Transcoding videos for Vizio TV

I'm trying to help a friend setup serviio to stream videos to his Vizio smart TV. So far the only file type that we have been successful with is .avi. Nothing else seems to be working. It is my understanding that for any file type that is not supported the video should be transcoded into a file that can be played. Right now we have the DirectTV DVR profile selected, which I believe should transcode all videos.

I enabled detailed logging and saw this when he tried to open up a movie.

  Code:

2013-11-03 22:22:45,824 DEBUG [FFMPEGWrapper] Invoking FFmpeg to transcode video file: C:\Users\Tim\Videos\Movies\Disney\Aladdin 1992.mp4
2013-11-03 22:22:45,824 DEBUG [ProcessExecutor] Starting C:\Program Files\Serviio\bin\\..\lib/ffmpeg.exe -threads auto -i C:\Users\Tim\Videos\Movies\Disney\Aladdin 1992.mp4 -y -threads auto -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 8192k -maxrate:v 8192k -bufsize:v 8192k -r 24000/1001 -g 15 -c:a mp2 -b:a 128k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f vob C:\Windows\TEMP\Serviio\transcoding-temp-1-6-ORIGINAL.stf

We did not see this stream open on the TV, instead nothing happened. I am not very familiar with transcoding videos, but is there a way that we can make the transcoder convert the videos to AVI?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[DenyAll]

You cannot transcode on-the-fly to an AVI file.
Have you tried the Visio TV profile rather than the Direct TV profile? Both transcode all videos types (the difference is that the Visio TV profile will transcode your audio to AC3).

We tried the vizio tv profile as well and that didn't work. I didn't get a log for that attempt, but I can if it would be helpful.

[DenyAll]

So far the only file type that we have been successful with is .avi. Nothing else seems to be working.

The DirectTV (and ViZio TV) profile transcodes AVI files in the same manner that it transcodes MP4's. It converts both of these types of files, and all other video files, to an mpeg2 file. What I'm getting at is, in theory, if it transcodes and works for AVI files it should work for MP4 files as well.

The only thing I can think of is its taking too long - perhaps your MP4 is a higher resolution, larger file than the AVI - it takes longer to transcode and your TV times out. What PC are you running this on?

Some things for you to test - from a command prompt run the command:

"C:\Program Files\Serviio\bin\\..\lib/ffmpeg.exe" -threads auto -i "C:\Users\Tim\Videos\Movies\Disney\Aladdin 1992.mp4" -y -threads auto -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 8192k -maxrate:v 8192k -bufsize:v 8192k -r 24000/1001 -g 15 -c:a mp2 -b:a 128k -ac 2 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -sn -f vob "C:\Users\Tim\Videos\Movies\Disney\Aladdin 1992.mpeg"

This will create a new file C:\Users\Tim\Videos\Movies\Disney\Aladdin 1992.mpeg. Note how long it takes before it starts to create the file, and how long overall. Post the MediaInfo details for that file (see here for details), as well as MediaInfo for the original MP4 file.

Next, refresh your Serviio library - you should have two Aladin's listed. See if the new one now plays (it won't be transcoded) - this test will remove transcoding and the transcoding delays from the mix.