Various issues with OSX

[Michelasso]

Hi there,
I wrote a post in the Sony forum about this, but I had no luck with the answers. I think I might get a better chance here, now that I've found the forum.
Here is a list of issues I have with the PMS:

- Web TV: I have only one channel working. The French one in English. But I have to stream it from the #TRANSCODED# folder.
- Gametrailers works only using the web streaming in the same #TRANSCODED# folder
- No chance to see any single youtube video. "format not supported" or similar error messages.
- Web radio works.
- Podcast works
- When using .srt subtitles it transcode Divx videos in MPEG2. Is that normal?
- When it transcodes a video I can't jump to a specific time of the video without having (it seems) all the video transcoded and streamed up to that point. Which means the "jumping" is nearly unusable.
- memcoder keeps crashing (I get a message window in OSX), but the program keeps streaming no matter if I ignore the message or i chose the option to restart it. Actually I checked the Activity Monitor, and I found a list of a dozen memcoder processes. I'm afraid it didn't crash at all then, it probably just interprets a return code in the wrong way.
- I keep getting all kind of network/DLNA errors but the videos keep streaming

Here is my setup:
- MacBook Intel 2, OSX leopard 10.5.6, 2.5 GB RAM - Connected via WiFi.
- PS3 with dynamic IP configuration. Media Server obviously enabled. Wired.
- HSDPA (3G mobile) internet connection. 1.4Mbps download, up to 384Kbps upload.

What I wonder the most is why Youtube isn't working. It actually gets the thumbnail, but then that's it.

BTW is anywhere a merged WEB.info file with all kind of links to Web Radios, tvs, etc? It would be also nice in a future release if it doesn't get overwritten when we upgrade the program (I think it shuld go into a Library folder).

Thanks in advance!!!

[shagrath]

lot of things

- Web TV: I have only one channel working. The French one in English. But I have to stream it from the #TRANSCODED# folder.
- Gametrailers works only using the web streaming in the same #TRANSCODED# folder
- No chance to see any single youtube video. "format not supported" or similar error messages.
- Web radio works.
- Podcast works

normal behavior... web streaming is far from 100% working right now, especially on OSX where the VLC transcoding engine is not plugged (yet)

- When using .srt subtitles it transcode Divx videos in MPEG2. Is that normal?

yes

- When it transcodes a video I can't jump to a specific time of the video without having (it seems) all the video transcoded and streamed up to that point. Which means the "jumping" is nearly unusable.

that should not happen... the jump in time is taking only a couple of seconds in most cases
reproduce the issue, then repost the matching debug.log

- memcoder keeps crashing (I get a message window in OSX), but the program keeps streaming no matter if I ignore the message or i chose the option to restart it. Actually I checked the Activity Monitor, and I found a list of a dozen memcoder processes. I'm afraid it didn't crash at all then, it probably just interprets a return code in the wrong way.

you're using latest version?

- I keep getting all kind of network/DLNA errors but the videos keep streaming

if these are AVIs, this is normal (again), there's an annoying bug on the OSX build with AVI and MP4

BTW is anywhere a merged WEB.info file with all kind of links to Web Radios, tvs, etc? It would be also nice in a future release if it doesn't get overwritten when we upgrade the program (I think it shuld go into a Library folder).

a GUI configuration is planned somewhere in time, don't have any ETA though

[Michelasso]

Thanks for the feedback!

I think I narrowed down the problems:

- Web streaming. yeah, looking at the logs I see a Java error about osx/vlc missing or similar. Out of curiosity: was PMS supposed to interface with VLC, the public domain media player? I have the latest release of it anyhow.
- Skipping/mencoder: The problem I get is when I press square to get the 1-5 min previews and then I select them. At that point I get all the network/DLNA errors I mentioned, mencoder goes bananas, keeping reproducing itself and sometimes (one of them) crashes. That I think is pretty buggy. The "jumping" instead works, taking no more than 1 or 2 seconds indeed. As long as I don't press square first, sure. Another thing I noticed, messing with that, is that sometimes the time counter gets corrupted. But I believe it's part of the same problem.

You asked me if I use the latest release. Of what? Mencoder/Mplayer? because I have PMS 1.05. I tried to install MPlayer via MacPort, but obviously PMS uses its own one. Copy those one in the PMS osx subfolder PMS the remux didn't work anymore.

[shagrath]

the square button is to avoid... this generates too much stress on the server

[Michelasso]

Well, yeah. I saw that. I thought the "square" could just get the beginning of each minute of the movie, get the thumbnails and then do the "jumping" when selected. I believe it is a poor implementation from Sony. Well, not a big deal.

[Michelasso]

I must say you guys are amazing!!!! Now the square option not only works... It's unbelievably F A S T!!

Very good job, thank you!!!

[kmjansen]

Did you ever get the web stuff to work (e.g. YouTube and GameTrailers). I also see that vlc is not plugged yet. Is there a way around this for OSX?

Thanks in advance