Sun Sep 29, 2013 9:43 am
Nexus 10 Experiences & Tips
I spent many an hour trying to get Serviio content to stream to my Nexus 10, so thought I'd share my trials & errors so that others will not face similar insurmountables that I had.
Device software & content:
==========================================
- SW: BubbleUPnP, VLC, MX Player
- Content: predominately .WMA [VBR] for music, .MKV, .avi [XviD], & mp4 [h264]
Out of the box, BubbleUPnP is incapable of playing .WMA files & there is no method to stream to an external player such as MX or VLC. The prevailing advice offered on this forum is to transcode the format into MP3. I found this to result in very inferior quality sound & that a much more satisfactory option is the use of LPCM (see my profiles.xml sample below).
Video playback works fairly well with MX player, with the notable exception of XVid--although the format is recognised, the degree of stuttering is approx. 1fps (clearly unacceptable). Transcoding to another format (with a throttled bandwidth rate) will get the file to play, but with no FF, RW, or time remaining capability, it was too limiting for me. Discovered DicePlayer, that has smooth playback for all formats without compromising either the native quality or imposing any sort of processing tax.
Conclusions:
==========================================
1. Don't try using VLC within BubbleUPnP, it simply doesn't work
2. MX is acceptable for MKV, MP4, WMV, but not DivX or XVid encoding
3. DicePlayer is the ideal companion for Serviio & BubbleUPnP
4. On a platform like the Nexus 10, there is generally no need to use Transcoding; except when the software cannot recognise the format (e.g. BubbleUPnP & .WMA)
5. LPCM is superior to MP3
<Audio targetContainer="lpcm">
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
<Matches container="adts" />
<Matches container="asf" />
</Audio>
Device software & content:
==========================================
- SW: BubbleUPnP, VLC, MX Player
- Content: predominately .WMA [VBR] for music, .MKV, .avi [XviD], & mp4 [h264]
Out of the box, BubbleUPnP is incapable of playing .WMA files & there is no method to stream to an external player such as MX or VLC. The prevailing advice offered on this forum is to transcode the format into MP3. I found this to result in very inferior quality sound & that a much more satisfactory option is the use of LPCM (see my profiles.xml sample below).
Video playback works fairly well with MX player, with the notable exception of XVid--although the format is recognised, the degree of stuttering is approx. 1fps (clearly unacceptable). Transcoding to another format (with a throttled bandwidth rate) will get the file to play, but with no FF, RW, or time remaining capability, it was too limiting for me. Discovered DicePlayer, that has smooth playback for all formats without compromising either the native quality or imposing any sort of processing tax.
Conclusions:
==========================================
1. Don't try using VLC within BubbleUPnP, it simply doesn't work
2. MX is acceptable for MKV, MP4, WMV, but not DivX or XVid encoding
3. DicePlayer is the ideal companion for Serviio & BubbleUPnP
4. On a platform like the Nexus 10, there is generally no need to use Transcoding; except when the software cannot recognise the format (e.g. BubbleUPnP & .WMA)
5. LPCM is superior to MP3
<Audio targetContainer="lpcm">
<Matches container="flac" />
<Matches container="ogg" />
<Matches container="adts" />
<Matches container="asf" />
</Audio>
