Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

General discussion about the media server. Feature requests. Hints, tips and tricks.
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ThyMaster
Posts:192
Joined:Mon Aug 15, 2005 11:47 am
Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by ThyMaster » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:08 am

Hi All,

after being a fan of TMS 4.4.x for years I finally found (after some tweaking) my peace in using 5.1.3!
I'm running it under Linux so some of my tipps might not be applicable to Windows or NAS versions!

Tweak 1:
Pictures on PS3 are always scaled to 1440x1080 (HD size). This leads into problems when copying it to the PS3 locally since only the resized picture without any EXIF data will be copied.
To avoid this go to the "clients.db" (in the "resource" directory) and look for the PS3 entry.
Change "JPEG_HD" into "JPEG_LRG" and TMS won't touch the pictures and will leave rescaling to the PS3!

Tweak 2:
If you own a Philips Streamium audio client such as the NP2900 you might find that (even it is now capable of showing pictures) you still want it to go directly to the music tree instead.
Again go to "clients.db" search for your device and add "AV:M" to it. Restart TMS and the Streamium will go straight to the music tree (this of course works with any music-only client!)

Tweak 3 (Linux-only):
You might find that re-scaling of thumbnails often produces horrible results (like cover-art looks really badly resized). The culprit here is "cgi-jpegscale" in the "cgi-bin" directory.
Since all Linux systems come with "convert", an excellent graphic converter, it makes sense to use it instead. To do so rename or delete "cgi-jpegscale" and replace by this shell script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/convert "$1" -resize $3x$4 "$2"
Name the shell script "cgi-jpegscale" and make it executable (chmod 755). Restart TMS and from now on all thumbnail creation is done by "convert" (and looks way better than the build-in solution!)

Tweak 4:
Adding new tree points.
For the real buffs who dare to alter the "view-definitions.xml" in the "views" directory and who want to add individual tree points such as alphabetically sorted albums you need to introduce new IDs!
Be aware that you must use "groupid" as a tag herewith instead of "id". Otherwise they will no be recognized.
And don't touch the original "id" entries in the "view-definitions.xml" otherwise a lot of clients will not be able to use their search function anymore!

Tweak 5:
If you own a Kodak EX-1011 or EX-811 digi-frame and navigating is nearly impossible due to unwanted re-scans every 5-10 secs here's the solution to stop re-scanning:
Add "ET:NO" to the client entry in the "clients.db" and restart TMS. All re-scanning is gone.

Tweak 6 (Linux-only):
In TMS 5.1.3 the capability to convert FLAC files to WAV for non-FLAC-capable clients (like the PS3) is introduced. Unfortunately this feature doesn't work under Linux due to wrong implementation. To repair this edit the "flac-wav-desc" file in the "cgi-bin" directory and change the content to:

Code: Select all

# transcode audio
#(c) 2008 by PacketVideo
exec: flac --silent --decode $infile -o $outfile
# capabilities
from=audio/x-flac
to=audio/x-wav
synchronous
priority=default
Make sure that FLAC is installed on you Linux system and create a symlink from "/usr/bin/flac" into the "cgi-bin" directory.
Restart TMS and now all non-FLAC-capable clients will still play FLACs incl. all tagging information as WAV/PCM files!

Tweak 7 (Linux-only):
A lot of people asked how to enable transcoding (apart from JPEG it's all greyed out in the web UI). Here's how:
Create symlinks of all needed programs in the "Cgi-bin" directory.
Example:

Code: Select all

ln -s /usr/bin/ffmpeg /[path_to_TMS]/cgi-bin/
Do this for "ffmpeg" and "any2mp3".
Restart TMS and now you can enable transcoding in the Web UI.
Note: In my case it never worked but instead crashed my TMS server though :evil:

Tweak 8:
And while talking about tweaking the XML files here's my music tree (in German) and attached the belonging XML files:
My_Music-tree.gif
My_Music-tree.gif (14.87KiB)Viewed 8139 times
My_music-tree_in_XML.zip
(25.98KiB)Downloaded 439 times
That's all folks.

Hope you'll find it useful.
- ThyMaster

Umbra
Posts:2
Joined:Wed Jan 20, 2010 1:35 pm
AV Hardware:XBox360

Re: Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by Umbra » Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:43 pm

Nice stuff :-)
Will try the Linux stuff ..

tcviper
Posts:17
Joined:Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:20 pm
AV Hardware:PS3, XBOX360, HP Homeserver, Dell XPS730X, Bravia TV

Re: Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by tcviper » Tue Mar 09, 2010 4:11 pm

What about Windows Transcoding? I would like to be able to play MOV Bluray files on my PS3 with Twonky.
Any idea?

Kat-CeDe
Posts:22
Joined:Sun Aug 21, 2005 7:38 pm
Location:Etelsen, germany
Contact:

Re: Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by Kat-CeDe » Tue Mar 09, 2010 11:17 pm

Hi tcviper,
theoretically you only have to install ffmpeg into the directory c:\ffmpeg. Or install it where you want an change the file ffmpeg.location to point to the installation directory.

Ralf

tcviper
Posts:17
Joined:Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:20 pm
AV Hardware:PS3, XBOX360, HP Homeserver, Dell XPS730X, Bravia TV

Re: Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by tcviper » Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:53 am

And that will do on the fly transcoding?

tcviper
Posts:17
Joined:Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:20 pm
AV Hardware:PS3, XBOX360, HP Homeserver, Dell XPS730X, Bravia TV

Re: Tweaks and Tipps for TMS 5.1.x (some Linux only)

Post by tcviper » Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:03 am

Yeah you are right for background transcoding but thats not what i need.
I need to be able to for example play MKV (Bluray) files on my PS3 (without using ps3 mediaserver if possible) with twonky.

I think you need on the fly auto transcoding for that?

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