Develop Bugs

[Q] Network Streaming to Nexus

I've tried several apps to stream from my DLNA-compliant NAS (Netgear ReadyNAS) and just via network file access (SMB) and all of them seem to have the same issue with video files, it takes forever to begin playback.
The behaviour seems like it could be buffering the entire file prior to playback. eg: a 720p mkv of around 1GB can take about 10mins to begin playback.
Locally stored files have no such issue. I'd store them locally but well, 16GB isn't going to fit many
Thoughts and suggestions?

Have you tried iMediaShare? I'm using the Premium version and don't have any problems streaming from my network hdd.

Man I had a bunch of trouble with lag as well but I've found that mk player in sw mode has no lag for me. I'm using a synology disk station and 264s with great success. Vplayer rock and mobo all let me down with lag or choppy buffering and stuttering frame rates on the nexus with ics. On my thunderbolt vplayer was the winner.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

WiredPirate said:
Have you tried iMediaShare? I'm using the Premium version and don't have any problems streaming from my network hdd.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not game to lay down $4.90 for a test over the iMediaShare Lite version. The lite version does not work any better over BubbleUPnP or UPnPlay.
propyls said:
Man I had a bunch of trouble with lag as well but I've found that mk player in sw mode has no lag for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, that seemed to at least partly fix it. MX Player forcing software decode mode works but is a little choppy. I wonder why hardware decoding is causing this issue.

You'll probably have to seek out a player that works well with mkv files on the gnex or switch to something like h.264. I've had better luck using 264s because more of my wireless devices have dlna decoder support for mp4s. That's the one draw back to dlna IMO. Not enough standardization. My direct TV dvrs stream mp2... lol who still uses mp2? Good luck I feel your pain. If you find a good player let me know.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

propyls said:
You'll probably have to seek out a player that works well with mkv files on the gnex or switch to something like h.264.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The MKV files I'm trying to play are x264. The MKV is just the container.
I've posted on the mx Player forums to see if they've got any ideas.

Yes, but its the splitters job to get it all out of the mkv and that's most likely the trouble. For kicks try a 264 mp4 and see if your lag vanishes.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[Q] Video Player for MKV (720p)

Hi everyone,
Well, i'm very happy of my surface RT, but i have one big problem : read my favourites series on my surface.
At the moment, i use "press play video" and my movies freeze all the time...
I tried to read the same movie from the sd card or from the internal storage, and the result is the same : freeze.
The result is the same with all my mkv.
does anyone have a solution?
thank's

I haven't heard of any MKV player that work with any reliability. VLC player is in the pipeline but looking like vaporware at the moment.
I would suggest conversion or streaming them via Plex or similar that can transcode.

Alias84270 said:
Hi everyone,
Well, i'm very happy of my surface RT, but i have one big problem : read my favourites series on my surface.
At the moment, i use "press play video" and my movies freeze all the time...
I tried to read the same movie from the sd card or from the internal storage, and the result is the same : freeze.
The result is the same with all my mkv.
does anyone have a solution?
thank's
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HD.Mobile Media Player

BIade said:
HD.Mobile Media Player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mobile.HD media player? Not seeing the reverse in the store.

BIade said:
HD.Mobile Media Player
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank's a lot!
I tried and it works fine, and now i buy it !!!
Now my Surface RT ROXX :good::laugh:

Is that still working for you OK? I tried the stock Xbox video app and mobile.HD media player and both have poor audio/video sync. The video trails behind the audio by a few tenths of a second, despite the same files playing back fine on Windows 7 WMP, my Nexus 7 2nd gen, and my Roku.
Videos synced and played back through Plex are fine, and Netflix is fine, too, but I can't seem to find a basic video player app that works correctly.

reggie14 said:
Is that still working for you OK? I tried the stock Xbox video app and mobile.HD media player and both have poor audio/video sync. The video trails behind the audio by a few tenths of a second, despite the same files playing back fine on Windows 7 WMP, my Nexus 7 2nd gen, and my Roku.
Videos synced and played back through Plex are fine, and Netflix is fine, too, but I can't seem to find a basic video player app that works correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
FilesFolders Pro works great for me.
gkarg

gkarg said:
Hi
FilesFolders Pro works great for me.
gkarg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, no luck for me. I get the same audio/video sync problems.
What do you use to encode your videos? I use a slightly modified version of the High Profile preset in Handbrake. All the relevant video stuff is unchanged from the preset, which the exception being that I limit the resolution width to 1280. I'm going to try encoding something using the baseline profile just to see what happens.

Since there is still no VLC, i'm using power media player (power dvd).
Streaming 1080p from My NAS Works fine, besides some stuttering at the first few seconds .
Sent from my Surface with Windows RT using Tapatalk

Jorgkuiper said:
Since there is still no VLC, i'm using power media player (power dvd).
Streaming 1080p from My NAS Works fine, besides some stuttering at the first few seconds .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!
The key seems to be the encoding settings. I tried re-encoding one movie using the H.264 baseline profile. The resulting file was about 50% bigger, but plays without any issue. I'd hate to have to use such non-optimized settings, though.
Are you playing back full blu-ray rips (e.g., rips using MakeMKV)? Or, if they're re-encoded, do you know what the encoding settings were? Otherwise I guess I'll just have to play around with some different encoding schemes, adding more H.264 high-profile features until the A/V sync breaks.
Update: Anything about baseline profile gives me audio/video sync problems. That's really disappointing, given that the Tegra3 should have no problem with high-profile content.

Network Media Player

Does anyone know of an app that will play media from a network share? Ive tried Diceplayer and it doesnt seem to support mkvs... If I can find an app that will stream media off my local shares, this will finally be my "one box to rule them all" as it supports all the services Im interested in, I just want to be able to stream my local media. I DONT want to use Plex or XBMC.. I have a Plex server running and it runs great however I have a catch all folder where downloaded stuff goes before I move it into whatever directory its going to live in and thats the content I want to be able to play.
Anyone got any suggestions?

MadFlava said:
Does anyone know of an app that will play media from a network share? Ive tried Diceplayer and it doesnt seem to support mkvs... If I can find an app that will stream media off my local shares, this will finally be my "one box to rule them all" as it supports all the services Im interested in, I just want to be able to stream my local media. I DONT want to use Plex or XBMC.. I have a Plex server running and it runs great however I have a catch all folder where downloaded stuff goes before I move it into whatever directory its going to live in and thats the content I want to be able to play.
Anyone got any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try archos media player. I haven't tried it yet but it supports SMB. If you come across anything better, let me know

Well, its not an all in one solution, but...
Install VLC for Android and ES file explorer.
In ES file explorer when you try and open an MKV it will ask what app you want to use. tell it VLC and you are in.
The bad news is that the beta of VLC does not appear to support any controls on the Fire remote. It will take
"mouse" command from the cheap MCE remote that people are using as an InfraRed receiver.
Is there a reason XBMC is out? It can be setup to just show your movies and shows without doing any scraping or anything other then just letting you get to your network shares and play it.

I haven't had the greatest luck with XBMC. Ive set it up on numerous devices and its probably that I just end up getting frustrated with it. I ran it naively back in my original Xbox but now I just cant seem to get a handle on seeing it up to my liking. Plex has been great but I don't think my server has enough Wheaties to handle maybe more than 2 streams which is why I've been looking for something to just stream content across the network.
Sent from my SM-N900V using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

You should try Vimu Player. You won't even have to sideload it is in the fire tv store.
I haven't tried it on the fire tv but I used to use it a lot on my Logitech Revue Google Tv. It doesn't have all the features of xbmc or plex but it did a great job streaming video from my NAS.

skinnydev said:
You should try Vimu Player. You won't even have to sideload it is in the fire tv store.
I haven't tried it on the fire tv but I used to use it a lot on my Logitech Revue Google Tv. It doesn't have all the features of xbmc or plex but it did a great job streaming video from my NAS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ill give it a shot. I have Plex set up and it works great for me. But I have kids and they want to stream stuff too and Im concerned that my media server isnt going to have the Wheaties to stream that much stuff so the option of being able to play directly from the share is what Im after. My Plex server is an Athlon Phenom II X3 with 16GB of RAM.. really doesnt do anything but run Plex, SabNZB and PlayOn..
Thanks for the heads up!

I use MX Player and Skifta on my android devices to access my DLNA server. So you can give MX Player a try it handles mkvs perfectly fine.

Vimu looks like it has a lot of potential but sadly most of my MKV files dont have sound and I cant really find any settings to change for that. Im going to give MX Player a shot now.. I dont know if thats DLNA only but if it is, thats not what Im looking for. I just want to be able to stream without transcoding on the server side.

MX Player isn't DLNA only it can handle other network streams just fine as long as you know what they are.
DLNA is just happens to be how I push my media files around the house to my devices.

Yea.. I looked at it and couldnt find a way to browse to shares... Im using a Mede8r for playing from network shares right now.. Im so close to being able to ditch everything except the FireTV.. if I could find a good network player that just plays, I could get rid of all my other boxes. I really want the "one box to rule them all" thing......

Try using es file explorer to browse to the share and ND for playback?

Montisaquadeis said:
Try using es file explorer to browse to the share and ND for playback?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had issues with ES working with the Amazon remote. Are you using an external keyboard/mouse to control it?

Personally I do not have a Fire TV. Just trying to help out is all.
A keyboard and mouse should work fine. Even an air mouse should be ok as well if you want to go that route.

I'm really surprised that Qloud Media doesn't get more attention. You install it as a server on either Windows or Mac, point it at your media and that's it.
Run the client on Android, iOS or Windows devices, plug in the server PIN and you're off. Done and done.
The video is transcoded on the fly, so streaming over the internet results in a lower-quality image at times, but it's certainly watchable.
The GUI isn't fancy, but quite functional. The server end has almost no bells and whistles. You could think of it as Plex-ultra-lite, so there's no overhead processing going on. The server exists only to serve media and that's all. No indexing of your collection, no downloading cover images, etc. It just streams media from whatever source you choose and I haven't had any problems streaming anything in my collection, even .mkv files encoded with AC3 audio that the Chromecast won't touch.
I just loaded the client up to my new FTV last night and again, it works perfectly.
The only minor drawback is that the aspect ratio is a bit weird when viewed on the FTV. It's not perfectly 16:9 but more like 15:9, so the image is a bit squished in from the sides. You don't really notice it after a few minutes though.

Im surprised it's 6 months later and there is still no easy way of playin network shared files, say from a NAS device with a media server, on a Fire TV without having to sideload an app. If I'm wrong please correct me. I did try ViMu but it couldn't play any of my files (mostly MP4s) - everyone said it was unable to play. Currently I use an XBox 360 to browse/watch videos, which I have fairly organized into folders. Why is this so difficult? My Sony TV has a player but it doesn't support folders so its hundreds of videos just in alphabetical order by filename which isn't ideal- plus you can only read the first few characters of the file name without looking at a detailed view so no way to tell what specific file you're looking at if they all start with the same word.
Yes I tried XMBC but it's way overkill, I don't need or want custom artwork per file, it crashes, and it's also not something I can put in the regular fite tv menu. Also XMBC doesn't play 720p content full screen for some reason.
Has anyone had better luck?
Edit ---------------------------
Well after some more trial and error I ended up using Llama to auto start XBMC in place of some other random app so I basically have XMBC on my main Fire TV screen. I also deleted all XBMC data and didn't run any file scrapers this time, and only access files via the Windows Network Share, so it is a much cleaner looking interface like I wanted. Finally the screen size issue was actually the entire Fire TV screen size which I had to enlarge in the Fire TV Display settings. Even maxed out it doesn't 100% fill the screen but it's much closer, I can live with it. Although I didn't bring it up I was also having an issue with the time display I was blaming on XMBC but was again the Fire TV itself was set to Pacific time- you'd think Amazon would have set the timezone right.
Anyway I feel it's much than it was earlier- still occasional crashes on XBMC but not too bad. Just wish I didn't was a few dollars downloading paid apps that didn't work as I thought they were supposed to.

If XBMC is crashing, consider trying SPMC (fork of XBMC). Its available in the Amazon app store (but for the Stick it must be side loaded).
I'm using it on my FTV Stick, and its been solid. No crashes or hangs.

Does anyone know why my MX Player stop playing on my one box it's saying cannot play link it's on my firestick on TV

Streaming MKV files from PC to Tablet

Hi all,
I have been trying to stream videos from my laptop to my Note, and I haven't been able to get it running smoothly. I have tried a number of different players, but the issue is that it will either stutter like crazy or play audio without video. I can be more specific about the types of files (mkv, h264, 720p, etc.) and players (VLC for Android beta, Archos Video, MX Player, etc.).
Has ANYONE managed to stream and watch videos from their PC/laptop to this tablet successfully or is this tablet just not capable?
Many thanks!

I am running a plex server on my desktop and stream to several devices, including my note.

Another vote for plex it's pretty amazing. You can get it for free after you get some free coins from the amazon app store.

Of course the tablet is capable of streaming video smoothly. I use MX Player to stream videos from a samba server (traditional Windows share, no special software required). The MX Player is configured to use the 'HW+' decoder. It plays Full HD mkvs no problem.

no.0ne said:
Of course the tablet is capable of streaming video smoothly. I use MX Player to stream videos from a samba server (traditional Windows share, no special software required). The MX Player is configured to use the 'HW+' decoder. It plays Full HD mkvs no problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1

Junetastic said:
Hi all,
I have been trying to stream videos from my laptop to my Note, and I haven't been able to get it running smoothly. I have tried a number of different players, but the issue is that it will either stutter like crazy or play audio without video. I can be more specific about the types of files (mkv, h264, 720p, etc.) and players (VLC for Android beta, Archos Video, MX Player, etc.).
Has ANYONE managed to stream and watch videos from their PC/laptop to this tablet successfully or is this tablet just not capable?
Many thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.

gilani7 said:
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! This resolved my issues!

gilani7 said:
With MX player change it to all software decoders(audi n video). Its what I have to do with MKV Files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)

no.0ne said:
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually just have to use the software decoder for the Audio. Didn't really know it would take a hit on the battery. How much more will it really take? I have gone through many media players and found this to be the easiest solution.

gilani7 said:
I usually just have to use the software decoder for the Audio. Didn't really know it would take a hit on the battery. How much more will it really take? I have gone through many media players and found this to be the easiest solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I don't think you have to worry about battery life if you software decode just the audio. It's the video that takes a lot of work to decode. From what I seem to remember, software decoding of HD video can drain the battery up to several times faster (depending on brightness and other settings, which can change the relative energy consuption of the decoding process).

no.0ne said:
That's not a good idea as a software decoder will burn through your battery, especially with HD content.
@Junetastic Can you try playing the sample videos from this site http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/ ? I have downloaded them to my computer and then tried streaming them to my tablet using the HW+ decoder and it worked without any problems (except the 'Birds' video, which is 40mbps and is too much for my wifi network to handle reliably. Once copied to the tablet, it of course played without problems.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just downloaded one file (Suzumiya) and it didn't work with H/W+ Decoder; however, I was successful in streaming some episodes of Silicon Valley from my PC with it (and using S/W decoder for audio).

Junetastic said:
I just downloaded one file (Suzumiya) and it didn't work with H/W+ Decoder; however, I was successful in streaming some episodes of Silicon Valley from my PC with it (and using S/W decoder for audio).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, I think I know where the problem comes from - I bet you have P600, the Exynos version right?

no.0ne said:
Ok, I think I know where the problem comes from - I bet you have P600, the Exynos version right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Am I out of luck?

Junetastic said:
Yeah. Am I out of luck?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the P600. I downloaded all of the video clips to my desktop. When I stream them directly using MX player, I do get some lag and stutter. However, when I add them to my Plex library I can play all of them just fine. The Plex server handles all the transcode that is needed and I just have to click play. I don't need to worry about formats or bitrates (unless I want to). It is so simple my 5yo can use it to watch videos on her tablet. She can even sync videos for offline viewing on car trips.

Junetastic said:
Yeah. Am I out of luck?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it seems that the hardware decoders are quite different on the Snapdragon vs. Exynos and since Samsung is very sparse with documentation, the MX Player developers didn't manage to optimize their software for the Exynos (this is just my guess). So you might try a different player, perhaps some will work fine. But then again, it might not. In which case you might have to abandon universal streaming and either transcode your videos or use an application that will do it for you on the fly (e.g. Plex as WJThomas proposed). The downside is you have to use a computer (and often a paid app as is the case with Plex) and can't stream your content from a NAS.

no.0ne said:
In which case you might have to abandon universal streaming and either transcode your videos or use an application that will do it for you on the fly (e.g. Plex as WJThomas proposed). The downside is you have to use a computer (and often a paid app as is the case with Plex) and can't stream your content from a NAS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The upside is that you don't have to worry about which device supports which formats, and that you can stream content from some NAS's without a computer. If you subscribe to PlexPass the app is free, and you can use the app to sync media to your device (and then you can even stream from device to device)

Can someone please explain how they're playing .mkv files without playback stopping after a few seconds?
What I'm trying to do is play full bit-rate Blu-ray .mkv rips. I am using ES File Explorer to navigate to shared folders on my Windows PC, and what happens is that the video will eventually start playing but then stop after 5 or so seconds of playback and never continue again. I've tried accessing the files via DNLA software like Servio, but I get the exact same result each time.
And bandwidth is not the problem, as I was able to stream uncompressed content just fine when I had my Surface Pro 2.

Megalith said:
Can someone please explain how they're playing .mkv files without playback stopping after a few seconds?
What I'm trying to do is play full bit-rate Blu-ray .mkv rips. I am using ES File Explorer to navigate to shared folders on my Windows PC, and what happens is that the video will eventually start playing but then stop after 5 or so seconds of playback and never continue again. I've tried accessing the files via DNLA software like Servio, but I get the exact same result each time.
And bandwidth is not the problem, as I was able to stream uncompressed content just fine when I had my Surface Pro 2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use ES File Explorer to browse a 3TB networked hard drive and stream Blu-Ray .mkv files to my tablet with no problem. I use MX Player Pro (H/W decoder, H/W+ causes MX Player to force close on KitKat). No issues with playback.

stuttering mkv files on firetv

Hello,
Can anyone help me. I bought a new amazon fire tv and intalled kodi and use it on my Panasonic plasma 55vt50. All online streaming movies look great, but my own mkv files 1080p 24h movies and series not. When camera movement the screen stutters. I bought a little black box before and had the same issues. Below my problem ( my old boxee box plays everything fine)
This is the tllb which gives the same result as the fire tv
http:://youtu.be/AGy0F5xi0iM[/url]
This is the boxee
http:://youtu.be/y_rv55IEO1I[/url]
Look at the irritating shocking screen from the lamps at the little black box.
Anyone got an idea what to do?
Thank you kind regard Robin

Android is "stuck" at 60fps, so you're probably noticing that... No solution that I know of...

Possibly try SPMC 13.4.0. It's based on Gotham but I found it to the smoothest playback. I had all sorts of stuttering issues with Kodi Helix 14.
It won't fully solve it, but it's far less noticeable imo and you get used to it.

Turn off all smooth motion settings on the t.v. That helped mine tremendously

do a search
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2796356

I made some observations in this post. See if some suggestions help you there.

@robinthart
While playing 1080 MKV files I made from my Blurays using BD-Rebuilder, I had an issue where it wasn't buffering, but after a while the video/movie became choppy... Worse than your video.
I read somewhere to go Settings -> Video -> Playback -> select Sync Playback to Display, then set A/V Sync Method... to Video Clock (resample audio). After doing that, I haven't had an issue.
And I needed to do it for SPMC 13.3.3, 13.4.0 and Kodi 14.0