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dmelnyk
12-20-2016, 09:48 AM
Hi Folks:

I am new to Mezzmo, so please bare with me. I am trying to cast a video from Mezzmo Androi app on my Galaxy Tab A to Windows Media Player on a PC on my network (running Windows 10). I've selected the Device as the WMP on the PC, the Server as the Local Android device. When I double tap on a video it shows it on the screen with a "Play button" in orange. I select the "Cast" button upper right corner and the static image appears on the WMP on the PC ... then hit the play button, but nothing happens ... screen on WMP goes blank no video. Not sure what is happening. File can be successfully streamed using Bubble UpNp so not a codec issue on WMP.

Any advice would be welcome.

Best regards, Dave Melnyk

Peter
12-20-2016, 11:08 AM
Hi,
we have tested here and the Windows Media Player works fine if you select a file and press the play button in the app or you can just touch on the text of a file in the list instead of touch the icon and the file should play on Windows Media Player. The cast icon on the details page is for displaying the details screen on the device so if you touch this you will just see a still image of the details on Windows Media Player.

dmelnyk
12-20-2016, 03:37 PM
Hi,
we have tested here and the Windows Media Player works fine if you select a file and press the play button in the app or you can just touch on the text of a file in the list instead of touch the icon and the file should play on Windows Media Player. The cast icon on the details page is for displaying the details screen on the device so if you touch this you will just see a still image of the details on Windows Media Player.


That does seem to work, but there is an extreme delay before the video starts - a 56 second video takes about 30 seconds before it starts to play - longer videos take much longer before they start to play. - Is this an expected behaviour? Is there a conversion going on in the background on the Android device? Is there a way to adjust this behaviour?

Regards, Dave Melnyk

Peter
12-21-2016, 08:35 AM
The Android app is just passing the URL to the Windows Media Player and commanding it to play, then a request is sent to the Mezzmo server for the file. If Mezzmo server is transcoding the file then it may wait for a certain amount of transcoded data to be available before beginning to stream the file, you can check the Transcoding Pane in Mezzmo to see if the file is being transcoded on the fly when you try to play it.

dmelnyk
12-21-2016, 09:19 AM
The Android app is just passing the URL to the Windows Media Player and commanding it to play, then a request is sent to the Mezzmo server for the file. If Mezzmo server is transcoding the file then it may wait for a certain amount of transcoded data to be available before beginning to stream the file, you can check the Transcoding Pane in Mezzmo to see if the file is being transcoded on the fly when you try to play it.

Hi Peter: Thanks for the reply...

Not sure we are talking about the same thing ... I am trying to "push" a video file that resides on the android phone that is using the Mezzmo android app, to Windows Media Player on a PC on my network. You are talking about Mezzmo Server doing a transcoding ... there is no "Transcoding Pane" that I can find on the Android App version of Mezzmo. Right now I am trying a file which is MP4 on Samsung Galaxy S5 (recorded as such) the length is 4 Minutes for the file ... has been almost six minutes and nothing happening. Windows Media Player Screen responded by going blank and indicated "media changing" in bottom corner ... then simply went blank ... nothing playing. Waited about 2 more minutes and file finally starts to play.

Tried the same file using Bubble UpNp to serve to the same PC running Windows Media Player. Intial pause before playing was only 5 seconds.

Tried a WMV file (30 minutes) both Bubble UpNp and Mezzmo (android apps) started the playback very quickly (within 3 seconds...) - so would appear it is something with the MP4 implementation in Mezzmo that is a bit different. (Not sure if there is a setting I can tweak or not).

Really like Mezzmo as it allows "fast forwarding" or Skipping forward on an item whereas Bubble UpNp does not support this on the android device when the device is receiving a file from the server running on the PC (i.e. PC to Android device). A bit disappointed that the response the other way (android to PC) on Mezzmo is somewhat slower.

Regards, Dave Melnyk

Peter
12-21-2016, 09:25 AM
Hi Dave,
I understand the issue now, possibly the delay is due to the Windows Media Player trying to get the moov atom from the mp4 file which is located near the end of the file. It will send a request to the Mezzmo app to get bytes from the end of the file to try and find this part of the file and the response may be causing the delay in starting to play the file. I will test here to see if I can reproduce the problem then investigate to see what the cause of the delay is.

Peter
12-21-2016, 09:36 AM
I tried several mp4 files and they worked fine but when I tried an avi file it had a long delay when trying to play, I will investigate to see what the cause of the delay was.

dmelnyk
12-21-2016, 09:43 AM
Hi Peter:
Thanks for that! So far that is the only glitch I have found with using Mezzmo in the way I am trying to use it. Noticed that you are in Notting Hill near Melbourne. I am actually going to be in Frankston area (Baxter) after January 3rd to visit a friend for a couple of months if you need a demo of the problem! ;) ( My friend's daughter actually teaches comp sci course at Monash beside you), Look forward to what you find out.

Cheers mate!

P.S. Just a thought ... the MP4 videos were shot on a Galaxy S5 at the highest resolution ... just wondering if the resolution might be the issue as you said other MP4s worked OK.

Peter
12-21-2016, 03:59 PM
Hi,
it shouldn't matter about the resolution since Bubble streams them fine. After debugging the issue we can see that Windows Media Player is requesting the file over and over using the same request so possibly something in the response it is not understanding but eventually it stops requesting and just plays the file. Pushing the same file from Mezzmo on the PC works fine and also copying the URL and playing it in VLC works fine, we are comparing the response from Mezzmo on the PC to Mezzmo Android to see if we can find the cause.