WD TV Live (SMP) + Eyetv .mpg files = issues (edited topic)

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Hi there,

Hardware background:
Two iMac computers (2008+EyeTV HD, 2009+EyeTV 250Plus), 2x Turbo H.264 USB dongles (one for each iMac), Gigabit LAN switch, newly purchased WD TV Live (WDBHG70000NBK)

Software background:
OSX 10.7.5 running on the two iMac’s, latest EyeTV software, latest Yazsoft Playback (1.8.12) and firmware version 1.13.18 (latest) on the WD TV Live.

Here are the issues:

  1. Cannot seem to get “media library” working on the WD TV Live with Playback.  Elsewhere on these forums they say in order for network locations to allow for “media library” the WD TV needs to be allowed “read/write” permissions to the share. I guess Playback isn’t allowing that?

  2. I purchased the WD TV Live to replace my Apple TV and purchased Yazsoft Playback software to access my eyetv files.  I am having some issues playing eyetv files. Some eyetv recordings play back normally while others play back in WARP SPEED. I have found that if you pause the “warp speed” playback and hit play it is still in warp speed,

**EDIT** but if you FF for just a second or two and then hit PLAY it will play in normal speed. You however now cannot FF or REW in that recording at all or it will loop back to the beginning and start all over in WARP speed.  ( this doesn’t seem to work consistently either ).

I have found that if I have the listing in the WD TV turned to preview pane I can tell which recordings will play fine and which will play in warp speed, since the preview ALSO plays in warp speed for the recordings that aren’t working properly.

EDIT:  ALL of the eyetv recordings play back absolutely FINE on the actual iMac computers on which they are located.

***I have posted the above to the Yazsoft forums as well as I’m hoping they may shed some light specifically on issue #2, but I’m hoping someone in this community can shed some light on issue #1 and how one might allow for the folders being “served up” by Yazsoft Playback to be part of the “media library”?

I do know that Apple broke SMB support in OSX Lion (thanks apple) so maybe that’s partly responsible for issue #1?

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

* EDITED TOPIC *

 

Ok so I just copied both of the .mpg files to a USB stick and plugged it directly into the WD TV Live box.

 

Same thing happened.

 

I did notice one thing though.  Under the preview pane the bitrate for the working file was being shown as 3.3, where as the bitrate for the speed-playing file was being shown as 7.1.

 

Any additional ideas?

 

Seems to me like the issue is with the WD TV Live box and not properly recognising some .mpg files?

 

 

EDIT:

 

Again.  Both files play back fine within EyeTV or even in VLC.

2

Ok so I received a reply on the Yazsoft forums regarding issue #1:

[quote]
WD’s “Media Library” feature only works over Windows File Sharing. It doesn’t work over UPnP/DLNA. [/quote]

Issue # 2 is still a huge problem for me and will result in my returning the WD Live box to the retailer if I cannot resolve.  Any suggestions from this community at all?  As stated above I am in contact with the support over at yazsoft but any suggestions would be helpful at this point.

This only happens with .eyetv recordings, and only on some of them.  These recordings all play back normally when viewed on the originating iMac.  The ‘warpspeed playback’ issue can happen to the first or second recording done even on the same channel.  One will play back fine (allowing FF, REW, PAUSE, PLAY etc.), the next will only play at warp speed (ie. FF through the entire show) with no sound and the FF, REW, PAUSE, PLAY buttons on the remote do nothing.  You can only BACK or hit the HOME key.

3

…bump…nothing?

4

well to start

how about you run media info on the eyetv file

and post so that we actually know what type of container and codecs are used

as for some of the other problems your seeing, I suspect the “Yazsoft Playback software”

WD is just the UPNP renderer it’s this playback software that is actually controlling it

5

Thank you very much for your response!

I will run “MediaInfo” on both (a warp-speed streaming and normal streaming) .mpg files from their respective .eyetv packages.

In the meantime…I had purchased a second WD TV Live unit and tested it before updating to the newer firmware (I believe it was running 1.11.14).  Same result.  The files that warp-stream still do it.

I will post the MediaInfo data as soon as I can get that done.

Thanks again for the suggestion/help.

6

The MediInfo for both files appears to be exactly the same, but here is the data anyway:

This (top) file is the one that streams normally:

General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : F:\\00000000150f1a1c.mpg
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 1.50 GiB
Duration : 1h 2mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 400 Kbps
Video
ID : 300 (0x12C)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Codec ID : 2
Duration : 1h 2mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 038 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 500 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) : 0.293
Stream size : 1.34 GiB (89%)
Audio
ID : 301 (0x12D)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Codec ID : 3
Duration : 1h 2mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 72ms
Stream size : 86.5 MiB (6%)
Language : English

The following (bottom) File is one that streams at warp-speed:

General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : F:\\0000000016cf5768.mpg
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 1.52 GiB
Duration : 1h 3mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 401 Kbps
Video
ID : 300 (0x12C)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Codec ID : 2
Duration : 1h 3mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 3 039 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 500 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) : 0.293
Stream size : 1.36 GiB (89%)
Audio
ID : 301 (0x12D)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Codec ID : 3
Duration : 1h 3mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 51ms
Stream size : 87.8 MiB (6%)
Language : English

Thanks again for any help/suggestions, this is an extremely perplexing issue and I would be grateful for any help in solving it.

7

Ok so I just copied both of the .mpg files to a USB stick and plugged it directly into the WD TV Live box.

Same thing happened.

I did notice one thing though.  Under the preview pane the bitrate for the working file was being shown as 3.3, where as the bitrate for the speed-playing file was being shown as 7.1.

Any additional ideas?

Seems to me like the issue is with the WD TV Live box and not properly recognising some .mpg files?

EDIT:

Again.  Both files play back fine within EyeTV or even in VLC.

8

well, initally, I would have said GOP was the issue

and I’m surprised that the WD plays anyting with GOP

but since it plays one and not the other, no idea

I would try to convert to .avi or .mkv

if that’s not an option, I would try a well known media server that can convert on the fly

I use serviio, but there’s other than can do on the fly conversion as well

9

I have tested ‘exporting’ of the warp-playing file in EyeTV as either native H.264 or native MPEG Program Stream and when I do that, the warp-playing recording plays back normally when streamed.  The irritating thing though is that EyeTV doesn’t allow auto-exporting of all new recordings in those ‘native’ formats…sigh   So it appears I will need to manually export each recording I notice isn’t streaming properly.  Of course this ‘export’ doesn’t encode anything so it is generally speaking fairly fast.

I am interested in that software you mentioned (Serviio).  Would I be replacing the existing Playback software (Yazsoft) with it?  Also, does it support the WD TV Live’s ‘media library’ function or is the answer the same as for the Playback software?

Thanks again for your continued help.  It is appreciated.

10

yes, this would replace the yazsoft

http://www.serviio.org/

there’s a free and a paid for version

free version does everything I need

paid version just adds an API for access from outside your network

it can stream any media stored locally

and there’s also plugins

where it can pull the content from online

it allows on the fly transcoding as well