Re: Rygel's media presentation influence

[Age Bosma <agebosma gmail com>]

Hi Zeeshan,

Thank you for your reply.

On 30 September 2011 22:20, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) <zeeshanak gnome org> wrote:
>
>> Does DLNA accommodate in a way to negotiate supported file formats
>> between the device and the server, allowing or limiting the server to
>> only serve those files supported by the device?
>
>   Yeah but that doesn't mean your TV (or any device on this planet)
> uses that capability. The easiest way for client (e.g your TV) to do
> this is to ask for the DLNA format for each file and then only display
> it if it can handle it. This could be worked-around in Rygel by adding
> a custom hack for your TV to filter the files that we know will not by
> played.
>

So it is solely the device's initiative? The device needs to feel like
it and a server like Rygel can not ask the device what formats it
supports and only serve those to that device?

>   However, I would prefer we handle this via transcoding.
>

Of course. Device specific exception should be prevented.

>> If yes, does Rygel support this and could it be that we are dealing
>> with a bug since I get to see unsupported files format on the TV?
>
>  Yeah, the bug would be the our transcoding isn't functional. It has
> been totally non-functional for videos in the last release cycle
> (0.10) AFAIK and it still doesn't produce high-quality videos. :( You
> can certainly help in there but you'll have to work more on gstreamer
> plugins instead of rygel.
>
>   Then again, the png -> jpeg transcoding should just work out of the
> box so it could be that you are simply missing the required gstreamer
> plugins and/or libraries.
>

I disabled transcoding in Rygel from the start, to be honest ;-)
Reason for doing so is to see what the TV is actually capable of, not
letting anything to be "faked" by the server.
I'll enable it to see how that works out for the different media types.
While I completely understand that the general user is better off
having the unsupported media converted, I'm not a big fan of it. I'd
rather not see something on my TV than settling for less quality.

>> Does DLNA accommodate in a way to have any control over the order in
>> which media is listed on the device? If my TV does not provide a sort
>> customization, I was hoping DLNA might do through Rygel. If DLNA
>> allows you to do this, would it be interesting to implement this in
>> Rygel?
>
>  Rygel does provide a way for your TV to list items in a particular
> order but that doesn't mean it will use it and (more importantly) that
> it will use the same in the UI.
>

How can I play with this in Rygel? I did not find any settings related to this.
I will address the sorting issue at Panasonic as well, but I don't
expect a real change from their side, at least not in the near future
and for my TV any more.

>> My TV also lists all videos by filename instead of actual video title.
>> I'm not using the tracker export (not providing sufficient control
>> over what is shared). Does Rygel's MediaExport actually read the video
>> titles and supply those to a device? If not, is this a Rygel or a DLNA
>> shortcoming?
>
>  This could also be caused by some missing gstreamer elements.
>

Missing in Rygel or on my system? I should have all required, judged
by the dependency list on the Rygel site.

>> To finishing up: where can I find the DLNA specs if it is not on the
>> dlna.org website?
>
>  They are not freely available I am afraid. As an individual you must
> pay 500$ to get access to them. Yeah, I know that sucks big time but
> that is not at all in our control.
>

...too bad...

Yours,

Age