[mythtv-users] Sony Android TV does not play AVC [h.264] recordings from MythTV UPNP - but from MiniDLNA

[Philipp Hahn]

Hello,

I have a Sony KD-55XE8096 TV, which is powered by Android TV. Using the
"Video" App I'm able to play my h.264 transcoded videos (using
Handbrake), but DVB-C [Germany] recordings using h.264 fail to play. I
only get the following error message on the TV:

> "Video kann nicht abgespielt werden".

which translates to "Video cannot be played".
Recordings still using "MPEG-2" play fine.

If I take the same file and serve it with "MiniDLNA", it plays fine.

Using curl I see the following differences in the returned HTTP headers:

> $ curl -I  http://scout.fritz.box:8200/MediaItems/25.mpg
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> Connection: close
> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 08:25:38 GMT
> Server: Debian DLNADOC/1.50 UPnP/1.0 MiniDLNA/1.2.1
> EXT:
> realTimeInfo.dlna.org: DLNA.ORG_TLAG=*
> transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming
> Content-Type: video/mpeg
> Content-Length: 3092638728
> Accept-Ranges: bytes
> contentFeatures.dlna.org: DLNA.ORG_PN=AVC_TS_HP_HD_AC3_ISO;DLNA.ORG_OP=01;DLNA.ORG_CI=0;DLNA.ORG_FLAGS=01700000000000000000000000000000

> $ curl -I  http://192.168.178.33:6544/Content/GetRecording?RecordedId=3516
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> Accept-Ranges: bytes
> Cache-Control: no-cache="Ext", max-age = 7200
> Connection: Keep-Alive
> Content-Disposition: inline; filename="13150_20180611154300.ts"
> Content-Language: de
> Content-Length: 3092638728
> Content-Type: video/mp2t
> Date: So., 17 Juni 2018 08:27:59 GMT
> Keep-Alive: timeout=10
> Last-Modified: Mo., 11 Juni 2018 16:35:00 GMT
> Server: MythTV/29.1-9-gd9d702526b-dirty Linux/4.9.0-6-amd64 UPnP/1.0
> transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming

For comparison here's one of my h.264 encoded videos playing fine:

> curl -I http://192.168.178.33:6544/Content/GetVideo?Id=1414
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> Accept-Ranges: bytes
> Cache-Control: no-cache="Ext", max-age = 7200
> Connection: Keep-Alive
> Content-Disposition: inline; filename="REDACTED.m4v"
> Content-Language: de
> Content-Length: 745221397
> Content-Type: video/mp4
> Date: So., 17 Juni 2018 08:46:21 GMT
> Keep-Alive: timeout=10
> Last-Modified: So., 27 Mai 2018 14:15:40 GMT
> Server: MythTV/29.1-9-gd9d702526b-dirty Linux/4.9.0-6-amd64 UPnP/1.0
> transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming


I found <https://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?info_id=799>
which documents the "Supported File Formats for DLNA® and USB Compatible
Sony® TVs", but its unclear if it also applies to the Android based TVs.

I've also tried to run the recording through "ffmpeg -c:v copy -c:a copy
-sn -movflags empty_moov -flags global_header", but that hasn't helped.


Does someone know how to play those h.264 recordings on Android?

Thanks in advance.
Philipp