Best video format for DLNA from miniDLNA to S370

[mrlambouk]

Hi All,

I've had trouble streaming 1080p mkv's from my NAS (ReadyNAS Duo running miniDLNA) to my Sony BDP-S370. I started with wifi from NAS to S370 and worked up to 1Gb wired!...but I still get stuttering.

My test movie is Avatar which is a 15GB 1080p MKV. Once I can play this faultlessly I will be happy.

I'd like some guidance on what are the best formats to use? I don't mind converting mkv's to something else as long as it plays smoothly and is Full HD.

I think I've ruled out bandwidth as an issue but I don't understand transcoding and how much that hammers the NAS CPU. I guess if the NAS doesn't have to transcode and the format is something native the S370 will play then that will save on CPU?

Help and guidance is very much appreciated.

[Catmambo]

If you don't mind converting and having a duplicate copy - http://www.mkv2vob.com/ . Free and converts to an mpeg2 file which will happily play out. Conversion is pretty spritely as well assuming you do it on a PC, rather than thrashing your NAS's CPU..

Thanks

[mrlambouk]

Great thanks.

I'll convert Avatar to a vob and try that over wifi/100Mb/1Gb and let you know how I get on.

So does this mean that the format of the source file has an affect on how much work the NAS would have to do?

For instance, because it's mkv, the S370 tell's the miniDLNA it can't play that natively so miniDLNA re-encodes it on the fly to mpeg4?

Thanks.

[specialist-convergence]

Hi I use Mezzmo which transcodes all my HD files to m2ts and i have no issues with 1080P, however with such a large file, the bit rate may be very high and this could cause issues depending on network speed, I believe the NIC on the player is 100MB, try testing Mezzmo on your PC and see if you have the same problem?

[mrlambouk]

Ok,

So Mezzmo is a different type of DLNA server from what I've read. Does it offer better performance than the miniDLNA shipped with the ReadyNAS hardware range?

What does transcode mean? Is this "on the fly" decoding/re-encoding of the movie to a format that the S370 will recognise? If that's tru then I'm more looking for the best format that means the NAS does the least work.

Even if Mezzmo does the same amount of work as the NAS it will do it alot easier. I don't know the CPU spec of the NAS but my PC is a 3.2GHz Quad with 4GB 1066MHz RAM. I imagine my PC would work perfectly if I used miniDLNA.

I'm basically looking for the best setup which keeps my films on the NAS (in which ever is the most efficient format for DLNA streaming) and then streams the stutter free to the S370.

I'm not sure how testing Mezzmo from my PC will help? Please correct me if I'm miss-understanding! :smileygrin: