Weird NAS Drive problem

[DerekSH]

Hello
I recently purchased a KD43X7053.

I have a really weird issue.

I have a QNAP NAS drive for network media storage, and I can access the music, photos and videos easily from a Panasonic PVR, so I'm happy the NAS drive is doing its stuff.

When I placed an MP4 video in the public area of the NAS drive, the Panasonic could see it, but my new Sony TV could not.

I placed the video in a folder, and the Panasonic could see it; my new Sony TV correctly saw the folder but said it was empty.

I took the video back out of the folder and changed its name to upper case. No joy.

But here is the clincher... I then placed a second video in the same public folder.
So it contained Video-1 and Video-2.

Now my new Sony TV told me Video-2 was visible, but when I clicked on it, it played Video-1.

It looks as if the Sony is "one out" in looking at videos - when there is one, it sees none. When there are two, it sees one, and accesses the WRONG one.

I have the most up-to-date firmware.

Any ideas?

[Peter_S.]

Hi Derek,

It sounds as if the TV hasn't finished the indexing of the content yet.

Please wait some time and try again.

Cheers

Peter

[DerekSH]

Hi Peter

Well, I added another video and folder to the NAS Multimedia folder. Instantly, the TV found the new folder, lost the old one, and can't see the new video. One hour later, it's still the same - it can see one folder out of two, and one video out of three.

Any more suggestions? Is an hour long enough to find and index 5 files - it found the new folder in seconds, but still hasn't found the new video or indeed the first one...

[Win_88]

Hi DerekSH

What happens if you reverse the names of the first two videos you copied over to that folder?

Also, make sure the TV is up to date: https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/lcd-tvs-xg70xx_x70xxg-series/kd-55xg7093/downloads/000168...

Win_88

[DerekSH]

Interesting reply, thank you. I can't reverse the names of the first two files as they have different extensions. But I can confirm that I have the latest version of firmware on the TV.

It's looking like it doesn't like the MP4 file I've put on my NAS drive, so I'll find another one with different resolution or compression and try that. If that works, then it narrows my search.

Talking of firmware updates, there are still bugs in the latest firmware - I can't recall what I did, but it asked me to remove the USB stick when there wasn't one in the TV, and hadn't been one since I applied power. I'm going to track that one down and report it.
Incidentally, I flagged up the NAS problem to Sony Support and they just said that if I connect anything not made by Sony to the TV, it's my problem. I understand their blinkered vision but as they don't make NAS drives, it's ultimately a Teflon-shouldered response...

At the moment I rather feel that somewhere along the line someone has cut corners on the DNLA implementation, but since my NAS drive and my Panasonic hard disc recorder are blissfully happy together, I can watch videos on my NAS drive that way.

[Win_88]

Hi Derek,

Trying different files should surely be most insightful, I'd try a bunch of different formats and sizes to better understand what's going on.

Also, if the two files mentioned earlier are a different format, just revers the names (without reversing the extensions). This will show if the playback order was related to the file names as you suggested before or not.

Win_88

[DerekSH]

Thanks Win_88
I've drawn a blank - there's one file - an MP4 - that my TV cannot see in the list of files. But it does get it muddled with the next file in the list. I took your advice and labelled the files 01-xxx, 02-xxx etc, so I could move their order as presented on the NAS drive and on the TV. The file that won't play (let's say it's 04-xxx) isn't listed on the TV, but when I click on 05-xxx, that plays 04 instead of the file 05. File 06 is back to being correct. This behaviour seems to happen wherever I put the file. Clearly, the TV can play the file, but the file structure is scrambled.
If I put the offending file on a USB stick, the TV can see the name correctly, and play it correctly.

I accept that it MIGHT be a NAS drive fault, but my Panasonic PVR has no issues reading what the NAS drive serves up.

And yes, I'm up to date on the NAS firmware and the TV firmware, and I rebuilt the Media Library on the NAS drive too.

The file it struggles with is an MP4 container with H264 1920 x 1024, millions of colours 24fps (yes it really is that size). AAC 5.1 at 48KHz. But as I said, on a USB stick it's fine.

To be honest, I'm exhausted with it now!

Unless someone else here can show the same fault, Sony aren't interested. Maybe some tech geek can resample a video as above and try it? But thanks for looking over the problem with me...

PS - as a trial I've now copied the errant file and given the copy a sequence number next to the copy the TV can't see, and it can't see either of them. One of the copies (I can't tell which) plays if you select the video AFTER both the duff ones. It looks like there's something about that particular video format, either at the NAS end or the TV end, that causes the TV to end up with a muddled list. The fact that TWO files are missing now implies to me that the directory at the TV end is hopelessly muddled but I still can't tell which end is at fault...

[Win_88]

Hi Derek,

This is indeed an odd one.

Does this happen with only that particular MP4 file or with all files of the same format?

Win_88

[DerekSH]

I don't have much of a selection of MP4s that I can try.

The one that fails is H264, 1920x1024 (slightly letterboxed), AAC Dolby 5.1 48KHz - I can't find another with the same format.

The one I tried that worked is H264 1920x1080, AAC Stereo 44.1 KHz

As the failed one works on a USB stick, it suggests it might be my NAS drive, though my Panasonic PVR is happy with what the NAS serves up.

When I have more time I will see if I can re-encode the working one as 1920x1024, and also 48KHz, but I'm searching for a needle in a haystack...

[Win_88]

I think that at this point, trying any other MP4 file should prove most insightful. I wouldn't start looking for a file with the same encoding and resolution until it's proven that other MP4 files work.

Keep us updated when you have the time to do more testing