Roku Developer Program

[el_wubo]

When the client asks the server for a file the server tries to generate a path for it that is relative to the music path. If the path includes .. to leave the music directory it assumes someone is trying to access stuff you didn't want them to get and issues the warning. Apparently the code that makes the path relative isnt playing well with symlinks.

I'm on vacation right now so my availability is limited.

Renojim, one fix would be to make a handler that can return the nth item in a playlist (where n is an argument to the handler) and bypass the check since presumably the user is okay with serving anything found in a playlist.

[dellsweig]

"el.wubo" wrote:
When the client asks the server for a file the server tries to generate a path for it that is relative to the music path. If the path includes .. to leave the music directory it assumes someone is trying to access stuff you didn't want them to get and issues the warning. Apparently the code that makes the path relative isnt playing well with symlinks.

I'm on vacation right now so my availability is limited.

Renojim, one fix would be to make a handler that can return the nth item in a playlist (where n is an argument to the handler) and bypass the check since presumably the user is okay with serving anything found in a playlist.

Vacation???? What?????

Say it isnt so 🙂

[cmcnulty]

I've been mostly keeping up with this thread, but I may have missed this feature suggestion:

A progress bar and different shading for videos that have already been watched. I never knew how much I loved this feature in NetFlix until I tried keeping track of which episodes of a television show that I ripped to my PC I've already seen.

Loving the app!

[foliveri]

The symbolic link issue was the problem. I still would like that functionality in the future, but for now it works.

thanks,

Fred

[Robert121571]

I have installed every thing like the steps say and all I can say is wow!!!! I had no problems setting it up and getting it going. I may get brave this coming weekend when I got more time and try the newest betas. If I can help with anything I will post info. I hope to see this work out to become a full blown channel. So anyone can use it with out having to go threw the developer mode stuff. Keep up the good work.

One thing what is the best file format and settings for video that every one has found to work best?

[renojim]

"cmcnulty" wrote:
I've been mostly keeping up with this thread, but I may have missed this feature suggestion:

A progress bar and different shading for videos that have already been watched. I never knew how much I loved this feature in NetFlix until I tried keeping track of which episodes of a television show that I ripped to my PC I've already seen.

Loving the app!

I've been thinking about something similar since I have the same issue of trying to keep track of what episodes I've watched. I'm not sure what you mean by a progress bar. I've only seen on Netflix the option to resume playing or start from the beginning, but nothing that indicates how much you've already watched. I hesitate to store too much information on the Roku DVP itself since storage space is limited and in my experiments once it (the registry) starts to fill up, storing and retrieving information slows to a crawl. We may have to add some kind of simple database on the sever for things like this.

-JT

[renojim]

"Robert121571" wrote:
One thing what is the best file format and settings for video that every one has found to work best?

I'm not the best person to answer this since video quality isn't all that important to me (I'll probably never own an HDTV), but I use HandBrake with mostly default settings. I usually set the output file size to be the same as the input file size figuring that will give me about the same quality as the original, but I haven't tried to rip any DVDs yet and I'd definitely use different settings for that. The one thing I can tell you for sure is to set the frame rate to 29.97 FPS to avoid some kind of flaw in the Roku DVP that causes serious buffering issues after about an hour. The other option for HandBrake that is important is the -O option (Optimize mp4 files for HTTP streaming).

-JT

[renojim]

"foliveri" wrote:
The symbolic link issue was the problem. I still would like that functionality in the future, but for now it works.

thanks,

Fred

I'm still curious about the "../../../" issue. Does the path make any sense? Would the server have found the mp3 at the path that was printed in the log?

Edit:

I was able to reproduce the "../../../" thing by putting a path in my m3u file that isn't under my mymedia music path. I'm not sure this is an issue. In my case, my config.ini looks like this:
music_dir = F:\Roku\Media\Music

Then in F:\Roku\Media\Music I've created a junction (in Windows terminology) named "all" that points to F:\Music. So if I try to put this in my m3u:
F:\Music\Some Artist\Some Album\Some song.mp3
I get the security warning.

However, if I put:
F:\Roku\Media\Music\all\Some Artist\Some Album\Some song.mp3
it works.

So the question is, are you putting a path in the m3u that is under the music_dir path specified in config.ini?

-JT

[scrager]

I think that this channel is reaching the tipping point of features vs usability. All the features are great, but I really think you need a database to take it to its full potential.

You could use tagging for organization
You could use tagging to make playlists
Allow searching
better shuffle/randomization
better speed on large "directories" (i put directories in quotes because when you have a database and tagging, you are no longer limited to a directory structure.)
Files can be organized in more than one way (artist, album, genre, directory, year, ....sky is the limit and every user can have their own organization
artwork can still be random, but also give the user the ability to select art for specific selections
much more complex features can be implemented once you have a database.

[wizzy1291]

I like the new navigation/play options - they take a little getting used to as there is more interaction (keyclicks) to navigate but they work well.

At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful jerk, I rather wish there was a way to deactivate the shuffle/browse/play popup. It makes navigating the directories cumbersome.

Of course, just one dude's opinion.