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on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose function

PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:40 pm
by rootazoid
On my target device, when I go to Images or Music I can see the BACK<>FORWARD, STOP/NEXT buttons. On Music, STOP doesn't work until I go to another song or change modes over to Images or Video. No big deal.

The problem is on Videos. At first when selecting one to play those controls do come up on screen, but as soon as the video is loaded they disappear, the video always takes up the whole screen, making the BACK/REWIND<>FASTFORWARD, STOP/NEXT buttons go off the screen, inaccessible, and my remote's buttons do nothing for those functions.

As a guess, it seems the best way to fix this would be to make the videos display in a smaller 'window' with just enough TV screen space at the bottom to be able to see and select these controls. Changing the TV's Aspect doesn't help. Is there anyway to do this INSIDE Serviio? Or maybe some other idea?

BTW, though the old Hitachi 51F59 51" rear-projection TV is the end point, the intermediate device/connection is a DISH Network "Hopper 3" DVR connected via ethernet to my router, as is my Win7 PC. I can't go to the TV directly from the router.

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:26 am
by rootazoid
Controls still disappear but now they respond (as SKIP to NEXT or PREV) and reappear briefly.
Now the remote on my DISH Hopper 3 does respond to the dedicated PAUSE key, and it also responds to the FWD and BACK keys, albeit not to FFW or REW inside a video as when watching a recorded DVR program. With Serviio those keys work as SKIP to NEXT or PREV videos.

Ockham's razor says the problem was most likely PEBKAC before, yet I've seen this sort of problem arise in other electronic situations where in hindsight I couldn't say it was PEBKAC. Sometimes it seems that software/hardware takes some time to settle, like a dust cloud.

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 9:44 am
by mjb
Not a lot of Dish users on here, I guess.

I just wanted to reply to confirm that everything you are seeing is "normal" and is due to the poor quality of the Home Media function in the Hopper's UI firmware. My Hopper (a first generation, not Hopper 3) has the exact same issues. There is nothing you can do about it in Serviio or any other DLNA server; Serviio just provides the content and the browsing data.

We're lucky it works as well as it does. For a long time, the Home Media function wouldn't play anything at all, or you'd only get your video very tiny in the corner of the screen. For the last year or so, it has been working barely well enough for videos, kinda flaky for audio, and almost entirely nonfunctional for images. Even with video, there are control quirks like the ones you observed. At least play and pause works.

As you noted in your other post on this topic, the Home Media function (not Serviio) gives you some on-screen controls if you press the right buttons on the remote, but in my experience it is also quite easy to accidentally skip to the prev/next video instead of navigating within the currently playing video, depending on various factors, I think.

Fixing anything related to the Home Media function is low priority for Dish. Customer retention is also low priority. They're losing subscribers like crazy, and I, too, probably will be cutting the cord before too long. The original Hoppers are slow as molasses with the bloated new UI they pushed out last year, and they still try to charge you for an upgrade to a Hopper 3. It's too bad because Dish used to rock.

See my post at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17929&p=106148#p106148 for more observations about the Home Media function. I updated it today to include the current profile I'm using. (It's also available via the link in my signature).

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2018 1:51 pm
by rootazoid
This server fixes the video problem with the Hopper. It's slow to boot to the point of visible files and folders, be patient. http://www.universalmediaserver.com/

They also have Mac and Linux versions.

This is also a clue that server coders, like Serviio, could tweak for the DISH Hopper.

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 12:22 am
by atc98092
Transcoded videos cannot be fast forwarded or rewound, nor resumed from a stopped playback. So it depends on the codecs and container of your video, and how Serviio is streaming that media to your Hopper. I tried to find out what codecs the Hopper supports, but Dish doesn't say specifically. All their spec sheet says is MKV, MP4, MP3, JPG, but those are containers, not codecs. From some other sources, it seems that H.264 should be a good match. It likely also doesn't support DTS audio.

What profile is Serviio using for your player?

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2018 10:39 am
by rootazoid
Thanks Dan, but my main problem with the Hopper and Serviio is that videos play only in an upper right mini-window after a Dish change to the Hopper software. Several other servers do that also. The other smaller issues of FF, REW etc are also a concern, yes. I no longer have Serviio installed so I can't say much about my profile on it. But what worked well enough before the Dish change was ironically a DirecTV profile. That Universal server plays the videos full-screen 'out of the box', no profile needed.

Re: on videos BACK/REW/FF controls disappear and lose functi

PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2018 2:29 am
by atc98092
Glad UMS is working for you. I had tried it in the past but had issues with my Roku players. The DirecTV profile transcodes everything, so that's probably why it worked for you.