Serviio

Serviio works fine with my pictures and videos.
The mp3 audio files play well.
But all of my .m4a audio files fail. The TV dont know this format.

I tried to modify the profiles with
<Audio targetContainer="mp3" >
<Matches container="m4a" />
</Audio>
- don't work

or <Audio targetContainer="mp3" >
<Matches container="*" />
</Audio>
- don't work

<Audio targetContainer="mp3" >
<Matches container="mp4" />
</Audio>
- don't work

Any ideas ?

For audio, the only containers that work on a Matches line are mp4, asf, mp3, mp2, lpcm, flac, ogg, flv, rtp, rtsp, adts, wv, mpc, ape, dsf. I see you already tried the wildcard. I tried it on one of my Samsung TVs with the same result. Apparently Samsung doesn't support MP4/M4A audio, which does seem odd. But there doesn't appear any current way for Serviio to detect and transcode that container.

I did some looking online, and it seems that the m4a container causes issues for some players. I did find a suggestion to remux the files and then they play. See this page for some simple instructions on a possible fix.

https://developrx.com/rx-fix-m4a-files-that-wont-play/

Hi Dan,

I dont understand the "TRANSCODING" procedure.
I tought that servio looks for a MATCH and than does a transcoding in to the "targetContainer"-format.
So, up to that point there isn't any interaction with the later device (TV).

Looking at my profile:
<Audio targetContainer="mp3" > The result should be a MP3 format, what is correctly shown in my opinion by the TV ("xxyy.m4a.mp3")
<Matches container="m4a" /> Seems to be recognized... result ("xxyy.m4a.mp3")
</Audio>

Same with

Looking at my profile:
<Audio targetContainer="mp3" > The result should be a MP3 format, what is shown by the TV ("xxyy.m4a.mp3" or "xxyy.mp3.mp3")
<Matches container="*" /> Seems to be recognized... result ("xxyy.m4a.mp3" or "xxyy.mp3.mp3")
</Audio>

But the transcoding to "...m4a.mp3" dont work on my TV.

So what does serviio in this case?
Is there a trnscoding al all?

Why is the SamsungTV not able to play the transcoded format?
A mp3-file (result like "yyxx.mp3.mp3") can be played with that profile extension.

PS that m4a fix, (you send a link), doesnt help.

The Matches line I posted above comes directly from the Serviio transcoding support page. Only those containers are recognized. M4A is not a recognized container, so there's no way to make a profile that will transcode them.

As to way Samsung won't play an M4A file, only they can answer that. It's possible that they would have to pay Apple a licensing fee, and they don't want to do that for a format that is less likely to be used. Roku devices won't play them either, and there's probably plenty of others.

Sorry that web site suggestion didn't work. You can probably use something like Handbrake to convert them to MP3, which is supported by almost everything. When I do a web search for "convert M4A to MP3" I get tons of returns, so you should be able to find something that will work.

OK, I think i've got it:
Because Serviio doesn't recognize the m4a-container, there isn't this option in the Matches and Serviio can't transcode it into another container.

But what about the feature list?
Audio: MP3( .mp3), MP2 (.mp2), Windows Media Audio (.wma), WMA Lossless (.wma), AAC (.m4a, .m4b), OGG (.ogg, .oga), FLAC (.flac), Apple Lossless ALAC (.mp4), Wawpack (.wv), Musepack (.mpc), Monkey's Audio (.ape), DSF (.dsf), WAV (.wav),
And as fare i understand, in the video-mode, the transcoding off AAC/m4a works.

Is it difficult to enter the m4a audio recognition and decoding?
Is there perhaps an Apple copyright, which stopped the development?


Of course you are right, telling me that there are tons of m4aTOmp4 converters. But the quality doesn't increase by that and my hdd-space needs to be double.

The feature list shows what Serviio supports for streaming, but only to players that support the format. The list of containers I posted are the only ones recognized for transcoding. I do have a few audio tracks in M4A, and for players that support it Serviio streams it just fine. But as you note my Samsung TVs see the media but won’t play them.

You’ve already tried the wildcard * as a match, so there must be something with FFMPEG not using that file type (M4A). Since FFMPEG is what Serviio uses for transcoding, it can only transcode what it recognizes. Unfortunately, if you want to use the Samsung as the player, you’ll need to convert your M4A files to MP3 using Handbrake or some other converter.