when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

General discussion about Universal Media Server (no support or requests)
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HT1
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when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by HT1 »

is it possible to get some kind of notification on the tv when something breaks in ums ?

Otherwise the tv just stays blank indefinetly waiting.
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valib
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by valib »

Unfortunately not.
HT1
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by HT1 »

what do you mean not ?

i'm sure its possible, the devs can program something and display it on tv. something helpfull like an error message and hex number that could be searched for in the forum.

at very least display a prefab image with some text
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Wolfgan
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by Wolfgan »

HT1 wrote:what do you mean not ?

i'm sure its possible, the devs can program something and display it on tv. something helpfull like an error message and hex number that could be searched for in the forum.

at very least display a prefab image with some text
What you're using on the TV side is software written by the TV makers... UMS is just serving media content for it using an standard protocol.
-- UMS serving PS3, WDTV, Samsung H6400 + J5500 and Kalemsoft renderers! (no video transcoding but remuxing accepted :D )
HT1
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by HT1 »

Wolfgan wrote:
HT1 wrote:what do you mean not ?

i'm sure its possible, the devs can program something and display it on tv. something helpfull like an error message and hex number that could be searched for in the forum.

at very least display a prefab image with some text
What you're using on the TV side is software written by the TV makers... UMS is just serving media content for it using an standard protocol.
exactly, it is serving content. so instead of the file the user wnated to see, build a small 10-15 second video with the error message and serve it.

make it in standard mpeg2 for all TVs to tell the user something happened, and substitute it for the video the user wanted to watch and voila, the user knows ums crapped out.

see ? simple.

try it and let us know instead of just shooting down any new ideas.
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Wolfgan
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by Wolfgan »

HT1 wrote:
Wolfgan wrote:
HT1 wrote:what do you mean not ?

i'm sure its possible, the devs can program something and display it on tv. something helpfull like an error message and hex number that could be searched for in the forum.

at very least display a prefab image with some text
What you're using on the TV side is software written by the TV makers... UMS is just serving media content for it using an standard protocol.
exactly, it is serving content. so instead of the file the user wnated to see, build a small 10-15 second video with the error message and serve it.

make it in standard mpeg2 for all TVs to tell the user something happened, and substitute it for the video the user wanted to watch and voila, the user knows ums crapped out.

see ? simple.

try it and let us know instead of just shooting down any new ideas.
I'm not trying to shut any ideas, just that I don't see how it will work. You're saying that TV went blank when UMS failed, so the error is severe enough as no content is going thru, how will that "error announcement" video be delivered then?

I think for those cases is probably easier to access UMS logs via the web interface (you can even access them via an smartphone or tablet if the server is out of reach).
-- UMS serving PS3, WDTV, Samsung H6400 + J5500 and Kalemsoft renderers! (no video transcoding but remuxing accepted :D )
HT1
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by HT1 »

I'm not trying to shut any ideas, just that I don't see how it will work. You're saying that TV went blank when UMS failed, so the error is severe enough as no content is going thru, how will that "error announcement" video be delivered then?
ums didn't fail , it caught the error returned by ffmpeg , but instead of handling it in a user friendly manner and showing something on screen it only saved the error in the log, it let the tv just sit and wait.

i see an opportunity for enhancement of ums.

there's a bit of code missing there to make it more user friendly on the tv side.

i mean, the tv has made a connection to ums, it has requested a file, and is waiting for it to be served.
ums checked the conf file and determined it needed ffmpeg to transcode the file for the tv.

how about when it fails to do that, open an other file that is compatible with the tv , no transcoding needed , telling the user there was an error and how to fix it.

it can be a more generally open format like mpeg2ts or x264 whatever.

whether it is the actual file or some prefab file, how will the tv know?

it's just bits and bytes.

it will display whatever ums sends it. Might as well be helpfull to the user. nobody wants to interrupt an evening of fun tv watching just to sift through a log file.

When an error happens , if you open a simple file that is premade to be compatible with all TVs and just pipe it through the dlna connection that the tv has made with ums, no transcoding needed. so ffmpeg isn't needed just the dlna connection.

would that work?
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valib
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Re: when something breaks in ums get notified on TV ? (tv just stays blank)

Post by valib »

HT1 wrote: ums didn't fail , it caught the error returned by ffmpeg , but instead of handling it in a user friendly manner and showing something on screen it only saved the error in the log, it let the tv just sit and wait.
Maybe my first answer was very simple. The UMS is communicating with the TV via the DLNA protocol. There is no way in that protocol to send something like message to the TV to show it. The UMS only responses on the TV requests so it is impossible to push something to the TV which is not requested. If the TV is waiting for something and the screen is blank for very long time it must be a TV bug because when some error occurs in the UMS or other media servers then there should be a timer in the TV which stops playing and shows the connection error. So please blame a TV vendor for such stupid DLNA implementation not the UMS. Anyway if you caught the error returned by ffmpeg than will be better to follow the instruction at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=556 and send the log.
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