Apple Media players?

[Trellspar]

I read this statement in the announcement "How to ask for support": (Board index>Support>Help and Support):

Make your request in the "General Help and Support" topic.

I found that confusing, so I apologize for posting in the wrong place, and for bypassing other suggestions. I'm hoping simply to get answers to some very preliminary concerns.

I've recently become dissatisfied with the haphazard nature of robustness for my Apple Media Sharing on a Mac ARM64 system, and I'm looking for help from users who might have supplanted their own Apple Media Sharing with a UMS configuration. I try to keep my Apple devices on the latest versions of their systems. When it's working, Apple Media Server has delivered great quality, but when there is a security update to one of the devices, things fall apart until all devices have stopped leapfrogging their versions. Today I was able to configure UMS for use on a Mac system on my home network with media renderer VLC on an Apple TV 4k. Is there any other app for Apple TV that's compatible with UMS 13.7.0 that is makes a good media renderer besides VLC? I have no need for connecting outside the home network. Thanks.

[mik_s]

The Media Renderers area is more suited for this.

I am not an apple user so the only media player that I know about with good support is VLC.

Any media app that can play over the network using DLNA, UPnP and HTTP/S should work. You may need to have conf's made for anything that does not have one so UMS will know what formats they support and when to transcode those that are not supported.
You can just use your web browser too.

[Trellspar]

Thanks! Now I'll go back to the guidelines, and attempt to provide a coherent question here to find out if VLC is part of or all of the problem (some titles display indeterminate progress bar with ...wait... message, then eventually take me back to title list without playing). Thanks again.

[Trellspar]

Uh, I browsed the packed file(s), and I don't think I can send those. The problem I'm having with VLC on Apple TV and UMS is that some of the media files play and some don't. If you can give me an idea of what to look for in the logs for files that can't be played, or if you can define boundaries for a short excerpt that I might be able to extract and include in a reply, then thanks. One thing I'd like to try is to disable all transcoding and adding tracks from the database for renderer and server, because none of the unplayable titles (or playable ones) need it. They're progressive mp4 and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio with srt subtitles, and were all created the same way. Otherwise, thanks anyway.

[mik_s]

If the files have problems like no time bar or strange file sizes then it means UMS thinks those files are unsupported and is transcoding them.
VLC has very good format support so it should not be transcoding. This means that UMS is using the incorrect conf for it.

I will have to see the log files to be of any help as I need to what conf UMS is using for VLC, and if this is the incorrect one then why.
This also attaches the conf file being used and your settings so I can see if it is a configuration problem.
It does not attach any private information but will show the video filenames you are trying to play.
If these are private then only share a folder with a limited number of these problem videos that you are OK to show.
Or just make copies of the files and rename them.

According to this it should be using "VLC for AppleTV" but checking several VLC confs they are different so depending on the model some formats may not be supported.

To see what UMS decides to do with a file search the logs for "Final Verdict:" and the decision making process is just before that.
To see what conf UMS is using then search for "New renderer found:"

To see if a problem file can be streamed instead of transcoded then try playing from the #--TRANSCODE--# folder and choose "No transcoding"
(if you do not see it, enable "show the #--Transcode--# folder" in the GUI on the navigation tab, in the web GUI it is in the "virtual folders/files" section)
If it plays then you know that format is supported and you can modify the conf or try another one.

[Trellspar]

Thanks! I have some chores ahead on this, but I'm very grateful that you have taken this much time to try to help me although I've been less than completely cooperative.

[Trellspar]

Problem was 95% solved through bypassing transcoding. There is a still very small judder which only occurs at intervals of several seconds, so I suspect the frame rate is being misinterpreted somehow. My sources are always 23.976 fps. Thanks again.

[mik_s]

OK I think this confirms that UMS was using the wrong conf file for your device.

If I had your logs I would be able to see why it is not using the right one, I suspect it is because the VLC header is very generic and sometimes changes after updates.
If you are not using any other devices on UMS then you can force a default renderer to any conf. Try setting it to one of the other VLC confs and see if it works better.
If you do use UMS on other devices then don't do this as each one will be identified as VLC and will probably stop working properly on them.

Any stuttering could be due to your network speed so UMS can not send the data fast enough. To see the speed test result search for "estimated network speed of".

[Trellspar]

But the config file designation is the one you mentioned (VLC for Apple TV), because I've disabled the others. I'm convinced that the intermittent stutter is not caused by the network, because the Apple Home Sharing (Media Sharing under Sonoma 14.1.1 - latest macOS - the one I'm using) plays the same titles flawlessly when it is working reliably. Apple Home Sharing has been intermittent since my upgrade to the latest version of Sonoma, this version including the latest of what Apple calls a "Rapid Security Response", which I believe may have resulted in a performance hit to my configuration. The occurrence of the intermittent operation, which has happened after other Apple updates, is the primary reason I'm exploring streaming options such as UMS. UMS is the only one I've tried, and that's mainly because it worked to some degree right away after minimal configuration. I have been able to compare robust operation of the Apple Media Sharing setup with that of UMS since configuring it, so I'm convinced the UMS stuttering is not related to the network. But I will now use your suggestions to send the logs. Thanks again, and I won't ask you to bother with responding again before I send the logs.

[Trellspar]

Fixed the stutters by selecting Apple-TV-4K-VLC.conf as renderer and putting a check mark in "Force". To achieve that result, in that conf file I hacked "TranscodeVideo = MPEGTS-H264-AC3" to "TranscodeVideo = none" and "TranscodeAudio = WAV" to"TranscodeAudio = none".

New problems are:
1) audio is delayed by 200-300 ms, and
2) any attempt to scrub to another point in the video using the Apple remote control results in crash for playback, and sends me back to the title selection screen ( I'm using on the Apple TV: "VLC>Local Network>Universal Media Server UPnP>UMS[that's the name of my current shared video folder - it contains 2 media files only]>[video title]").

I haven't started worrying about the .srt subtitles yet, but they haven't played so far using these settings.

Logs still forthcoming.