Help with VLC for iOS?

Hi, I've just installed Serviio for the first time. I want to use it with the VLC app for iOS, and I think I need a transcoding profile for that. Wondering if someone already has one, or could help make one.

I just want to watch video files that are on my Mac in the other room, on my iPhone. I've never done that before. I managed to get as far as being able to connect to the Serviio upnp server from VLC on the iphone, and start a video playing. Standard definition files play fine. But 720p ones are very choppy and drop out, and 1080p will barely play at all. Also, VLC on iOS doesn't support AC3 audio, so some of the files play without sound.

As far as I understand, I need to enable transcoding to fix this. At this point I'm overwhelmed though. I found the advanced topics on editing renderer profiles and transcoding configurations, but it's way too complicated for me. I'm not a programmer, I just want to watch some videos! Hopefully someone can help, otherwise I'll have to look for another product I guess. Thanks!

Hi! I am sorry my English is not very good. I have used Air Video or now it is Air Video HD for looking in other room with iPad or iPhone. Air Video HD costs 4,99$ in App Store and the server is free for Mac. I am not very good with the computers and this is an easy solution.

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[atc98092]

There is an iOS profile, but it needs to be "turned on". It's not in the Profiles.xml file, but another xml file in the same folder. Open that file, find the profile, and find the line that disables it appearing in the console. I'm not at home right now, or I could be more specific.

iOS devices support a limited number of codecs, so transcoding is necessary for most files people have. There are a couple of DLNA players for iOS that can handle additional codecs. I believe 8Player and MoliPlayer can do so, but I've only played with the free versions and they are crippled for many codecs.

Depending on your version of iPhone, you might be encountering network speed issues with the HD video. My iPad 2 doesn't handle them well, and that's sitting very close to the wireless access point. I just received an iPhone 5S to replace my Blackberry for work, and I haven't played with any videos on my network to see how it does.

Hi, thanks for your replies, sorry it took so long to get back...

I found the iOS profile inside the application-profiles.xml file. But I can't find a "line that disables it appearing in the console" - not sure what that means.

The iPhone shows up in the console as "Unrecognized device", "Generic DLNA profile". In the list of profiles, I don't see a choice for iOS.

I'm hoping to be able to transcode my HD files (MKV or MP4, H.264) on the fly to play on the iPhone's 960x640 screen, so eg. 960x540 for 16:9 videos. I think that shouldn't be a problem for the WiFi bandwidth? And also to transcode AC3 audio to AAC.

I want to play them through the DLNA server to the VLC app on the iPhone, not using MediaBrowser.

[atc98092]

I'm home now, so I can look it up to get it right.

You are in the correct file. On the very first line of the iOS profile at the end of the line, it says selectable="false". Change false to true. Now restart the Serviio service (or reboot the computer). If you had the Serviio Console open, close it and open again. iOS will now be an available profile.

Thanks, that worked! I was able to select the iOS profile in the console.

Unfortunately the video doesn't play smoothly anymore, even for 512x384 SD files, that play perfectly with the Generic profile. Every seven seconds or so, it pauses for about two seconds, then starts again.

At first there was an ffmpeg process running on the computer, taking up almost 100% cpu. I tried waiting several minutes until I guess it finished transcoding. But it didn't make any difference, it still hiccups the same way, even with CPU under 1%. The pauses are always at the same place in the video.

I looked in the "Transcoded files location" folder, and found a playlist.m3u8 and many segmentxxxxx.ts files. I suppose it has something to do with the transitions between the segments, but again it's all a bit over my head at the moment...

[atc98092]

I wonder how it would work if you changed the target vcodec to applehttp, instead of mpegts. I'm swamped at work this week, so don't really have the time to test it myself. I have an iPad 2 with VLC installed, but haven't played with it much with my movies. I'll be in England all next week (hi Zip!), so it will be a while before I can experiment.

The iOS profile already uses applehttp - so I tried changing it to mpegts. And it worked! No more hiccups.

Eventually I should dive into learning about render profiles and make an optimized one, but for now I can watch my videos, so that's encouraging.

Thanks for your help!

[atc98092]

Good news. Remember that any time you install a new version of Serviio those files are over-written, so either save a copy or make notes of the changes you've made to any profiles so you can modify the replacement files. Often the replacement files will include new or updated profiles, so you might not want to replace them with the older versions.