Serviio

I've configured Serviio to transcode EAC3 audio to AC3 when streaming to a WDTV as my receiver can't handle Dolby Digital Plus (the WDTV does pass through to the receiver for digital audio). Simple playback works fine but FF/Rewind/Resume (seek functions) don't work on those transcoded files.

I've added the following section to the WDTV profile to trigger the transcoding:



(Note - I copied this code from a customized Serviio 1.8 profile. When I upgraded to Serviio 1.9 EAC3 content didn't work at all.)

Is there anything I can do to get the seek functions to work when playing files with EAC3 audio?

FF/Rewind does not work with transcoded files, except when using applehttp as the transcoding target. And I have my doubts that the WDTV supports applehttp. As a test you could try the Chaneru profile, but it will force transcoding on many files the WDTV can play without it. It also uses AAC as the audio out, but I think the WDTV is OK with that.

If you want to tinker with your profile, you might try a new line that only transcodes the audio, although I don't think that would help with the FF/RW issue.



Place this line below the one you show, and be sure to remove the eac3 match line from the first one. That way, if your file with DD+ also contains a video codec the WDTV doesn't support, the first <video> tag will catch it. This section will not touch the video, and only convert the audio to DD. It has the added benefit of requiring very little computer power to process.

Thanks for the reply. The default Serviio 1.9 wdtv profile already had that line in it. As I mentioned earlier, the wdtv would not play files with EAC3 at all with the default 1.9 profile - I had to add the lines that forced transcoding.

I realize now that transcoding and seeking seem to be mutually inconclusive for many DLNA clients (there are similar complaints about most of the smart TVs, XBox, PS3, etc). Interesting that VLC is able to seek on both Windows and on iOS (but I don't know if any transcoding is happening when the target is VLC).

I believe that VLC has native support for so many different codecs that transcoding isn't required. That's why it can FF/rewind. It also supports PGS subtitles, which almost no other players do.

VLC is a fantastic video player, but as you note it's limited to only specific platforms. It would be great if there was a version for Roku, and it would play all the codecs that the Roku doesn't support.

Sorry for offering something that was already there. I'm traveling this week, so can't access my home computers to look at the profiles. At least I was offering something that would have worked. I hate giving advice that I later discover won't work.

I tried using Universal Media Server and it too had problems with seek functions. However, UMS offers the workaround of generating chapters at user defined intervals (e.g. 5 minutes) for transcoded files, so you can restart a video at any chapter point if you need to seek back or forward. UMS also easily handled EAC3 without any special configuration, but I do prefer the Serviio navigation. Maybe Serviio can implement the same type of workaround.

Serviio has two ways to request new features. There is a sub-forum here labeled Feature Requests, and there is a separate site called https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio that is the preferred place to log requests and bugs. don't know how much work it might be to add such a function, but worth bringing up. Zip might not notice your suggestion in this thread.

I've created the enhancement request at https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/i ... d-files-as

Thanks for the suggestion and the help.

I notice that the enhancement request status has changed to "wontfix".

Is that because you expect to implement a fix for seeking in a transcoded file, so the workaround won't be needed?

I would like to switch back to using Serviio, but the inability to seek is a showstopper. The chapter workaround proposed in the enhancement request is a hack, but it does help to get around the issue.