Noob Experiences (Serviio 1.2)

[DenyAll]

Firstly let me add my congratulations and thanks for an excellent product. Like many others I have tried numerous other products: PS3MS, UMS, Twonky, Plex, TVersity, WMP and others over the years - and Serviio beats them hands down... and keeps getting better each release!

I have successfully installed Serviio on a Win 7 32bit PC (Core2 Quad) and used with the following renderers: PS3, Panasonic V20A TV, and an iPad and iPhone (running the 8player app - haven't fully tested these yet but seems to work OK on my LAN). I changed the profiles for both the PS3 and the Panasonic slightly, and created a new one for the iPad, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy that all was (a few hiccups with syntax, see below). Had a few issues with getting a couple of online resources going, and with file names and getting metadata, but it's a case of reading the FAQ's, wiki and forum.

In the interest in making the product even better, the following is my wish list (in order of importance). Most of these have been listed in the forum, so I am adding my +1 as a new user:

(1) The biggest issue I have at the mo is when my server goes to sleep. On restart, Serviio fails to re-advertise itself to any of the devices. Problem described here. As I have to get up to restart the server, this is inhibiting my ambition of becoming a couch potato . @ zip - if this helps, my log file shows:


2013-03-02 17:14:46,757 WARN [DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier] Cannot find a network interface for bound IP /192.168.0.2
2013-03-02 17:14:46,757 ERROR [DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier] Fatal error during DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier, thread will exit
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.serviio.util.MultiCastUtils.findIPAddress(MultiCastUtils.java:136)
at org.serviio.upnp.discovery.DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.sendAliveToSingleInterface(DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.java:164)
at org.serviio.upnp.discovery.DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.sendAlive(DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.java:133)
at org.serviio.upnp.discovery.DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.run(DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier.java:94)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
2013-03-02 17:14:46,757 INFO [DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier] Leaving DiscoveryAdvertisementNotifier

which may be related?? ps. I have bound this interface in the console. Also, I have simultaneously run WMP as a server for testing - this does advertise itself after waking from sleep, so it doesn't seem to be a receiver/renderer issue.

(2) Serviio should prohibit the server from sleeping when streaming, as outlined here. The coffee.exe workaround from Tigerix works well... until you pause your movie for any length of time. This causes the traffic to fall below the threshold and the server to go to sleep. imho, this feature should be built in Serviio rather than use an external program.

(3) Sometimes, when video is remuxed or transcoded, the video ends prematurely. This seems to happen with the Panasonic mainly so I suspect it is a receiver issue - I have read the posts regarding lack of support for time based seek, and suspect that may be the case here. This is painful but there's probably nix to be done about it. I doesn't seem to happen with avi files - if we were able to remux to AVI container would this help? Is remuxing to AVI on the agenda (seem to recall reading it somewhere).

(4) IMO it would be better if we could bind a renderer profile (in console) to a MAC address rather than an IP address. The IP address would still need to be displayed (to help the user with device identification) but if binding was to an MAC address then this would overcome issues with DHCP dynamic address allocation (which most home networks use) - for those devices whose device name is not auto-detected and their IP address changes.

(5) Minor issue: It would be nice to have the ability to reload profiles.xml by pressing a button in the console, rather than having to stop/restart the services (or alternatively, a button that restarts the services). Would make it easier to make profile changes and troubleshoot. Re: troubleshooting, it would be nice if the log file recorded the line number the profile.xml fails at.

(6) Minor issue: Profile syntax is case sensitive (eg. aCodec is not the same as ACodec). This wasn't apparent to me - yes, I'm not that clever - and made it hard to troubleshoot the issue. Perhaps add to documentation? (or make syntax non case-sensitive )

(7) I store all my media on a removable USB drive. One day that was unplugged, so Serviio deleted all media from the library. Not a big deal as it re-loaded all once the drive was restarted, but maybe an enhancement would be for Serviio to detect if the whole drive was not available and if that was the case, not delete the library entries? Don't know what this would mean though if someone tried to watch that video while the drive was disconnected...

(8) It would also be nice if there was a way to get a list of video files that were unmatched (ie. no meta data found). This would help when trouble shooting file name issues.

Lastly, a question: is there anyway the library/metadata can handle double episodes ie. is there a standard for naming a file which is two episodes (eg. S01E01_02 or something like that). I cant find anything here or at TVDB.

Sorry about the long first post, but I do love this product and do want to help get better. Well done zip and all the contributors.

[atc98092]

Hello and welcome!

I would suggest going into the Windows power settings and disabling the sleep function. I know it saves power, but a computer functioning as a server should never go to sleep.

I believe the first issue is because Windows is allowing your network interface to also go into sleep mode. This can also be disabled, but it is done from the properties page in the Device Manager, not the power settings. Disabling this may reduce or eliminate some the other issues. If you only have one network interface in the computer, to my knowledge there's no reason to bind the IP address in the console. I never have, but again my computer has all the sleep settings disabled.

[DenyAll]

Thanks atc98092 for the welcome and suggestions. I do disable sleep when we are having a movie night as a workaround for now, just don't believe it is the way to go as a mainstream solution.

....but a computer functioning as a server should never go to sleep

In a business environment yes, but in a home environment??? I'd suggest it depends on the user, but the majority of people don't set up a dedicated home server (or even understand the concept), its just a general PC doing general work, of which one function happens to be a media server. They want it to go to sleep when they sleep, or when they are at work, or simply when they forget to turn it off. Power usage is becoming a bigger issue for many. I think Serviio is fantastic as a DLNA server, adding some of these "non-DLNA usbility" features will enable it to become even more mainstream and acceptable to mum and dad users. Plus, the competition (PS3MS, WMP etc) has this capability....

network interface to also go into sleep mode. This can also be disabled...

FYI, my NIC never goes to sleep with the PC, but rather negotiates a lower speed (presumably to save power). One problem however is that the NIC is reset when the PC resumes from sleep - you can only see it in the event log its that fast. I haven't worked out how to stop this (or if it can be), but haven't yet put the effort into it either as (like above) I think that in order to make the software more mainstream Serviio should handle this (and will in future releases I believe).

ps. I only bound my address as a test to see if it improved, and never bothered changing back. It doesn't seem to make any difference (I do have two interfaces, one real and one virtual Hamachi VPN interface), but it doesn't hurt.

[atc98092]

I agree that most home users wouldn't understand or have the desire to run a full blown home network with server. I'm crazy that way My server is buried in the garage, so it would be a pain to wake it up when needed. Of course, I'm running Windows Server 2003, so it's designed to be running 24/7 anyway.

You might check your properties for the NIC in Device Manager. I believe there should be settings to disable any power saving settings. I just checked the NIC on the computer I'm using (laptop) and both the wired and wireless offer power control. The wired NIC has a variety of settings under the advanced tab that refer to power or "green" control. Might be worth looking them over.

Other than that, I believe disabling sleep mode is the most effective way to ensure Serviio is always ready to go. Good luck with your experimenting!