DLNA video streaming to Sony TV

[melsea]

There have been a number of threads around this topic, none of which seem to have actually answered my question, which is specifically what Video specification is needed for a Sony TV (in my case KDL46NX713) to recognise (i.e. "see") and play video files on my DLNA server?

I have the server set up (Twonky) and can stream pictures and music files, but the TV does not display any of the video files.  I know the manual says "AVCHD and MPEG2" but specifically what container, video codec, audio codec, file extension is needed.  I am happy to recode my videos to pretty much any specification if I could find one that actually worked!

[sletonqu]

I repeat...but I suggest to test Serviio.org.

its a very good DLNA server (on PC or NAS) for Sony devices.

[Ianperrettive]

Hi Demolish,

Thanks for the info, can you tell me what software you are using to encode to the formats you mention?

Cheers Ian

[sletonqu]

Serviio.org DLNA server use ffmpeg program to encode to a supported MPEGTS format (*.ts, *.m2ts).

[demolish]

I used Leowo Video Converter, which allows you to choose and configure just about any output except .mts or .m2ts.

I used MediaInfo 0.7.52 to interrogate the format of video files.

[Bernie-the-Bolt]

It may be worth looking at this; https://www.sony.co.uk/discussions/thread/141156 as you may glean something out of it. Cannot beat Serviio really (in my opinion!).

[demolish]

I don't doubt that Serviio is a good product but its not a product that can easily be used on my NAS drive.

I have only 128 Meg of ram using an ARM processor.

Serviio requires a JVM and it simply wont run under the above environment.

Twonky Media Server works just fine, once you know the correct format to put your video media in.

It would be nice to have transcoding available, but its just not going to happen with such little resources available.

[Bernie-the-Bolt]

Here's a full list of all available; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_UPnP_AV_MediaServers may be there's something else to assist? Otherwise you're into convertion software.

[Ianperrettive]

Demolish,

I am also streaming from a NAS with Twonkey (QNAP TS-210)

When I have ripped my DVDs, I have found that most of the time the VOB files work fine, but the file size is pretty big, do you know a way of compressing this. Could I convert them to a H.264/AVC video codec held in a mpg file.

Sorry if i am talking complete rubbish

Cheers Ian

[demolish]

Further to my previous post I have discovered another file format accepted by the Sony DLNA client.

However I would like to clarify, if possible, some things about DLNA servers.
Not all DLNA servers are equal and it is up to the DLNA server to deliver data to the client in the format the client accepts.
It is possible for some DLNA servers to transcode (decode and recode on  the fly) video and audio data from incompatible formats into compatible  formats that the client accepts. Of course this takes up additional  resources (processing power, memory and disk space) and is why many do  not support transcoding.
When talking about file formats that a DLNA client accepts, this is  technically incorrect because the DLNA client does not read any file,  instead it reads data steamed from the DLNA server. (Streamed container  would be a better description)
Therefore when I talk about acceptable Sony DLNA client file formats, I  am talking about file formats that the DLNA server does not have to do  any transcoding to because the data found in the files can be streamed,  with minimal processing, to the DLNA client.

I am not sure how I missed the following format, but it does work with Twonky Server, and is the MPEG-TS format.

In summary the following formats can be streamed by the Twonky DLNA server with no transcoding requirements:

MPEG-PS format containing MPEG version 2 video codec and AC3 audio  codec. Video resolution cannot be greater than 720x480 for NTSC or  720x576 for PAL. I may be wrong about the resolution restrictions,  however given that the MPEG2 format is approximately 2 to 3 times the  size of AVC format I wouldn’t choose this codec unless you don’t have  any choice.

MPEG-TS format containing MPEG version 2 video codec and AC3 audio  codec. Video resolution cannot be greater than 720x480 for NTSC or  720x576 for PAL.
If you choose to use the MPEG2 codec then this file format is larger than the MPEG-PS format.

MPEG-TS format containing the H.264/AVC video codec and the AC3 audio  codec. There are different profiles for the AVC codec and depending on  the profile there are restrictions to the bits rates, which is where  things get complicated. For the main profile and SD, Bitrate must be  <= 10M,  width <= 720 and the height <= 576. For HD Bitrate  must be <= 20M,  width <= 1920 and the height <= 1152. For the  high profile and HD case Bitrate must be <= 30M,  width <= 1920  and the height <= 1152.
I haven’t tested all of these cases, however I suggest to keep things simple use 720x480 for SD and 1280x720 for HD.

BDAV format (.MTS or .M2TS) containing AVC video codec and the AC3 audio codec.
I have not experimented with this format because I don’t have any  software that could generate it. (I down-loaded samples from the web)
I would suggest only using this format if you need subtitle information  as this format does not require additional files, unlike the other  formats.

For audio I suggest using the AC3 codec format. However I did experiment  with this and found that MP2 (MPEG audio layer 2) and AAC formats  worked within the MPEG-TS file format. (AAC allows surround sound 5.1)

[demolish]

Hi Ian,

The short answer is yes.

I was in exactly the same boat which is why I have made the effort to publish my finding.

I ripped all my DVDs to MPEG2 vob files, renamed them to .mpg so that WMP would also recognise them. However it has always annoyed me that they are rather large.

I converted many directly from the MPEG-PS format to the MPEG-TS format with the H.264/AVC code. If you also choose AAC codec for sound and a bit rate of 128k the file size in my cases reduce for example from 230 Meg to 85 Meg!

The bit rates will altermately determine how big the files will be.

Its a case of file size vs quality.

For the kids movies I've left those in the original video size of 720 x 480 and used a 128k audio bit rate.

However I noted that if I re-ripped the original DVD with a screen res of 1280 x 720 (HD) the display quality displayed by the TV was much better. However the file size was approximately the same as if it was MPEG2 format.

I also noted converting the existing ripped media that was in 720 x 480 res format to the new format with a screen res of 1280 x 720 gave better display results (again at the expense of file size).

So depending on the movie, I've converted many into the HD screen res, not saving file space, but getting better quality picture.

Hope that helps.

D