Mezzmo and the Mac using Fusion

[JGraff]

I've been trying Mezzmo using my underpowered 5 year old Mac Mini running a virtual installation of XP via Fusion. My video library is MP4 and the audio is m4a (Mac iTunes). I have disabled Mezzmo transcoding, and the media plays perfectly on an iPad and my Samsung BR player. The only problem I have encountered is the media server will not start automatically even though start when windows boots is selected. It's not particularly inconvenient as the server does restart when the Mac wakes up from sleep mode which I always use

Anyone tried this?

[Paul]

Perhaps try changing the start to be "Delayed Start" using the Services Manager on the XP and see if that helps.

[JGraff]

Delayed Start doesn't seem to help. The media server is properly listed as a service with an automatic start, and can be manually started from the Service Manager. I tried several other "on error" options including starting Windows notepad which didn't work. Apparently Windows does recognize that an error has occurred.

It's not a real problem, but interesting. I haven't seen any other Windows services that do not function normally under Fusion.

[Paul]

Well, I suppose it could be a Fusion bug/issue of some sort. We haven't tested it here yet, but we may.

[JGraff]

This probably doesn't apply to anyone else, but thought I would pass it along. I started getting some video stuttering and voice sync issues on a new mp4 video ( full screen, 720p ). I thought it might be a poor transcode to mp4. It turned out that I was not allocating enough memory to Windows XP. Changing the virtual RAM from 512 MB to 720 MB solved the problem.

I still can't get the media server to start on boot. Is there a way to run it without opening Mezzmo or the Service Manager?

[Paul]

I'd recommend giving that VM at least 1GB of RAM, as some files can take up to 500 MBs of RAM when transcoding.

You can try running a batch file after the system starts, which would in turn start the service. You'd create a shortcut to that batch file in Windows and then add the shortcut to the "Startup" folder in Programs.

[JGraff]

Sorry, I should have been clearer, stuttering occurred with transcoding disabled. Fortunately, streaming is flawless at 720 MB, as this computer has only 2 GB total RAM.

Opening MezzmoMediaServer.exe does not start the media server for me. Is there something else that should be included in a batch file?

[Paul]

The batch file should contain something like:

sc start Mezzmo

(if your server's name is "Mezzmo")

The "sc" is a command-line program used to control services.

[JGraff]

Thanks, that works.