Mailing List Archive: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility?

Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility?

Jun 5, 2003, 3:40 AM

Post #1 of 6 (1797 views)

I was wondering if anyone was working on a way to setup a streaming server
for mythweb? I heard some talk about it before, and I think it is a really
great idea especially since the nuv files are unplayable on windows
machines. If I was really skilled at the linux environment I would help out,
but I'm not sure where to start exactly. I'm not even sure if there is a
plugin yet for linux serve a compliant video stream as all I can think of is
WMV or something non proprietary. It would be nice to have the portability
of watching videos on other computers especially with just one click.

I also was wondering if anyone has attempted to create a WAP complaint
scaled down version of mythweb yet also for mobile phones? It would be
really nice to log in with a cell phone and see whats going on with myth, to
start and stop recordings, and simple things like that. I might look into
this to see if I can put something together, as it really shouldnt be that
hard since mythweb has been implemented already.

Also has anyone got a good encoder setup yet for myth to convert the nuv
files? I tried mythmkmovie but it pretty much locked up the computer for a
while and didnt output anything as far as I could tell.

I just updated my mythbox to a 2800XP+ 2200mhz (o/c from a 2400XP+) and I am
very pleased with the results. Before this I had a AMD 1.33 (~1500XP+)
processor running in it, which worked pretty well but since I have direcTV I
wanted very high quality. I can now watch live tv at 640x480 at 6/7mbps divx
with even some cpu power to spare. If anyone is interested I ran a test of
Divx bandwidth vs CPU usage on both chips and put them in an graphed excel
file available at: (http://www.netslayer.net/Mythtv/mythtv.xls).

Thanks for all the hard work you guys put into this project, it has really
become an impressive system! Even over the last month there have been some
awesome improvements like in mythvideo, I can't wait to see whats next!

*Ohya haven't checked if this has been fixed yet but in mythvideo once you
play any video, and return back it seams to loose focus. By this I mean I
will have to push alt tab for it to make the menu active so that I can use
the remote with it.

Till Next Time,
Chris

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RE: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility? [ In reply to ]

rjmunro at arjam

Jun 5, 2003, 4:21 AM

Post #2 of 6 (1776 views)

Permalink

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Chris Germano
> Sent: 05 June 2003 11:41
> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
> Subject: [mythtv-users] Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a
> possibility?
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone was working on a way to setup a
> streaming server
> for mythweb? I heard some talk about it before, and I think it is
> a really
> great idea especially since the nuv files are unplayable on windows
> machines. If I was really skilled at the linux environment I
> would help out,
> but I'm not sure where to start exactly. I'm not even sure if there is a
> plugin yet for linux serve a compliant video stream as all I can
> think of is
> WMV or something non proprietary. It would be nice to have the
> portability
> of watching videos on other computers especially with just one click.

Streaming video is stupid, apart from for live usage. Much better to just
download the file. Quicktime player, and probably others, let you start
watching a file while the end of it is still downloading. If the download
speed is fatster than the encoded speed, it will play perfectly every single
time. If it is slower, you can wait until it is half downloaded before you
start watching it. There are never any dropped frames or anything. For an
example, if you have a computer with quicktime, see
http://www.beam.tv/beamreels/beamreel.php?dzjgijxl

> I also was wondering if anyone has attempted to create a WAP complaint
> scaled down version of mythweb yet also for mobile phones? It would be
> really nice to log in with a cell phone and see whats going on
> with myth, to
> start and stop recordings, and simple things like that. I might look into
> this to see if I can put something together, as it really
> shouldnt be that
> hard since mythweb has been implemented already.

That would be cool. Also on mobile phones, it would be great if it could use
bemused as an interactive remote control
http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~ashley/bemused/

Robert Munro

Re: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility? [ In reply to ]

linux.news at bucksch

Jun 5, 2003, 4:38 AM

Post #3 of 6 (1753 views)

Permalink

Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote:

>Streaming video is stupid, apart from for live usage. Much better to just
>download the file. Quicktime player, and probably others, let you start
>watching a file while the end of it is still downloading.
>
That *is* streaming (using HTTP) ;-).

The problem is that the player probably won't be able to play the file,
because the file format is custom to MythTV. Which means you need either
a MythTV-aware or -specific client anyways or transcode in realtime on
the server or transcode once.

A MythTV client for Windows seems to be a FAQ, search the archive.

RE: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb apossibility? [ In reply to ]

rjmunro at arjam

Jun 5, 2003, 5:21 AM

Post #4 of 6 (1753 views)

Permalink

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Ben Bucksch
> Sent: 05 June 2003 12:38
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb
> apossibility?
>
>
> Robert (Jamie) Munro wrote:
>
> >Streaming video is stupid, apart from for live usage. Much better to just
> >download the file. Quicktime player, and probably others, let you start
> >watching a file while the end of it is still downloading.
> >
> That *is* streaming (using HTTP) ;-).

Hmmm... streaming is usually where you request portions of the file as you
need them, rather than requesting the whole file in advance. If you want to
start playing the file half way through, you tell the server to start
sending from the second half of the file. It's useful if you don't have
space to cache the whole thing (diskless workstations), or if the thing is
live i.e. still happening, and you want to start watching it from the
present time, rather than from the beginning. I think that normally, neither
of those cases is true.

Streaming video is particularly annoying on my home set up because I have
ISDN (broadband is not available where I live). The video is designed to run
on a 56k modem, so it will often keep my ISDN line busy enough for a short
period for it to dial the second connection to try to download the data
faster. As soon as it does this, the server sends a bit more data at double
speed, then stops completely for a few seconds, until the viewer catches up
with what has been downloaded. It then proceeds to efficently use both my
lines for exactly half the time, and keep them both open. My on-line time is
limited, and using both lines halves the limit. If it could just get on and
download the whole thing, it could happily revert to one line, or I could
even disconnect completely.

> The problem is that the player probably won't be able to play the file,
> because the file format is custom to MythTV. Which means you need either
> a MythTV-aware or -specific client anyways or transcode in realtime on
> the server or transcode once.
>
> A MythTV client for Windows seems to be a FAQ, search the archive.

You should be able to just sort out the headers of the file, but not
actually re-encode it, if your media player can understand the compression
being used. Quicktime, Windows media player and realplayer are all capable
of at least some of the MPEG standards, if the data is in .mov, .wmv and .rm
files respectively. It is also possible to extend the players with plugins
for your own codecs.

Robert Munro

RE: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility? [ In reply to ]

jcaputo1 at comcast

Jun 5, 2003, 7:44 AM

Post #5 of 6 (1765 views)

Permalink

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Chris Germano
> Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 6:41 AM
> To: mythtv-users@snowman.net
> Subject: [mythtv-users] Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a
> possibility?
>
> *Ohya haven't checked if this has been fixed yet but in mythvideo
> once you
> play any video, and return back it seams to loose focus. By this I mean I
> will have to push alt tab for it to make the menu active so that
> I can use
> the remote with it.

Check the focus policy in your window manager; make sure it's "click to
focus" and not "focus follows mouse".

-JAC

Re: Streaming server, WAP addon to mythweb a possibility? [ In reply to ]

dlou99 at yahoo

Jun 5, 2003, 8:58 AM

Post #6 of 6 (1756 views)

Permalink

From: "Chris Germano" <netslayer@hotmail.com>
>Also has anyone got a good encoder setup yet for myth
>to convert the nuv
>files? I tried mythmkmovie but it pretty much locked
>up the computer for a
>while and didnt output anything as far as I could
>tell.

mythmkmovie is just a wrapper for a call to mencoder.
If you don't have a patched mencoder, it isn't going
to work.

To test if your mencoder is working properly,
try running the following:

mencoder -idx mythtv_generated.nuv -oac mp3lame -ovc
lavc -vop scale=320:240 -o new.avi

(substitue mythtv_generated.nuv with the name of
a MythTV generated .NUV)

If you get a new.avi that's playable in mplayer or
Windows Media Player (with Divx5 codec installed),
then your mencoder is working.

-Dennis

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