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View Full Version : Maximum Screen Resolution - Streaming vs Transcoding



Aaron407
01-30-2011, 02:15 AM
I'm a new user in 'trial mode' with a couple questions before I bite the bullet and pay for the software.

1) In the device settings, there is an option to specify Maximum Screen Size. Does this option only affect transcoding, or if it is set to a lower resolution than natively supported files are, will it transcode them to this lower resolution or pass them through at the original higher resolution?

For example, I have a PS3 connected to a 1080p projector. If a 1080p file is natively supported by the PS3 I would like it to be streamed in 1080p since my network speed can support it. However, if a file is not natively supported, I would like to have it transcode on the fly in 720p since that's all my processor will likely support. My worry is that, if I set the Maximum Screen Size effectively to 720p, I'll no longer be able to stream natively supported 1080p files and it'll merely downscale them to 720p (the help file suggests this as well). Another option would be to ignore setting this option and finetune the bitrate slider so it would always transcode in 1080p and still be handled by my processor, but I'd like to avoid this since I'd rather sacrifice resolution over proper bitrate.

As well, I have a Sonly bluray player connected to a 720p TV. I would like the same arrangement as I mentioned to prefer for the PS3 and allow the player to downscale the resolution of 1080p streamed files to 720p on playback for the TV rather than having my computer's processor do all the work through transcoding.

Basically, my question comes down to this: is it possible to specify a different maximum streaming resolution and maximum transcoding resolution?

2) Is it possible to reuse the software license for a second home computer, or would I require a network license? I'm presently using my laptop for Mezzmo, but will eventually be using a dedicated computer with gobs of storage as a filedump to stream files. Would the same license work on this computer, or would I need a second or network license?

Thanks for any help! I searched the forum and via google for these answers but unfortunately didn't find them, but I apologize if I missed them.

Adric
01-31-2011, 04:12 PM
Hello, Can you please try to plays without changing these settings see if this works before you start downgrading it. Try degrading the quality before you change the size. Changing the resolution of a file does not necessarily speed up transcoding because the process of changing the size is quite intensive.

You cant specify a transcoding resolution.

Our license works that for each network you can only run one computer with one license code. If you want to run two Mezzmos on the same network you need to buy two licenses.

Aaron407
02-01-2011, 12:13 AM
Thanks, I believe that fully answers my questions. You raise a good point that I hadn't considered, though, in that transcoding to a lower resolution does indeed require resampling of the screen resolution and would be more processor intensive than just keeping the resolution the same and lowering the bitrate.

When the time comes, and assuming I can work out my remaining issues, I'm sure buying a second license won't be a problem whatsoever.

Thanks again.

smitbret
07-01-2011, 07:22 AM
Can't you just change the specific device settings to stream compatible files without transcoding and then specifying which resolution to stream incompatibles?

Paul
07-01-2011, 08:41 AM
Yes, that's how it works - once a file is considered incompatible, it'll be transcoded using the closest resolution from the device profile (or the original, if there're no dimensions defined in the device profile's format for transcoding).