Pre-transcoding your media files is a feature unique to Mezzmo where you can prepare any incompatible files before streaming them to your devices in your home. This allows for smooth playback on your devices and less CPU activity on your computer.
In general, you don't need to worry about pre-transcoding your files. Mezzmo looks after any incompatibility issues by transcoding your incompatible files on-the-fly. You only need to consider pre-transcoding your files when they are not playing correctly on your devices.
Reasons to pre-transcode your files:
- Your computer may not be able to transcode your files fast enough for real time streaming. This can result in stuttering or stopping when playing your files. You can know if transcoding on-the-fly is not fast enough by going to the Transcoding pane in Mezzmo and checking the status of the file that you are streaming. It will be marked red if it is too slow for real time streaming. In this case, pre-transcoding the file is your best option for smooth playback.
- You think your file(s) should be compatible and should be playable on your device, but for some reason they do not play at all or they it play badly (e.g. no video, no audio, audio out of sync, etc.). This can be due to your file being badly encoded or encoded in such a manner that your device cannot play it properly. Pre-transcoding the file to another format can fix these encoding problems in the original file and allow for correct playback on your device.
- Your device does not support displaying subtitles at all (e.g. you have a Sony Bravia TV or a Sony PS3) so subtitles must be burnt into the video. Burning subtitles into videos requires full transcoding of the video. You can reduce CPU activity when streaming your videos to these devices by pre-transcoding your video files beforehand so that your subtitles are already burnt into your video and are ready to be played.
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