Channel Issues & Questions

[midiwall]

"gbuell" wrote:
Hey all,

I'm pretty close to getting this working, but I'm stuck on making my alias work. I know I can get video to play if I put video into a Video folder under a main Media folder within my server, but I really don't want to copy all my video there - I'd much rather leave it in my iTunes Media folder, so I trying to get aliases to work. I'm using a Mac, and I've gone into the Apache config file (located at /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf) and entered the following line:

Alias /Video /Users/Grant/Music/iTunes Media/Movies

Try:
Alias /Video "/Users/Grant/Music/iTunes Media/Movies"

Apache is probably not parsing past the space in-between "iTunes" and "Media"

[dbrand666]

FreeNAS uses lighttpd rather than Apache and it adds a directory called "Parent Directory" to the directory listings. Can you ignore them? I have my photos organized like this:

Folder1
-> Photo1.jpg
-> Photo2.jpg
Folder2
-> Photo1.jpg
...

When I go into Photos, I see a list of my Folder... directories across the screen but if I select one, all I see is a "Parent Directory" folder. Some of my folders do have an additional level, eg.:
Folder7
-> Subfolder1
--> Photo1.jpg

In those folders, I do see the Subfolder(s) and can select them and view the photos.

What's interesting is that if there are any folders present, I no longer see the "Parent Directory" listed in Roksbox so it does look like Roksbox is treating that entry specially sometimes.

[shelleye]

"philsoft" wrote:

"RockyFord" wrote:
I spent about 12 hours this past weekend trying to find the magic sauce for encoding videos in Handbrake.
Here are my results:
Premise: I have .mpg (full mpeg2 dvd rips) and .avi (mp4) with 5.1ac3 audio in most cases.
the settings that work best for me and seem to reproduce the proper frame without wierd letterboxing or cropping.

Container:MP4 File, Large File Size and Web Optimized checked.

Picture:Anamorphic is set to None. Width is set to 640 (half of 1280), Height auto sets for aspect ratio (Using half width really seems to allow the codec to pack in the detail. The TV upscales the picture beautifully and my file sizes stay manageable. Cropping: Custom and I zero all values.

Video Filters: All off except for Decomb:Default

Video: Video Codec: H.264(x264) Framerate:29.97 Avg. Bitrae:2500 or 3000 (Constant Quality doesn't seem to work well with roku because the bitrate may climb to high in spots)

Audio: Use only one track of audio, I found that when I had two tracks of audio that were different the results became unpredictable. I use the AC3 passthru (DTS) for the files that have it already inside and the AAC works well for the files that don't have 5.1.

These settings seem to work well for me and I hope they help some of you.

You can actually drop the average bitrate to 1500 - 1600 without a loss of quality, this will make smaller files.

Hi guys,

I am using a program that was written for Tivo called KMTTG. It's a nifty program that batch downloads, cuts commercials, and encodes from Tivo, but I am now using it to encode .mpg rips from dvd's as well. In the process of trying to get it to work, I have run into a couple of questions:

1. some of the encodes that I did were 23.97, and they seem to be playing fine. I remember that I had to re-encode a number of .mp4 files because 23.97 would cause rebuffering issues. Has this issue been fixed? Does it only cause problems with some videos? Meaning, I guess, is 29.97 still the preferred frame rate, in order to avoid possible rebuffering issues?

2. why is it better to set the picture width to 640 than 720? If the original material is 720, wouldn't the picture quality be better if you just leave it at that?

3. (okay, three questions) KMTTG uses the handbrake command line interface to set profiles. How do I tell it to set anamorphic to "none", as per these suggestions, using the command line? (My thinking was to set the width, and not specify the height, assuming handbrake would adjust the height to preserve the ratio, but when I do that, the ratio gets a little wonky...)

Thanks in advance....

[ldr223]

Hi, Sorry I'm a bit late on a update but I have to work all this past weekend. I'm have problem now is where you find the your web server address on the computer because I don't know what is my web server address at all on my computer? I got the other steps done up to the web server address.

Open a web browser on your computer and type in http://localhost. Then let us know what it says.
Hi, It says Index of /

Name Modified Size
Parent directory and under of it is the movie I put over there.

It looks like your video is directly under your web server root. Roksbox can be set up to play it from there, but it is not recommended. Here is what I would recommend.

Create the following directory structure on your PC with these folder names:

Your Web Server Root (possibly c:\www)
|
+--Media (c:\www\Media)
   |
   +--Videos (c:\www\Media\Videos)

You can create additional folders under your Videos folder if you want to categorize your videos, but at least have this type of structure. Put your video in the Videos folder, or in a folder below the Videos folder. With this structure, set up your Roksbox video media settings like this:

Location: your web server address (something like http://192.168.1.2)
Media Path: Media
Video Path: Videos

Delete the XML file name.

The folder names and the Roksbox settings are case sensitive, so make sure they are the same (PC Folder = Media, Roksbox Path = Media, or PC Folder = media, Roksbox Path = media).

Let us know how this works.

[aegl]

"shelleye" wrote:

1. some of the encodes that I did were 23.97, and they seem to be playing fine. I remember that I had to re-encode a number of .mp4 files because 23.97 would cause rebuffering issues. Has this issue been fixed? Does it only cause problems with some videos? Meaning, I guess, is 29.97 still the preferred frame rate, in order to avoid possible rebuffering issues?

This was only a problem for material over an hour. So if you have typical TV shows stripped of commercials, then 23.97 will work. If you have movies that are longer than an hour, then you'll hit the dreaded "Rebuffering" just after the one hour mark (when this happened to me the rebuffering events happened at what seemed like ever reducing intervals. e.g. at 64 minutes, then again at 66 and again at 67:30, 68:00 ... I gave up trying to watch after the fourth or fifth rebuffer).

I haven't seen anything on the forums to indicate that this has been fixed (but I don't read every post).

I'll leave questions 2 & 3 to someone who knows the answers.

[shelleye]

Very helpful, thanks, and it clarifies the disappearing rebuffering problem: all my recent encodes were less than an hour.I look forward to answers 2 and 3.

[WilDD]

"ldr223" wrote:
Hi, Sorry I'm a bit late on a update but I have to work all this past weekend. I'm have problem now is where you find the your web server address on the computer because I don't know what is my web server address at all on my computer? I got the other steps done up to the web server address.

Click Start->Run.
Type cmd and click OK.
When the black window appears, type ipconfig and press Enter.
This should show your IP address, which is also your web server address. Use this address in the Roksbox media setup.

[bflong]

I'm converting my media with handbrake, and have run into a minor issue. It seems that Roksbox is stretching the video out to fill the screen without having any respect for the aspect ratio. In my case, I have a letterbox movie (LotR). Even on a 16:9 screen, there is letterboxing on the top and bottom. When I transcode the video, this letterboxing is removed, which is standard procedure when transcoding. However when playing the video, the picture is stretched to the top and the bottom of the screen. Is there some setting I need to put in the video to fix this? Perhaps I don't have a choice but to leave the letterboxing in the transcoded video? That would be a shame because I also want to watch these videos on my computer and the letterboxing just adds wasted space.

[ldr223]

Hi, A update I finally got my movie over there now after it took me a bit to get it over there. Now I just got to figure out now to put the music and youtube over there now.

"WilDD" wrote:

"ldr223" wrote:
Hi, Sorry I'm a bit late on a update but I have to work all this past weekend. I'm have problem now is where you find the your web server address on the computer because I don't know what is my web server address at all on my computer? I got the other steps done up to the web server address.

Click Start->Run.
Type cmd and click OK.
When the black window appears, type ipconfig and press Enter.
This should show your IP address, which is also your web server address. Use this address in the Roksbox media setup.

[RockyFord]

Hi guys,

I am using a program that was written for Tivo called KMTTG. It's a nifty program that batch downloads, cuts commercials, and encodes from Tivo, but I am now using it to encode .mpg rips from dvd's as well. In the process of trying to get it to work, I have run into a couple of questions:

1. some of the encodes that I did were 23.97, and they seem to be playing fine. I remember that I had to re-encode a number of .mp4 files because 23.97 would cause rebuffering issues. Has this issue been fixed? Does it only cause problems with some videos? Meaning, I guess, is 29.97 still the preferred frame rate, in order to avoid possible rebuffering issues?

2. why is it better to set the picture width to 640 than 720? If the original material is 720, wouldn't the picture quality be better if you just leave it at that?

3. (okay, three questions) KMTTG uses the handbrake command line interface to set profiles. How do I tell it to set anamorphic to "none", as per these suggestions, using the command line? (My thinking was to set the width, and not specify the height, assuming handbrake would adjust the height to preserve the ratio, but when I do that, the ratio gets a little wonky...)

Thanks in advance....

1. 29.97 seems to work with video over an hour in length to prevent rebuffering (I don't know why)
2. I use 640 wide because it works perfectly on 4x3 screens and it is exactly a 2x upscale for 720p so the tv or the roku will not be likely to screw up the upscale. I had some problems with weird scaling at 720 wide.
3.I don't know the answer to this one. I don't use the command line.

One note: I have found the setting cropping to auto goes along to helping to maintain proper aspect ratios. (Likely I'm way behind the curve on this one

also be careful using ac3 passthru. I learned the hardway that it won't work on all devices like AAC does. When it does work it's great.