Roku Developer Program

[tor1100a]

Ok, after far more debugging time that I would like to admit, I figured out that I had cached versions of the files that worked for me in C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\TVersity\Media Server\data.

So apparently at some point I had the transcoder working long enough to cache several of my test samples. After I cleared these cache files, nothing worked (not even in VLC on the same computer as the server).

I have been unable to get any MP4 arrangement to work again, not even in VLC.

If anyone has any luck on getting a proper profile to transcode on the fly from TVersity, please post it here.

As I was saying in a previous post, my time in the near future is very limited, so I may not be able to play with it enough to get it working.

I have updated the channel script (not that its useful without a decent TVersity profile) so it navigates a little cleaner, and it also outputs some debugging info on nearly every event.

http://rapidshare.com/files/333645252/tversitychannel_0.2.zip.html

So if you happen to have a bunch of mp4s that the Roku player will play, just disable the transcoder and share them. Then you'll be able to play those files with this channel.

Again, I didn't have any luck with high res mp4s.

[KennyJ]

Thanks again for getting this started... I'll play with your code and the TVersity settings later and see what I can get working.

[mjgundry]

Hello, new user here,

Has anyone looked into what (if any) changes would be required to the backend for MythTV to provide the XML in a format similar to that used by the videoplayer example in the SDK. I know that the DVP isn't a UPnP device, however, recent versions of the MythTV backend have intergrated support for UPnP devices. Part of that support is a small web server that serves up XML for other UPnP devices. Much of what is required to provide a program guide and stream AV to the DVP appears to be in place already, if not ideally formated for our use.

Most of that XML output (which appears at http://mymythbackendip/Myth/) appears to be prepared by the MythXML class in the backend. I haven't completely sorted out what information is exposed by this XML server, but it does look like it might be something that could be used by a suitable channel app. THe DVP simply wouldn't be able to auto-discover the media server through UPnP - you'd have to provide a configuration setting to point the DVP at the proper IP.

Barring that, it looks like it would be pretty straightforward to create another HttpServerExtension to handle requests from the Roku. If the new server extension handled requests to http://mymythbackendip/RDVP/, the DVP support code could easily coexist with the UPnP stuff.

Is anyone moving in one of these directions already? I'm thinking of pursuing option 1 first, because the resulting channel might be useful with other MediaServers besides MythTV.

[jsj123]

I have been hacking at getting the Roku to work with Myth and making little progress. Most of my problems are that I don't understand Myth well enough yet. I just created my first backend server last week.

Currently I can manually transcode a video to h.264 and the roku plays it. I am working on getting a user job to transcode it, but I think user jobs occur after the the video has been completely recorded. I was going to hand roll some Perl to generate the XML, but if Myth is already doing it... Thanks for those links. At this point I have no idea how to transcode a show that is being recorded. I really need to discover the Myth workflow, what happens when, and where the hooks are to tie into it.

We should probably start a separate Myth thread. I will admit that I am only interested in getting to work with Myth, other media servers hold no interest for my.

--Stephen

[KennyJ]

the Roku seemed to have problems with TVersity's trans-coding on the fly. I'm not sure why -- it could be that it takes to long to initialize and the Roku thinks it's an invalid URL.

[dellsweig]

"KennyJ" wrote:
the Roku seemed to have problems with TVersity's trans-coding on the fly. I'm not sure why -- it could be that it takes to long to initialize and the Roku thinks it's an invalid URL.

I noticed the same thing when I tried to use Tversity's transcoded mp3 output for the SirusXMPlayer

I saw the request come in the players logs and the debug output from the Roku looked like it should be playing but nothing happened....

[RokuMarkn]

"KennyJ" wrote:
the Roku seemed to have problems with TVersity's trans-coding on the fly. I'm not sure why -- it could be that it takes to long to initialize and the Roku thinks it's an invalid URL.

What format are you transcoding into? For most formats, the Roku wants to parse all the metadata in the file to determine indexing information for seeking. So Roku won't play a partially written file in those formats. This sounds like a live streaming situation, which as was mentioned earlier today, we'll be supporting with HTTP Live Streaming soon.

--Mark

[mkolby]

Has anyone tried or looked into the ps3 media server to stream to the roku dvp? It looks like this might be a possibility. People have used it to stream to the roku soundbridge. It provides an http stream and transcoding and it's open source. http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=2

[joetraff]

Thanks for sharing.
It worked for me. 😄
tim lowe