Support: Mobile Web Interface V2 iOS Streaming

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Glad to hear it's working for you. What version of iOS are you using?

I'm running 3.xx (not sure the exact number). I'm still using a first generation iPod Touch, so I don't think I can even upgrade to iOS 4.

One thing that I have noticed, and someone else pointed this out too earlier, the video quality seems to be better on Air Video. I get some motion artifacts (pixelation?) when using your streaming, and the audio sounds a little bit hollow.

I think Air Video uses ffmpeg for streaming (which I believe is what the SageTV transcoder is based on). Could it just be a matter of tweaking the command line parameters for the transcoder to match the Air Video parameters?

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by peternm22

I'm running 3.xx (not sure the exact number). I'm still using a first generation iPod Touch, so I don't think I can even upgrade to iOS 4.

Thanks, 3.xx is enough info.

Originally Posted by peternm22

One thing that I have noticed, and someone else pointed this out too earlier, the video quality seems to be better on Air Video. I get some motion artifacts (pixelation?) when using your streaming, and the audio sounds a little bit hollow.

I think Air Video uses ffmpeg for streaming (which I believe is what the SageTV transcoder is based on). Could it just be a matter of tweaking the command line parameters for the transcoder to match the Air Video parameters?

They do both use ffmpeg. When I first created it their parameters were pretty close. I haven't compared them recently. Also, since AirVideo is a native app it can determine whether you're on WiFi or 3G, and start with a higher bitrate if you're on WiFi. I can't do that in a web app. I need to start with a lower bitrate, then the iOS media player can adjust the video quality after 20-30 seconds if it determines there's enough bandwidth.

FWIW I'm using the iPad March Madness app and the games have pixelation even on WiFi. They're probably intentionally using an average bitrate to reduce load on their servers.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by jreichen

FWIW I'm using the iPad March Madness app and the games have pixelation even on WiFi. They're probably intentionally using an average bitrate to reduce load on their servers.

I've noticed the pixelation seems to vary between the different game sites, too - something which is clearly on the "sending end" of the broadcast, not our receiving end. One of the sites (can't recall which) was really bad yesterday, even on TV. Must have been something with their HD cameras or else the video production trucks....

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Also, since AirVideo is a native app it can determine whether you're on WiFi or 3G, and start with a higher bitrate if you're on WiFi. I can't do that in a web app.

Ahh, that makes sense.

I do recall being less "bothered" by the quality of the stream as time went on, maybe the auto bitrate adjustment is why I still think Air Video has the edge in terms of video quality though. I rarely notice video artifacts when using it other then the occasional 'blip' (which could be the source file as well).

Any chance of making a setting that can force the stream to start at the highest quality? I'm guessing I'm not the only one who uses wifi exclusively for their iOS device. Optional setting of course.

Thanks.

[BitBass]

Having quality problems and I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction. I have this running on a Core2Duo with 8gb ram. The CPU is not maxed out. When I watch HD recordings on my iPad over WiFi the quality of the video never gets better than very pixelated. It's nearly unwatchable. SD source videos look great! Anything HD is really bad, whether from the HD-PVR or the HDHR. I'm close to the Access Point, using 802.11N and GigE from the AP all the way to the SageTV server.

I also get some occasional pauses which is even more annoying since the quality of the picture is so bad.

I'm with Peter, can we have the option of starting the stream at the highest possible setting?

[jreichen]

Version 1.2 will be available in the Plugin Manager soon. There are several bug fixes including some that might get this working on Android with the Mirage media player. See the list of fixes in the Plugin Manager.

This thread is not for Android support, it will continue to be a support thread for those using the plugin for streaming with iOS on the Mobile Web Interface. The Mobile Web Interface has not been updated to use media streaming on Android, it will require more work than I anticipated, and when it is I will post a notification here and create another thread for those users (no, I don't know when that will be ).

Please see Fonceur's TASageTV thread if you want to use this plugin to watch recordings in his Android app. He's looking for testers!

Jason

[LehighBri]

jreichen - I am using the latest version of jetty, mobile UI, and media services (new 1.2 you mentioned above). I've been having the problem below for the past couple versions and given it hasn't gone away I thought I'd submit a report to you to see if we can further debug this.

Description of the problem: I record all my shows as .ts files (using Ceton tuner w/ babgvant's SageDCT service). Recording works fine so I wouldn't focus on that. Using the mobile UI on my iPhone 3GS, I am able to play the first 20-30 seconds of a recording (.ts file) with no issues at all and the video quality is fantastic. After ~28 seconds or so, the video stream pauses and I am unable to get it to play again without restarting my server. I watched the services/CPU on my server during playback and during the first 20-30 seconds of playback that works well, the SageTVTranscoder process is ~30% CPU but once the stream dies around ~28 seconds, the process drops way down to around ~3% and never goes higher than that. My logs are attached. Any thoughts on what's going on here? Happy to take this conversation to email or private IM if you'd like more detail or to iterate faster.

Details are in my signature or below (using latest sage 7.1.5 beta)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4Ghz)
SageTV server operating system: Windows 7 32-bit, UAC turned off
Wireless Connection (WiFi G/N or 3G): WiFi G
Type of device (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad): iPhone 3GS
iOS Version: 4.3.1

removed log

[Gustovier]

All,

When clicking on a show For playback I press play and nothing happens. It just sits there. I'm trying this on iPad running iOS 4.3.1. has anybody else seen this? I'm running the latest versions of everything on the sage side.

[jreichen]

LehighBri,

I get an error opening your zip file. It says it's either not a zip file or it's one disk of a multi part archive. Can you double check it?

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by jreichen

LehighBri,

I get an error opening your zip file. It says it's either not a zip file or it's one disk of a multi part archive. Can you double check it?

See attached for the logs and I verified the .zip file this time . Similar description of the issue above... except in this example the video of a .ts recording "T:\SageTV Recordings\HowIMetYourMother-Hopeless-3166993-0.ts" plays back for ~27 seconds and then stops.

removed log

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

See attached for the logs and I verified the .zip file this time . Similar description of the issue above... except in this example the video of a .ts recording "T:\SageTV Recordings\HowIMetYourMother-Hopeless-3166993-0.ts" plays back for ~27 seconds and then stops.

jreichen - when you get a second to look through the logs, here's just a hunch on where I think the error may be... interested in your perspective. Per the subsection of my sagetv log below, it seems like it plays the first two 10 second segments just fine but using very low quality setting (my phone is on my home wifi thus would expect the quality to increase). Then it seems like when the mobile streaming gets ready to stream the 3rd segment, it fails there (hence the playback failing before it gets to 30 seconds). My guess is that your plugin detects that since I'm on wifi, that it should stream back a high quality stream, and perhaps the high quality stream transcoding is failing (whereas the low quality streams for segments 0 and 1 playback fine). Just a thought... probably way off here but maybe that's a start?

Tue 4/19 20:10:24.781 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: ----------- HTTPLiveStreamingSegmentServlet end request Headers ---------------
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.781 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: nextState() old segment = 2, new segment = 1
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.781 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: nextState() old quality = 150, new quality = 1240
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.781 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterState.nextState() returns false
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.782 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: Resetting segment producer
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.782 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: Killing segmenter process
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.783 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterProcess: stop transcoder process
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.783 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: loaded class java.io.OutputStreamWriter
Tue 4/19 20:10:24.783 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: loaded class java.io.OutputStreamWriter from null
Tue 4/19 20:10:25.297 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterProcess: process forcibly terminated due to IllegalThreadStateException
Tue 4/19 20:10:25.297 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterProcess: stop segmenter process
Tue 4/19 20:10:25.298 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterProcess: close segmenter input stream
Tue 4/19 20:10:25.298 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: Creating new segmenter process
Tue 4/19 20:10:25.299 [5398236@qtp-31750563-6 - @525edc] ::DEBUG: SegmenterProcess: userAgent AppleCoreMedia/1.0.0.8H7 (iPhone; U; CPU OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en_us)

[coppit]

Has anyone figured out how to disable the password prompt? I think I have configure Jetty to use a UserRealm rather than a HashUserRealm, but don't know the details.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

All,

When clicking on a show For playback I press play and nothing happens. It just sits there. I'm trying this on iPad running iOS 4.3.1. has anybody else seen this? I'm running the latest versions of everything on the sage side.

I'll need your logs in order to see what's happening. See the first post of this thread for instructions.

[coppit]

Originally Posted by coppit

Has anyone figured out how to disable the password prompt? I think I have configure Jetty to use a UserRealm rather than a HashUserRealm, but don't know the details.

I worked on it some more tonight. The answer is to delete the entire block:

<Get name="securityHandler">

in sagewebapp.xml and mediastreaming.xml.

I don't see the streaming video option in my desktop browser, but I do see it on my iPad. Maybe that's to be expected.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by coppit

I don't see the streaming video option in my desktop browser, but I do see it on my iPad. Maybe that's to be expected.

Working as intended, as it requires Apple's http live streaming, which most desktop browsers don't support (maybe Safari on a Mac?)...

[plnewton]

Hi

I am trying to get the iPad app to run and I have it all setup and can see video but there is no audio on any video format I try.

Any pointers in where to start looking?

[ukmgranger]

Had a quick play with this this morning. Like plnewton, I also had no audio when playing through my iphone4.

Also, I have an appleTV 2, and love the fact that using eyeTV i can play live TV etc to it using airplay. I have tried to do this using the mobile web interface, but appleTV doesn't seem to like it. Any ideas?

[ukmgranger]

Originally Posted by ukmgranger

Had a quick play with this this morning. Like plnewton, I also had no audio when playing through my iphone4.

Oddly, just had another play and the audio played fine?!?

[pjpjpjpj]

I've never had any problems with this plugin before on my iPod Touch Gen3 - granted, I don't use it much, but it's always worked fine - but one of the recent updates has apparently made it want to play the SAP audio stream with recordings instead of the main audio.

I checked two recordings just now - one which is almost a year old, and one which was recorded this past weekend, both of which have perfectly normal audio when watching at home, and the year-old one I've watched via this streaming plugin before on this exact same device - and both of them are now playing the SAP audio. Is this a setting I can change, or something hard-coded?

[jreichen]

BitBass, Gustovier, plnewton, jpjpjpj - I need logs to troubleshoot anything with the streaming. Please take a look at the first post in this thread for instructions.

There's a bug in version 1.2.0 of the media streaming plugin where it prints your server name to the log. Make sure to search/replace it if you don't want that posted. I'll fix that in the next release.