Serviio

I have now found one single Android app that actually presents itself properly as a Renderer.
Serviio can see it as Arkuda Digital Media Renderer.

Now, what remains is finding out what formats this renderer can ACTUALLY handle...

I suppose that, since it handles as much as it can using the galaxy s2 HW decoders, one should assume that
mp4 at 800x480, with letterboxing to fit 16:9, and the simplest possible coder alternatives....

Can somebody suggest what to write in a transcoder spec to do the downsizing and letterboxing and reformatting in serviio, to keep the data stream as lean as can be??

very bad reviews and paid version is expensive, but will take a look at it.

Review

not bad interface, very clean but insists on trying to use the inbuilt player that doesnt play hardly any file but one u select a third party player (rockplayer) it works fine, also annoying that u cant disable its own builtin media server/renderer.

conclusion

in my opinion skifta is still better.


shame we cant get our own version made based on this one as with a few modification it would be perfect. have sent the dev a few ideas will wait on feedback.

I use Upnplay and Skifta. I use Upnplay to watch videos from serviio and I use Skifta as a media server to stream videos that I take on my droidx to TV's.

Upnplay uses a 3rd party video player.

Having tried Skifta and Rockplayer, I wonder what's going on... on a Galaxy s2 it freezes completely.

When u say upnplay, is that the paid version?

As I said, the ArkMC does present itself as a renderer, I have not found any other free app that does that, and only one other paid app that purports to do so, UPnPlay.

Do you transcode from serviio to UPnPlay? How?

Note, I got upnplay mixed up with BubbleUPnP.

UPNplay https://market.android.com/details?id=cx.hoohol.silanoid&hl=en It is free.

No I use the generic profile that does not transcode anything.

I have had to use a different video player on a couple files, but since I started using MX Video Player. I have had no problems.

I spent most of today trying to get your recommendations to work..

And, finally it does: I had to deinstall several other players, one or more of which must have done something to disturb the Mobo Player. The Mobo player was not offered as local player by either UPnPlay or bubbleUPnP, and if started manually it just hung.
I took out rockplayer, too: I cannot make rockplayer work, and it might actually be one culprit.


So, now I have BubbleUPnP and UPnPlayer working as "DLNA receivers" and Mobo Player running as the local player.

MOST videos now play, though for some source formats playback is not quite smooth.

Both DLNA receivers work very well: I must see about trying bubbleUPnP's intriguing server with WAN access and tethering on the phone, and UPnPlay has a download facility which is a neat asset: download a few and the boring 6-hour train journey becomes endurable.

HOWEVER: I am still very interested in what format would be the ideal one to convert to for minimising network traffic, space on the phone and decoding cpu load.

I still suppose it should be 3gp or mp4 at the phone's native resolution with letterboxing for display format trimming.

That would be a great thing to work on. I woul love to know that. We would have to take in screen resolution, size and determine the best quality audio each device could handle.

I set up a google docs spreadsheeet to compare the phones/tablets and videos.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiXZtQp_LmhedEtVQnFLZXZfWHhRZEtxRFFaTU1FSFE

If someone want to be able to edit the files please PM me.

Currently I swear by MX Player:

It will flag and display lots of info about the stream, and how it is being handled.
It uses HW decoding for all serviio locally-served content tested so far. Playback is satisfyingly smooth.
MX Player also allows for adjustment of brightness and volume during playback.
It is the ONLY player so far that hasn't once hung for me on my Galaxy S2. Even MoBo did that once.


Also, I am very very sure that UPnPlay beats BubbleUPnP for ease of use: and the Download alternative to playing the video is so neat.
Ideal for bringing a few videos along on a trip

Rockplayer lite AND Skifta UPnP receiver consistently make my S2 hang. I THINK it is a problem with managing the network, dunno why, so it could be specific for my home network.

UPnPlayer can have its renderer ID set, so if you have several Android phones, each can have it's special identity for transcoding purposes.

I use ArkMC as an renderer on my Xoom, Serviio, WMP, WD NAS (with Twonkey) as a servers. I setup MX Pro as a default player for renderer. It works fine for me. I even able to connect my TV to Xoom by HDMI and watch movies there.

I tried Skifta and iMediaShare, but ArkMC has better usability, and it's DLNA certified.

Regarding transcoding profiles, as far as I understood, ArkMC doesn't care about profiles matching and tries to playback any stream. If not successfully - returns error message.


MX Player Pro - https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... .pro&hl=en
ArkMC - https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... l.arkmc.gm
ArkMC free- https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... c.light.gm

I'm running Serviio 1.1 on my NAS, watching TVs on my Sony and Samsung TVs at home.

So far so good.

Occasionally I'm also using my Samsung Galaxy SIII to play my files over DLNA
Device is detected as Generic DLNA
I use MediaHouse Pro as the browser (brilliant app) and Mobo Player is used for playback (I have tried MX Player as well, but for me it is slower and more issues with seeking/jumping).

Almost perfect, the only exception are the files with DTS audio... yes, most of the files on my NAS are BD-Rips and some of them have DTS audio only...
I have failed to find any player on Android (renderer) capable of playing DTS audio.
So as a result, with Generic profile I'm getting video but no sound.

I have tried to play with pre-installed profiles. When I try to switch to Samsung B-series profile - the soft transcoding for audio/video streams is activated and I'm getting both video and audio...(and both are transcoded)
BUT the seeking/changing position is completely broken (I can't jump to the desired place of the track)

The question - how can I enable with profile soft decoding for DTS audio only while retaining default settings for video streams in Generic profile?
Any ideas on how to make DTS audio transcoded and Video without transcoding (HW deode in Mobo and MX)?

Any help will be appreciated!
thank you!!!

Serviio only supports time based seek for transcodes files, I assume the players only support byte based seek. So you will have to find a player that supports this seek type.

Tnx! crystal clear now.