README - Movieplayer for dbox II(Deutsch, extern, evtl. nicht tagesaktuell)

The Movieplayer and this document are currently NOT in a state to be used by endusers! Therefore this document is targetted to developers.
Der Movieplayer und dieses Dokument sind zur Zeit noch NICHT endbenutzertauglich! Daher ist dieses Dokument ausschließlich an Entwickler gerichtet.

To understand what you can't expect from the current Movieplayer implementation see the Known Bugs and ToDo section of this document.

History:

May 15, 2004, 01:29

NEW:

Audio tracks of TS files can be selected.
Works only with TS files which have several audio pids. No PAT/PMT required within the file.
Has been tested with TS files from the upcoming udrec release which will support recording of several audio pids. No testing could be done with TS files which have been recorded using Direct Recording in Neutrino as it does not work for me any more
Currently the audio track has to be selected manually at start of movie or after pressing the green button. Automatic detection of changes in the audio tracks will be added in future versions by parsing the PAT/PMT (as long as it is included in the TS which does not seem to be a necessity). This will also allow to present additional information about the audio track (like language) which is not possible with the current version.

May 10, 2004

NEW:

The ToDo Item "MP3 HTTP streaming" could be removed from the ToDo list as it got implemented within the MP3 Player by Sania and Zwen :)

Feb 10, 2004, 16:59

FIXED:

Crash when bookmark list was empty

Feb 09, 2004

NEW:

Full bookmark support
Show progress (? key). Thanks to Zwen

Feb 07, 2004, 22:50

NEW:

Added support for writing bookmarks for VLC playback. ATTENTION: You need a VLC0.7.1-test1 and a new dboxfiles.html file and a current VLC snapshot for this!. Please test it!
Preparations for playback from bookmarks (VLC). UI will follow shortly.

Feb 07, 2004, 02:45 (zwen)

NEW:

Added support for jumping while playing via VLC:
- 1 = approx. 1 minute back
- 3 = approx. 1 minute forward
- 4 = approx. 5 minutes back
- 6 = approx. 5 minutes forward
- 7 = approx. 10 minutes back
- 9 = approx. 10 minutes forward

Feb 05, 2004, 02:15

NEW:

Added support for writing bookmarks for TS playback
Added support for jumping in a TS file:
- 1 = approx. 1 minute back
- 3 = approx. 1 minute forward
- 4 = approx. 5 minutes back
- 6 = approx. 5 minutes forward
- 7 = approx. 10 minutes back
- 9 = approx. 10 minutes forward

Jan 22, 2004, 23:00

NEW:

Very experimental PES playback

Dec 21, 2003, 17:57

NEW:

Help Menu ( ?-button )

FIXED:

TS playback works again
SVCD playback works again

Nov 04, 2003, 12:22

NEW:

Movieplayer is now part of every alexW Image (dboxupdate.berlios.de)

Oct 12, 2003

NEW:

.mpeg File extension supported (Thanks to Sepp776)
Added options to force video transcoding. Allows displaying files with non-MPEG compliant video resolutions (Thanks to Sepp776)

Sep 23, 2003

FIXED:

Destroyed and fixed DVD playback at the same day

Sep 08, 2003, 23:45:

NEW:

AC3 support. As I don't have any AC3 equipment I have no idea if this actually works. PLEASE TEST.

FIXED:

Movieplayer startup dir setting is now enabled/disabled properly.
Removed MAJOR memory leak (>1 MB leak per call of Movieplayer). Movieplayer is much more stable now.

Sep 05, 2003, 10:00:

FIXED:

AVI Files can be selected (Thanks to Zwen)
No more transcoding for VCDs, SVCDs, MPG Files and M2P Files. This should result in a much better playback quality (Thanks to Zwen)

Sep 03, 2003, 24:00:

FIXED:

Pause/Resume SHOULD work properly now. I need feedback on this
Sockets are now properly closed. One memory leak less
Code cleanup
Better debug output
Proper String handling

NEW:

Buffer underrun protection
Better user interface while buffering

Sep 02, 2003, 11:30:

NEW:

Startup time for playback via VLC decreased by another 5 seconds.

Sep 01, 2003, 22:10:

FIXED:

Startup time for playback via VLC decreased by approx. 20 seconds.
Files and directories with space characters are now properly handled (Thanks to Zwen)
Settings are not deleted any more while changing another setting (Thanks to Zwen)

Sep 01, 2003:

FIXED:

Updated the dboxfiles.zip File. Please use this one!

Sep 01, 2003:

NEW:

The Movieplayer supports playback of DivX, XVid, MPEG, PS and other files via VLC. Please see the changed prerequisites to get this working!

FIXED:

No more Zombie threads.
Movieplayer now properly quits at the end of any DVD, SVCD and File.

Aug 14, 2003:

The Movieplayer is ONLY part of alexw HEAD snapshot images! This might change though.

Aug 12, 2003:

The Neutrino Movieplayer application in the CVS (HEAD branch) of www.tuxbox.org supports playback of DVDs, VCDs and SVCDs via a server (in addition to the established playback of TS files which are mounted via NFS).

Prerequisites:

To use this feature you need a Windows or Linux PC running VLC (www.videolan.org). Other operating systems which are supported by VLC should work as well, obi ;). This PC needs to be networked to your dbox. Please be aware that you need version 0.6.2 or above! Smaller versions will NOT work as only 0.6.2 incorporates special additions which have been developed for Movieplayer.

You can get VLC 0.6.2 here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
VLC 0.7.0 does not seem to work reliably and thus is not supported.
For the bookmark and progress info features you need at least VLC 0.7.1-test1 which you can get here:: ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/videolan/testing/vlc-0.7.1-test1/
You also have to copy my updated dboxfiles.html file.
(see "How to Use" section of this document).

How to use:

Install vlc 0.6.2 (or above) from http://www.videolan.org on your Linux or Windows box.
Configure your CD or DVD drive and play back any VCD, SVCD or DVD locally. Only if this works continue with the next step. If not get support at http://www.videolan.org/support/ until this works! (Please don't flood the dbox forum with questions how to run the basic VLC)
Start "vlc --extraintf=http" from the command line. This will allow VLC to be controlled via a HTTP interface listening on port 8080 by default.
Test this by pointing your browser to "http://127.0.0.1:8080". You should see a HTML user interface of VLC.
Configure Neutrino Movieplayer by going to "dbox - Settings - Movieplayer"
Configure the port to the port VLC is listening on. Default is 8080
Configure the IP address to be the IP address of the PC where VLC is running on.
Configure the DVD Drive (CD Drive) of the PC. Often this is "D:" on Windows and "/dev/cdrom" on Linux
Leave "1000" for the video rate and "192" for the audio rate. You can increase this later if you can succesfully stream DVDs or (S)VCDs. The acceptable values here are mostly dependent on the quality of your network (see "Known Bugs")
Save the settings
Start the Movieplayer from the "dbox" menu
Insert a DVD (or SVCD) into the drive of the PC
Press the yellow button to start the playback of the DVD (blue for SVCD)
After a while the DVD playback will start (if not you will see appropriate error dialogs)
You can pause/resume playback using the yellow button (see "Known Bugs")
You can stop the playback using the red button
Copy the file dboxfile.html to the http/admin directory of VLC. You can get it here
VLC needs to be restarted after copying the file!
Point your browser to "http://127.0.0.1:8080/admin/dboxfiles.html?dir=C:" (...dir=/ with Linux). Default username is "admin". Password is "admin". You should see a list of directories and files. If this works continue with the next step.

Point your browser to "http://127.0.0.1:8080/admin/dboxfiles.html?stream_time=true" Default username is "admin". Password is "admin". You should see "0". If this does not work you will have no bookmark support and no progress indicator ("?" button).
Go to the Movieplayer settings and change the VLC directory to a value which contains movie files on the machine VLC is running on. (e.g. "C:\Movies" or "/export/movies". You can't enter a \. So enter a / instead (e.g. "C:/Movies")
Save the settings
Start the Movieplayer from the "dbox" menu
Press the red button and choose a file from your disk. DivX, XVid, MPEG, PS and others should work (see VLC documentation for supported formats).

Known Bugs

Audio/Video sync gets destroyed because of unknown reasons with VLC.

ToDo's

Automatic detection if audio tracks changed within a TS file
Support for selecting the audio tracks for VLC playback
Automatic resolution detection and handling
Automatic detection and handling if transcoding is required
Warning if transcoding machine and/or network is too slow
Chapter support for DVD and (S)VCD