Mezzmo

[awraynor]

This coming Saturday bitsdujour has a special on Mezzmo, which is described by the vendor

as the ultimate DLNA home entertainment software. It appears to have good device compatability,

and compares itself to Tversity, Twonky and NAS services. I am especially interested how it

interacts with DirecTV. Has anyone used this program or have an opinion on it?

[usacomp2k3]

Looks pretty cool. Built-in transcoding is nice. They even specify WHS as a supported platform.

[cskenney]

Looking at their web site they list DirecTV as compatible devices. I have never heard of this software though. It also doesn't seem to get much attention in the DirecTV forums either.

[pcdoc]

This looks pretty with excellent support. They have a download trial version. We should give it a try. DNLA (aka transcoding) always scares me as I am purist but I must admit it look good. Thanks for finding this one.

[CablDeViL]

I am very interested in the DirecTV functions. If you install the trial please give us an update. I still wish there was a was to play recorded content on the PVR to an extender.

[usacomp2k3]

I thought DirecTV was the best MRV platform out there?

[cskenney]

I thought DirecTV was the best MRV platform out there?

Only if you pay for the extra service and you still can't get stuff off the DVR to your server for archiving.

[awraynor]

Had a few minutes with Mezzmo tonight. While it is scanning your library for files it will tax your

CPU significantly, up to 90% at times (quad core system). It also had a few periods of unresponsiveness,

but I get the same thing out of PaperPort and Outlook on a regular basis. Don't know why a quad

core system with 8GB of RAM does that, but I'll move on.

 

I tested it through my DirecTV HD DVR connected through 10/100 ethernet. The pictures came across and

streamed quite well. There was the option of playing music with the photos, a nice touch.

Navigation is of course a click through folder structure with the direct remote.

Music played quite well, but kind of weird. It would show some files as 0 megs in size, but I didn't

have time to go see if they were really empty files. It did play Zune subscription files and other

mp3's without difficulty.

 

Video is where it became really interesting. On lower quality .wmv and .avi it did well, minimal lag

with decent quality. I had AVCHD files from my Canon HD camcorder and playback to be polite, stunk.

I looked in the software and didn't find any settings to adjust the buffer, but sometimes it would play

decently after a brief pause, other times it would say it just couldn't play them. I am unsure if this

is related to the library maintenance (file scanning), but I will check back later when that is done.

 

Overall, for $15 I will probably give it a try, if nothing else for the novelty. Mostly, it makes me

want to finish my HTPC build even sooner, as this is a somewhat painful way to browse files.

 

By comparison the direct box would see my WHS and desktop PC, but wouldn't play files at all.

[cskenney]

I gave it a try last night. Just letting it scan my video, pictures and music on the server had my Core i3 maxed out. It was still maxed this morning as it appeared to get hung up on something.

 

I tried streaming to my DirecTV box, too. It won't handle Video_TS format (DVD). It did play a MP4 I have on my server but it appeared to have some problems even doing that (probably because my CPU was still maxed out).

 

I will check it out a little bit more but I doubt I will buy it.

[pcdoc]

That is not a good first impression. Sounds like Playon.