VLC iPad transcoding & AC3 audio

[dafunk60]

Hello,

I have a new housemate with some iOS devices with whom I am trying to share my library. It looks like AC3 & DTS audio codecs have been removed from VLC for iOS recently due to licensing issues. I've tried creating a custom device profile based upon the VLC iPad profile, deleting the <format id="ac3"></format> tags within the various avcontainer > audio tags but the video content is not being transcoded. Transcoding is enabled for the device & in the global Transcoding Settings". Can someone point me in the right direction to get videos transcoding without AC3 & DTS audio?

Thanks

[Paul]

Make sure you restart your Mezzmo server after making changes to device profiles. This will force Mezzmo server to re-load the device profiles so your changes take effect.

If still no success, then right-click on a video that is not transcoding (when you think it should) and click 'Get FFmpeg Information'. Post that information here and we'll advise the changes required to your device profile.

[dafunk60]

Thanks for the info. I ended up starting from scratch with the VLC iPad profile & making my changes again. I must have removed something by mistake. Transcoding is now working as expected (still need a faster pc!) with one exception, HDHomeRun Prime streams. I can see the video but VLC for iOS provides a warning that the a52 (AC3) codec is not supported. Of course, the audio is not heard.

Is transcoding of streams from network media supported? In the event this should work, the ffmpeg info is below.

ffmpeg version N-66094-gbb8b752 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Sep 4 2014 16:23:51 with gcc 4.8.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86_64 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl64 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc32/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc64/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis
libavutil 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
libavcodec 56. 1.100 / 56. 1.100
libavformat 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavdevice 56. 0.100 / 56. 0.100
libavfilter 5. 0.103 / 5. 0.103
libswscale 3. 0.100 / 3. 0.100
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
[http @ 0000000001eaf240] HTTP error 406 Not Acceptable
http://10.0.0.248:5004/auto/v802?dlna: Input/output error

<MEZZMO>: Child process ended with code: 109, ExitCode=1


---> DB Level Info: 0, -99
---> Frame rate:
---> Aspect ratio:
---> Duration: -

Thanks

[Paul]

Glad you got the VLC iPad device profile working now.

For the network media streams, right-click on one of them in Mezzmo and click Properties. On the Properties dialog, go to the Video tab. Does the information (video codec, audio codec, etc.) appear to be correct? The FFmpeg information is not correct that you posted, so that may explain why your network media streams are not being transcoded. Let us know and we'll provide some more guidance.

[dafunk60]

It does not appear to be correct.

mez.png

I believe the HDHomeRun Prime DLNA source is providing MPEG2 1920x1080 with AC3 6CH 384kbs audio.

[dafunk60]

If I open the url for the stream from VLC on a Win 7 x64 PC this is file info.

info.png

Perhaps that is helpful.

[Paul]

Thanks for the confirmation. Your HDHomeRun Prime is refusing to provide the URL stream (http://10.0.0.248:5004/auto/v802?dlna:) in the correct manner to FFmpeg, and that's the cause of the problems. A quick search of the web shows other HDHomerun owners possibly with the same problem. A few owners suggested that you will get the 406 error if you do not have the latest HDHomeRun firmware. Can you check if you have the latest firmware and then try again? (i.e. right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click 'Get FFmpeg Information' again). Let us know how you go.

[dafunk60]

The HDHomeRun Prime firmware is 20150615, which is the most recent available. The information provided in previous posts was obtained while running this firmware. I'll do some searching on that 406 error. I am able to play the stream from a variety of PC's in both Windows Media Player & VLC, including on the PC running Mezzmo. I am also able to play the stream in VLC for Android via BubbleUPNP.

[Paul]

OK - try this:

1. From the Windows Start menu, type 'cmd.exe' and press Enter to run a command window
2. Change directory to your Mezzmo program folder (e.g. cd c:\Program Files\Conceiva\Mezzmo)
3. Change directory to Mezzmo's ffmpeg sub-folder (i.e. cd ffmpeg32)
4. Type 'ffmpeg -loglevel trace -i <URL>' (where <URL> is one of the URLs you see in the Network Media pane for your videos from the HDHomeRun Prime)

Post that information here or email it to us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com.

[dafunk60]

Thanks Paul,

"trace" does not appear to be a valid log level in ffmpeg.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Conceiva\Mezzmo\ffmpeg32>ffmpeg -loglevel trace http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna
Invalid loglevel "trace". Possible levels are numbers or:
"quiet"
"panic"
"fatal"
"error"
"warning"
"info"
"verbose"
"debug"

Here is the output of the "debug" trace level, which appears to be the most verbose, for ffmpeg32

C:\Program Files (x86)\Conceiva\Mezzmo\ffmpeg32>ffmpeg -loglevel debug http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna
ffmpeg version N-66094-gbb8b752 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Sep 4 2014 15:22:34 with gcc 4.8.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --d
ild/gpl32 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I
me/peter/cc32/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-zlib --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis
libavutil 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
libavcodec 56. 1.100 / 56. 1.100
libavformat 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavdevice 56. 0.100 / 56. 0.100
libavfilter 5. 0.103 / 5. 0.103
libswscale 3. 0.100 / 3. 0.100
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
Splitting the commandline.
Reading option '-loglevel' ... matched as option 'loglevel' (set logging level) with argument 'debug'.
Reading option 'http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna' ... matched as output file.
Finished splitting the commandline.
Parsing a group of options: global .
Applying option loglevel (set logging level) with argument debug.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Parsing a group of options: output file http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Opening an output file: http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna.
[NULL @ 003dfa60] Unable to find a suitable output format for 'http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna'
http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna: Invalid argument


Here is the output of the "debug" trace level for ffmpeg64

C:\Program Files (x86)\Conceiva\Mezzmo\ffmpeg64>ffmpeg -loglevel debug http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna
ffmpeg version N-66094-gbb8b752 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Sep 4 2014 16:23:51 with gcc 4.8.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86_64 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zli
eg/build/gpl64 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/c
/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis
libavutil 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
libavcodec 56. 1.100 / 56. 1.100
libavformat 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavdevice 56. 0.100 / 56. 0.100
libavfilter 5. 0.103 / 5. 0.103
libswscale 3. 0.100 / 3. 0.100
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
Splitting the commandline.
Reading option '-loglevel' ... matched as option 'loglevel' (set logging level) with argument 'debug'.
Reading option 'http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna' ... matched as output file.
Finished splitting the commandline.
Parsing a group of options: global .
Applying option loglevel (set logging level) with argument debug.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Parsing a group of options: output file http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Opening an output file: http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna.
[NULL @ 00000000002de9a0] Unable to find a suitable output format for 'http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna'
http://10.0.0.249:5004/auto/v802?dlna: Invalid argument