Mezzmo over Wild Media Server?

[noremacyug]

I am currently demoing both WMS and Mezzmo. My experience with media servers has thus far been limited to PS3 Media Server. I've read good reviews on Mezzmo, have tried it and like it but am having some issues with some .mkvs not playing, whilst other .mkvs play just fine. Paul has offered a suggestion as to a possible fix but I have not yet utilized that to see if it indeed works. The reason why, is I found out about WMS and am currently trying it out. WMS works perfectly and plays all the files I've thrown at it.

I honestly like Mezzmo and its simplicity of setup (not that WMS was hard), not a lot of confusing options and support looks to be great. I feel if the first suggestion from Paul doesn't solve my issue that they will eventually get it worked out. On the flipside, WMS has an absolute plethora of options and settings. I see that as a good and a bad thing. Good, because I feel it can be setup to handle about anything thrown at it. Bad, because I don't know what 80% of the settings/options are/do.

I really just need some help from you guys. Have any of you here perhaps used WMS or even switched from WMS to Mezzmo? If so, why? I'm just really torn as the price difference isn't much and both look to be fine pieces of software. I just need to figure out which one will suite me best.

Looking forward to your suggestions.

[casualty]

I trialed both and ended up purchasing Mezzmo. The two main reasons were firstly, the support here is second to none, the guys will work hard to solve any issues you may get, and secondly, the WMS licencing model required a licence to be purchased for each device you wanted to stream to, and as I have multiple devices, Mezzmo was better value.

[noremacyug]

ahh. good to know. i was unaware of wms' licencing setup. mezzmo for the win!!!

[Dion]

I trialed both and ended up purchasing Mezzmo. The two main reasons were firstly, the support here is second to none, the guys will work hard to solve any issues you may get, and secondly, the WMS licencing model required a licence to be purchased for each device you wanted to stream to, and as I have multiple devices, Mezzmo was better value.

This is also why I choose mezzmo. licensing per device is dumb.. People get new stuff.. all the time. I hope Mezzmo never goes this route.

[LIComputerGuy]

I'm not one to trash someone but I feel it's important to get the facts out there.

Wild Media Server has more bugs in it then I can possibly count. I've tried discussing these bugs with Eugene (WMS Developer) and I get no where.

1. Genres on Music do not import correctly. It If the Genre contains a period (ie. "01. 2000's Pop") on import. The Genre was garbage. I told Eugene about it and he made a fix (conveniently after my trial) and now the genre imports but the "01." will be removed. What's the point?

2. I wanted to create a transcoder that could use real Shoutcast links (not a server URL) and play SiriusXM (http://www.wildmediaserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1016). Doing that I found a huge transcoding bug where a transcoding profile with multiple transcoders used on Podcasts don't forward the InputFileName variable correctly. I made Eugene aware of this. I was told to test it. It didn't work. He basically ignored my emails after that. I found a way around the bug with no assistance from Eugene. Eugene has not fixed the bug!

3. M3U/WPL Playlists. Here is my biggest issue. Eugene is obviously blind to the music community. One great feature in Mezzmo is Dynamic Playlists (Thank you Dennis). Wild Media Server supports using M3U and WPL playlists but it does not support updating them. Let me explain. If you import a WPL playlist and you make a change to that playlist, if you rescan the WPL playlist in WMS it should be smart enough to add and/or delete songs based on and changes you made to the original WPL file. WMS doesn't know how to delete songs. It will add them but it will not delete them. A major annoyance when you do make changes to your music playlists. I emailed Eugene about it and his exact response was "I'm not sure, that the files need to be removed." I responded to Eugene explaining that he was incorrect again and he basically ignored my email.

I've tried to reach out to Eugene again with an email telling him how I feel. To be fair to Eugene, I am pasting the email here.

Eugene,

I don't see how you would think the files (songs) wouldnt need to be removed. If someone changes a playlist (M3U, WPL, etc) , a rescan should reflect that. It should'nt keep items in the playlist (in WMS) that were removed from the original file (M3U/WPL/etc). It should remove the songs that removed and add the new songs that were added since the last scan.

How can I get this functionality corrected?

If you are concerned that I have not paid for the software, I purchased the software a couple of weeks ago plus I have (3) more licenses on hold.

I understand you are a software developer, but you should be open to suggestions and bugs. I feel as if it's easier for you to blow it off then fix it.

I emailed you tell you about the Podcast transcoder bug that it's not passing the InputFileName property and you completely blew me off on it. Yes, you told me how to test it, but the test ran file in the editor but not in the real world use. Using some creativity, I used the mpFilePath property instead to achieve the same results. Problem is that your own VLC-FFMPEG transcoder doesn't work with Podcasts cause of the bug.

I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm trying to help you out.

I apologize if I have upset or offended you.

Thank you,

Bill

Eugene has not emailed me back. It shows he does not care about his customers and is basically out for the money. His licensing model and lack of support show he doesn't care.

Now I have found bugs and issues witn Mezzmo and reached to Dennis for support. Dennis and honestly the rest of the Mezzmo staff have been great!! They stand by there product 110%. Dennis and I have spent countless hours working through issues in the past. Thank you Dennis!

I recommend Mezzmo to anyone looking for a product that works and is backed by it's developers!!!!

[cpacheco]

I purchased Mezzmo and it works great!. But there are some features it doesn't deliver that I would like to have:

1. Multiple Genres/Artists: Right now if I obtain the media info from the internet, and if it has multiple genres or artists I end up having a media that has "Ation, Adventure, Comedy" under Genre, and maybe something like "Sylvester Stalone, Bruce Willis" under artist.
So if I want to filter my media by genre and I choose "Action" this media won't show up because its not "Action", its "Action, Adventure, Comedy". Same thing with Artists.

2. It would be nice to have a nice media browser for all my movies, I don't know how Windows Media Center does it, but you can actually see their user interface on the TV, so it's a lot easier to navigate, you know, with covers and backdrops and movie information.

Does anybody know if Wild media Server supports these features?

[Condorr]

that depends on your hardware (tv,blu ray player, media player...etc) if they allow other GUI's

About WMS:
pros:
-support for "baking" subtitles
-advanced options menu (no need to edit config scripts)
-different types of transcoders and muxer.
-all options are accessible by any device which supports DLNA ( never seen this before, options are shown as folder which contains files to play (e.g. "On", "Off", "Rescan", "stop","subtitle"...etc )

cons:
-licensing approach
-no descriptions for advanced options and other transcoders...

Mezzmo:
Pros:
-easy to use

cons:
-does not support subtitles correctly (in transcoding )
- no subtitle "baking" into video stream
- no advanced options menu ( must edit config files)


I've choose WMS because of subtitle support. When Mezzmo implement "subtitle baking", Dennis promised in version 3.0, Mezzmo will be the best

[Paul]

Yes, subtitles are coming in v3 along with some other goodies :)

Multiple genres/artists is also on our development to-do list, so it'll be part of Mezzmo sooner or later.

[Elohim]

I too have had issues with Eugene. Sorry to respond to an old thread. I am now looking for a DLNA server for a new TV and thought I would try to get a bonus license for WMS. Their website clearly states that anyone that purchased prior to October 2011 is entitled to one and I have the original letter/email for the product I purchased.

However, Eugene blew me off and went ahead and deleted my forum account! Wow, this guy has some serious ego issues.

Anyway, if anyone can recommend a DLNA server for windows I would really appreciate it. I haven't yet tried Mezzmo - maybe it's time! :)

[Paul]

I can certainly recommend Mezzmo :D

[Elohim]

I can certainly recommend Mezzmo :D

I like it better already and I've probably only played with the trial for about an hour :) I noticed though that it defaulted to the Viera 2011 profile - I had to change that to 2013 since that's what it is. Otherwise, it was trying to transcode mkv files, but the TC-L58E60 supports that. Is there a place where I can see what files a particular profile will try to transcode?

[Paul]

Glad you like Mezzmo so far. The only way at the moment to see exactly what formats a device profile supports and/or transcodes is to look at the device profile XML. You can find the device profile files here - http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread.php/467-FAQ-Where-are-device-profiles-located

[Elohim]

Thank you!

[JohnM]

Elohim it is long past time for you to use Mezzmo.

[Elohim]

Elohim it is long past time for you to use Mezzmo.

It is - I think I will be purchasing it soon :)

[szain]

I recently purchased Mezzmo after using it for a week. I used WMS prior to this which for most part worked fine, but my only issue with it was their licensing method. You can only play media on one device, which didnt quite bother me either as I used Blue Ray player. When I switched from Shaw to Telus, my router changed and I guess somehow Device ID also changed, and WMS just wouldnt believe me and thought I was lying and wouldnt activate the Device. I basically gave up and moved to Mezzmo, and loving it so far.

[Paul]

Welcome, szain :) Hope you continue to have fun streaming with Mezzmo! Any questions or problems, just ask.

[runf]

I have to agree with those who felt that Eugene from WMS was dissing them. I had a paid for licence and everything was OK for a couple years. Then, it stopped working and decided it was a demo. After a few messages back and forth to fix the problem, I was totally ignored and my posts deleted from the forum.
When I first started trying servers, I tried about 5 free demos. WMS was the only one that was playing everything I was throwing at it. That was several years ago and now Mezzmo is playing everything and seems much easier to use.

[Paul]

Hope you continue to enjoy using Mezzmo :). Contact us any time if you have a problem & we'll help out.

[FreeRyde]

Mezzmo: Second to none; quality, simplicity, support!

[costero]

Another voice: I used WMS for a couple years. When I started, I tried 4 or 5 other players, and WMS was the only one I could find that would reliably play all file types and reliably deliver subtitles. But the product is terribly complex, with no documentation, and the tech support is surly at best, and usually non-existent. Add to that the strange licensing: Every time you get a new DVD player or TV, for whatever reason -- even if the old ones are no longer in use -- WMS makes you buy a new license.

A couple months ago, I tried Serviio, and I like it. I really like their "MediaBrowser", which runs on the web and on my Android tablet, so that I can access my library easily.
(For me, it's more about the catalog than the player: While I'm listening to music via my server/DVD/TV, I like to be able to browse my movies on my tablet to figure out which flick I'm going to watch tonight.)

But, even Serviio *occasionally* has problems with delivery to my DVD/TV; last night, a .mkv I wanted to watch had a lot of stutter and stall problems with Serviio, but the same file played fine via Mezzmo.

I've used Mezzmo for only two days, but so far like it a lot. I really like the fact that metadata comes from IMDb, instead of The Movie Database that Serviio uses; IMDb's info is, imho, more complete and accurate. Now, I'm just waiting for the Android version... <sigh>

Btw, for me it isn't really about price. I will pay (and have paid) for software that works and that is well-supported. Prices for both Mezzmo and Serviio are very reasonable, I think, and support is good. (I do have something of an allergy to subscription pricing, and I'm glad that neither vendor has adopted that.)