Plugin: Mobile Web Interface Version 2

[Taddeusz]

Yea, I have to agree with that. The Atom in his MediaSmart is not fast enough. I have a 2.33Ghz C2D in mine. It's fast enough to transcode 1080i HDPVR recordings.

[mickdaly]

Originally Posted by nspindel

Uh-oh, you're not going to like the answer. Don't take my word for it 100% before other's give their opinions, but it sounds to me like your server isn't up to spec for the transcoding. It takes much a much greater horsepower processor to transcode the audio/video to a lower bitrate for external streaming than it does to simply stream the high bitrate content out to your extenders straight off the capture devices through your home network. Sounds to me like if you're serious about placeshifting or streaming to the iphone, you need a beefier server.

What are the specs of your server? I'm using a 2.8ghz core 2 quad with 4gb of memory, running Windows 7. When I'm streaming to the iphone I'm seeing the cpu at about 30%.

HP MediaSmart EX485, Intel Celeron 2.0 Ghz 2GB DDR2 750GB HDD

[nspindel]

Fortunately for you, Black Friday is almost here....

[rotten]

Seems in my quad core ffmpeg is only using 25-30 % of the CPU during streaming is this not multiple core compatible? Hdpvr recording would be smother if more than one core was working on it.

[paulie]

I have tried all suggested fixes but when I log in to 192.168.2.x:8080/sagem/m I still get error 404.

The attached photo shows jetty files in my sage jars folder. Could some of these older files be causing a problem.

[uberpixel]

...and now this.

Here is the obligatory question:

Any chance this could be done for WP7?

I guess this is what I get for choosing the least established phone OS...

-uberpixel

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

...and now this.

Here is the obligatory question:

Any chance this could be done for WP7?

I guess this is what I get for choosing the least established phone OS...

-uberpixel

No worries, I plan on doing some digging into this

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

No worries, I plan on doing some digging into this

That's good news.

Not sure I'd find much Microsoft tolerance around these parts.

The ironic part is that I found myself gravitating to WP7 platform over the iPhone because I like to root for "the underdog". My-oh-my how times have changed...

Not sure why I keep going back to Microsoft - especially after their failed Media Center concept and their upcoming mistake with dropping Drive Extender on WHS Vail.

Oh well. Let me know if you need a beta tester once you get things moving!

Thanks,
uberpixel

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

The ironic part is that I found myself gravitating to WP7 platform over the iPhone because I like to root for "the underdog".

You probably should have gone for Android or WebOS if the underdog part was that important...

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

You probably should have gone for Android or WebOS if the underdog part was that important...

I'll agree with WebOS - but I think Android will surpass the iPhone soon if it hasn't already.

It wasn't just the "underdog" thing... I really like the clean and simple interface of WP7 and I believe that it will be robust and well supported by Microsoft. I also like that fact that I can get a "controlled" OS on my choice of hardware vs. Apple's "locked-down" OS on their hardware and Android's "open" OS on my choice of hardware. I'm not a fan of the carriers putting all of their crapware on a phone and WP7 allows you to easily uninstall all crapware.

Time will tell how this all pans out. Thanks to AT&T I have a 2 year commitment to mull it over.

/threadjack

-uberpixel

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I'm not sure what version of ffmpeg the Air Video Server uses but it seems to be able to transcode my 1080i HDPVR recordings without issues whereas I have problems with start/stop playback with the Mobile Web Interface.

It uses an older version than the Mobile Web Interface. IIRC AirVideo's is from Feb 2010, whereas the MWI's is from this summer. I'm experimenting with some compilation parameters to see if it helps cpu utilization. The runtime parameters are about the same so I don't think that's it - unless AirVideo has changed something since I last checked.

Originally Posted by mickdaly

It works - sort of ... lots of stopping and starting.

It seems to conflict with other activity on the server - placeshifter on my desktop PC and the other HD extenders.

WHS CPU usage shows at 100%, even after closing down the Safari window on the iphone. It stays there, blocking all other use of Sage until I stop/start the Sage service.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Come to think of it I actually have similar problems with my SageTV server. However, Air Video works fine for me and uses ffmpeg for transcoding just like the Mobile Web Interface.

Please see the FAQ about why the transcoding sometimes continues even though you stopped playback. I have a timer to clean this up after a max of five minutes. Not ideal but better than nothing. I might be able to hook into media player events and send a message to the server to kill off the process when the user stops playback.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Yes, it's just a listing of the files. As you say you just scroll and select what you want to watch.

I have no idea how Air Video determines how much bandwidth to use or, for that matter, what resolution video it transcodes to. It's not a continuous stream but it appears to burst the data at usually between 800kb-1Mb. That was through wifi at work. I don't have 3G service, jailbroken iPhone on T-Mobile with no data plan. So I'm tied down to using wifi hotspots for any data service on my iPhone. I've watched entire movies through Air Video without any issues. I have Cox Cable's "preferred" internet package which appears to be 12/1.5 up & down without "PowerBoost" and 15/1.8 with. I did see a couple spikes that hit near 2Mb/s but that may have just been the fact that I was remoting in.

The bitrate is determined by the iPhone media player and is part of the HTTP Live Streaming spec. The Mobile Web Interface uses the same thing. Since AirVideo is a native app it may be able to detect a WiFi vs. 3G connection and start with a higher bitrate than the MWI. Both AirVideo and MWI have minimum bitrates of 150 Kbps and a max around 1 Mbps, although I'm not sure that's necessary for a small screen like the iPhone. Maybe it is for the iPad.

I think the "data bursts" you're seeing are due to the nature of HTTP Live Streaming. The video is broken up into small segments (usually 10 seconds in length) and downloaded individually, then stitched together on the client.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Yea, I have to agree with that. The Atom in his MediaSmart is not fast enough. I have a 2.33Ghz C2D in mine. It's fast enough to transcode 1080i HDPVR recordings.

Originally Posted by mickdaly

HP MediaSmart EX485, Intel Celeron 2.0 Ghz 2GB DDR2 750GB HDD

Both of those will struggle to convert video to H.264 in real time. I updated the FAQ with some of my performance test numbers that I posted elsewhere in the iOS streaming thread.

Originally Posted by rotten

Seems in my quad core ffmpeg is only using 25-30 % of the CPU during streaming is this not multiple core compatible? Hdpvr recording would be smother if more than one core was working on it.

It should be using multiple threads. If you have a utility that will show you process parameters, there is a "-thread" parameter to ffmpeg. I'm using a Java API to get the value used for that parameter that should return a value equal to the number of cores in your system. I forget if it includes hyperthreading in that count or not.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by paulie

I have tried all suggested fixes but when I log in to 192.168.2.x:8080/sagem/m I still get error 404.

The attached photo shows jetty files in my sage jars folder. Could some of these older files be causing a problem.

That doesn't show the full list of files in the directory but I don't think so. The ones that end with a number were installed in v6, and the v7 Plugin Manager renames then when installing a v7 plugin. Since they don't end with ".jar", the Java classloader shouldn't load them and they shouldn't cause a conflict.

Try this:

1. Stop SageTV
2. Delete the folders inside the jetty/webapps folder (but not the war files).
3. Start SageTV

That seems to be the most reliable way to fix HTTP 404, 503, etc errors. I'd like to fix these errors but it's a non-trivial coding task and I'm spending most of my time working on other non-trivial things right now.

[Chriscic]

Tried streaming some live football this weekend to no avail. It would start ok, but then stop, then seemed like it might skip forward and play a bit more before it would just stop and the screen would go black.

I know my 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo can't keep up, but I was hoping that if I paused for a bit and then let the (presumed) buffer fill up it would go on ok, but that doesn't seem to help here.

By comparison, Air Video works great after pausing for just a bit when it gets stuck (or course it also can't do live TV).

Anyway, not trying to be critical with the Air Video comparisons, just a good benchmark.

If I can't at least watch live TV with the mobile web interface, it's not going to be much use vs. Air Video for actual watching.

[bunch92]

What a wonderfull plug-in ! Works amazingly well on my ipod.

Nice work !

[bunch92]

Hi again

A quick question about the "watch now" options on the interface . I have 3 choices, managed to understand 2 of them but not the third :

On this page : Starts video on my ipod
001d6a5dbce5 : Starts video on my HD200 !
/127.0.0.1:1254 : What is this used for ?

Thank you

[wayner]

The 127.0.0.1 IP address is your localhost, or the PC that is your Sage server. Presumably if you stream to that device the video file will start playing in Sage on your Sage server.

[bunch92]

Originally Posted by wayner

The 127.0.0.1 IP address is your localhost, or the PC that is your Sage server. Presumably if you stream to that device the video file will start playing in Sage on your Sage server.

Thank you wayner

[reggie14]

I'm getting the 503 error very frequently. I know I can wipe out the webapps folder, and that does indeed work, but its annoying to have to do that every few days. Is there anything I can do to lessen the frequency of the problem?

[bunch92]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I'm getting the 503 error very frequently. I know I can wipe out the webapps folder, and that does indeed work, but its annoying to have to do that every few days. Is there anything I can do to lessen the frequency of the problem?

I got 503 error all yesterday, and I thought it was my setup that had gone wrong .... I deleted the folders and it is working again now. Thank you for posting reggie14.

I would also like to see a fix , or a solution to this issue. Maybe there is a way to run a daily batch that would delete these folders, I could time at 3am or something.

[jorton]

Hey guys,

Can someone point me in the right direction for some good instructions on setting up remote access to the Sagetv Mobile Web Interface?

I'd like to be able to connect to my home Sagetv server (behind cable modem and router) from the outside world (via iphone) and have never been great at setting up this kind of stuff through the router and dealing with changing IP addresses etc...

If this isn't a good place to ask this then please bump me to the appropriate thread.

Thanks,

Jeremy