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Forum Discussion
ReadyDLNA fails to stream AVI’s to Samsung TVs–Fix Included
Attn: Skywalker – I realize this is lengthy; however, I would be very interested in your thoughts.
Having just purchased and setup my new Ultra 4, I noticed that the ReadyDLNA server worked for photos, music, and mpg videos; however, it failed on AVI (Xvid/Divx) videos that I can stream successfully to my TV via the Samsung DLNA PC software. I own a 2008 model Samsung LNxxA750 ("A" Series) with Wiselink Pro DLNA.
Prior to digging in, I found the Samsung patch (for the “C” series) on the minidlna site and gave that a try. Unfortunately, if failed miserably in that it was completely incompatible with the “A” series TV. TV could see the server, but could not even browse content. The “A” (and “B”) and “C” series TV may be from the same manufacturer; however, they clearly are running different DLNA implementations. I think they may even have different user-agent strings…so ReadyDLNA/minidlna may want to start differentiating (“SamsungWiselinkPro“ vs. “SEC_HHP_*”).
Upon examining the network requests between the ReadyDLNA software several other DLNA implementations – I found that ReadyDLNA appeared to be doing everything correct right up until the HEAD request for the actual AVI file (getContentFeatures/getMediaInfo). That was where I noticed something strange. ReadyDLNA/minidlna returned the mine type as video/x-msvideo; however, DLNA servers that worked with my TV set the mime type to video/mpeg – yet kept everything else as though it was an AVI (this turns out to be key). I was definitely testing with an Xvid AVI and not an mpeg.
My first attempt was to address this by overriding the mime type the same way the Samsung MKV fix was already implemented; however, that changed too many things (not just the mime type on the actual file request) and did not end up working with my TV. Instead, I had to implement a similar fix but in a different spot in the source code.
After setting up a virtual environment Debian Etch with a bunch of updates from the released Readynas GPL download, I was able to build a version for my Ultra 4 that works perfectly!
Here is the patch – it applies cleanly against ReadyDLNA 1.0.19.1 and minidlna 1.0.19. I would have tried 1.0.19.3, but I could not find the source code for that version.
Having just purchased and setup my new Ultra 4, I noticed that the ReadyDLNA server worked for photos, music, and mpg videos; however, it failed on AVI (Xvid/Divx) videos that I can stream successfully to my TV via the Samsung DLNA PC software. I own a 2008 model Samsung LNxxA750 ("A" Series) with Wiselink Pro DLNA.
Prior to digging in, I found the Samsung patch (for the “C” series) on the minidlna site and gave that a try. Unfortunately, if failed miserably in that it was completely incompatible with the “A” series TV. TV could see the server, but could not even browse content. The “A” (and “B”) and “C” series TV may be from the same manufacturer; however, they clearly are running different DLNA implementations. I think they may even have different user-agent strings…so ReadyDLNA/minidlna may want to start differentiating (“SamsungWiselinkPro“ vs. “SEC_HHP_*”).
Upon examining the network requests between the ReadyDLNA software several other DLNA implementations – I found that ReadyDLNA appeared to be doing everything correct right up until the HEAD request for the actual AVI file (getContentFeatures/getMediaInfo). That was where I noticed something strange. ReadyDLNA/minidlna returned the mine type as video/x-msvideo; however, DLNA servers that worked with my TV set the mime type to video/mpeg – yet kept everything else as though it was an AVI (this turns out to be key). I was definitely testing with an Xvid AVI and not an mpeg.
My first attempt was to address this by overriding the mime type the same way the Samsung MKV fix was already implemented; however, that changed too many things (not just the mime type on the actual file request) and did not end up working with my TV. Instead, I had to implement a similar fix but in a different spot in the source code.
After setting up a virtual environment Debian Etch with a bunch of updates from the released Readynas GPL download, I was able to build a version for my Ultra 4 that works perfectly!
Here is the patch – it applies cleanly against ReadyDLNA 1.0.19.1 and minidlna 1.0.19. I would have tried 1.0.19.3, but I could not find the source code for that version.
<patch removed> -- latest patch is located at sourceforge minidlna site and should not break newer Samsung TVs
- Thanks Skywalker!
9 Replies
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- Well, as one who has a 2008 Samsung A950 TV with the same DLNA client - I can say I'd love to see this fix implemented for ReadyDLNA on A-series Samsung TVs. I seem to recall reading somewhere that this client likes to be presented mpegs even if you're streaming something else. Is there any chance we could see a fix for ReadyDLNA on Sparc? I'd be happy to test it out on my NV. Dpasirst, would you mind sharing more info about how you encoded your AVIs? What audio codec did you use? I wonder if an old copy of Handbrake that does AVIs would do the job...
ig-88 wrote: ... Dpasirst, would you mind sharing more info about how you encoded your AVIs? What audio codec did you use? I wonder if an old copy of Handbrake that does AVIs would do the job...
I have tried several. What I found is Xvid with a resolution at the max of 800x600 and typically a frame rate of 25 or less (may work with more but that number has worked pretty well). For audio - I typically use MP3 Sample Rate of 48000hz (or less) and bitrate of 128kb/s. I also have one that I did with AC3 audio and it seems to work.
I did try a few things with H264MP which the TV supports up to 1920x1080 with AC3 audio - but I had mixed results and stopped fiddling with it.
Did some more testing - and higher bit rates for an mp3 avi audio stream do work; however, if you have any additional metadata e.g. a Title tag for the audio stream in the avi, the tv will fail to play the audio and give a message that the audio codec is not supported.ig-88 wrote: Well, as one who has a 2008 Samsung A950 TV with the same DLNA client - I can say I'd love to see this fix implemented for ReadyDLNA on A-series Samsung TVs. I seem to recall reading somewhere that this client likes to be presented mpegs even if you're streaming something else. Is there any chance we could see a fix for ReadyDLNA on Sparc? I'd be happy to test it out on my NV. ...
If you are interested, hit me up with a PM and I can probably build a sparc version of the binary (not a package for frontview, just the binary); however, you will need to be familiar with SSH and have it enabled on your NV to give it a spin.
updated: 5/28- Thanks for the detailed info! Does anybody have any idea if this change will break other Samsung models?
- Okay, so it does break newer models. There's a new patch to try attached in the SF bug.
- going to sf now. will post response there. Thank you
- OK, my apologies for posting to such an old thread, but I've not had much luck finding anything else anywhere else. I'm having what I believe is this same issue (Samsung TV (2012 model) not able to play files reported as ms-video from the ReadyDLNA. Other formats work fine (including MKV). My ReadyNAS is running latest firmware, and 1.0.25 of ReadyDLNA. I know this post was about an older version, but I cannot find patch or fix for the newer version. Any ideas where to look?
Thanks, - Did you verify that we are sending a MIME type of video/x-msvideo?
- AVI is not a video file type in itself but rather is referred to as a "container". Within that container can be any of many different kinds of video & audio formats. For example, an AVI can contain Xvid, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV1, WMV2, DV, Motion JPEG, H.263 or RAW uncompressed video amongst others and audio can be OGG, MP3, DCA, MP3, PCM, AC3, etc.
To solve readydlna fails to stream avi to samsung tv, one method is to convert avi to samsung more supported video format
Resources:
http://www.idealshare.net/play-avi-on-samsung-tv.html
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