DLNA Formats Supported

Sorry but I regret to say that it is not true.

For mp4 for example, it appears that even if you use AAC, sound sometimes is not supported.

The problem, is that when samsung say AAC LC this is not clear.

Many others parameters need to be check : rate ? frequency ?

As many users, we are not able to clarify the situation about this point.

We cannot etablish what can be read and what cannot be read.

I clarification on this point will be very appreciated.

Thanks for the reply but I don't quite understand. Decoder, Resolution and Codec have to match? I don;t understand what you mean by match.

Also I know you have to have the right Codec installed on your PC to play a file, but what does that have to do with the TV? Does the TV have codecs? Or is the file played on my computer and streamed to the TV?

Yes, the TV has codecs too - in reality all the TV is is a computer with some specialized hardware attached.

Moreover, the standard the TV implements - the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard specifies a very limited set of what a DLNA device is expected to render (what they call "profiles") - anything outside of that set is not guaranteed to be supported.

Unfortunately, it appears Samsung designed the TV to ONLY support the profiles the DLNA called out, and to NOT support anything else (rather than supporting the DLNA required standards PLUS making a "best effort" to support anything outside the DLNA standard).

I see .mp4 on the chart you provided. So it should play all .mp4's right? Why don't some of the mp4 video podcasts I have play and some do?

BenjaiminNYC,

This is likely because the decoder, resolution and codec don't all match up. Because you have a wide variety of ways that mp4 files can be recorded, the settings may not all match up. All three parameteres have to be met for it to work. (anything extra is bonus, but for the time being, that's what we know will work).

--HDTech

Following the discussions on the forum about DLNA, it looks like I cannot play the TV Shows I have downloaded from iTunes on my TV direct from my Mac, which is running the EyeTV Media Server EyeConnect. Am I right in thinking that this is because the TV does not support .m4v video files? I presume I will also have to buy an AppleTV. This is too bad because I thought I could make do with my Mac and the TV, now it looks like extra hardware is necessary.

Hi jfm- did you hve nay luck finding an answer? Im choosing between the 630 (matte screen) and possibly the 750 (DLNA video supported) but if I cant play off my macbook then I may just stick with the 630 to avoid the glossy reflections.

Please let us know if you find a good solution.

Thanks!

No reply but yours yet monkeybot1, but I will post a summary if I get any responses off line or find out other than on this forum.

I presume the reason behind many issues mentioned here and in other threads is quite well explained in http://gxben.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/why-do-i-hate-dlna-protocol-so-much/. DLNA purposely doesn't support free formats for DRM reasons. If Samsung want to enhance the user experience, they should support UPnP (on which DLNA is based while reducing it's scope).

If the same file plays perfectly on USB but not on the network(DLNA), it's most probably easy to enable it on the network. The rest is probably a question of politics.

I suppose another solution is to get a NAS with USB connection. It's a pity but that seems the only exit for now.

I am using a UE46B7020.

Patrick

The main feature I am after in a new TV is being able to play video files located on my PC network, wirelessly. I was on the verge of buying one of these:

Samsung Series 8 46 inch LED (UA46B8000)

Samsung Series 7 46 inch LCD (LA46B750)

Samsung Series 7 40inch LCD (LA40B750)

The ability to read xvid files wirelessly must have only just come out, because it wasn't there last time I researched this.

I downloaded the manual, and everything looked supported.

Except.

The manual shows a specific resolution for xvid - 720 * 576.

What if I have 576 * 320 or 512 * 384? Do those work or not?

Also, the manual doesn't seem to say what sort of captions/subtitles file format it accepts.

Is it too much to hope that Samsung's TVs are as good as VLC?

Thanks. Paul.

Hi Paul,

What I can say is that on an ethernet connection, my TV seems to refuse all formats. On a USB, it seems to accept all of them. On a wireless connection, which would be done through a USB adapter, I don't know.

This is an interesting question as it might be a second alternative to the ethernet connection. The first being the NAS with USB, the second here being a NAS and some wi-fi (e.g. router).

Even if I highly prefer a wired solution, could anyone confirm?

Patrick

I'm using a Qnap NAS TS109 Pro II with my Samsung LED 40B7000. The nas server is DLNA compatible and it's runnung a build-in Twonky Media Server. The tv is connected via the wifidongle WIS09abgn. My wifi router is a D-Link DIR-635.

I can play my .m2ts files (from a Sony HDD Camcorder)via DLNA, but without sound (AVCHD video codec and AC-3 sound codec)

If I copy the same .m2ts file to a USB-stick, I get the "file-format not supported" !!!?

I can plat other files (.mpg) via DLNA with AC-3 sound codec and these works fine.

Playing .wma formats is also an issue, these don't work via DLNA (haven't tried with USB yet)

Samsung really should consider updating the supported file-formats in future firmware updates, to the "best effort" in stead of "lowest common denominator" (in this case DLNA)

Hi
I concurr that all three need to be the same as the specified formats for MP4 / AAC / 1920x1080 over DLNA. But that means upscaling everything via, conversion, including podcasts. IS there no 'best effort' switch that can be thrown to display the content for MP4 in any other scaling?.

That said the movies, and video files that are MP4 play perfectly via DLNA from FUPPES on a DROBOSHARE after you scale to 1920x1080.

Hope that helps some lost people.

My workflow for conversion has been Create VOBs > TMPGENC (profile MP4/AAC/1920x1080) > re-encode. Works on iphone streaming via plugplayer and plays on TV.

HD-Tech - has there been any change in compatibility formats since you made your post over 2 years ago? I have a QNAP TS410 Turbo NAS running Twonky. I've tried dozens of custom & pre-set encoding options from Handbrake to encode video files and nothing works... including when using the codec's, formats, and containers mapped in your link. The TV sees the file and try's to load, only to quit with a "format not supported' error message.

I also notice (maybe this is a Handbrake limitation) that you cannot scale the resolution above the original file size. So if I have, for example, Series One of the West Wing this is 720x480 and cannot be resized in Handbrake to the 1920x1080 "required" for the MP4 container.

What does work is some random *.AVI files I have, however my entire library is digitised in MP4 (or MKV) and I don't what have to re-rip into such a substandard container (not the least of my reasons being that MP4 (or m4v) works better with my Apple devices (iPad, iPod).

Very frustrating to have put up the additionAL money for the [not-so] SMART TV (model UE40D5520) soley so I could retire the media player, only to find it has huge limitations and barely does what Samsung marketing suggests it can.

Any details on how to fix this, or when Samsung will release a firmware upgrade to be more fexible on the codecs and containers would be much appreciated.

Sure there have been updates. This post is almost 3 years old.

All TV models have fixed list of supported file formats and you will always come across video files that your TV won't play natively. This problem is for all TV models and not just for Samsung TVs. The solution is to install a decent DLNA server on your PC and let it transcode your (incompatible) files for you on-the-fly (don't re-encode all your files!). That's what I do, and all my files stream without a hitch to my Samsung TV and Samsung BDP. I got best results with Mezzmo DLNA server ($30) or you can try Serviio (free). I would not waste your time trying to stream directly from your NAS drives with its built-in DLNA server. NAS drives cannot transcode on-the-fly and don't have other cool features like playlists, nice artwork & metadata, etc. I have a NAS drive for all my videos and music but I just use it for file storage (not DLNA streaming). Mezzmo reads all the files from it and steams them to my TV & BDP without a hitch. Also, about Handbrake - it can create corrupted/bad files and that could be the reason some of your files do not play (this happened to me).

Unknown -

HD-Tech,

Thanks - definitely an expansion which helps for when I'm encoding 1920x1080 source video. For legacy DVD however the 800x600 AVI option is still best (I know it works, even though it's not on the updated chart). Reason for this is my encoder doesn't scale-up the smaller image, so I end up with a whole lot of high-resolution black boarder around a tiny image in the centre of the screen when ripping to 1920x1080. Same issue with the AVI file, but its a much smaller boarder and the TV scales-up the image to fit the screen, so it's palatable.

Could be I just don't know how to use my encoder properly. I've tried Handbrake, TMPGEnc, and AVS4YOU. AVS4YOU delivered appalling results, Handbrake won't rip at a higher resolution then the source, and TMPGEnc will rip, but it doesn't scale-up, only adding some space hungry high-resolution black boarder around the edges.

MKV is usually the container I use, but to your point Apple doesn't like it (you can play it with a third party app, but if it's a 1080p source, it can't decode on the fly fast enough and you get a jittery video), hence my dogged perseverance to find a m4v solution.

If I could just find a decoder that would do a decent job of scaling-up a lower resolution video file to fit fully into a 1920x1080 frame, and rip to m4v, we'd be golden!

Many thanks, Ben.

old thread, but I'm in this boat. looking at buying LN40D630. I have many AVI files I plan to pump from pc to tv. is the DLNA still a problem? If so, then why has noone mentioned using HDMI? I see usb has been mentioned, uh, but I'm running this signal 50' and hdmi would work, afterall, the TV can still me used as a monitor. Please clear this up for me...the HDMI will work, correct?