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Interesting test


MSattler

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MSattler

So apparently I need to sell my Fire TV Sticks, and My Nexus Player, and just buy more Samsung Smart TV's......

 

 

=)

 

Here's what I found:

 

Lego Movie - 

 Direct Stream (Samsung), 

Transcoding (Android App on Nexus Player)

Transcoding (AndroidTV MB App on Nexus Player)

Transcoding (Android App on Fire TV)

Bit rate 12.6 Mbps

Video AVC

Audio DTS

 

Guardian of the Galaxy 

Direct Stream (Samsung) 

Transcoding (Android App on Nexus Player)

Transcoding (AndroidTV MB App on Nexus Player)

Transcoding (Android App on Fire TV)

Bit Rate 35.1

Video AVC

Audio DTS

 

 

The Samsung E series I have was able to direct stream anything under 36Mbps, which is something none of the other players have been able to do.

 

 

-Marcus

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CBers

Sounds like a plan, but I do have a Roku in my bedroom which plays everything I throw at it.

 

I have a Samsung F8000 TV in my lounge.

 

.

Edited by CBers
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MSattler

Sounds like a plan, but I do have a Roku in my bedroom which plays everything I throw at it.

 

I have a Samsung F8000 TV in my lounge.

 

.

 

Yes, but things for the Roku are being transcoded right?

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CBers

Yes, but things for the Roku are being transcoded right?

 

Yes, but it's not a problem for me.

 

Why are you against transcoding ?? I was at first, but MB transcoding has come on leaps and bounds recently, so FF/RW is really quick.

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FrostByte

I think it depends on the overall bitrate of the file you're streaming and the audio codec used.  My F series tv will stream up to 30Mbps (newer models I believe go higher) where as my old Roku 3 could only do 20Mbps max and supported less codecs.  As long as I stayed within its boundaries I don't believe the MB Roku app transcoded anything though. 

Edited by FrostByte
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MSattler

Yes, but it's not a problem for me.

 

Why are you against transcoding ?? I was at first, but MB transcoding has come on leaps and bounds recently, so FF/RW is really quick.

 

Well, for one because the FF/RW is still nowhere near as good as direct playback.  Mostly though, to me it is about quality, if I have high bit rate Blu Ray content, then I want it displayed at that quality.  Currently I have 6 HTPC's in my house, where I am used to getting top notch high bit rate playback that just works, I just want to move away from the HTPC's to something Android based, or Samsung SmartHub based to remove the HTPC requirement.

 

Transcoding works great in cases where my kids want to stream movies at my house from their mom's house using a Fire TV Stick.  However, if I plant those around the house instead of HTPC's, the quality most likely won't be as good, and the user experience won't be as good.  That, and if I can get direct-play, and not waste cpu cycles, why not?

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CBers

Coming in the next server beta release, I believe transcode throttling will be implemented.

 

It's currently in the dev build, but still being tweaked.

 

I agree with Direct Play to my main TV, but not so fussed when it comes to bedrooms/office/playroom etc., as the TV sizes are smaller anyway.

 

For example, my daughter has a Roku connected to her 19" TV and she watched a 1080p (10mbs) movie the other day without any issues.

 

I shall be buying a Nexus Player when it's available in the UK to replace my own Roku (Now TV) box.

 

Each to their own though :)

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MSattler

Coming in the next server beta release, I believe transcode throttling will be implemented.

 

It's currently in the dev build, but still being tweaked.

 

I agree with Direct Play to my main TV, but not so fussed when it comes to bedrooms/office/playroom etc., as the TV sizes are smaller anyway.

 

For example, my daughter has a Roku connected to her 19" TV and she watched a 1080p (10mbs) movie the other day without any issues.

 

I shall be buying a Nexus Player when it's available in the UK to replace my own Roku (Now TV) box.

 

Each to their own though :)

 

Well, I agree to a point =)  The thing is I want to future proof somewhat as well.  Right now out of those 8 TV's I have a 65" 1080P Samsung, 55" 1080P Samsung, 49" 1080p Toshiba, 52" 1080p Samsung, and then 3 32" TV's, and a 22" TV.  So for the smaller TV's is where I can use the Fire TV Sticks with no issue with Transcoding.  With the others though..... and ever the 32's if they get upgraded, I'd rather have Direct Playback.  Most of them won't ever be used at the same time, but Direct Play is just a whole lot easier as well.

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In all your examples of "transcoding" I'm pretty sure it was just the audio that was being transcoded.  The true test is the output though.  If it looks and sounds the same then who cares what is happening behind the scenes.

 

Is the Samsung able to bitstream the DTS to your receiver?

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MSattler

In all your examples of "transcoding" I'm pretty sure it was just the audio that was being transcoded.  The true test is the output though.  If it looks and sounds the same then who cares what is happening behind the scenes.

 

Is the Samsung able to bitstream the DTS to your receiver?

 

If the hardware is capable of supporting direct playback, why bother transcoding?  If we are going to heavily depend on transcoding, it is just one more potential thing that can go wrong.  My approach to implementing MB3 is finding the easiest way to give my family access to Live TV, Recordings, Movies, and Music.  The throtteling of the transcoding will certainly help the overall cpu utilization of the MB3 server, but again I think the goal should be to get to a point where the clients can decode what they need to locally, versus depending on transcoding to be the solution for everything.  I view transcoding as being excellent for mobile, and remote clients.

 

I totally get what you are saying, and I think for now transcoding is ok, but at least my goal is a solution where transcoding is a last ditch effort to get content to play back.

 

I need to reconnect to optical output from the TV to the receiver to see if it bitstreams on the Direct Stream content, I'll try and do that this weekend.  =)

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My point is, if your hardware is capable of producing the end quality you desire, why do you care what the process is called?

 

You are very honed in on this "transcoding" thing as being "bad".  Well, in some instances it may be but you need to realize exactly what is going on.  If the only thing that is happening is that the DTS audio is being moved into a container that the target device can understand, and the end result in terms of quality is the same, who cares what it is called?

 

The TV may very well be "transcoding" that DTS track to something it can output without you even knowing it.

 

In your test above, did you actually look at the transcoding logs to see exactly what was happening or just look at the display on the dashboard?  I'm not saying it isn't transcoding some things but that is a broad term that can mean anything from complex re-encodes of everything to simply re-packaging a track into a different container.  It would be interesting to see exactly what was going on.

 

It very well may be that the Samsung TVs are more capable in playback than some of the other devices but I'd be interested to know more details about what was actually happening in those tests.

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MSattler

My point is, if your hardware is capable of producing the end quality you desire, why do you care what the process is called?

 

You are very honed in on this "transcoding" thing as being "bad".  Well, in some instances it may be but you need to realize exactly what is going on.  If the only thing that is happening is that the DTS audio is being moved into a container that the target device can understand, and the end result in terms of quality is the same, who cares what it is called?

 

The TV may very well be "transcoding" that DTS track to something it can output without you even knowing it.

 

In your test above, did you actually look at the transcoding logs to see exactly what was happening or just look at the display on the dashboard?  I'm not saying it isn't transcoding some things but that is a broad term that can mean anything from complex re-encodes of everything to simply re-packaging a track into a different container.  It would be interesting to see exactly what was going on.

 

It very well may be that the Samsung TVs are more capable in playback than some of the other devices but I'd be interested to know more details about what was actually happening in those tests.

 

I don't think transcoding is bad...... it has it's place? =)  In my ideal world, the at home/inside the house clients can decode what is available.  I get that, in say the case of the AndroidTV MB app on the Nexus, it is only transcoding the audio from DTS to something the Nexus supports.  My preference will always be to just have the player do the decoding.  And I get in some cases the TV, or the player may very well be decoding DTS to something on it's own side that it supports and I'm ok with that.  It's simply a preference of having everything done on the client.

 

Maybe this will make more sense to the madness in my head :)

 

1)  Native Video/Audio Playback on Client

2)  Native Video Playback with Local Audio transcoding on Client

3)  Native Video Playback on Client, with Server transcoding of Audio

4)  Server Transcoding of Video and Audio

 

Those are the 4 kind of situations I think we would typically see.  My goal will always be to keep as many clients in categories 1 and 2.  If some of the weaker clients fall into categories 3 and 4, I can live with that.  What I don't think is right is to walk into this thinking "Ahh screw it, I don't care if it transcodes or not" and dump everything into say category 4.

 

Allowing everything to Transcode leaves the potential for the server to run lot higher utilization wise than maybe it needs to, and that will directly effect GUI response in some degree as well as web ui response.  If the server is being hammered by cpu utilization then everything else will respond slower.  If we had the ability to offload transcoding to another server....... then it wouldn't be a big deal. 

 

Does that make sense?  I think I probably am thinking much larger than may be required for my home rig, but I want to ensure that if the kids invite friends over, or I have all my family over and all the TV's are in use that my system doesn't implode. =)

Edited by MSattler
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In your test above, did you actually look at the transcoding logs to see exactly what was happening or just look at the display on the dashboard?  I'm not saying it isn't transcoding some things but that is a broad term that can mean anything from complex re-encodes of everything to simply re-packaging a track into a different container.  It would be interesting to see exactly what was going on.

 

I'd still love this information as it gives us the information to decide into which of your categories each test fell.

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fantaxp7

Ya I guess I am in the camp that believes playing a file straight with no transcoding is best. I at least prefer it this way and never really give anything else a chance. 

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Ya I guess I am in the camp that believes playing a file straight with no transcoding is best. I at least prefer it this way and never really give anything else a chance. 

 

Of course that will be "best" but not all of the other options will necessarily be "worse".

 

For instance, just re-packaging a DTS track into aac shouldn't degrade the experience at all and should take very little resources on the part of the server.

 

If you want full-fidelity of everything you pretty much still have to go with a PC solution of some sort but these streaming boxes (including the TVs) are fast catching up to the point where the experience can be just as good.  Whether or not you will ever see true HD-Audio decoding or bitstreaming out of these things I'm not sure because the mass market doesn't care about those things.

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fantaxp7

Of course that will be "best" but not all of the other options will necessarily be "worse".

 

For instance, just re-packaging a DTS track into aac shouldn't degrade the experience at all and should take very little resources on the part of the server.

 

If you want full-fidelity of everything you pretty much still have to go with a PC solution of some sort but these streaming boxes (including the TVs) are fast catching up to the point where the experience can be just as good.  Whether or not you will ever see true HD-Audio decoding or bitstreaming out of these things I'm not sure because the mass market doesn't care about those things.

Well I certainly cannot disagree with that logic. I just have to break my habit of wanting to see DTS HD on my receiver. 

 

I'm like a proud parent that wants the absolute best for my each of my audio components and TV  :P

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MSattler

I'd still love this information as it gives us the information to decide into which of your categories each test fell.

 

I can work on that this weekend, to see what all is going on.  I have nearly client we support so..... I can do some good usage tests when I have free weekends.

 

I only hope Google will allow us to pay the costs of codec licenses on players if they won't add the support.  As these Intel sticks get more powerful, they could make some great android clients.  I know windows will run great on them but I don't want to deal with patching anymore.  I want Android devices that auto update themselves and MB =)

Edited by MSattler
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FrostByte

Is the Samsung able to bitstream the DTS to your receiver?

Yes, I have the Samsung app streaming DTS (though I believe it's the nonHD portion) through ARC to my receiver without transcoding from the tv and the app can also be loaded on a Samsung receiver and play DTS without transcoding

Edited by FrostByte
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Yes, I have the Samsung app streaming DTS (though I believe it's the nonHD portion) through ARC to my receiver without transcoding from the tv and the app can also be loaded on a Samsung receiver and play DTS without transcoding

 

That is nice.  Hopefully, the other devices will follow suit.

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chessdragon136

Yes the app passes Dolby and Dts through to receivers. What I need to know is if a codec is unsupported by the tv (hd maybe) with a compatible receiver does the to allow it or throw a render error. Test using dlna as my app will transcode! If it does I'll add options to allow pass through

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FrostByte

From my limited understanding of the codec.  DTS-HD MA rips have a combined 2 streams (a lossless and a lossy stream) within the same track and the hardware automatically chooses which stream it can play. 

 

I'm not sure how you can tell which one is being played in the app as the log file identifies it as dca only. 

 

During the ripping process with DVDFab I can choose to strip out just the HD or lossy stream, but normally allow both streams if they exist.  I should probably strip the lossy portion of a rip leaving just the HD stream and see what it does.  Just to see if it will render error, pass thru the ARC cable, or whatever when played from the tv.  I'm guessing it will probably work played from my receiver though

Edited by FrostByte
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