Samsung UN46C7000WF want to force FFMPEG rendering

[GarrySmithwick]

I have an old Samsung 7000 and it will not play some of the mkv files on UMS. I get "invalid video codec" on the TV. If I go to the transcode folder there are two files there: No transcoding and ffmpeg transcoding. The no transcoding file fails. The ffmpeg plays fine. I have tried all kinds of things to make UMS default to the ffmpeg file, but I can not get it to work. I looked at the UMS main panel and the config file is samsung-NotCD.conf. I tried editing this file to remove the mkv entry. That did not work. I tried putting mkv in the transcoding screen field force transcoding. Still no change. After every change I quit UMS and restart it. Obviously, I am missing something here. How do I force UMS to transcode mkv files using ffmpeg and then default to that transcoded file? Thanks. (at the end of my rope on this, tried many things)

[mik_s]

Logs will be needed to see what is going on. Follow the link above in red and post the logs here.

It will be your config file not matching with the capabilities of your TV. MKV files are just containers and can have different video formats, which is why some work and some don't. It is likley the ones that are not working are encoded in h265 (HEVC) which is a fairly new and takes more processing power to decode so a lot of players can't play them.
As the samsung-NotCD.conf just a generic config and it matches MKV, UMS will assume the TV can play anything with an extension MKV.

try adding

Code: Select all

Supported = f:mkv             v:h264                         m:video/x-matroska

under Supported video formats, that should only transcode anything that is not using the old codec (h264) in a MKV file.

[GarrySmithwick]

I tried your suggestion to add the line to the conf file. No change on the TV. After the change I quit UMS and restarted it. FYI the actual message on the TV is "not supported video codec".

[GarrySmithwick]

I attached the logs of the failure after the conf change suggested.

[GarrySmithwick]

I realized there was a typo in the conf file when I added the line. I corrected it and double checked it. The failure is still the same. I am attaching the trace logs for the corrected conf file test.

[GarrySmithwick]

I have attached info on the two files. FBI - 2x01 fails. FBI - 2x02 works.

[GarrySmithwick]

Another mkv file that fails.

[mik_s]

had a quick look though your logs. I was expecting to see some more info about the format that files were in cut couldn't see that, maybe because it is just matching filetype and not the codec, I'm no expert though so maybe one of the devs is better place to help.
the info on the 2 files wasn't much help for me either but one thing I did notice is that the first one is in SD and the second is in 720 HD. I was hoping to see something like Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) or Video: HVC1.

Ideally your TV should be matching with Samsung-CD.conf and not the Samsung-NotCD.conf, however the config does say

Note: if the device name "[TV]PS51D6900" has been edited by the user via the TV menu it will likely be misidentified as E and later series

you can override this with your own config though. I was able to do one for my F series as i could find what media is supported in the manual, and have used that to hopefully make one that will work on yours but i have no idea what yours supports so doubt it is 100% right.

Samsung-UN46C7000WF.conf

(3.39 KiB) Downloaded 1039 times

[GarrySmithwick]

At some point the Samsung TV name had been changed. I reset the name to UN46C7000WF and now UMS selects Samsung-CD-conf. However, I still have the same failure as before.

[GarrySmithwick]

I used the mediainfo program to get more details on two files. 2x01 fails and 2x02 works. I can not tell from these two files what the difference is that is causing the failure. Maybe someone else can.