transcoding issue, control. DMR

[odin]

So I recently broke my one of tv boxes ( plugged a 12v plug accidentally into the power port :.....( ) , so for the time being I had to revert to a cheap Chinese HDMI tv stick DMR renderer based on android 4.4 lollipop, and for some reason it will only play files in MKV container format messing with mezzmo changing the device profile ..etc I could never get it to transcode to mkv or any format automatically .., and using the "Play to" option in the pc software seems to do nothing on this device (I was watching logcat and it might be causing a crash )
Edit : sometimes Play to works sometimes not, strange

F/libc ( 6419): *** vsprintf buffer overflow detected ***
F/libc ( 6419): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadbaad (code=1), thread 6430 (NetDect)
D/lollipop_p2p( 290): has IP===1
I/DEBUG ( 53): *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
I/DEBUG ( 53): Build fingerprint: 'rk2928sdk/rk2928sdk/rk2928sdk:4.2/JOP40C/eng.builder.20160421.010859:eng/test-keys'
(then a bunch of stacktrace code)

anyways I have to use BubbleUPNP on my phone to play a movie from the mezzmo server to the hdmi stick, but again only mkv files will play everything else will attempt to play then quit.


oddly no matter what profile I set it to under the hdmi stick IP didn't actually effect the device, so eventually I tried to change the profile under the phone device I was using that has bubbleupnp on it and I saw it start to transcode the files, but since I use this phone for several players around the house I can't have it tied to a transcoding profile am I doing something wrong I usually try to avoid transcoding but with this hdmi stick I have no choice..

shouldn't the profile be tied to player and not the control device?

edit:
ok I think I can see the technical restraints since it's browsing as the phone device so it will get the phone device profile, it has no way to know it will be playing the movie on X device and to load x profile, unless the mediaserver can intercept the command and override the playback config params, this might be a hard problem to solve though.

[Peter]

If you use the Mezzmo app on your phone to play files to the device then the device's profile will be used as the Mezzmo app tells the Mezzmo server which device it is browsing for in order to get the correct format. If you install the Mezzmo app on the Android stick you should be able to play just about any format without transcoding as the built-in Mezzmo video player in the app has great format support.

[odin]

If you use the Mezzmo app on your phone to play files to the device then the device's profile will be used as the Mezzmo app tells the Mezzmo server which device it is browsing for in order to get the correct format. If you install the Mezzmo app on the Android stick you should be able to play just about any format without transcoding as the built-in Mezzmo video player in the app has great format support.

ok will try the mezzmo app, I use seperate account on this phone so I can't get the paid version from my other phone on it but will try the trial, as for the HDMI stick dunno if I can get any apps on the hdmi stick since it just loads up a generic how to use graphic and advertises a DMR renderer to the network , and I it can do screen mirroring / airplay / miracast , but I did find a hidden file in web interface debug.cgi that enables adb / shell and gives root access so I will try to sideload and see what happens

[odin]

I tried the mezzmo app but some movies don't play and I see a error msg in the android app 'setAVTransportURI: Invalid action: 401' or 'setAVTransportURI: -1 null' , however if i use bubbleupnp with device set to same profile as the hdmi device the movie plays, so this only happens in the mezzmo app

HDMI Stick (DMR) = "Web Access" Profile - right now this profile is working the best since it seems to transcode everything and plays nice with this cheapo device
Phone (control) = "Conceica Mezzmo (Android)" profile

it's strange since some movies play , while others return that error

Edit: Ok I think it has something to do with metadata, files that I never added metadata to play, if I add metadata to the same movie it will get the above error., but then again some movies have metadata and still play, maybe certain data causes it, I will try to narrow it down.

Edit2: ok I think its related to the Description column, maybe too much text causes it to return the error, I was using the movie metadata "A Perfect Getaway" as a test , filling in with online metadata, if I remove the Description it will play, when I add it back it breaks.

[Peter]

The Mezzmo android app sends all the metadata to the device when playing so long descriptions may cause problems in apps that have limits, using the Mezzmo android app on the stick should not have this problem. If the stick does not have the google play store on it then installing the paid version of the Mezzmo app will not work with a sideload, if you can install the google play store on it then you will be able to install the paid version. Can you tell us more about the stick, the make and model so we can investigate if it is possible to run the Mezzmo app on it?

[odin]

It cannot install apps i tried (apk), it also has no user interface or launcher, it's most likely runs command line processes similar to linux, does Mezzmo have a arm command-line binary, then perhaps I can run it from command line, it does run android though very slimmed down probably due to ram and storage limitations, dunno the brand it's sold under various company names, it's a generic Chinese device and has a rockchip rk2928 soc.
is there anyway to prevent sending metadata?

btw it's this exact device, but mine is just an unbranded version of it.
http://www.icablelink.com/detail.php?id=10138

[Peter]

There is a parameter you can set in the Device Profile textlimit="900", go to your Device Profiles folder (see this thread for its location: http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread...ofiles-located) and open the device profile you are using in a text editor and add this parameter to the name tag in the device section. See the PanasonicViera2012.prf profile for an example of it's use, the value limits the text fields to 900 characters. It might be possible to install Kodi on the stick, it seems to be similar to http://www.stickcomputing.com/mk808-mini-pc/ so if you do a bit of searching you might be able to find if it is possible to install Kodi and this will also improve the format support if you find that transcoding is not performing well.

[odin]

There is a parameter you can set in the Device Profile textlimit="900", go to your Device Profiles folder (see this thread for its location: http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread...ofiles-located) and open the device profile you are using in a text editor and add this parameter to the name tag in the device section. See the PanasonicViera2012.prf profile for an example of it's use, the value limits the text fields to 900 characters. It might be possible to install Kodi on the stick, it seems to be similar to http://www.stickcomputing.com/mk808-mini-pc/ so if you do a bit of searching you might be able to find if it is possible to install Kodi and this will also improve the format support if you find that transcoding is not performing well.

Perfect adding textlimit="300" seems to make everything play ok, I will look into installing kodi to it, but there doesn't seem to be much 3rd party support for this device.


now I need to figure out how to fix the aspect ratio since it seems to stretch to fullscreen I tried messing with <fix_sar> and the aspect ratio in the device profile options, but didn't change much, however I did play a ISO file and for some reason that one was played in correct aspect (black bars on top and bottom)

[Peter]

glad to hear that worked. For the aspect ratio issue you can check the resolution of the files that stretch to full screen and compare this to the ISO file's resolution to see if this gives any clue. Mezzmo will only put black bars in when transcoding if the device profile has a list of resolutions in the format tag:


<dimensions width="320" height="240" />
<dimensions width="352" height="288" />
<dimensions width="352" height="480" />
<dimensions width="352" height="576" />
<dimensions width="480" height="270" />
<dimensions width="480" height="480" />
<dimensions width="480" height="576" />
<dimensions width="544" height="480" />
<dimensions width="544" height="576" />
<dimensions width="640" height="360" />
<dimensions width="640" height="480" />
<dimensions width="688" height="384" />
<dimensions width="704" height="480" />
<dimensions width="704" height="576" />
<dimensions width="720" height="406" />
<dimensions width="720" height="480" />
<dimensions width="720" height="576" />
<dimensions width="800" height="450" />
<dimensions width="1024" height="576" />
<dimensions width="1280" height="720" />
<dimensions width="1280" height="1080" />
<dimensions width="1366" height="768" />
<dimensions width="1440" height="810" />
<dimensions width="1600" height="900" />
<dimensions width="1920" height="1080" />

See the PanasonicViera2011AspectRatio.prf profile for an example.

[Peter]

Possibly this guide http://www.ebay.com.au/gds/How-to-In...5245304/g.html might help