Amahi Forums

Hello All
Hopefully this is the best group to post this in. Apologies if a different group would have been better.

Hopefully this is a simple enough newbie question? I did originally try the IRC channel but only one kind sole answered but that was only to say he was calling it a night so couldn't help at this time

I had hopped one of the other 38 people in the room would have replied with something but that wasn't to be the case. So hopefully the forum users will be a little more talkative

As I said I'm new to Amahi - just finished building my server and initially it all looks good. I've just added credit to my account but before I start downloading applications I wondered if anybody can help me decide on the right media streaming software?

I've got a xbox360, Panasonic g20 TV and Android phone. Looking at the many application on offer Mediatomb, Amahi DLNA or Ushare? I'm unsure what would be the best in my situation. Last time I looked into creating a central media service i thought Mediatomb didn't support xbo360's? That looks to still be the case but maybe somebody here can confirm this? Most of my media will need transcoding on the fly as I've got 10's of gigs of films ranging from divx, ,xvid, avi, mov, mkv, & wmv. I've currently using "Wild Media Server" for windows but whilst it works well its costly when you start counting up the number of devices I need to buy licenses for. I've also favouring Linux most of my life but i best not open that old discussions wound

Whilst I'm loving the Amahi product so far... One little thing I have found disappointing is the inability to test the applications before buying them.

So before I make a mistake and buy the wrong application can anybody suggest what would best fit my needs???

Thanks in advance,
Gareth

I'm using Amahi DLNA to stream videos to a Sony Bravia TV, a Samsung Wiselink TV, and an Asus O!play media player. It does a great job of streaming but it doesn't transcode.

I've also used ps3mediaserver running as a Linux app outside of Amahi. It does a pretty good job of transcoding but since it's a Java application it needs a desktop running all the time. My server is headless so I kept vncserver running all the time to provide the desktop environment. There is a beta ps3mediaserver for Amahi application but I don't know its status.

I've also tried TVmobili (http://www.tvmobili.com). It's similar to Amahi DLNA in that it just serves up media with no transcoding.

You might consider Serviio (http://www.serviio.com). It can be set to start on boot and will transcode. It is available for Linux and Windows. The application has a server component and a config console portion so you can install the Linux server on your Amahi box and the Windows console on one of your clients. This allows you to administer the server from your client without the overhead of vncserver running all the time (my server is an old P4).

Right now I run both Amahi DLNA and Serviio. On my system they both run without interfering with each other. If a video needs transcoding I pick Serviio. If not, I use DLNA.

Hello bt107
Thanks for your comments and recommendations. Working on the principle what works for one should work for another... I've installed the Serviio application and I'm my experienced is defiantly a mixed bag at the moment. Whilst trying to browse the Serviio website & forum for advice on setup and basic configuration I've spent most of the night waiting for their site to respond And when it finally did the information on the FAQ and support sections was a little sparse.

Anyway, I've managed to persevere and I've got to say my initial impressions are good. Once I establish what causes the ffmpg command to fail
with :-
*************************************************
Complete command at end of post
*************************************************
[mpegts @ 0x9f51930]st:1 error, non monotone timestamps 2790 >= 2790
av_interleaved_write_frame(): Operation not permitted
*************************************************

A very very quick Google suggest that it’s a known bug caused by duplicate timestamps within the film but I’m yet to get my head around that

I've got to run off to work but I'll have a look later tonight

Again thanks for your help
Gareth


Complete FFmpg command below:
ffmpeg -i /var/hda/files/movies/The.Tourist.DVDbackup.mkv -y -vcodec copy -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -copyts -acodec copy -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f mpegts /tmp/Serviio/transcoding-temp-1939-MPEG2TS.stf
FFmpeg version 0.6.2-rpmfusion, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on Apr 12 2011 16:45:04 with gcc 4.5.1 20100924 (Red Hat 4.5.1-4)
configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=i686 --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' --extra-version=rpmfusion --enable-bzlib --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdirac --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib --cpu=i686 --enable-runtime-cpudetect
libavutil 50.15. 1 / 50.15. 1
libavcodec 52.72. 2 / 52.72. 2
libavformat 52.64. 2 / 52.64. 2
libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0
libavfilter 1.19. 0 / 1.19. 0
libswscale 0.11. 0 / 0.11. 0
libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
[matroska @ 0x9f3c880]Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, matroska, from '/var/hda/files/movies/The.Tourist.DVDbackup.mkv':
Metadata:
doctype : matroska
Duration: 01:35:20.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264, yuv420p, 720x304 [PAR 1:1 DAR 45:19], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 50 tbc
Metadata:
title : TEST Rip
Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16
Metadata:
title : TEST Rip
Stream #0.2: Subtitle: 0x0000
Metadata:
title : TEST Rip
[mpegts @ 0x9f51930]muxrate 1 bps, pcr every 100 pkts, sdt every 200, pat/pmt every 40 pkts
Output #0, mpegts, to '/tmp/Serviio/transcoding-temp-1939-MPEG2TS.stf':
Metadata:
encoder : Lavf52.64.2
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: libx264, yuv420p, 720x304 [PAR 1:1 DAR 45:19], q=2-31, 90k tbn, 1k tbc
Metadata:
title : TEST Rip
Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo
Metadata:
title : TEST Rip
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding
[mpegts @ 0x9f51930]st:1 error, non monotone timestamps 2790 >= 2790
av_interleaved_write_frame(): Operation not permitted

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It does the job...