Samsung forum: Samsung TV and PlayOn Media Server: Official support someday

I would love to see this solution officially supported. I know customer demand has an impact. To the Samsung tech's on this forum, could you consider getting this product in the support matrix? It could be a boon to your TV sales. I've run this through the PlayOn forum and hit a wall. Here is a replication of that post:

===============================================================
Posted: Mon, 11/09/2009 - 09:31
Re: Pause option not available on some videos

Here is what I have gleaned so far about this issue. It is not consistent.

Sometimes when my computer and TV (LN40B650) have been powered down a long time and I power up everything, the very first video I pull up to watch allows me to pause, Fast forward and rewind. It stills goes back to the beginning when I exit and come back, forgetting where I was.

However, often when I go back the 2nd time, those controls are no longer available. I have found this with Netflix, CNN, Hulu, and everything else. At one point the controls showed back up for a little while and then disappeared again. Once you're in a video where the controls are available, they seem to stay available as long as you don't exit. Once you exit out of that video, you may not get your controls back.

I've been trying to determine if there is a sequence of key strokes, resets to the TV or to PlayOn, etc., that triggers the restoration of the pause/ffw/rew options. I have not been able to identify a consistent way to bring them back. So far, it seems to be random.

I'm on my 14-day trial, and, frankly, if I can't figure out how to get these options working consistently, I don't think I will purchase the product. I was trying to find a cheaper alternative to Roku or a Blu-Ray player, and this fits the bill. I also like the parental control feature (although I've not put it to the test to see how well it works). However, not being able to pause consistently is a deal breaker. That's a step backwards.

It is also not clear if PlayOn or Samsung (or both) are the ones that are broken. I write device drivers for a living that talk to storage devices, so I understand that just because 2 devices follow the same standard does not mean they will work right out of the box. Bugs have to be worked out. It would be nice if Samsung and PlayOn would get together and decide they wanted to get this option officially supported.

===============================================================

Posted: Mon, 11/09/2009 - 10:13
Re: Pause option not available on some videos

Message to PlayOn administrator:

Do you have any idea what factors might be at work here? Is there any debug data we could gather to send to PlayOn that might assist in finding out what causes the random pause/no-pause issues?

I would be happy with a consistent workaround (such as the yellow-button workaround for starting a video) to get my pause/ffw/rewind working.

===============================================================

Posted: Tue, 11/10/2009 - 10:14
Re: Pause option not available on some videos

Feedback from support:

Thank you for contacting us.

PlayOn is creating the file in real time as it is being watched. In other words, the "end" of the file is not yet available to watch when you start playing it. It is much like a DVR recording of a live broadcast. You can pause it, rewind it, and then fast forward it a bit up until you "catch up" to the live broadcast...but you can not go past it.

We unfortunately do not have further information regarding how these operations take place on unsupported devices, but appreciate your willingness to use the software on your Samsung television -- and we are constantly exploring new devices to support.

With that in mind, you may consider disabling your virtual network to determine if it has an impact on your PlayOn experience.

...

The Virtual Network to which I referred are two network devices running on your PC that we suggest you disable, so they do not interfere with your Internet connection:

VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1
VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet8

---
I tried these options, but to no avail. I think the answer is, until some user out there figures out if a clever workaround exists, that we don't have reliable pause/ffw/rew capability on the Samsung TVs with using PlayOn.

===============================================================

Posted: Tue, 11/10/2009 - 14:44
Re: Pause option not available on some videos

This must be something about that TV. We're not serving our DLNA data to that particular TV differently than other compliant device. The DLNA flags are the same between plays. Have you contacted Samsung to ask them why videos can't be paused through PlayOn? It would be trivial for them to test and debug this, but very time intensive for us to speculate what may be causing their device's behavior.
__________________

PlayOn Administrator

===============================================================