[wmcbrine]

I don't know, sorry. I'll continue looking.

Amusingly, this thread is now the #3 result on Google for "vlc multiple video tracks".

 

[Allanon]

I found this: http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch03.html

Search the page for "video track", the paragraph where the first instance is found might be the answer but I'm not sure.

 

[wmcbrine]

Nope, that's not it.

 

[wmcbrine]

2.0 -- Now presents itself as one app, generates its own menu, and uses a config.ini file to define the streams.

 

[wmcbrine]

I guess some people will think this is the first useful version -- it now supports streaming your local files (and navigating through them) as well as Internet streams. See config.ini for some example file shares (commented out) -- basically, you use "dir" instead of "url" to specify them.

Local files can be transcoded, just like streams. I almost didn't include this, because it should really be done in a different way, rather than using a method designed for live streaming. You may miss a bit from the beginning, and the image may be messed up at first. But, it worked better than I expected, so I'm going ahead with it. (MPEG files won't have this problem -- files with an ".mpg" or "mp4" extension.)

 

[StanSimmons]

I guess some people will think this is the first useful version -- it now supports streaming your local files (and navigating through them) as well as Internet streams. See config.ini for some example file shares (commented out) -- basically, you use "dir" instead of "url" to specify them.

Local files can be transcoded, just like streams. I almost didn't include this, because it should really be done in a different way, rather than using a method designed for live streaming. You may miss a bit from the beginning, and the image may be messed up at first. But, it worked better than I expected, so I'm going ahead with it. (MPEG files won't have this problem -- files with an ".mpg" or "mp4" extension.)

Ohhh, that sounds like what I'm needing.

Unfortunately, I'm away from the house for a week and can't play.

 

[dankruse]

Hey, thanks for the app.

Here is some feedback for you.

Just a heads up the the lastest VLC nightly build doesn't seem to work 0.9.2. It does work with VLC 0.8.6.

Also, it doesn't seem to create correct URLs when the config.ini dir path contains a different partition ( Windows C:\ etc.. ).

Local files seem to work when they require transcoding, but my compatible mpg files all fail with 404 errors.

HME Server for Python 0.14
Tue Sep 09 10:16:25 2008 Server Starts
Registering: hmevlc
192.168.1.3:46180 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:31] "GET /hmevlc/icon.png HTTP/1.0" 200
-
192.168.1.3:46182 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:32] "GET /hmevlc/ HTTP/1.1" 200 -
192.168.1.3:46182 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:32] Starting HME: hmevlc
192.168.1.3:46183 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:46] code 404, message Not Found
192.168.1.3:46183 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:46] "GET /My%20Documents/My%20Videos%5C
DVD%20Movies%5CBarnyard.mpg HTTP/1.1" 404 -
192.168.1.3:46184 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:59] code 404, message Not Found
192.168.1.3:46184 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:16:59] "GET /My%20Documents/My%20Videos%5C
DVD%20Movies%5CBee%20Movie.mpg HTTP/1.1" 404 -
192.168.1.3:46185 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:17:07] code 404, message Not Found
192.168.1.3:46185 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:17:07] "GET /My%20Documents/My%20Videos%5C
DVD%20Movies%5CEnchanted.mpg HTTP/1.1" 404 -
192.168.1.3:46190 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:21:00] code 404, message Not Found
192.168.1.3:46190 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:21:00] "GET /My%20Documents/My%20Videos%5C
DVD%20Movies%5CHappily%20NEver%20After.mpg HTTP/1.1" 404 -
192.168.1.3:46193 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:21:57] code 404, message Not Found
192.168.1.3:46193 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:21:57] "GET /My%20Documents/My%20Videos%5C
DVD%20Movies%5CMeet%20the%20Robinsons.mpg HTTP/1.1" 404 -
192.168.1.3:46182 - - [09/Sep/2008 10:22:57] Ending HME: hmevlc
1

 

[wmcbrine]

Also, it doesn't seem to create correct URLs when the config.ini dir path contains a different partition ( Windows C:\ etc.. ).

The way around this is to specify the datapath on the command line. I used an entry like this successfully:

[Movies]
dir=e:\home\movies

[Misc]
dir=e:\home\Desktop\misc

by invoking the program like this:

python start.py --datapath e:\

Alternatively, you can edit the "data_root = " line in start.py. The default datapath is "/", which should work for a single drive if you leave off the drive letter, and use slashes instead of backslashes in the config.ini. However, you can't have shares on multiple drives at the same time. You could work around that by using "join", or, preferably, by using a real operating system.

I know this is an area that needs work.

P.S. What exactly happens with the VLC nightly?

 

[Danimal4326]

have you used any of the resolution options to set the resolution of the app to a HD res such as 1280x720 versus the standard 640x480 that HME uses?

 

[wmcbrine]

The app runs at 640x480. However, this only applies to the menus and overlays -- HD streams will play in HD.

I think the menus and overlays look pretty good as is (apart from some cropping in the info bar, which is fixed for the next release), and HD HME is just slightly harder to work with (you can't set a background color on a view larger than a certain size), so I haven't bothered in this case.

 

[wmcbrine]

Relatively minor changes -- normally I wouldn't have released this as a new version yet, but I don't expect to have much time to work on HME/VLC for a while.

 

[Danimal4326]

The app runs at 640x480. However, this only applies to the menus and overlays -- HD streams will play in HD.

I think the menus and overlays look pretty good as is (apart from some cropping in the info bar, which is fixed for the next release), and HD HME is just slightly harder to work with (you can't set a background color on a view larger than a certain size), so I haven't bothered in this case.

Ok just checking. I know that the youTube app and tivos HD picture viewer both change the resolution.

As long as the videos are still in HD.

Can one check this if you configure the Tivo to output native instead of hybrid resolutions?? i.e. when you start the app, it runs at lower res, then when you view a hd stream, you can see the resolution change as well???

 

[wmcbrine]

Yeah, the YouTube app has a lot of info to put up. Re: Picture viewers, I also did an HD one (included in the HME for Python package), but it's just a simple slideshow. I mean to do something more one of these days.

Testing... Yes, the resolution does change for 480 and 1080 videos in Native mode. The default mode (used for menus and nonstandard sizes) is actually 720p. (That is, the TiVo is outputting 720p, even though the menus are rendered at 640x480.) Hmm, and the menus stay in the mode of the last-played video until I select another video or exit. (The default of 720p is just left over from the TiVo's own menus, apparently.)

 

[wmcbrine]

I only post this one because I'm compulsive.

 

[PaulS]

I just set this up last night. Got it running on WinXP SP2, but ran into a few gotchas.

1. Recordings drive letter != HME/VLC installation drive letter.
Of course this is fixed by adding "--datapath X:\" to the command line, but it would have been nice for this to be included in the installation docs, rather than having to go scouring to find the answer.

2. Path names with spaces in them are not really handled well. Adding double-quotes around the paths didn't seem to correct the problem, and resulted in a different kind of path name parsing error instead. I remedied the situation by renaming the directories and filenames to remove the spaces.

3. Begin playback of one video. After a short while, left click out of the recording and get back to the file browser. Choose a different video and select it for streaming. Playback commences, but of the FIRST video, and right at the point from which you exited it in the first place. Once you're in this state, it doesn't matter how many times you exit and select a different video, you'll always be returned to the original video when you try to play anything back. I had to kill the ffmpeg window in order to play out anything else. Is there a feedback mechanism between HME and ffmpeg (or VLC) to halt it from streaming when the user interrupts playback ?

Other than that, this is really cool. It will handle most playback cases, except for high resolution (>720p) sources, which my current machine can not stream in real time. pyTivo will have to suffice for those videos.

 

[wmcbrine]

On 3, are you saying that happens every time, or just sometimes? (Of course it should happen never.) Are you using Python 2.4? (See post #14 above.)

I haven't seen the space problem; I'll look into it.

Edit: I can't reproduce any problem with spaces under Linux. It could be some time before I can test it in Windows. Could you be more specific about what you're seeing? I tried spaces in the "dir" path, spaces in intermediate directories, spaces in the file name, and for good measure, spaces in the share name.

 

[PaulS]

On 3, are you saying that happens every time, or just sometimes? (Of course it should happen never.) Are you using Python 2.4? (See post #14 above.)

I haven't seen the space problem; I'll look into it.

I would have to say sometimes, because I can't say it happened always. I iterated through quite a few test runs last night, and I can't definitely say it happened all the time. I'll re-test and report.

Python 2.5.2

 

[goodtrips]

Installed and ran this today on a successful live p2p tv test. This has got amazing potential!

I haven't been able to have any luck, however, with streaming any local MP4 or M4V video files. I tried taking out spaces in the naming convention, but am getting -404 and message Not Found errors accompanied with "error reading stream" on the TiVo itself.

My feeling is that this could be a much more elegant and powerful solution to pyTivo. Very encouraged, and keep up the good work!

 

[Allanon]

FYI, a new version of VLC has been released and the default command line your program uses to open the stream doesn't work with this new version.

 

[wmcbrine]

OK, I finally got a chance to test under Windows, and I couldn't reproduce any problem with spaces at all. PaulS, you may want to reexamine your issue. (I can't duplicate your other problem, either.)

Allanon, can you tell me exactly what does happen with the new version of VLC?

goodtrips, if you're in Windows, try starting it with the datapath option, e.g., "python start.py --datapath c:\".