What tells the MediaBrowser server to transcode to certail format?

[wehavetogoback 0]

I'm  running MediaBrowser on a lowly laptop that has an i3 cpu  with quicksync.  Currently, the cpu isn't good enough to transcode 1080p mkv files with DTS-hd audio because the video starts stuttering after a few minutes of playback on my Android tablet running BubbleUpnp and BS Player. I know the same movie runs fine if I copy it over a microsd card and insert it directly into the tablet and run it locally. The movie also plays smoothly on my iphone using Air Video HD which recently got quicksync encode and decode options added to it.  Whenever I use AVHD, CPU usage is in the 10% range and the playback is buttery smooth.

 

When the movie starts stuttering on the android tablet using MediaBrowser+BubbleUpnp+BS Player, the CPU is always pegged at 85-95%. The result is also the same when using MediaBrowser's own android client. 

 

So my question is, since I know that BS Player supports DTS , is there a way to force MediaBrowser to just send the audio out as is without transcoding it, but go ahead and transcode the video to a lower bitrate?

Right now, it gets converted to "aac". My reasoning is that the cpu has one less thing to do...namely not having to convert dts to aac, and thereby having more resources available for converting the video.

 

 

 

Any help appreciated.

Edited December 30, 2014 by wehavetogoback

[Koleckai Silvestri 1150]

Your device should tell the server what it can support. Then the server provides that. Not sure if that is possible with an external player like the one you're using.

[Luke 37167]

you should look at editing the dlna profile for bubble upnp

[wolfbuddy 16]

An i3 should be more than up to transcoding the files you describe, I'm happily transcoding 1080p mkv files, with DTS-hd audio, with a Celeron! Have you checked that the i3 is running at full speed, as laptops often have power states that reduce CPU speed?

 

Sounds like it could be a network issue as you seem to of described a scenario where local files play OK. You could try playing the same file on another PC on your network that is running MBT or MBC to prove that the network is fast enough.

[wehavetogoback 0]

An i3 should be more than up to transcoding the files you describe, I'm happily transcoding 1080p mkv files, with DTS-hd audio, with a Celeron! Have you checked that the i3 is running at full speed, as laptops often have power states that reduce CPU speed?

 

Sounds like it could be a network issue as you seem to of described a scenario where local files play OK. You could try playing the same file on another PC on your network that is running MBT or MBC to prove that the network is fast enough.

 

An i3 should be more than up to transcoding the files you describe, I'm happily transcoding 1080p mkv files, with DTS-hd audio, with a Celeron! Have you checked that the i3 is running at full speed, as laptops often have power states that reduce CPU speed?

 

Sounds like it could be a network issue as you seem to of described a scenario where local files play OK. You could try playing the same file on another PC on your network that is running MBT or MBC to prove that the network is fast enough.

 

is there a way to limit the bandwidth on the server side, instead?

Edit: I didn't realize that the MediaBrowser app on android had an external media player support. I also see bandwidth limit option there...I'll play around with the badwidth settings and see what happens.

Edited December 31, 2014 by wehavetogoback

[wehavetogoback 0]

wolfbuddy, so you were correct. It was the high amounts of bandwidth. The tablet is pretty far from the router but I still get a decent 20-25mbps on speedtest.net.

So in the MediaBrowser app, I can actually choose to limit the bandwidth of the video and send it to MX Player --it works great after that. One thing that didn't work right away, and I'll have fiddle around with things, but subtitles (srt) don't work in either mxplayer or the internal mediabrowser player.

I also tried out the web client using Chrome browser on the tablet, and I think I like the web interface better and srt subtitles work fine there.

 

The CPU usage is pegged at 90+%....I wish it was lower from heat/fan noise/power consumption/battery life perspective. As mentioned, AirVideo HD uses like 10-15% of the CPU using quicksync. i hope the development goes forward there too, but so far MediaBrowser 's the best solution I've found for this Android tablet. This software probably saved the tablet from going in the garbage. 

Edited January 1, 2015 by wehavetogoback

[wolfbuddy 16]

Someone from the MB team could probably explain this better than me, but I don't think that the bandwidth limits in the apps are network related bandwidth limits. I tend to see higher bitrates across my network than the limits I set in the apps so you have to take that into account and test various limits while monitoring bandwidth, server CPU load and client system loads. 

 

There are so many variables for smooth playback (server transcoding/streaming ability, network speeds, client playback ability), this is why I have been asking for there to always be an on-the-fly quality setting available for all clients, which there isn't currently when casting to Chromecasts.