Between buying KooRaRoo or Mezzmo... a couple of issues.

[puyash]

Hi there,

I've tried most DLNA server listed on the Wikipedia DLNA servers comparison page in order to check which works better with my setup (a Samsung 55'' TV UN55F8000) and buy a license for it. Sadly, every server has it's quirks and issues, so there's no clear winner.

I really started to like your server, specially because it transcoded right some files that Mezzmo was corrupting (half screen was green). They were the "Ancient Aliens" seasons, that I think are in a strange format (because every video player struggles with them), but luckily your server transcoded it fine right away.

So, some things that I'm experiencing with your server and that I'd like to know if it would be possible to fix:

1) Thumbnails are displayed awfully small. I've read a couple of thread on this forum (don't have the links right now) with a user that said that they were retrieved as 160x160 and supposedly you were about to push a patch for that. That post was on December 2013. I'm trialing the latest version and it still has the same problem

2) Why can't I skip forward files while they are being transcoded? The same thing happens with Mezzmo, but some other media servers (such as Wild Media Server) allows me to skip EVERY file, even with burnt in subtitles, overlay subtitles; whatever. But with your server, I can't skip if the video is being transcoded

3) I've noticed on the status part of your application that some transcodings that were left running there (I started playing the video, stopped it and the server continued transcoding anyway) show a speed of 7 FPS. Again, other servers blaze away at transcoding those files at 60 ~ 200 FPS according to them. Why is this difference? I'm running a Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz with 4 GB RAM

Well, I think that's it so far. Please let me know if I could do something to fix this issues and I think I'll get me a license soon!

Thanks in advance

[Peter]

Hi,
The Samsung F profile shows the thumbnails will be sized to 320x320, if the original thumbnail is smaller than this it will be padded with black bars to 320x320. If you send an email to support [at] conceiva [dot] com we can provide a profile for you to try with a larger size for the thumbnails or you can go to your Device Profiles folder (see this thread for its location: http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread.php/467-FAQ-Where-are-device-profiles-located) and edit the SamsungF.prf file yourself then restart Mezzmo and Mezzmo media server for the changes to take effect. In Options in Mezzmo under Streaming the size of Posters is also set at 320x320 by default, this is used when creating the thumbnail for a file so if you increase these values you will need to run Maintain Library to update all the existing artwork with the option to 'Update Artwork' and 'Update All Files' selected.

When files are being transcoded Mezzmo only has access to the part of the file that has already been encoded so this is why skipping forward may not work, we recommend pre-transcoding http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=pre-transcoding_files&s[]=pre&s[]=transcode your files to overcome this. We are working on getting seeking working when trancoding on the fly but this is only working in HLS format currently so if your device does not support this pre-transcoding is the best solution currently.

To avoid background transcoding you can go to Transcoding Settings in Mezzmo and uncheck the box to 'complete partially transcoded files in the background' and this will terminate an existing transcoder when you start a new transcoder for a device.

[smitbret]

Hi there,

I've tried most DLNA server listed on the Wikipedia DLNA servers comparison page in order to check which works better with my setup (a Samsung 55'' TV UN55F8000) and buy a license for it. Sadly, every server has it's quirks and issues, so there's no clear winner.

I really started to like your server, specially because it transcoded right some files that Mezzmo was corrupting (half screen was green). They were the "Ancient Aliens" seasons, that I think are in a strange format (because every video player struggles with them), but luckily your server transcoded it fine right away.

So, some things that I'm experiencing with your server and that I'd like to know if it would be possible to fix:

1) Thumbnails are displayed awfully small. I've read a couple of thread on this forum (don't have the links right now) with a user that said that they were retrieved as 160x160 and supposedly you were about to push a patch for that. That post was on December 2013. I'm trialing the latest version and it still has the same problem

2) Why can't I skip forward files while they are being transcoded? The same thing happens with Mezzmo, but some other media servers (such as Wild Media Server) allows me to skip EVERY file, even with burnt in subtitles, overlay subtitles; whatever. But with your server, I can't skip if the video is being transcoded

3) I've noticed on the status part of your application that some transcodings that were left running there (I started playing the video, stopped it and the server continued transcoding anyway) show a speed of 7 FPS. Again, other servers blaze away at transcoding those files at 60 ~ 200 FPS according to them. Why is this difference? I'm running a Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz with 4 GB RAM

Well, I think that's it so far. Please let me know if I could do something to fix this issues and I think I'll get me a license soon!

Thanks in advance

As far as transcoding speed goes, a lot of it depends on the quality and the size of the files (original and destination). You can certainly transcode with Mezzmo at 200fps if you lower the resolution to 720x480 and set a lower quality, not to mention you could change your profiles to transcode to MPEG-4 L2 or MPEG-2 to speed things up. There is no Black and White answer to this question since there is more than one way to skin a cat (and many cats to choose from at that).

[puyash]

Hi,
The Samsung F profile shows the thumbnails will be sized to 320x320, if the original thumbnail is smaller than this it will be padded with black bars to 320x320. If you send an email to support [at] conceiva [dot] com we can provide a profile for you to try with a larger size for the thumbnails or you can go to your Device Profiles folder (see this thread for its location: http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread.php/467-FAQ-Where-are-device-profiles-located) and edit the SamsungF.prf file yourself then restart Mezzmo and Mezzmo media server for the changes to take effect. In Options in Mezzmo under Streaming the size of Posters is also set at 320x320 by default, this is used when creating the thumbnail for a file so if you increase these values you will need to run Maintain Library to update all the existing artwork with the option to 'Update Artwork' and 'Update All Files' selected.

When files are being transcoded Mezzmo only has access to the part of the file that has already been encoded so this is why skipping forward may not work, we recommend pre-transcoding http://www.mezzmo.com/wiki/doku.php?id=pre-transcoding_files&s[]=pre&s[]=transcode your files to overcome this. We are working on getting seeking working when trancoding on the fly but this is only working in HLS format currently so if your device does not support this pre-transcoding is the best solution currently.

To avoid background transcoding you can go to Transcoding Settings in Mezzmo and uncheck the box to 'complete partially transcoded files in the background' and this will terminate an existing transcoder when you start a new transcoder for a device.

Thanks alot for this help. I think pre-transcoding will work for me . let me try this and then come back for current scenario.