Strange .avi file behaviour, doesn't work one day, works the next?

[monkeyking]

I’m having some mysterious behaviour with various .avi files ‘sourced’ from the internet.

the MBL is plugged into an Airport Extreme which is in turn plugged into a PS3. 

The .avi file dropped into the Shared Videos folder refuses to play on the PS3. However it plays happily if copied onto a USB stick which is plugged straight into the PS3, or using Playback and wirelessly streaming it to the PS3 form my Macbook. So the file is not at fault. Most .avi’s play perfectly well and this is a recent file. 

What is odd is that on some occassions the file doesn’t play one day - but plays the next day.

Any idea what could be going on? This has happened several times and for a brand new system that I hoped would

happily store ALL my video it’s pretty disappointing…

[TonyPh12345]

Maybe it’s because Twonky doesn’t like the file.

[monkeyking]

Renaming the file fixes it - I copied it over to the sever, then changed the name once there,

from file.avi to file.mpg, (and sometimes back again).

I wonder if there is a slightly less - truly ■■■■ way of doing this? Seems like a pretty silly bug.

[monkeyking]

It happens with almost every .avi file I throw at it. 

[TonyPh12345]

From a few pages i have read, it sounds like the PS3 doesn’t support AVI via DLNA very well if at all. You might try to verify that first before assigning the blame on the MBL.

[monkeyking]

Every file works perfectly well when using 3 different DLNA servers (medialink etc)  streaming from my laptop. The files also play perfectly well streaming FROM the MB via my laptop using the same DLNA servers - so I doubt it’s the PS3.

Also - these files all work well only once they have had their filenames altered after copying to the MB. 

So you know, thanks for the patronising response, most constructive.

[TonyPh12345]

 So you know, thanks for the patronising response, most constructive.

Hold on now, don’t get your shorts in a wad…

Are the three different DLNA servers you tested on your laptop TRANSCODING servers?   If so, that’s not a valid comparison, because they could be transcoding the file to a format the PS3 plays.

Streaming FROM the MB to the PS3 via a laptop running DLNA could be the same as the point above.

Do your other three DLNA servers use Mime-type translations?

If you’re changing the filename, you’re changing more than just what the MBL is doing.

If you change the filetype, then you’re also causing the DLNA server to change the MIMETYPE for the file.   

If the PS3 isn’t happy with the AVI’s mimetype as a raw AVI, it’s not going to play it.

Which means, as soon as the MBL starts streaming to the PS3, it sends a response to the PS3 saying basically this is a VIDEO of AVI format. 

The PS3 doesn’t like that, as evidenced by TONS of web pages that say the ONLY AVI format supported is “avi/divx” not “video/avi”

Google this exact phrase, quotes and all:   

ps3 avi mime “video/avi” change

 and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

[TonyPh12345]

By the way, here’s the PS3 section of the Twonky config:

NA:PS3
HH:PLAYSTATION
DB:FIX
XM:DLNA10
XM:DATETIME
XM:NOBYTES_IN_TIMESEEK_RESPONSE
DL:MP4DLNA
HP:chunked
HP:1.0PROXYRESPONSE
TR:JPEG_HD,MPEG
MT:mpeg,mpeg2,vdr,spts,tp,ts video/mpeg
MT:m4a audio/mp4
MT:avi,divx video/avi

This dang Lithium Forum is interpreting things as smileys, so I have ADDED SPACES after the COLONS to prevent that.  There should be NO SPACES in ANY of the lines below.

 So, indeed, it appears that the MyBook Live is sending the mimetype for any file with the extensions .avi or .divx as “video/avi”

Posts on other locations like this one:  http://coherence.beebits.net/ticket/150

that says "since firmware 2.40 the PS3 seems to accept only ‘video/divx’ and ‘video/x-msvideo’ for avi-containers "

it appears that Sony changed the behavior for the PS3 streaming via DLNA and expects the MIME TYPE to be 

video/divx …  even if the video is NOT divx.

You can work around this issue by editting the section above to change the line

MT:avi,divx video/avi

to read 

MT:avi,divx video/divx

and restart the Twonky Server or just reboot the MyBookLive.

Those changes probably won’t survive firmware updates on the MyBook (since the users aren’t supposed to be tweaking the internals, it’s quite possible that file will just get overwritten.)

Give it a try and let us know how you fare.

[monkeyking]

Thanks for that I’ll have a crack at it later - though this is now beyond my ken somewhat… I’ll have to figure out how to alter the twonky configs…

[TonyPh12345]

First, enable SSH on the MyBook Live:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-Live/Telnet-or-ssh-my-book-live/m-p/107018/highlight/true#M274

You’ll need an SSH client.  I recommend PuTTY.

SSH to the MyBook Live.   

execute the command:

pico /usr/local/twonkymedia-5/resources/clients.db

Hit CTRL-W  to search for the text PS3.

Do it again.

The second attempt should take you to the section described above.   

Find that one line and edit it as shown above.

Hit CTRL-X to Exit, and say YES to the save.

[monkeyking]

Thanks for this tip - though I’m trying to do this via the Terminal and OSX and I’m not clever enough to get it quite right.

[monkeyking]

So - I tried the above hack - and more recently updated Twonky to v6 but the problem persists. It’s bizarre.

I download an avi file on my laptop say it’s called film.hd264.720.avi or something. And the PS3 refuse to play it

via Twonky. To fix the problem I rename the file that has been copied over to the Twonky. I don’t change the suffix - just hte NAME. It could be dog.avi - that doesn’t work. I change it to cat.avi and it does. What gives? Maddening to have to do it with each transfer.

Any other tips? Anyone else get this problem?