Roku Developer Program

[renojim]

"krtaylor" wrote:
1. It seems like MyMedia is set up expecting your video vs still images to be stored in separate trees. That's just not how my archive is, because my digital cameras do both still and video. When I unload them onto my PC the files go to the exact same place.
So I just configured the video location and the image location to be the same, that one place. This works, sort of, except that when you're browsing "My Images" on the Roku you can't see the videos in that location, and when browsing "My Videos" you can't see the still images. Obviously the server can serve both the stills and the videos; is there some reason it can't do them both in the same index?

Because that's not how it was designed. The server and channel execute different code whether you're browsing the photo branch or the the video branch. They could probably be modified, but given that no one else has expressed an interest, it's not likely to happen. Your solution of pointing both videos and photos to the same place is the correct one if you're not interested in splitting them into two locations.

"krtaylor" wrote:
2. This may be related to #1 above. When browsing still images, the thumbnails display correctly for each image. When browsing videos, however, they don't. In a given directory, the right number of thumbnails are displayed with their correct names, but the actual image displayed is all exactly the same - normally one of the still images found in that same directory.

I'm not sure how OSs pull out thumbnails from videos, but you'll have to do it yourself if you want them to show up in the channel. I use ffmpeg for that purpose, but you could also use a video player that allows a screen capture. Just name the JPEG the same as the video, but with a .jpg extension, and it will be displayed. If there's no image with the same name as the video, the server will grab whatever image it finds in the directory and use it.

"krtaylor" wrote:
Is this something that can be fixed?

If it ain't broken, don't fix it! :mrgreen:

"krtaylor" wrote:
Also, a helpful feature would be to display the server version number on the "Personal MyMedia Server" page you access via your browser. I don't have any good way to find out whether I am using the most current version, maybe these bugs have already been fixed and I just don't know it!

At one point I explored the idea of automatically updating the server from the channel but abandoned it because I felt it may be too intrusive for some people. I wasn't sure people would be happy with me updating something on their person computers. You do raise a good point and it would be a good idea if the channel at least alerted the user to the availability of an updated server. If I ever get back to the 2.0 beta I'll look into it.

-JT

[mirrors]

"renojim" wrote:

"mirrors" wrote:
I only wish I could go directly to "My Videos" and skip the root menu since I don't use it for anything else.

While it seems like it would be simple to bypass the initial screen, it really isn't. The channel opens poster screens over poster screens and having it automatically drill down a level isn't something I'm willing to investigate given that it's all of two remote button presses.

Sorry,
-JT

I actually tried to rewrite a lot of the app without using the poster array but it turned into a huge mess. I just removed the extra directories from the server script instead.

[krtaylor]

"renojim" wrote:
I'm not sure how OSs pull out thumbnails from videos, but you'll have to do it yourself if you want them to show up in the channel.

Well, there's the explanation. I assumed that your code was supposed to pull the first frame out of the video and display that. It sounds from your description like it's behaving as designed - it is in fact displaying a JPG found in the same directory as the video files.

I think I'm using MyMedia for a somewhat different purpose than you envisioned. I get the impression that most people are using it to play movies that they've ripped, which would naturally have one movie in each separate named directory.

That's not what I'm doing. I have an ordinary digital camera that I use for taking home pictures. It also has a video mode. Either way, the images and the video files are stored on the camera until I plug it in to my PC. When I do, the automatic software sucks the files across and dumps them into "My Pictures" in directories by date of retrieval. I think they pretty much all work this way, at least all the digital cameras I've used with Windows do.

I know of no way to get it to separate out the video files into different directories from the stills. Of course I could do it by hand but that would hardly be worthwhile, and from your description wouldn't help my problem anyway.

Is nobody else using My Media this way? I'm surprised, because it's by far the most convenient way to watch my own pictures and home videos on the comfort of a TV, instead of all squashed around a computer screen.

From other posts, it sounds like a lot of the image handling is actually done by the codecs included on the Roku itself and isn't something you can control in the server software? So then maybe this is just the way it is. For doing something the Roku was never designed to do, it works really quite well, thanks!

[renojim]

"krtaylor" wrote:
I think I'm using MyMedia for a somewhat different purpose than you envisioned. I get the impression that most people are using it to play movies that they've ripped, which would naturally have one movie in each separate named directory.

It isn't necessary to have a separate directory for each video in order to get thumbnails to display. You can put multiple videos each with it's own thumbnail (named the same as the video file) in the same directory.

"krtaylor" wrote:
When I do, the automatic software sucks the files across and dumps them into "My Pictures" in directories by date of retrieval. I think they pretty much all work this way, at least all the digital cameras I've used with Windows do.

That shouldn't be a problem.

There's two ideas I can think of for your case in order to get thumbnails for your videos, but each will require a little bit of effort on your part.
1) If you already have a still image that would be useful as a thumbnail for a video, just name the still image and the video with the same name (e.g., Christmas2011-1.jpg and Christmas2011-1mp4).
2) Use ffmpeg to extract frames from your video and then pick one to use as the thumbnail.

I ripped all my Looney Tunes DVDs to individual cartoon episodes (using HandBrake) and then used ffmpeg to create frames every two seconds for the first 30 seconds of the video and then manually picked a frame to use as the thumbnail. I had a little bit of an automated process, but it still took some work. The ffmpeg command was something like this:

ffmpeg -i video1.m4v -r .5 -t 30 %02d.jpg

All the ripped episodes and thumbnails were put in the same directory, which was a subdirectory off of "My Videos".

"krtaylor" wrote:
I know of no way to get it to separate out the video files into different directories from the stills. Of course I could do it by hand but that would hardly be worthwhile, and from your description wouldn't help my problem anyway.

I guess my description wasn't very good. :oops: No need to separate each video into its own directory.

"krtaylor" wrote:
From other posts, it sounds like a lot of the image handling is actually done by the codecs included on the Roku itself and isn't something you can control in the server software? So then maybe this is just the way it is. For doing something the Roku was never designed to do, it works really quite well, thanks!

The server could be quite powerful. For example, it could spawn ffmpeg to generate the video thumbnails, but that might not be an option for every OS it currently supports. I prefer to leave exercises like that to the interested user. :mrgreen:

-JT

[renojim]

"mirrors" wrote:
I actually tried to rewrite a lot of the app without using the poster array but it turned into a huge mess.

To be fair, it starts out as quite a mess.

"mirrors" wrote:
I just removed the extra directories from the server script instead.

Sounds like a good solution.

-JT

[dgrace]

At one point I explored the idea of automatically updating the server from the channel but abandoned it because I felt it may be too intrusive for some people. I wasn't sure people would be happy with me updating something on their person computers. You do raise a good point and it would be a good idea if the channel at least alerted the user to the availability of an updated server. If I ever get back to the 2.0 beta I'll look into it.
-JT

I didn't load the MyMedia directly via download etc., so does that mean it'll update itself when needed? I took the easy way out thinking it would. Should I also be updating the files on my PC from your links? I have everything working fine, but don't want to miss out on any enhancements.

[krtaylor]

I understand not wanting to auto-update, but you could include a button on the page "Check for/Install Update" as well as an indication of the currently-installed version. That way people could choose to update easily if they wanted to.

[bpwwer]

"renojim" wrote:

"mirrors" wrote:
I actually tried to rewrite a lot of the app without using the poster array but it turned into a huge mess.

To be fair, it starts out as quite a mess.
-JT

I spent a lot of time ripping the client code apart, separating it into multiple files and consolidating common code into functions. I think it's a bit less of a mess, but I'm not sure everything still works. My main goals were to support a 'feed' launch parameter and to allow shuffle playback of music playlists by default. I have the Roku audio output hooked up to a Russound whole house audio system and wanted it to launch the channel and start playing back from a playlist when the source is selected from the Russound keypad. The My Media channel was the best match for this. If anyone wants the modified code, let me know, but I do suspect that there are bugs not in the original.

[mirrors]

"bpwwer" wrote:
I spent a lot of time ripping the client code apart, separating it into multiple files and consolidating common code into functions.

I'd be very interested in a consolidated version of the various video functions. I'd like to get rid of the root menu entirely as well as the other media functions. I don't even need the settings menu as I have these hardcoded into the app.

[renojim]

"dgrace" wrote:
I didn't load the MyMedia directly via download etc., so does that mean it'll update itself when needed? I took the easy way out thinking it would. Should I also be updating the files on my PC from your links? I have everything working fine, but don't want to miss out on any enhancements.

The problem is, and always has been, it's not unusual for an update to the channel to require an update to the server. Updating the private channel is easy; updating the server not so much. Generally server updates only require updating mymedia.py and/or common.py, so it seems kind of dumb to download the whole server package for minor updates.

If you want the latest and greatest, try the 2.0 beta if you haven't already. I don't think it's changed since I first released it. It requires an updated server (just the two files mentioned).

-JT