I recently purchased a WD TV Live Hub and have a video question. I will apologize in advance since I am a novice to all this video stuff. One of the reasons I bought the hub was to store my families workout DVDs (P90X) and play them to any DLNA or UPnP device in the house. We’ve been through two sets of these DVDs already because of heavy use. Anyway, I have been using DVDfab to copy these dvds. I have been saving them as a single large VOB files on the hub. Some of these files will stream just fine to the remote DLNA or UPNP devices while others won’t even show up. I would think that since these workout DVDs are all part of a set that they would be encoded the same. Is there a program that will let me look at a VOB files contents so that I can compare the files that work fine to those that don’t. Or, if anyone has any ideas as to why I’m experiencing this problem any tips would be great. Thanks.
I believe MediaInfo is the most popular free utility for determining codecs used within a wide range of containers.
I will give that a shot. Hopefully some difference between the files will be revealed. Thanks much!
No problem.
If you can’t see any difference yourself, post back with the complete outputs for a working file and a non-working file. Maybe someone here will spot something. ;)
Excellent idea. I appreciate all the help!!!
Okay, I used Mediainfo to compare working and non-working files and I can see no reason why one would work while another doesn’t. Following is the Mediainfo data for a file that streams just fine to other DLNA devices and one that does not. They were both ripped using DVDfab with identical settings, double and triple checked. I have absolutely no clue. Could there be a problem with Twonky? Anyway, If someone could look at the data and let me know if they see something that might explain the issue, that would be great! Thanks.
WORKING:
Complete name : \WDTVLIVEHUB\WDTVLiveHub\Movies\P90X - Yoga X\P90X - Yoga X.vob
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 3.62 GiB
Duration : 1h 35mn
Overall bit rate : 5 448 Kbps
Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 1h 35mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 148 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 8 840 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.497
Stream size : 3.42 GiB (94%)
Audio
ID : 128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Duration : 1h 35mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 131 MiB (4%)
Text
ID : 224 (0xE0)-DVD-2
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)
NON-WORKING
CompleteName : \WDTVLIVEHUB\WDTVLiveHub\Movies\P90X - X Stretch\P90X - X Stretch.vob
Format : MPEG-PS
FileSize/String : 3.37 GiB
Duration/String : 1h 0mn
OverallBitRate/String : 7 945 Kbps
Video
ID/String : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format_Version : Version 2
Format_Profile : Main@Main
Format_Settings_BVOP/String : Yes
Format_Settings_Matrix/String : Default
Duration/String : 1h 0mn
BitRate_Mode/String : Variable
BitRate/String : 7 595 Kbps
BitRate_Nominal/String : 8 840 Kbps
Width/String : 720 pixels
Height/String : 480 pixels
DisplayAspectRatio/String : 4:3
FrameRate/String : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
ColorSpace : YUV
ChromaSubsampling : 4:2:0
BitDepth/String : 8 bits
ScanType/String : Interlaced
ScanOrder/String : Top Field First
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
Bits-(Pixel*Frame) : 0.733
StreamSize/String : 3.22 GiB (96%)
Audio
ID/String : 128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format_Settings_ModeExtension : CM (complete main)
Duration/String : 1h 0mn
BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
BitRate/String : 192 Kbps
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
ChannelPositions : Front: L R
SamplingRate/String : 48.0 KHz
BitDepth/String : 16 bits
Compression_Mode/String : Lossy
StreamSize/String : 83.4 MiB (2%)
Text
ID/String : 224 (0xE0)-DVD-2
Format : EIA-608
MuxingMode : DVD-Video
MuxingMode_MoreInfo : Muxed in Video #1
StreamSize/String : 0.00 Byte (0%)
Hmm. Comparing them side by side, there are no differences other than in bitrate, which isn’t different enough to be an issue.
Have you tried playing them via network share instead of via media server, or do your remote DLNA devices not support this?
Also, do the non-working VOBs play from the internal HDD directly on the Hub? As in, are they in the Hub’s Media Library and playable?
It probably is a Twonky issue, since that’s the DLNA server and the connected DLNA devices can’t see the files. Not sure how you go about rebuilding the Twonky filelist… on my MyBookLive NAS it’s possible via the web interface but those options are missing on the Hub’s web interface… I guess you could try disabling / re-enabling Twonky on the Hub, see if it makes a difference to which files are listed?
Yeah, they looked pretty much identical to me as well.
My remote DLNA devices don’t all see the shares unfortunately. Otherwise, that would be a resolution.
Yes, the non-working VOBs appear and play just fine directly from the hub.
I figured it’s a Twonky issue. Twonky does allow you to rebuild the database and re-compose filelist but both seem to have no effect. Neither does turning Twonky on/off. It is possible that the fault could lie with the remote devices as well. It’s probably just operator error somewhere. I’ll keep trying. Thanks for your time, I do appreciate it.
