Demo: LinuxMCE's UPnP to a Nokia N810, playing audio and video.

[tschak909]

Hopefully this needs no introduction, all explanation is done in the video.

Have fun watching...
-Thom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmCLm4pIIUg

[niz23]

TSCHAK.

Great.
After some research I feel that Mediatomb is better than fuppes in many ways.
One thing, the author of fuppes is missing. At least according to fuppes forums. Because of that there is a fork named fuppex which aim to develop fuppes further and as soon as the author get back (been missing since early 2008) they will merge everything back.

Second, Fuppes lack metadata support. Even in latest fuppex trunk it cannot handle metadata. At least not for my PS3.

Third, integration possibilities.
With fuppes you only have a sqllite backend. No easy way to integrate against lmce unless we can write some code that hook into fuppes to add/remove data from lmce. Have done some research on that and believe I know were we can add it but I cannot figure out how lmce retrieve media info from its database. Is it through dcerouter communication (command 401 or datagrid) or do orbiters use direct mysql connections through dbwrapper?

For MediaTomb:
*Support transcoding (fuppes do too).
*Have ajax based webui.
*Can present streams as upnp/dlna media.
  Mean we can add a lmce media streamer and present that stream through upnp/dlna. Sees liveTV on my PS3 in the future controlled by an orbiter.
*Support mysql and sqllite as backend with a common storage class. We can derive existing mysql functionality and modify it to talk to lmce 
 database instead. I believe we have a lot more metadata than mediatomb store so it should work. This way we don´t need to write any sync code
 between upnp and lmce. Need to investigate this further.

I wonder what the upnp control point actually do? If I understand it right the control point is about controlling external upnp aware hardware.
Which mean it should be possible to remotely trigger media playing on an N8x0, PS3 etc.


Steps to implement for mediatomb (as I see):
1. Modify existing mysql storage class to talk to lmce db instead.
    Use lmce as master. Mean no way to add media via mediatomb webui.
    Only media and video. No playlist support.
1b. Enhance profile detection to support devices that need transcoding better.
2. Playlist support
3. Possibility to add media through tomb webui.

Maybe hard to understand all above. Did my best to explain it in english.
/niz23

[tschak909]

while i do agree looking at other media engines is a good thing, what i do NOT want, is having to go into ANOTHER web admin to do my work, and if I hear talk like that again, i'm going to start bashing heads..

The singular point should be to have UPnP as an adaptor, and have it push things out as needed directly from our database...maybe this will require us to write our own server.. or we adapt what's already out there and rip out most of its associated web UI...

he who writes the code first, comes up with the rules...

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

Hopefully this needs no introduction, all explanation is done in the video.

Have fun watching...
-Thom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmCLm4pIIUg

Canola is very cool indeed :-)

I had to make the following changes to get fuppes working though;

I needed to edit /etc/fuppes/fuppes.cfg and add the following lines to get my content visible;

Code: [Select]

<shared_objects>
    <!--LMCE-->
    <dir>/home/public/data/audio</dir>
    <dir>/home/public/data/videos</dir>
    <dir>/home/public/data/pictures</dir>
    <!--<itunes>/Users/.../iTunes.xml</itunes>-->
  </shared_objects>
  <network>
    <!--empty = automatic detection-->
    <interface>192.168.80.1</interface>

Then restart fuppes with;

/etc/init.d/fuppes restart<return>

Then go to Web Admin and use fuppes options->Rebuild Database menu option. Now you should be able to use Canola's 'Search servers' icon to browse to your Core and access all your content.

All the best

Andrew

[tschak909]

oddly, all I had to do was just rebuild the db.... there was already an entry for /home/public/data ...

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

oddly, all I had to do was just rebuild the db.... there was already an entry for /home/public/data ...

-Thom

Weird... I tried that but I still did not see the audio, pictures or videos directories listed. When i added them to the fuppes.cfg explicitly then they appeared and worked fine.

Andrew

[tschak909]

Now in order to make this work seamlessly, three things need to happen:

(1) Fuppes needs to be rebuilt with video transcoding enabled.
(2) a device profile needs to be made for the Nokia N810 basically shrinking down all file based media types to ipod size and data rate. Ironically, flash video (FLV) output, which is just basic profile h.263.... would work perfectly here.
(3) DVD files need to be pulled, and the largest size title on the image needs to be seeked, found, and transcoded.

If nobody volunteers for this, I'll put this on my list of stuff to do after I finish the MAME plugin bits.

-Thom

[niz23]

TSCHAK.

I´ll take this task as we discussed yesterday.

Have already started to write down what mods need to be done. It´ll be in wiki in a couple of days.
Need to figure out which pluto_media columns to be mapped to which columns in upnp server.

I think I have decided to use MediaTomb to do dlna/upnp services.
It have one big advantage over others. It can play audio/video streams, like the youtube stream plugin that it have.
In the future I see that we can create a stream_plugin for lmce that present audio, video etc to mediatomb and then be able to control which video for example plays on that stream from an orbiter.

/niz23

[totallymaxed]

TSCHAK.

I´ll take this task as we discussed yesterday.

Have already started to write down what mods need to be done. It´ll be in wiki in a couple of days.
Need to figure out which pluto_media columns to be mapped to which columns in upnp server.

I think I have decided to use MediaTomb to do dlna/upnp services.
It have one big advantage over others. It can play audio/video streams, like the youtube stream plugin that it have.
In the future I see that we can create a stream_plugin for lmce that present audio, video etc to mediatomb and then be able to control which video for example plays on that stream from an orbiter.

/niz23

So is the decision to go with MediaTomb over fuppes agreed? I have no strong feelings either way... except that I am already somewhat familiar with fuppes.

Andrew

[bulek]

oddly, all I had to do was just rebuild the db.... there was already an entry for /home/public/data ...

-Thom

Weird... I tried that but I still did not see the audio, pictures or videos directories listed. When i added them to the fuppes.cfg explicitly then they appeared and worked fine.

Andrew

FYI, I've just tried Upnp without any modifications on 710 Release and Nokia N800 with latest canola. I only see avwizard-sounds and samples directories - no public... It seems we're really close to this great feature...

Regards,

Bulek.

[niz23]

totallymaxed.

TSCHAK.

I´ll take this task as we discussed yesterday.

Have already started to write down what mods need to be done. It´ll be in wiki in a couple of days.
Need to figure out which pluto_media columns to be mapped to which columns in upnp server.

I think I have decided to use MediaTomb to do dlna/upnp services.
It have one big advantage over others. It can play audio/video streams, like the youtube stream plugin that it have.
In the future I see that we can create a stream_plugin for lmce that present audio, video etc to mediatomb and then be able to control which video for example plays on that stream from an orbiter.

/niz23

So is the decision to go with MediaTomb over fuppes agreed? I have no strong feelings either way... except that I am already somewhat familiar with fuppes.

Andrew

It depends on how we defined agreed upon.
Me and TSCHAK had a chat about it yesterday and as I have written earlier MediaTomb have several features that fuppes don´t have.
One other thing is that fuppes have been forked into fuppex because the original author is nowhere to be found.
Third, fuppes only support sqlite as backend. MediaTomb support mysql too which will hopefully make the integration seemless.
Fourth, MediaTomb support the concept of relaying streams. For example a youtube video can be transcoded and presented to a upnp/dlna device.

And last but not least. Support for Xbox360 and PS3 is excellent. Actually MediaTomb was the first upnp server that supported PS3 and even support thumbnails for media presented to the PS3 and probably to others too.
This mean we can hopefully take lmce media thumbnails and present it to MT directly.

I´m open for other suggestions but for now I think MT is the best choice and it´s not complicated.

/niz23

[totallymaxed]

oddly, all I had to do was just rebuild the db.... there was already an entry for /home/public/data ...

-Thom

Weird... I tried that but I still did not see the audio, pictures or videos directories listed. When i added them to the fuppes.cfg explicitly then they appeared and worked fine.

Andrew

FYI, I've just tried Upnp without any modifications on 710 Release and Nokia N800 with latest canola. I only see avwizard-sounds and samples directories - no public... It seems we're really close to this great feature...

Regards,

Bulek.

Bulek just follow the simple steps outlined in my earlier post in this thread to get fuppes pointing at your media and you will have a working setup ;-)

Just playing now with MediaTomb on my desktop machine and this looks very impressive indeed I have to say.

All the best

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

totallymaxed.

TSCHAK.

I´ll take this task as we discussed yesterday.

Have already started to write down what mods need to be done. It´ll be in wiki in a couple of days.
Need to figure out which pluto_media columns to be mapped to which columns in upnp server.

I think I have decided to use MediaTomb to do dlna/upnp services.
It have one big advantage over others. It can play audio/video streams, like the youtube stream plugin that it have.
In the future I see that we can create a stream_plugin for lmce that present audio, video etc to mediatomb and then be able to control which video for example plays on that stream from an orbiter.

/niz23

So is the decision to go with MediaTomb over fuppes agreed? I have no strong feelings either way... except that I am already somewhat familiar with fuppes.

Andrew

It depends on how we defined agreed upon.
Me and TSCHAK had a chat about it yesterday and as I have written earlier MediaTomb have several features that fuppes don´t have.
One other thing is that fuppes have been forked into fuppex because the original author is nowhere to be found.
Third, fuppes only support sqlite as backend. MediaTomb support mysql too which will hopefully make the integration seemless.
Fourth, MediaTomb support the concept of relaying streams. For example a youtube video can be transcoded and presented to a upnp/dlna device.

And last but not least. Support for Xbox360 and PS3 is excellent. Actually MediaTomb was the first upnp server that supported PS3 and even support thumbnails for media presented to the PS3 and probably to others too.
This mean we can hopefully take lmce media thumbnails and present it to MT directly.

I´m open for other suggestions but for now I think MT is the best choice and it´s not complicated.

/niz23

Hi Niz,

We agree that MediaTomb looks to be a nicer implementation and seems to have more features implemented currently. We have installed MediaTomb release 0.11.0 on a couple of Core's here now so we can test it. It seems to be working nicely. I notice that one of the options when setting up your media directories is to have 'timed' re-scans or a scan based on iNotify (which is what UpdateMedia uses too) that senses directory changes as they occur.

We seem to be getting MediaTomb to read the embedded id3 data in mp3's ok... but so far it will not display any cover art on an N800 at least. Have you had any success with that?

We can get avi's files to display on the N800 but no other video files seems to display. Again have you got anywhere with these?

All the best

Andrew

[niz23]

totallymaxed.

Hi Niz,

We agree that MediaTomb looks to be a nicer implementation and seems to have more features implemented currently. We have installed MediaTomb release 0.11.0 on a couple of Core's here now so we can test it. It seems to be working nicely. I notice that one of the options when setting up your media directories is to have 'timed' re-scans or a scan based on iNotify (which is what UpdateMedia uses too) that senses directory changes as they occur.

We seem to be getting MediaTomb to read the embedded id3 data in mp3's ok... but so far it will not display any cover art on an N800 at least. Have you had any success with that?

We can get avi's files to display on the N800 but no other video files seems to display. Again have you got anywhere with these?

All the best

Andrew

Unfortunately I don´t have access to a N8x0.
only a PS3 machine.
Haven´t got thumbnails to work on it yet. It should work according to a several posts on the internet.

Iám using MediaTomb 0.12 (the trunk) since it seem to be a release of it soon. So far no stability problems.
What I´m working on right now is to nail down a couple of bugs (missed features?) in lmce media_plugin.
It seem that there is no code that update "is new?" status for anything other than video files?.
In order to sync files between Mediatomb and lmce I need this to work reliably.

Have some learning to do too. Its pretty hard to understand lmce source code.

By the way you find me most of the time in irc.

/niz23

[golgoj4]

just thought i would toss in my experiences. I just installed the 0.11. release of media tomb and im seeing thumbnails for the audio. I still need to work on the video transcoding though as those show up unsupported.

will post as soon as i get it working and with what settings