Samsung Aquos TV & Transcoding Question

[hannylicious]

Hey there...

New user of Mezzmo (and I love it!) - but I had a question and maybe it's totally silly, but I feel it needs to be asked.

Previously, for movies I would throw them on a USB drive and plug that into my TV (I could watch MKV files natively without having to change the format);
Now that I'm using Mezzmo, I noticed it transcribes the mkv file while it's playing it (and the image quality seems to ever so slightly lessened) - when I set Mezzmo to not transcribe the videos for that device I can no longer see the videos on the DNLA network in my house.

Any thoughts? I'd like to let the TV do the decoding natively and just have Mezzmo to push the signal out... but it seems I can't get my tv to see those files unless I mark Mezzmo to transcribe the files on the server instead of them being handled by the TV.

Any help is appreciated!

[Paul]

Your TV's firmware can decode & play only a limited number of video, audio and image formats. Mezzmo, on the other hand, supports all popular formats. Mezzmo uses device profiles to determine what your TV can decode and play (see Media Devices dialog for setting the device profile). If you have a media file that is not one of those formats that your TV can decode and play, then Mezzmo will know to automatically transcode it on-the-fly into a format that can be played - so you don't need to worry about file formats, converting files, etc. If you turn transcoding off in Mezzmo, then Mezzmo just delivers your files to the TV without any modification and lets your TV decide if it can play them. So, when you see files not listed on your TV, that tells you that your TV's firmware cannot decode and play them (so it does not even list them). In summary, its definitely best to leave transcoding turned on for the most enjoyable streaming experience.

[hannylicious]

Thanks for the fast reply Paul!

I guess I am just a little confused because my TV is able to decode & play MKV files when I put them on a USB and plug it into the TV - but they will not see those same .mkv files when I have them on the mezzmo server with transcoding turned off.

Perhaps I just need to find a profile that will recognize the .mkv files and let my tv do the decoding?

[Paul]

TV's can often play files from USB sticks/drives but cannot play them via DLNA. It seems TV's firmware is very often different for USB and DLNA. I don't know why this is the case, but we see this quite a lot.

Please post the FFmpeg information for the MKV that you want to play. To do this, right-click on the file in Mezzmo and then click 'Get FFmpeg Information'. Also, tell me what TV model you have and what device profile in Mezzmo you are using. Your post says Samsung Aquos. You mean Sharp Aquos, right? If yes, then try selecting one of the Sharp Aquos device profiles.

[hannylicious]

Thanks again for the quick reply Paul. I didn't realize there was such discrepancy between USB & DLNA. That changes my understanding of the situation, so thank you!
You were right, Sharp Aquos is the TV. It's been one of those long days when words get jumbled, ha!

I can get you that information
LC52LE830U is the TV Model

The FFMPEG info is as follows:
ffmpeg version N-36036-ga40f43d, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers
built on Dec 22 2011 13:44:49 with gcc 4.6.2
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/media/ffmpeg --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/dennis/cc/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/dennis/cc/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads
libavutil 51. 32. 0 / 51. 32. 0
libavcodec 53. 46. 1 / 53. 46. 1
libavformat 53. 27. 0 / 53. 27. 0
libavdevice 53. 4. 0 / 53. 4. 0
libavfilter 2. 53. 0 / 2. 53. 0
libswscale 2. 1. 0 / 2. 1. 0

Seems stream 1 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 2000.00 (2000/1) -> 23.98 (24000/1001)
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'F:\Shares\Media\Adventure Time Season 1 Complete\Adventure Time with Finn & Jake 1x02 Prioners of Love - Tree Trunks.mkv':
Metadata:
title : Adventure Time with Finn & Jake - S01E02 - Prisoners of Love / Tree Trunks
Duration: 00:22:58.15, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1417 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16 (default) (forced)
Stream #0:1(eng): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 640x360, SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 2k tbc (default) (forced)
At least one output file must be specified


---> DB Level Info: 30, 578
---> Frame rate: 23.98
---> Aspect ratio: 16:9

[Paul]

Thanks for the information. Based on our knowledge of Sharp Aquos TV models thus far, they do not (as yet) support playing MKV files natively. You have confirmed this when you turned off transcoding in Mezzmo, Mezzmo media server streamed your MKV directly to your Sharp Aquos TV and your TV was unable to play it. All Sharp Aquos device profiles in Mezzmo will transcode MKV files to a format that we know will play on your TV. Please choose one of Sharp Aquos device profiles that works best for you and I think that's the best you can do with the current DLNA capabilities of your TV.