Preparing to play on Samsung C Series

[Jasonamorris]

I've searched and search and cannot find a solid answer or fix. I can stream all types of HD movies with no problems whatsoever.... However I have an HD Sony video camera and I cannot stream my home videos to the TV with getting the "preparing to play" every 2-4 seconds.... Very annoying! I can convert video down and no problems but I'd be nice to watch my home videos in HD. I have tried multiply media servers, multiply profiles, TV firmware is updated, tried different hard drives to store the file...nothing... My network is wired... Please help.

Thanks!

[Jasonamorris]

TV model is LN46C750

[Paul]

I guess that Mezzmo is streaming the video directly to your TV and the reason is probably due to your home video taken with your your Sony video camera probably having a very high bitrate and your Samsung TV's firmware struggles to decode and play it in realtime. Please post the FFmpeg information on the home video and that will confirm our thoughts. To do this, right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click 'Get FFmpeg Information'. Also, go to the Media Devices dialog in Mezzmo and tell us what device profile is assigned to your TV. It should be 'Samsung C'.

[ber31inger]

Dear team, I have the same issue on my Samsung C series LED TV - UE46C6900
Not on all files, but usually on large MKVs (8-12GB) I got "Preparing to play" quite often. I am really keen on the highest picture quality so do not want to transform all my 1080p mkv files to a lower resolution. Is there anything you can help with to improve?
My TV is connected via etherner cable to the internet via Netgear WNDR4000 router. I am using Avast antivirus, but tried to disable it already...tried on Windows XP, 7 and Windows 8 as well...its always the same....the strange thing is that it does not do the "preparing to play" issue at the same chapters, but seems like randomly?
Thank you for your help

[Paul]

Please post the FFmpeg information on one of the MKV videos that displays "Preparing to play". To do this, right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click 'Get FFmpeg Information'.

[ber31inger]

yes sure...here we go

immediatelly when I start to play the movie, after 8-10 seconds, it shows me the first "preparing to play"message...than when it resumes, it does the same after 15-20 seconds again :-(

ffmpeg version N-50460-g393dcbf Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
built on Mar 4 2013 17:38:17 with gcc 4.6.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-zlib
libavutil 52. 17.103 / 52. 17.103
libavcodec 54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
libavformat 54. 63.102 / 54. 63.102
libavdevice 54. 3.103 / 54. 3.103
libavfilter 3. 41.100 / 3. 41.100
libswscale 2. 2.100 / 2. 2.100
libswresample 0. 17.102 / 0. 17.102
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'F:\Filmek\Full HD\Jack.Reacher.2012.1080p.BluRay.Remux.AVC.DTS-HD.MA.7.1.HuN-MWT\mwt-jack.reacher.remux.mkv':
Metadata:
creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:02
Duration: 02:10:24.42, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 32135 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High), yuv420p, 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
Metadata:
title : x264 @ 29.6 Mbps
Stream #0:1(hun): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 640 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
title : Magyar AC3 5.1 @ 640 kbps
Stream #0:2(eng): Audio: dts (DTS-HD MA), 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 1536 kb/s
Metadata:
title : Angol DTS HD MA 7.1 @ 1597 kbps
Stream #0:3(hun): Subtitle: subrip (default) (forced)
Metadata:
title : Magyar forced
Stream #0:4(hun): Subtitle: subrip
Metadata:
title : Magyar
Stream #0:5(eng): Subtitle: subrip
Metadata:
title : Angol
At least one output file must be specified

<MEZZMO>: Child process ended with code: 109, ExitCode=1


---> DB Level Info: 41, 100
---> Frame rate: 23,98
---> Aspect ratio: 16:9

[Paul]

Thanks for the FFmpeg information. It shows that the video has a video bitrate of 32Mbps - which is very high. This explains why your TV is constantly displaying "preparing to play" as it reads and tries to render parts of the video. The video's high bitrate is exceeding the normal capabilities of your TV's firmware.

To stop this happening, you need to re-transcode the video file to a lower bitrate. You can do this with a video conversion tool, or you can do it with Mezzmo's built-in pre-transcode feature. Right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click 'Pre-transcode Files'. In the Pre-transcode Files dialog, select your TV from the device list and click 'Choose Formats'. In the Pre-transcode Formats dialog, choose the bolded format and select the 'Force full transcode' checkbox. Click OK. Next, click the 'Pre-transcode files even if they match the devices formats' checkbox and click OK to start transcoding. Once transcoding has completed, try streaming the file again.

[ber31inger]

Thank you for your answer...actually the reason I bought this television is to enjoy movies in the highest quality...I do not want to downgrade the video bitrate...any other way to watch movies without having "preparing to play" message?

Don`t think its because of my TVs firmware...I tried to play with Twonky, and it worked like a charm...so its somehow possible

[Paul]

Twonky will be transcoding your file down to another format with a lower bitrate, so that's why it is playing smoothly. As mentioned, Mezzmo is streaming your MKV directly to your TV as fast as possible. So the bottleneck will either be your home network's bandwidth or your device's firmware. Given you have your TV and computer all Ethernet cabled, then that's why I think the problem is related to your TV's firmware not being able to play high-bitrate files. We see this problem often with devices and we have Samsung C-series TVs here for testing.