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RMerlin
06-25-2010, 07:55 AM
Hi,

Being disappointed in m-connect's stability, I started shopping around for a new DLNA client for my iPod Touch. I ran into this new client named 8Player (released only a few days ago). Its UI looks very nice, and for half the price of m-connect it provides audio/video/photo support (but no server support).

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/8player/id375860275&?mt=8#

I had no problem playing music served by Mezzmo, however video doesn't seem to work, even if I use the device profile created for m-connect (which, I assume, simply enumerates all the formats natively supported by the iPod).

Can you guys give me a hand tinkering with it so I could get it to play my videos as well? The user-agent looks like this:

User-Agent: 8player/1.0 CFNetwork/485.2 Darwin/10.3.1

If actual Mezzmo logs could help you just let me know, and I will mail you the logs generated while I attempted to play a video. I'm also willing to test things out for you.

Paul
06-25-2010, 09:41 AM
Hi,

Thank you for the user-agent, no need for logs for now.

I'll create a new device profile for it, but I couldn't find information on what formats it supports (the site looks like just a YouTube video with nothing else?). Or is it just basically what the iPhone supports natively?

Please send a message to support, so that I could send you a device profile for it to try.

RMerlin
06-25-2010, 10:54 AM
Email sent.

I'll update this thread once we have a working profile in case anyone else is interested in also using 8Player.

techpatriot
07-15-2010, 11:19 AM
I too am trying to get Mezzmo to work some some of the iPod Touch apps. I've been playing around with Media Link Player Lite, but haven't had much success. Have you had any luck using 8Player yet?

Thanks,
John

RMerlin
07-15-2010, 01:57 PM
I have no issue with audio streaming in 8Player or m-connect (the cheap version). iMedia Suite works too, but there's a long delay before it starts playing audio (probably too aggressive buffering), so I wouldn't recommend it.

Video streaming however is a no go, in good part due to the fact that ffmpeg can no longer transcode to AAC audio.

There are test builds of ffmpeg that has experimental AAC encoding, but I hadn't had time to fiddle with it yet.

techpatriot
07-16-2010, 12:19 PM
I've messed around tonight trying to get the right ffmpeg settings. I've copied profiles from what others are using with things like Twonky and TVersity, but no luck still. One question though - should I be seeing a process of ffmpeg.exe when I streaming to my iPhone? It seems like it is never called or never involked to do it transcoding in real-time.

Thanks,
John

Paul
07-16-2010, 12:46 PM
Yes, it should appear in the Task Manager and of course the CPU should go up. If it doesn't, maybe it's failing or the device profile is not entirely correct. If you can send me a transcoding log, I'll be able to tell what's happening.

RMerlin
07-16-2010, 01:08 PM
Dennis, what would be the simplest way to set the iPod device to transcode anything sent at it, so that way I could easily test the transcoding part while taking the profile details out of the equation?

Paul
07-16-2010, 01:27 PM
In the device profile, just use this section near the top:



<supported>no</supported>
<!-- baseline, bestfit, transcodedlist, nonsupported and preferredtranscoded can be either one of: yes, no, auto
yes = always deliver, no = never deliver, auto = deliver if not delivered already by one of the rules above it -->
<bestfit>auto</bestfit>
<preferredtranscoded>auto</preferredtranscoded>
<transcodedlist>auto</transcodedlist>
<baseline>auto</baseline>
<nonsupported>auto</nonsupported>


this basically changes "supported" to be "no", which means that even if the file matches the device profile, it'll still be transcoded and not passed through.

Of course the device profile should define at least encode="1" avcontainer with at least one video and one audio formats with encode="1" as well, otherwise nothing will be delivered at all.

techpatriot
07-17-2010, 02:56 AM
I'm going to try this out tonight. Thanks for sharing.

-John

RMerlin
07-17-2010, 01:14 PM
I spent some time testing things tonight using an SVN build of ffmpeg - no luck with either 8player or iMediaSuite. I could get ffmpeg to start transcoding (adding "--strict experimental" to enable aac encoding), but whenever trying to feed the iPod with the transcoded file, it would either hang (8player) or return to the folder content (iMediaSuite). Whether this is due to ffmpeg generating garbage or either player having trouble talking with Mezzmo (they work fine for audio however), I can't say.

I couldn't try with m-connect, as I didn't pay to get the additional video support (the audio-only version wasn't stable for me).

For reference, this is where I get my ffmpeg builds:

http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/

Let me know if you can make any progress on your side techpatriot, I'm curious about this...

JohnM
07-19-2010, 12:35 PM
I have been playing with iphone/ipad/ipod apps for a while. I do have 8player and can watch videos that I manually transcode to the proper format. If you are *really* interested in doing this I will post a link to the apps. They are good, cheap and regularly updated.

However I would not recommend doing it this way. The idea as I see it is to have the highest resolution video on-line and only transcode it down if needed the iPhone can handle 720p. Right now I am playing with the app PlugPlayer. It seems like a much more capable solution. It will let you select a
media renderer as well as a media server. Most importantly (for me) is that you can manually add a device, or specify a base url override. What that means is that you can access your server across the internet (like with 3g). Now I need to work out a profile for it. And to figure out the override.

BTW I am able to use it to access the win media server. But if I use the PersonaSoftware MediaConnect profile I can see and browse the Mezzmo server. I can select things to play but it freezes at the movie cover art as it starts transcoding. Note that file doesn't require it.

Paul
07-19-2010, 03:00 PM
If Mezzmo freezes when delivering the thumbnails, maybe it needs the latest patch available here. If you wish, send a message to support to try it (or wait for the next official release due out soon). It's also possible that it freezes because AAC encoding support was dropped from FFmpeg recently and it will fail to convert your files to MP4/AAC, as expected by the iPhone.

RMerlin
07-20-2010, 01:42 AM
I have been playing with iphone/ipad/ipod apps for a while. I do have 8player and can watch videos that I manually transcode to the proper format. If you are *really* interested in doing this I will post a link to the apps. They are good, cheap and regularly updated.


Thanks for the offer, but I already use MediaCoder for all my file conversion needs. Since my primary media player is my WDTV Live, I'd rather keep all my video in their current format. My interest in playing videos back on my iPod is more for the pleasure of tinkering with gadgets than any real need, to be honest :)

I will have a look at PlugPlayer, as I am not satisfied with any of the players I tried so far:

- m-connect requires you to pay again to get full video support, and the audio version would occasionally crash
- 8player seems to not buffer audio aggressively enough as I get frequent dropouts, and the UI, while nice, makes it hard to navigate due to the limited screen width.
- iMediaSuite was quirky when I tried to use it (trouble navigating, long delay before playing a simple audio file)

For the transcoding, are you using the ffmpeg build that comes with Mezzmo, or another build that has AAC support in it?

JohnM
07-20-2010, 02:41 AM
The files that I transcoded I used a standalone app for. It does use ffmpeg and also supports aac. It is not built for on-the-fly transcoding, but may very well be usable for it. I will play with it once I get everything else going. The only interest that I have in it is my wife is starting to play with air video for her iPad. While it works (and does transcode) it is not upnp/dlna it uses upnp to set up a port forward then goes back to bonjour. I can not run bonjour on my win7 x64 machine as it causes all kinds of problems. I refuse to set up a different media server. We have several terabytes of data and I don't want to duplicate it.

The reason for my standalone transcoding was to allow me to put the kids movies onto an ipod. That way they can play them without messing up the disks. They can also take them into the truck for trips.

techpatriot
07-22-2010, 01:24 PM
Sorry I haven't chimed in in awhile RMerlin - I've had a busy week. And it looks like I'm late for the game as you guys are way ahead of me.

I too would like the iPod Touch to work, mainly just for the heck of it. My main DLNA playback device is a WD Live TV along with a PS3. My 480p movies are 1500Kbps MP4s and my 1080p movies are 5000Kbps MP4s. Interestingly, I also have an older Buffalo Linkstation Live hs-dh500gl DLNA server appliance. With it I was able to stream the 480p movies to my iPod Touch with no problems (using Media Link Player Lite). My HD movies never played, but I'm thinking the bitrate is too high.

With Mezzmo I feel I should be able to at least stream the 480p movies as is since I don't believe the Buffalo was doing any transcoding. It's just a matter of settings - and I'm gonna get this working sooner or later. The other day I had the iPod showing thumbnails with orange exclamation marks instead of red circles with white minus lines using Mezzmo. I was able to "tap" into starting a movie, but after about 10 seconds it would come back and say "the file was not found". At least it was different than the typical "this media format is not supported" error. Progress! Maybe...

Thanks,
John

Paul
07-22-2010, 01:27 PM
If you can post your file's FFmpeg information, I could check how it fits within the profile.

techpatriot
07-22-2010, 01:37 PM
Sure thing, thanks. Here's an example 480p file FFmpeg information:

FFmpeg version SVN-r23438, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on Jun 3 2010 11:03:31 with gcc 4.4.0
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --extra-cflags=-I/c/msys/local/include --extra-ldflags=-L/c/msys/local/lib --enable-zlib --enable-w32threads --extra-cflags=-fno-common --enable-gpl --enable-libx264 --disable-ffplay --disable-ffprobe --disable-ffserver
libavutil 50.16. 0 / 50.16. 0
libavcodec 52.73. 0 / 52.73. 0
libavformat 52.67. 0 / 52.67. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libavfilter 1.20. 0 / 1.20. 0
libswscale 0.11. 0 / 0.11. 0

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 59.94 (2454373/40950) -> 29.97 (30000/1001)
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'D:\480p-movie.mp4':
Metadata:
major_brand : mp42
minor_version : 0
compatible_brands: mp42isomavc1
encoder : HandBrake 0.9.4 2009112300
Duration: 01:34:17.36, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1534 kb/s
Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 710x480 [PAR 32:27 DAR 142:81], 1399 kb/s, PAR 13456:9585 DAR 841:405, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 129 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++

And here is the FFmpeg info for a 1080p movie:

FFmpeg version SVN-r23438, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on Jun 3 2010 11:03:31 with gcc 4.4.0
configuration: --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-memalign-hack --enable-libmp3lame --extra-cflags=-I/c/msys/local/include --extra-ldflags=-L/c/msys/local/lib --enable-zlib --enable-w32threads --extra-cflags=-fno-common --enable-gpl --enable-libx264 --disable-ffplay --disable-ffprobe --disable-ffserver
libavutil 50.16. 0 / 50.16. 0
libavcodec 52.73. 0 / 52.73. 0
libavformat 52.67. 0 / 52.67. 0
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libavfilter 1.20. 0 / 1.20. 0
libswscale 0.11. 0 / 0.11. 0
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'D:\1080p-movie.mp4':
Metadata:
major_brand : isom
minor_version : 1
compatible_brands: isomavc1
Duration: 02:37:05.54, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1613 kb/s
Chapter #0.0: start 0.000000, end 226.560000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.1: start 226.560000, end 369.369000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.2: start 369.369000, end 590.089000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.3: start 590.089000, end 825.324000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.4: start 825.324000, end 1154.987000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.5: start 1154.987000, end 1389.388000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.6: start 1389.388000, end 1741.573000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.7: start 1741.573000, end 2186.684000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.8: start 2186.684000, end 2345.009000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.9: start 2345.009000, end 2492.490000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.10: start 2492.490000, end 2736.400000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.11: start 2736.400000, end 2947.778000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.12: start 2947.778000, end 3246.243000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.13: start 3246.243000, end 3766.596000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.14: start 3766.596000, end 4152.982000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.15: start 4152.982000, end 4483.979000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.16: start 4483.979000, end 4947.609000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.17: start 4947.609000, end 5434.763000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.18: start 5434.763000, end 5969.297000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.19: start 5969.297000, end 6162.490000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.20: start 6162.490000, end 6442.936000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.21: start 6442.936000, end 6619.279000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.22: start 6619.279000, end 7134.461000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.23: start 7134.461000, end 7322.315000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.24: start 7322.315000, end 7596.589000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.25: start 7596.589000, end 7801.627000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.26: start 7801.627000, end 8258.083000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.27: start 8258.083000, end 8628.620000
Metadata:
title :
Chapter #0.28: start 8628.620000, end 9425.541125
Metadata:
title :
Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1920x1080 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 4995 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 259 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

Thanks Dennis,

John

Paul
07-22-2010, 01:50 PM
Thanks John,

Are you trying to play them on the WD TV Live or the PS3 (or something else)? The WD TV Live and PS3 should both support such files and I've just tried playing one here with same codecs and it works. If you're using the iPod, which player are you using?

techpatriot
07-22-2010, 02:12 PM
Hi,

Playback works fine for the WD TV Live and PS3. The iPod Touch is the only thing I'm having trouble with. On it, I'm using a totally free DLNA app called Media Link Player Lite. Their website is here:

http://www.alpha.co.jp/biz/products/dlna/mlplayer/index_en.html

Using this app I can stream 480p movies just fine to the iPod using the Buffalo server, just not Mezzmo at the moment.

Thanks,
John

Paul
07-22-2010, 02:20 PM
Can you please tell me which device profile you're using in Mezzmo for this?

techpatriot
07-22-2010, 09:37 PM
I had been using the Persona Software MediaConnect without success. Then I started modifying the PRF profile and made a little progress, but still no playback of either 480p or 1080p MP4s.

Thanks,
John

RMerlin
07-23-2010, 01:57 AM
Off the top of my head, I suspect the problem could be that Mezzmo isn't transcoding the file when they exceed a maximum bitrate or resolution supported. I know this can be configured in a profile (I saw examples of this).

I'm going to upgrade to 2.1.8 and try to do some tests of my own today. Will report back my findings.

Paul
07-23-2010, 08:48 AM
Let me know how it goes and we'll tweak the device profiles to make them work for you.

techpatriot
07-23-2010, 11:49 AM
Is there documentation somewhere that explains what each of the PHP tags is supposed to do or intended purpose? Is this XML? Not that it matters really. But documentation would be nice.

Thanks,
John

Paul
07-23-2010, 12:56 PM
It's XML and there's no official documentation as yet, because the device profiles are still subject to changes, additions and adjustments. But please do feel free to ask me any questions and I'll be happy to tell you about various features.

satsatt
10-31-2010, 07:04 AM
I also have iPod Touch iOS 3.1 ( no i not want updating to 4 ) running Media Link Player Lite app .

I can see Mezzmo in the list but when clicking on it the app crashes after a few seconds not even getting the file list - any help?
i used the Media Link Player settings in mezzmo and any other generic profiles.

I can see a stream from my LaCinema HD Server ( i think Twonky is inside ) but of course only mp4 videos.

Paul
11-01-2010, 08:25 AM
Can you please turn on logging (see this thread: http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread.php/419-FAQ-How-to-turn-on-diagnostic-logging) then try to reproduce the crash and once it happens please send the logs in to support (at) conceiva (dot) com.

Also, what is the version of your MLPL?