Understanding and debugging Transcoding

[divB]

Hi,

I played around with transcoding in TwonkyServer and for the first time it clearly does not work. I have no clue how I can do debugging since I do not know what is exactly done when recoding.

I tried JPEG, MPEG (ffmpeg) and Audio.

For the first one: I checked [x] JPEG and have ImageMagick installed. However, when viewing photos on TV I should see some "convert" processes, whouldn't I? I wrote a shell script capturing convert in the process list but no result.

For MPEG, I followed the instructions in the Wiki. I installed ffmpeg etc. on Debian, checked [x] MPEG2 but I can not see any changes. Additionally I should see ffmpeg processes on the server, shouldn't I? But there are none when playing videos!

Can anybody help me or tell me step by step how I can check whether my setup is correct?

For example, I have a Sony Bravia TV which only supports MPEG2. It also does not view *.avi files! So I though when traversing through the folder list on my TV I should see the film now. However, I still get "folder is empty". And no log outputs and ffmpeg processes, ....

Regards,
divB

[divB]

Another question related to this: As I said I tried JPEG transcoding yesterday. But I could not find any convert processes.

Today morning I saw that my server has been crashed. I found out that the reason was that the system drive was full. Twonky had about 30GB "cache" in /var/twonkyserver. There were many directories with jpgs.

Now my question is: What is this data exatcly? Maybe this was the transcoding? But I thought transcoding takes place on-the-fly?

Isn't there any information about this topic?

Is it done on-the-fly? Where are the temporary files placed? Is ffmpeg/convert called? Which formats/codecs are transcoded/supported?, ......

Regards,
divB

[sulu]

[quote="divB"]Hi,

I played around with transcoding in TwonkyServer and for the first time it clearly does not work. I have no clue how I can do debugging since I do not know what is exactly done when recoding.

I tried JPEG, MPEG (ffmpeg) and Audio.

For the first one: I checked [x] JPEG and have ImageMagick installed. However, when viewing photos on TV I should see some "convert" processes, whouldn't I? I wrote a shell script capturing convert in the process list but no result.

For MPEG, I followed the instructions in the Wiki. I installed ffmpeg etc. on Debian, checked [x] MPEG2 but I can not see any changes. Additionally I should see ffmpeg processes on the server, shouldn't I? But there are none when playing videos!

Can anybody help me or tell me step by step how I can check whether my setup is correct?

For example, I have a Sony Bravia TV which only supports MPEG2. It also does not view *.avi files! So I though when traversing through the folder list on my TV I should see the film now. However, I still get "folder is empty". And no log outputs and ffmpeg processes, ....

Regards,
divB[/quote]

Hi divB, I probably have a quite similar problem with a Samsung TV UE6800C. I'm trying to transcode (on the fly) some Panasonic .mov HD files to my DLNA TV as my TV does not support to play the native .mov files from USB.
Did you get any solution for you problem or do we need to wait for the next Twonkyserver Release v7 ?

Rgrds, sulu

[sulu]

Hi divB,

I probably have a quite similar problem with a Samsung TV UE6800C. I'm trying to transcode (on the fly) some Panasonic .mov HD files to my DLNA TV as my TV does not support to play the native .mov files from USB.
Did you get any solution for you problem or do we need to wait for the next Twonkyserver Release v7 ?

Rgrds, sulu

[divB]

No, sorry.

I decided not to buy TwonkeyServer but instead WD TV Live. It's only 80 EUR and you have much less pain! Really great! I really can recommend this device. DLNA really sucks (especially for large collections)

Regards,
divB

[sulu]

Hi divB, thanks a lot for your recommendation, although I'm not (yet) ready to buy another HW device, I will keep it as plan B.
I'm still somehow motivated to get everything done with my PC, particular because I'm just struggling with my Panasonic .mov videos.
I want to allow Twonky some more days time to see if they can help, before I will look for alternatives.

Rgds, sulu

[sulu]

Hi again, I was just wondering if there are any plans or news available to support .mov files to be transcodes for Samsung TV?

[Twonky_Rick]

MOV is not currently on our list of supported containers. I've asked why.

- Rick