Mezzmo Issues (long, TLDR at bottom)
Install.
Mezzmo does not run after install, nor am I given the option to start after installation.
Manually start Mezzmo.
Register (and get told I need to restart Mezzmo)
Close "Add" wizard (hey, that might have been useful, but I want to register by restarting as instructed)
Various devices "pop up" about connecting to Mezzmo and being allowed.
Google how to move database and move database to less stupid place.
Stop media server
Close Mezzmo program
Start Mezzmo program
Start media server (this should complete registration)
(so far I've started Mezzmo twice and not really done anything)
Time to add some media. No wizard has popped up. Hmm. Click add to library. Ponder difference between "Add Folder" and "scan disk". Decide on "Add Folder". I have a network mapping to a letter, so pick that. Use "Videos" preset.
Let Mezzmo digest media.
Time passes. Thorin sings about gold.
Subtitles...
Artwork...
All countdowns hit zero.
Reboot PC to clear the decks.
Wonder if service is running, so start Mezzmo PC application. It is.
Install Mezzmo app on Android mobile.
Install MX Player.
I now wait 3 hours, incase Mezzmo is indexing or otherwise pondering the newly ingested media.
Fire up app on mobile.
Pick local as device
Pick Mezzmo server as server
Go into media. Pick first video (24, series 1, episode 1) and play.
No sound. "The video format (ac3) is not supported". Hang on, isn't the point of Mezzmo to sort this sort of stuff out automatically?
Go into "Media Devices". The phone is listed as "Conceiva Mezzmo (Android)".
Change to "Samsung A". Nope.
Change to "Samsung B". Nope.
Change to "Samsung B (Compatible)" and we have sound and vision.
Now to try other videos.
Go into "A". See list. First entry "8 out of 10 Cats". Strange. Try video. Sound and video work. Go to letter T. More "8 out of 10 cats". T for 10 maybe? Go into Y. First entry "10 days to War". Next is "1000 Ways to die" Odd. U lists "A Touch of Frost", "Archer", "Battlestar Galactica".
I switch to the PC and drill down "Library -> Video -> All Video Files -> T". Lots of "8 out of 10 cats", "1000 ways to die", "A Touch of Frost", "Archer", "Body of Proof". I notice there isn’t a letter T even in some of these titles. What is going on? There is a letter T in the description! Maybe that’s it!
Look in options. Change "Content Ratings" to my country. No settings to do with weird indexing. Hmmm. It seems Mezzmo is indexing any *filename* with a given letter into that folder so the filename "CAT.avi" would appear under "C", "A" and "T". At least that is my best guess. Why not appear just under "C"?
After a bit of pondering in the phone app I notice it shows "/" "/Video" so I press "Video" and a list including "TV Series" appear. This shows a sane list of programmes.
Now to try the Chromecast. <Wanders off into another room with phone in hand>
I can see the Chromecast in the list of devices so pick it. I then select our old friend "24 series 1, episode 1" and press play. "Mezzmo logo" appears on TV. Programme title, a progress bar whizzes away, then nothing. Lots of numbers appear on the phone and a message whinging about "Chromecast failure". I try again. This time it plays. I left it playing while I return to the PC to type this. I notice the Mezzmo program on my PC says it is streaming to an "Unknown device". Looking in the "Media Devices" the "Device profile" is set to "Google Chromecast" but the name is "Unknown device". The phone app tells me the correct name for the Chromecast so what’s going on? I edit the device name in the profile to the correct name.
Well, I purchased Mezzmo for the ISO DVD and Blu-ray streaming so time to feed it some images.
Time passes. Thorin sings about gold.
OK, time to try a Blu-ray ISO. Dire Straits - Alchemy on my phone. It played for about 30 seconds then skipped to the next video. During this 30 seconds the PC CPU shot up to 100% usage on all cores. This is an i7 3.2ghz quad core with hyper threading (whatever that is!) so it shows 8 cores under task manager. The transcoder status shows 23fps "too slow" then went onto the next file and started that as well! I stopped both of them. CPU usage went down to 0/1%. I tried it again and it settled at 25fps "too slow" again with 100% cpu usage on all cores. This file is located on a network drive via a 1gb Ethernet connection. I copied it to the machine, that runs the Mezzmo server and added it to the library. I ensured the ISO was on a different drive to the temporary transcoding files drive.
Times passes while Mezzmo chews on this 1 new file. Thorin sings about gold. The Mezzmo PC app goes into "Mezzmo (Not Responding)” oh joy. Is it actually busy or has it really crashed? I only added a single ISO! After 10 minutes I got bored and killed it. The service was still running according to my phone. I fired Mezzmo up again on the PC. It seemed to be happy so I tried playing the local ISO on my phone again. It settled at 24fps and then died before even playing "too slow". Hmm seems the network isn't an issue. I google my phone screen resolution. It's 1280 x 720. I go into the media device profile and set the maximum video size to 1280 x 720 via one of the presets and try again with the local ISO. Transcoding status reports 52 fps, then settled at 46-58fps. It failed to play on my phone on the first attempt. I tried again and it started. 85 - 100% PC cpu usage on all cores. I really enjoy this concert so left it running while monitoring the CPU, RAM and FPS on the PC. RAM usage slowly crept up. I have 18gb RAM. Usage crept up from around 6gb when I started playing the file to 9gb at about 5 minutes in. 10gb at 6:22. 11gb at 8:15, 12gb at 10:32, 13gb at 12:07, 14gb at 14:05, 15gb at 16:15, 16gb at 18:24. At this point the transcoding FPS is a constant 57 and I'm wondering what happens when the entire RAM is used. 17gb at 20:50. It stopped at 17gb, it sat at 16.9gb - 17.1gb so it seems around 17gb was the plateau. I stopped the video at 23:42 with 51.1% transcoded. I deleted the transcoded files.
I tried playing the network ISO again to see if it made any difference. It started at 52FPS, and then settled at 46. The file once again failed to play on the phone. I started it a second time and it played. RAM was at 6gb. Transcoding settled at 42 fps, then around a minute in settled at 47fps. RAM usage hit 8gb at 5:52 and seemed to be following the same upwards curve as the previous attempt. The CPU was fluctuating a lot more, between 78 and 100%. I'm wondering if I will be able to stream to a smart TV via DLNA. Before I try that I decide to play with the video bitrate, this is after all a mobile phone. There are 9 settings in the video bitrate slider and I left it on maximum "9/9" for the previous tests. I move it all the way left "1/9" for this test. While typing this text in the Mezzmo application decided to crash. Nice. I clicked "close program" and fired it up again. It crashed again immediately. Extra nice! I click "close program" and then get a nice message from Mezzmo about crash dumps and a zip file of the dump. I click "open folder" and see 2 crash dump files. I email the smaller one to support. I fire up the application a third time and it crashes again. Just disappears from the system tray. A fourth time. This time it loads. I edit the media device video bit rate and play the network ISO to my phone. I'm greeted by a smily circle and nothing in the transcoding status. The service is running according to the Mezzmo PC application. After 2 minutes of spinning I give up on it and cancelled. I go to the server tab and refresh. Mezzmo has gone. Joy. The PC application still says its running. I "stop" it. Mezzmo goes white and says it's not responding, then disappears from the system tray and taskbar. I fire it up again and it appears immediately, almost like it hadn't crashed. I try "stop media server" and get the spinning mouse cursor. It then goes white and "Not responding". I'm seeing a pattern here. I reboot the PC. While closing apps down (after end tasking Mezzmo) I find a dialog that was *behind Mezzmo* saying the service didn't respond properly. I continue the reboot as the service is obviously stuffed at this point. I fire up the Mezzmo application and check if it remembered the video bit rate settings. It did. I refresh the server tab in the android app and Mezzmo reappears. I try to play the network ISO and am greeted with "701 objectID does not exist". Ho hum. I reboot the phone. While it reboots I check the ISO exists in explorer on the PC. It does. Phew. I try to play it again. It settles at 44-51fps and plays first time. This is the first time it's played the first time. Normally I have to press play, wait for it to fail and then play again. Lowering the bit rate seems to have made no difference to the FPS. CPU usage is jumping between 66 and 84%. I can't tell any difference with the sound or picture on my phone. CPU usage settled around 83% with peaks around 93%. FPS 51. Memory usage went up slower than previous tests. Now to try it on my smart TV. It's 1080 so it should be interesting. I intend to try it via Chromecast (this is a different TV and Chromecast to the one I tried before) and via DLNA. It's on a different floor to the PC so I may summarize a bit more here. <Slouches off to another floor, phone in hand>. Well, Mezzmo appeared in the DLNA bit. I selected it, then the network ISO. I waited a few seconds for it to start and it did for a few frames, then stopped, then started, then stopped. After a bit of this I came back to the PC. It's 14 FPS. I've stopped the transcoding . I'm going to try again with the local ISO. <slouches off back upstairs>. Back again, 15fps. I notice the TV reports the audio is Dolby digital. Hmm. I'm using the inbuilt speakers. Can I change that to something else? I stop the transcoding. To the Media Devices list! No, nothing to do with audio. Hmmm. Maybe set the resolution to 1920 x 1080. Let’s try that. I set it using one of the presets and slouch off back upstairs. This time it stuttered a lot, like a fading in / out effect. The transcoder reports 14fps. I stopped it. Hmmm. What to do. High def is the point of Blu-ray. I pick the 720p preset and slouch off upstairs again. Better but not watchable. At this point I decide to rip the ISO to an MKV, keeping 1920 x 1080. <Blu-ray rips> <time passes> <Thorin sings about gold> I notice the ripping (of the local ISO) runs at around 155fps. CPU usage around 9% and memory at 5.58gb. Not sure this is a fair comparison, it's ripping the ISO at its native resolution with the native audio to a file. No transcoding. I copied the MKV onto my network (same share as the original ISO) and kept a local copy (same directory as ISO), thus feeding them both into Mezzmo. The MKV is 19.6gb. I notice it copied between local drives at between 58MB/s and 75MB/s and onto the network drive at 78-88MB/s. How strange, quicker to send to another machine! I guess the PC is only doing half the work. Now to try them both on my TV via the magic of DLNA. I just tried to play it but it seems the Mezzmo DLNA server decided to take a bath. It's not visible on my TV or my phone. The PC application shows "start media server". This is odd as I didn't stop it. I've started it and am now going to try again. It's visible on my phone. I've also reset the Media Device entry for my TV back to defaults. The local MKV plays, but starts and stops. I come downstairs and it's transcoding at 500-540fps! CPU is around 10 - 20%. Memory seems to have plateaued around 7.42gb. I'm going back upstairs to see if it's playing properly. I paused it for about 30 seconds, then resumed. It still carried on popping and farting. No good. The transcoding is now going at 187 fps. I stopped it. Now to try the network MKV. Tried it, it stops and starts. It's going at 332fps. Maybe network bandwidth is the issue? To the Media Devices! I've cranked the video bitrate right down for the TV. Now to try the local MKV again. It played for 1:16 then stopped, then started for a second, then stopped for maybe 30 seconds. Useless. I didn't stop it, but now at the PC there is nothing transcoding. Maybe it gave up on its own? Ahh the status tab says it's streaming to the TV. No transcoding then! How strange that the video bitrate should do that. I'm going to delete the transcoding files. Ahh manually deleting them reveals one in use, its 6GB. I think the previous transcode was so fast it finished so this time it's sending that. Time to stop the service. Right, deleted them. Starting service. It's visible on my phone. Off to the TV! The TV reports File not supported. Nice. I reselect the server and drill down to the file. All the icons are just squares and no text is present. I've turned the telly off. I'm now restarting the PC again. Ho hum. Right, the PC is back on. Now to try the local MKV again. The server is visible on my phone. Oh wait, let’s check the media devices profile video bitrate. I click media devices, then onto the TV profile and the dialog goes into "Not Responding" for about 15 seconds, then comes back. Edit. The video bitrate is at its lowest setting, which is where we want it. OK, off to the telly. Tried it. It played for a few seconds then said "media disconnected" or similar. I tried it again. Nothing. Checked my phone. Server wasn't present. I waited a minute. Tried again on phone. Server was back. Tried to play on telly. It stops and starts with a spinning circle in the middle saying "loading", rather than simply stopping and starting like it usually does. The PC application states it is streaming and there is no transcoding. The transcode directory is 14.7gb. I guess this means it transcoded it all and is now streaming and stuttering.
I have had Plex running on this windows PC for several months. I moved it to another PC on my network, under Debian so I could install Mezzmo on here. The Debian PC is running an AMD A8-5600K with 8GB RAM and plays everything I have thrown at it. It was the same on this i7 PC. When I made the MKV I copied it to a network folder that is visible to Plex. I'm now going to try it on my telly. I watched the first 8 minutes and there wasn't a single pop, fart or stutter. The TV reports 1920 x 1080 and AAC, x264. Mezzmo reports 1920 x 1080, Dolby Digital and x264. I'm now going to try it on my phone via the Plex app. It stuttered once about 1/2 a second in then played flawlessly until I stopped it at 28 minutes in.
So, I've spent a day faffing with Mezzmo DLNA server and the purpose I purchased it for - streaming Blu-ray ISO and DVD ISO files to my TV via DLNA doesn't work. To be fair I haven't even tried DVD ISO's or the Chromecast on my smart TV. It seems having an ISO incurs a massive overhead with FPS -50 fps vs 300-500 odd) with transcoding. Extracting it to an MKV solves the FPS transcoding issue, but then I may as well feed it into Plex as it just works on my TV, in a web browser, on either Chromecast or on my phone. This I find odd as the MKV was a copy of the video and audio stream.
Before today I had Mezzmo installed for about a week. As it wasn't running properly I uninstalled it this morning. Deleted the library, then reinstalled so I could give it another chance. At this point I would appreciate some feedback from suport or development as to why its so much slower at transcoding from an ISO vs MKV and why Mezzmo fails to stream when Plex can stream to the same devices via the same network from a lower spec machine.
Thanks.
tl;dr
Mezzmo transcodes at around 50 fps from a Blu-ray ISO and 300-500fps from an MKV made from the ISO. Mezzmo fails to stream to a network TV via DLNA where Plex streams the same file from a lower spec PC on the same network. I would like Mezzmo to advise as to what I should do now. Also Mezzmo crashes. A lot.
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Originally Posted by cheese
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