MediaBrowser Playback iPad NG

HI,

I've been using serviio for about 6 months now and it works really well streaming dlna to my Viera TV without transcode.

I took the plunge and bought the pro version to enable media browser so that I can specifically watch my video library on ipad min2. Unfortunately almost all of my high mkvs can not play on the ipad which makes me feel like I have wasted money on this upgrade.

Is there any thing you can suggest I can do?

[zip]

What do you see in MB when you try to play the file? Anything in the log? It should transcode the files and be playable on iPad.

Hi,

I see all the movies in the MB but when I try to play the status briefly says loading but then nothing. I don't use transcoding on the pc because it's only an atom processor and used mainly as file server and not powerful enough to transcode. Anything else I can do?

[zip]

enable detailed log and post what happens when you try to play the file

Hi Zip,

I have enabled the log and cut out what I think is related to playing video on iOS via MB. See attached.

[jhb50]

That's less than 1 second of log. Needs a lot more.

Ok here is a bit more - hope it helps.

[jhb50]

I don't see any problem. Serviio gets the file "rush" and its subtitles, transcodes them to m3u8 and sends it to your player '192.168.1.13'
Seems to repeat this 3 times. I would guess the problem is at the client end but I don't know how you would log that.
I would first try to play the transcoded file which is in C:\Windows\TEMP\Serviio\ directly on your device.

[zip]

So the file is transcoded. It's possible it's just too slow for the MB player to play it successfully.

If you want to avoid transcoding files for iOS, you have to use Original quality setting in the console and only play mp4 files with H264/AAC streams. Otherwise they will be transcoded.

So the file is transcoded. It's possible it's just too slow for the MB player to play it successfully.

If you want to avoid transcoding files for iOS, you have to use Original quality setting in the console and only play mp4 files with H264/AAC streams. Otherwise they will be transcoded.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for looking at the log for me. Interestingly, I already have the transcode feature turned off in the console - so I don't understand why it would be trying to transcode for iOS. For sure, when I enable the transcode feature, even my Panasonic tv can't play the videos (which is why I have it tuned off).

For test i'll convert the video container from mkv to mp4 and see how that plays and report back. (only issue is I think most of the audio is DTS so that may still cause issue for me)

[jhb50]

I'm not sure about this but I suspect it transcodes in order to add the subtitles to the video stream.

  Code:

2014-09-25 06:00:45,149 DEBUG [ProcessExecutor] Starting C:\Program Files\Serviio\bin\\..\lib/ffmpeg.exe -threads auto -i E:\Media\Video\Movies\Rush\Rush.mkv -y -threads auto -c:v libx264 -profile:v baseline -level 3 -preset veryfast -b:v 1000k -maxrate:v 1000k -bufsize:v 1000k -crf 10 -vf scale=1152:480,subtitles=filename="E\\:/Media/Video/Movies/Rush/Rush.srt":original_size=1920x800:charenc=UTF-8 -r 24000/1001 -g 15 -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -flags -global_header -c:a aac -strict experimental -b:a 192k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f segment -segment_time 10 -segment_format mpegts -segment_list_flags cache -segment_list C:\Windows\TEMP\Serviio\transcoding-temp-6028-ios-MEDIUM-c2d7aa70ce265c8056b73da629e5403d.stf\playlist.m3u8 C:\Windows\TEMP\Serviio\transcoding-temp-6028-ios-MEDIUM-c2d7aa70ce265c8056b73da629e5403d.stf\segment%05d.ts


Why don't you try and play the transcoded file on your device to see if it is too underpowered, rather than do all this guessing?

I had a look in temp/serviio folder while trying to play the video from MB. It appears to create a lot of tiny video files of about 1.5mb in size. Are these the files you are referring too?

Anyway, I can playback the original non converted mkv with dts sound using vlc media player if I drag the video onto iPad using iTunes and can also stream most videos from serviio to vlc on the iPad but that method doesn't always work.

So in effect the iPad appears up to the task of playing the video files.

[jhb50]

I don't know enough to help you more. I believe the transcoded files you see in the temp are the way apple hls streams are formed. There should be a way for you to copy these to your pad and play the .m3u8 directly, just as I for my android tablet copy the transcoded .stf files, rename them to .mpg and play them directly.

Also try playing without subtitles(rename the .srt) which will eliminate the transcode and see if they play. If so and you need subs you will have to convert your vids to have hardcoded subtitles.

[jhb50]

Looking at the IOS profile, it seems that any video needs to be transcoded to hls format, but I don't know what the processing demand is for just segmenting an avc vs an avc with added subtitles vs other codecs. There are also options for medium and low which will reduce the demand on the tablet. Try those.

Where do I find the iOS profile as it isn't in the drop down list of profiles in the console?

[jhb50]

C:\Program Files\Serviio\config\application-profiles.xml

[zip]

MediaBrowser used the iOS HTML5 video player, which doesn't support formats like mkv (VLC will play it because it's a custom player with support for this formats, and many others).

So anything that is not mp4/h264/aac will get transcoded to HLS (Apple Live Stream), which is the only way to play transcoded content on iOS in the browser.