files with a width greater than 1920. There is no way to select files for transcoding based on their bit rate, so I have selected only files with a resolution higher than 1920 x 1080 (which will therefore capture all 4K files).

No - you need to transcode to limit the bitrate - there is no other way to do it. There are two things you can do:

1. Transcode and limit the resolution to 1920 x 1080 maximum, which is what my profile in the previous post did;
2. Transcode and limit the bitrate to 20Mbps maximum. If you want to do this change the line
   <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="mpeg2video" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384" maxWidth="1920" maxHeight="1080">
   to
   <Video targetContainer="mpegts" targetVCodec="h264" maxVBitrate="20000" forceVTranscoding="true" targetACodec="ac3" aBitrate="384">
   in the profile from my previous post.

Try option 2, but if you find that you are maxing out your CPU during transcode (which may also appear as stuttering when playing your video) revert to option 1.

Is that mean's that i cant watch any 4k movie's with original 3840x2160 resolution? All 4k movies will be transcoded to HD 1920x1080?

As i understand the main problem is the bitrate, when movie is 4K but with small bitrate it will be anyway transcoded to hd?
And all the problem is tv itself because there are bitrate limit. Correct?

I'm a little disappointed that a 4K TV has issues with the bitrate of a 4K video. However, if you have to limit the bitrate that much, my guess is you're not retaining the full 4K image quality anyway, so limiting the transcoding to 1080 probably isn't going to be particularly noticeable.

Does your TV have a USB jack? If so, can you play videos through it? I would be curious if the 4K videos would play that way. If so, then there might be something other than the video bitrate causing a problem. Perhaps a network issue, perhaps not. But it would be nice to verify.

Try option 2 then first - this will keep the resolution the same but limit bit rate. My concern here is whether your server will have the grunt to transcode at full 4K while limiting the bitrate.

I'm also not convinced this is just a bitrate thing. Looking at the samples you tested viewtopic.php?f=27&t=24775#p119071 some were over 20Mbps (one that passed was 51.4Mbps).

One thing you could try (longshot) is just to remux the video's - this results in no loss off quality. Theory being that the TV may handle ts containers a bit better. Its a long shot:

All transcoding or remuxing is a compromise. Transcoding will lower quality (often not even perceptible but none-the-less lower) and both transcoding and re-muxing will strip out things like sub-titles. Unfortunately you need to transcode to overcome the limitations of your TV... which sucks big time - you bought the 4K TV to enjoy video at its best.

If it were me I'd probably spend the time to re-encode only those files that were causing problems (how many have you got?). The problem with Serviio doing it is that sometimes you have to match against too broad a criteria (in the case of the profile I have provided, it will match all 4K video's not just those that are a problem). If you were to do this, you'd only lower the quality (albeit slightly) on those problem videos. You could play the video natively in its 4K glory using the Generic Profile.

ps. test via USB as atc98092 suggested. Everything is wired (not wireless) I hope.

I did that try. TV have two USB2 ports and one USB3 one. I connected USB3 stick to USB3 port. (btw... TV was off before try around 1 hour. That is important thing) So... I turned TV on and started to play movie. All perfect. Then i swapped it to USB2 port for try. Movie sound started cutting and movie didn't run smoothly. I swapped it back to USB3 port and the same issue in USB3 port as well. Sound is cutting and picture hanging. So, i switched TV off for a 30 sec and tried to play again. Still same problem.
That is very strange... That's why when i replaced first TV and tried the same movie in shop it was working. But after second attachment USB to TV its not working anymore by some unknown reason.

About network issue... Yes i suspected the same thing and did a try. I connected only TV, switch 1000lan and NAS. It was same result. No difference. Once i recognized when i turned TV on and started play movie from NAS it was working very well. (TV was off before that time for hour's.) Only in these high bitrate point's it started to buffer / loading movie. But overall was all ok. No sound lagging and smooth picture.

I have one question what is not related to this topic but interesting to know. Its about Playstation profile. I have in my head plan to replace my PS4 to PS4 Pro witch support the 4K. I read that it supports high bitrate to 60 000. So idea is that i will use PS4 mediaplayer for watching movies from NAS Serviio. Picture signal comes from Playstation through HDMI cable to TV. So, TV should be able to show that 4K picture and no anymore bitrate issues. That all in theory Only thing is... is that Playstation 4 profile supports 4K? I have feeling that this Playstation 4 profile is for standard HD only.

Ouch. If it played OK on USB3 port, problem on USB2, then still problem on USB3, the TV itself has issues. What a bummer. Anyway, as to your idea about using an outside player. That's exactly what I do. I gave up with the Samsung player built into my TV. Terrible user interface and wouldn't play all of my media. I started with a Roku, which has its own set of limitations, but handles Serviio quite well. I know use an Nvidia Shield, which plays absolutely everything I have, including 4K HDR and lossless audio, without any transcoding. And it doesn't need any special Serviio profile, I just use the generic profile. I've never looked at the Playstation profile in Serviio, but if there's a specific profile for the PS4, it should have been written to handle 4K.

The profile was made before the 4K version of the PS4 was released.

I disliked the PS4 Media Player app, but that was on the older version. I have no experience with the 4K version but search the forum and you will likely find comment and perhaps a profile.

Today i tried to add new profile to NAS and i am stuck. Seems i am doing something wrong or missing something. I am getting error.
What i did... I copy user-profiles.xml to config folder and got that error.
Then i did try to add this code to profiles.xml file like the rest profiles are there. Again same error. What i am doing wrong? Didn't found much help from forum here.
So, i restored original files. Serviio working but i was unable to add new profile what i need.