Sony BDP-S370 (DLNA-compatible with new firmware M03.R.567)

[patters]

Sometimes when you start to play a clip you'll get a message that the file is corrupt or unsupported. If you try again, often it'll work. Quite strange, but there's nothing region-specific in my conf file. Files with a bitrate greater than about 1mbps will stutter unless you use TSmuxer to manually remux them to .m2ts. TSmuxer built into PS3MS won't work because it sends the stream with mime type video/mpeg but the BDP rejects HD material that's not video/divx.

[infidel]

I know it seems counter-intuitive, patters. In my case (with mencoder and tsmuxer both installed):

- Your updated conf loads ok in ps3ms, but no supported files are listed on the BDP-S370, just #--TRANSCODE--# folders containing only tsmuxer streams, none of which play.

- With your original conf, non-transcoded files are listed (mostly mpeg in my case) and play fine.

- With either conf, first try of any transcoded stream (mencoder or tsmuxer) fails with corrupted/unsupported error, the second try hangs the unit (becomes unresponsive, displaying an endless 'wait' spinner), and I have to unplug it.

Don't hold me to it, but I seem to recall from avsforum, etc, that the supported formats vary by region (as does the firmware). What region are you?

[patters]

Ah yes, I forgot about that. I thought you meant NTSC Vs PAL etc. But yes, Sony decided to be much more restrictive for DLNA formats in certain territories from what I've read.
I'm in the UK btw, so I guess Europe is counted as one big region. Am I right in thinking DivX is ok in Canadian models, but not in US ones?

[infidel]

'm:video/divx' may be the magic bullet for you but here in the US it seems to be the kiss of death. I tried defaulting video mime-types to mpeg, which resulted in more formats (e.g. wmv) showing up, though playback on these freezes after a few seconds. And transcoding behaves differently with this change, no corrupt/unsupported error but 'cannot communicate with server, please try again later', corresponding to errors like this in debug.log:

[Thread-73] DEBUG 09:23:56.509 mkfifo: cannot create fifo `/tmp/javaps3media/1283174631511ffmpegvideo': File exists
[mkfifo] TRACE 09:23:56.511 Process mkfifo has a return code of 1! Maybe an error occured... check the log file

So the problem here seems to be that streaming never commences at the server side.

Do you have a comprehensive list of valid video mime types to try, or do I just have to troll through the other confs for examples? I know, for instance, that wmv is supported via WMP server [EDIT: maybe not, according to UK specs], but 'm:video/x-ms-wmv' doesn't seem to do the trick on ps3ms.

Btw, flac transcoding works ok for me, both as MP3 and PCM. PCM fails for 24bit audio, though (not that this is any great concern).

[patters]

You could try video/avi.
My first config had that set for ordinary divx avi files. The reason I didn't keep it was that I found that although they play, I couldn't use the shuttle controls. They do however work for video/divx on European models.

[infidel]

Already tried avi, no good. Browsing serviio forums seems to confirm that mime-type adjustments haven't worked on US players; my only hope (other than future firmware improvements) seems to be to get transcoding to work.

Just to rule out any peculiarities of my linux install I switched to Windows 7 and compiled/installed the patched version. Transcoding (mencoder or tsmuxer) fails similarly, with the player reporting 'cannot communicate with server, please try again later', however debug.log is error-free and appears to show that ps3ms is streaming normally, as far as I can tell.

Has anyone had success with transcoded video streams on a US player?

Rapidshare download link to my win32 compile, if anyone wants to try it:

• pms-setup-windows-1.20.409-ps3ms-410-content-range-patch.zip

[patters]

Transcoding to what though? You need at least one HD acceptable format/mime type. I found a new DLNA server yesterday (Mezzmo - free 15 day trial) which seems to list all mkv/mp4/m4v streams as m2ts but actually sends them with the correct DLNA type for the real media clips when you play then (video/x-matroska etc.)... which works! It can play HD H.264 mkv and mp4 files with no stutter. I'm going to experiment on the source of PS3MS to try and mimic this...

Can you try Mezzmo with your US BDP-S370 and see if you get anything to play?

This is an invaluable troubleshooting tool: UPnP Inspector. You can right-click and browse a media server and see all the HTTP that comes back from the server.

I've noticed that you cannot do this for video items on PS3MS so I guess the HTTP is not properly DLNA compliant.

[infidel]

my bdp-S370 "sees" anything offered as MPEG or M2TS. If the link is a transcode link (either at top level with "[mencoder]" suffix in the filename or inside a #--TRANSCODE--# folder as either mencoder or tsmuxer), Selecting it will either give me 'corrupt/unsupported' or 'cannot communicate' error.

btw I tried Magpie upnp data collector with no luck. Magpie sees the player but the BDP-S370 doesn't see the Magpie pseudo-server.

[patters]

Yeah it's strange - the BDP won't give up its supported formats at all. Can yours play a genuine HD m2ts though without transcoding? If you don't have one - get an mkv or mp4 movie trailer and use TSmuxerGUI.exe in Windows to remux it.
Transcoding will always fail for me too btw - that's not a regional problem.

[infidel]

Just ran upnp-inspector, it doesn't seem to show any useful mime info (at first glance, anyway). Will check out Mezzmo.

I have one hd .ts which lists as M2TS, and several hd .mkv which list as MPEG, all of which play ok. I have several .mts and .m2ts which are avchd and don't play. Just remembered that some people report luck with renaming to .ts and .mkv, will look into this too.