Thanks John, appreciate the fast reply.

#1: Understood.

#2: So am I right that iPhone/iPad users with material at 59.94 fps are not offered a 'standard' option and must type 59.94 in the box? Not 60? (Any negative consequences of that tiny difference?)

Given the large number of potential MEP user with iOS source material, I'm surprised there is no appropriate option in the drop-down.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

@terrypin

Hi

. . . .material at 59.94 fps are not offered a 'standard' option and must type 59.94 in the box? Not 60? (Any negative consequences of that tiny difference?) . . . . Given the large number of potential MEP user with iOS source material, I'm surprised there is no appropriate option in the drop-down. . . . .

MEP does have standard options eg: NTSC FullHD 60p (1920x1080; 59.94 fps).

IIRC the only affect would be on 1 or 2 frames in approx 1000 - you often see 59.94 written as 1000/1001.

The only issue is when exporting as PAL 25 or 50 fps when Pulldown rears it head on pans and fast across screen movement in video or movement effects.

HTH

John EB

Hi John,

I've always avoided any setting with NTSC in the label, on the grounds that it might export material unsuitable for my UK HD TV. But perhaps mistakenly? Are you recommending I use the project setting NTSC FullHD 60p (1920x1080; 59.94 fps)?

Hi Terry. A lot will depend on the TV. I'm in the UK and none of the TVs in my house are disturbed at the frame rate set but can get fussy about the type of file used. Our large lounge TV will not play mov. files or anything using HEVC. If you are making DVD or Blu-Ray discs then you may have to stick to conventional settings for a given broadcast regional area. If like me you use memory sticks then look at your TVs manual to see what video formats it can read.

Thanks Ray. We have only one TV, a Panasonic TX-40CX800 40" LCD in the lounge, and I stream my videos to it from my PC upstairs via my wi-fi router. They are MP4 exports from various versions of MEPP over the years, currently 2016 or 2017.

Like you, I've not noticed any obvious problems, but then I've only been asking it to play 1920 x 1080 at 25 or 50 fps. I'm presently on 25 fps, as I never saw any difference at 50.

I'm still not sure whether I could be using 'better' settings for both:
- project settings, presently PAL HDTV 1080i 16:9 (1920x1080; 25fps)
- export settings for TV, presently 1920 x 1080, 25 fps, 16:9
(Video: H.264; 1920x1080p; 25 frames/s; VBR 22000 kbit/s; hardware encoding
Audio: AAC; Stereo; 48000 Hz; 160 kbit/s)

As you may gather, I'm conflicted between "If it aint broke, dont fix it" and my curiosity! 😉

Hi

@CubeAce @terrypin

Something you mignt be interested to know is that using the Windows "Cast to Device" feature that is in Win 7 onwards (Rightclick on the file) when your TV is on the network as is Terrys - I can play both HEVC and 4K files on my 2013 Panasonic TH-P50ST60Z plasma when there is no way it will play these via the DNLA media server function nor via any plugged in USB or SD card storage device!

I have no idea how it does this as the TV is not 4K and does not have the codec for HEVC, normally throwing a format not supported error?

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter,

That's a terrific tip, thanks a bunch!

Never used 'Cast to Device' before. Over the last 30 mins or so I tried all the video file types I could find quickly. All of the following played OK:
MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, MPG, M2TS, TS, WMV and even VOB!

These two did not add the Cast menu item to their r-click context menu (or allow dragging to its window):
FLV, MXF

Couple of detail points please. For my tests I used the TV remote to open Devices. Returning upstairs I start a video playing ('casting'?) and hear it playing on the lounge TV. I go down to watch and can pause it and carefully rewind. But if I stop it, or it plays to the end (deliberately or accidentally), how do I restart it? I get just an empty screen and have to repeat the process.

Also, if I've populated the list with several videos, but don't start any of them from the PC, can I do so with the TV remote? Hopefully your remote is not too different to mine.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Anyone else played with this?

It's odd. When I posted the above I'd successfully used it on a couple of VOB files. But revisiting it today there is no longer a 'Cast to device' entry in the context menu for VOB files.

I'm wondering if the recent WU could be the cause. A couple of other programs that should run on startup went AWOL, including Dropbox. I'm now using Win 10 Pro 1903 build 18362.388.

Terry

@terrypin

Hi Terry

Check that the recent update has not set Films & TV as the default playback device, this happened to me and was a pain, I defaulted back to WMP.

HTH

John EB

@terrypin

Ha! sounds like my house. My PC is miles from my lounge TV, well, two floors away.

All I do Terry is put my videos on YouTube and play them on my TV from there.

@terrypin

Hi Terry

I am on 1903 and checked VOB playback and they are all marked with an Internet Explorer association and like you no playback (even on the PC!). I changed the Open with to WMP but still no casting and the only way I could get it to cast was changing the extension to .mpg. Not sure if they worked before the update though but might have something to do with the hoohaa when W10 came out and it did not have a DVD player capability? I think you had to download a separate app from the Windows store.

Couple of detail points please. For my tests I used the TV remote to open Devices. Returning upstairs I start a video playing ('casting'?) and hear it playing on the lounge TV. I go down to watch and can pause it and carefully rewind. But if I stop it, or it plays to the end (deliberately or accidentally), how do I restart it? I get just an empty screen and have to repeat the process.

Same here but if you rewind back to the beginning before it stops it will start playing again or, click the "repeat" button on the "Cast to" window and the file or the list will keep playing through.

You can add MJPEG to the list of castable files.

Peter

Grr! Answered this early on 9th Oct, with individual comments to all three.

Doesn't happen every week, but it's a pain when a post vanishes like this. I always then start taking a precautionary copy but that good habit soon fades - until next time. I know this isn't confined to me. I wonder if the site manager is aware of the issue?

--------------------

Very brief fresh post:

@johnebaker Thanks John. Not the cause in this case. BTW, what's your preferred video player now? After alternating between MPC-HC and VLC for years, I switched to Potplayer a few months ago. Excellent in many ways, but for me its just too flexible, with hundreds of settings. I'm now using MPC-BE and like it.

@CubeAce Thanks Ray, I do something similar with my Vimeo account. Two floors away; no doubt you're incredibly fit as a result!

@Scenestealer Thanks Peter. I think my initial enthusiasm was a bit OTT. I'd wrongly anticipated I could use the Panasonic remote to interact with the Cast To playlist on the PC. But while that doesn't seem possible, it's still a handy facility because of its file type versatility.

And it might also even be an alternative when playing a long video. The longest part of that with my usual streaming method is navigating to it on the TV remote. Instead I can do so much faster on the PC and then activate a simple macro to delay starting the Cast To long enough for me to get settled in the lounge. 🙂

<ClipboardCopy>

Terry

@terrypin

If only :-)

What problem with missing posts Terry?

I do on occasion get 'Undefined User' when trying to answer to a specific person or can't get their avatar to come up at all. Peter's is often the hardest one.

I think because people can cast from their phones that it is the phone that becomes the remote in these instances. This is what I mean about the need for constant upgrading of systems if you need to do the latest thing. Even just buying a new camera can mean the need to update everything from upgrading hardware to software for just one new bit of kit. It never stops.