Bravia KDL-32EX403 mpeg2 format

[cwrdy12]

Hi,

I'm attempting to stream video from a QNAP NAS drive, with Twonky server 5, to my Bravia KDL-32EX403. I'm aware that it only supports MPEG2 and AVCHD via DLNA and I've got it to work with some MPEG2 home movies and a sample AVCHD file.

My problem comes when I want to convert AVI movies to MPEG2. I've tried various conversion programs and various MPEG2 flavours with no success. After reading other posts in this forum I tried MPEG2-PS with no success.

Does anyone have any idea of the MPEG2 format required?

Thanks.

[Catmambo]

I think its MPEG2-TS ( Transport stream)

Thanks

[cwrdy12]

The mpeg2 flavour required by my TV, the Bravia KDL-32EX403, is MPEG2-TS i.e. MPEG2 Transport Stream. I served this via Twonky Server 5 on my QNAP NAS and via Twonky 6 on a PC.

I used Oxelon Media Converter 1.1 to convert an AVI (mpeg4, divx etc) to MPEG2-TS. This gives a file with a .ts extension which is then visible and playable on the TV. In fact, if you put a .ts extension any file it will be visible to the TV - but it won't play.

Xilisoft Video Converter will also convert but only in HD, giving a rather large file.

[mattster]

have you considered streaming with tversity? you can convert to the correct format on the fly.

[Catmambo]

I think the issue is he's streaming from a server and they simply don't have the grunt power (like a PC does) to convert on the fly, nor the ability to install 3rd party software. So files really need to be in a natively supported format....

[Mr-Microlog]

Hi,

There are lots of posts on this subject on the QNAP forum as a great many people have the same issue.

Twonky media is used on the QNAP boxes for media streaming. There is an option to transcode the video files but this is greyed out and not available on some of their NAS devices. No one at QNAP (tech support) can give me an answer as to why this is not possible but I strongly suspect it is lack of grunt as Catmambo suggests.

I have used All video converter a freeware program to convert the AVI files to the correct format. Took a couple of tries though as there is more than one MPEG2 format supported. I found the DVD video PAL Movie (*.mpg) option works but it takes a while to convert and typically increases the file size five fold.

I would be interested to know which QNAP NAS you have and whether transcoding is available as QNAP are also not able to tell me this!

cheers

[mattster]

sorry my answer was a little vague. what i meant was to set up tversity or something elso able to transcode on the fly on a pc and just map to your nas drive from the pc. you wouldnt be using the nas drive as a server but it will save having to re-encode all the video? you dont need much grunt from a pc to do this and i have a simular setup using an eeebox with a 1.6 atom cpu inside.

[Catmambo]

You'd probably be ok with a 1.6 atom. My Synology has some non Intel 800mhtz CPU, which is fine for streaming MPEG2 or h.264 HD. If you try and fast forward, it has a bit of a stutter and so on the fly transcoding would be out I think. Even this years Synology 411j only bumps it to 1.2.

I run my NAS into my router and use a PS3 for pretty much all media playback as codec support is a bit better. MKV files I simply convert with MKV2VOB which only takes a few minutes per file.

Thanks

[demolish]

In summary the following formats can be streamed by the Twonky DLNA server with no transcoding requirements:

MPEG-PS format containing MPEG version 2 video codec and AC3 audio  codec. Video resolution cannot be greater than 720x480 for NTSC or  720x576 for PAL. I may be wrong about the resolution restrictions,  however given that the MPEG2 format is approximately 2 to 3 times the  size of AVC format I wouldn’t choose this codec unless you don’t have  any choice.

MPEG-TS format containing MPEG version 2 video codec and AC3 audio  codec. Video resolution cannot be greater than 720x480 for NTSC or  720x576 for PAL.
If you choose to use the MPEG2 codec then this file format is larger than the MPEG-PS format.

MPEG-TS format containing the H.264/AVC video codec and the AC3 audio  codec. There are different profiles for the AVC codec and depending on  the profile there are restrictions to the bits rates, which is where  things get complicated. For the main profile and SD, Bitrate must be  <= 10M,  width <= 720 and the height <= 576. For HD Bitrate  must be <= 20M,  width <= 1920 and the height <= 1152. For the  high profile and HD case Bitrate must be <= 30M,  width <= 1920  and the height <= 1152.
I haven’t tested all of these cases, however I suggest to keep things simple use 720x480 for SD and 1280x720 for HD.

BDAV format (.MTS or .M2TS) containing AVC video codec and the AC3 audio codec.
I have not experimented with this format because I don’t have any  software that could generate it. (I down-loaded samples from the web)
I would suggest only using this format if you need subtitle information  as this format does not require additional files, unlike the other  formats.

For audio I suggest using the AC3 codec format. However I did experiment  with this and found that MP2 (MPEG audio layer 2) and ACC formats  worked within the MPEG-TS file format. (AAC allows surround sound 5.1)

I used Leowo Video Converter, which allows you to choose and configure just about any output except .mts or .m2ts.

[daveclark966]

you can also use Avdshare Video Converter to convert mpeg2 files.