UPnP (PlayOn) Browser

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

The Amazon vids are coming down at 720x404 on SageTV V7 with this plugin. Are you saying there is a way to pull a higher quality video?

Yes, 720p, but you'd have to upgrade SageTV to v9, and set up the custom user-agent to spoof XBMC to get it.

(with any current v9 install, setting custom_user_agent=UPnP/1.0 DLNADOC/1.50 XBMC in sage.properties should cause PlayOn to stream 720p)

[KryptoNyte]

Awww crap. I guess I'm going to have to move to V9 eventually.

Thanks.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Awww crap. I guess I'm going to have to move to V9 eventually.

Thanks.

Can't think of any reason not to.

[sacrament055]

How does this add-on know when to stop recording? I'm curious because I've noticed a couple of times where a show cuts off before it's actually over and I don't know whether it's PlayON or the tool thinking 22 minutes is up so I'm stopping now.


I seem to remember the other Playon plugin padding the end time in order to avoid this so I wondered if it might be the plugin.

By the way I really like this plugin and have replaced the old one with this one on my main home system.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

How does this add-on know when to stop recording? I'm curious because I've noticed a couple of times where a show cuts off before it's actually over and I don't know whether it's PlayON or the tool thinking 22 minutes is up so I'm stopping now.


I seem to remember the other Playon plugin padding the end time in order to avoid this so I wondered if it might be the plugin.

By the way I really like this plugin and have replaced the old one with this one on my main home system.

It asks PlayOn how long the video is and then downloads the entire file that PlayOn provides. I do remember the other plugin did some padding but I'm not sure of the logic it used to determine how much, if any, padding was necessary.

[sacrament055]

Ok, I think I get it then. Playon knows the video is say 22 minutes long for a 30 minute show but the variable is the amount of commercials that might get tossed in. Seems like that's why the other one added 10 minutes or something. I think in the end it could be manually configured if a larger padding was preferred.

Guess it makes sense then. I'll have to try streaming directly from PlayON using their app on my phone and see if it does the same.

Might need to add padding here in the end as well (assuming that's doable)

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Ok, I think I get it then. Playon knows the video is say 22 minutes long for a 30 minute show but the variable is the amount of commercials that might get tossed in. Seems like that's why the other one added 10 minutes or something. I think in the end it could be manually configured if a larger padding was preferred.

Guess it makes sense then. I'll have to try streaming directly from PlayON using their app on my phone and see if it does the same.

Might need to add padding here in the end as well (assuming that's doable)

Yes, I believe that is the issue (reported length is NOT the total length it needs to record, because of commercials).

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yes, I believe that is the issue (reported length is NOT the total length it needs to record, because of commercials).

I'll have to figure out how to handle this since I don't really "record" anything, I just download the file that PlayOn provides. I'm not sure how to download more than is there

[EnterNoEscape]

Does the connection just disconnect when you reach the designated end of the stream? When you get files in HTTP, if the length is known, before you get to the actual data, it's included in the metadata. I know in my experience with the HDHomeRun that it doesn't tell you what the length is and that's why if you click on the links for any of the channels in a normal browser, it just downloads forever.

I don't recall if the HTTP implementation in Java will automatically disconnect you when you hit the size specified in the metadata. Can you just tell SageTV that the video is longer than it really is?

[moldmaker78]

We watch Hulu and HBO now.
Hulu has commercial and HBO doesn't.
Both cut off early when watching.
We have to record the show after it cuts off to watch the end.
If you just record the show without watching it, it records the whole show.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by moldmaker78

We watch Hulu and HBO now.
Hulu has commercial and HBO doesn't.
Both cut off early when watching.
We have to record the show after it cuts off to watch the end.
If you just record the show without watching it, it records the whole show.

Thanks for the info. I'll add this to the "to do" list.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by moldmaker78

We watch Hulu and HBO now.
Hulu has commercial and HBO doesn't.
Both cut off early when watching.
We have to record the show after it cuts off to watch the end.
If you just record the show without watching it, it records the whole show.

I'm pretty sure I know why this is happening but I do not know how to fix it. Maybe somebody has some ideas.

The basic problem is that some sources supply the length of the show without commercials. Without knowing the amount of commercial time "throw in" I have no way to tell the total run time of the show.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I'm pretty sure I know why this is happening but I do not know how to fix it. Maybe somebody has some ideas.

The basic problem is that some sources supply the length of the show without commercials. Without knowing the amount of commercial time "throw in" I have no way to tell the total run time of the show.

Why not add a setup for end padding? You could enter this in minutes, but it might make more sense to be a percentage of reported show length. Would it cause problems if you had this too long (other than wasting some space)?

[samgreco]

I know with Evil's plugin, there were many times that I had black for minutes at the end of a show. But better that than missing the last 5 minutes.

As too how much time to add, I don't know the right answer. But I have seen it vary from network to network. In fact, I would swear that on one network (I'd have to check this again to verify) if you binge watched, they would ad more commercial time to every episode.

[trk2]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I'm pretty sure I know why this is happening but I do not know how to fix it. Maybe somebody has some ideas.

The basic problem is that some sources supply the length of the show without commercials. Without knowing the amount of commercial time "throw in" I have no way to tell the total run time of the show.

May I ask what the consequences are for simply adding padding, other than it is not the ideal solution? Does the file size continue to grow at the same rate if the stream has ended?

[tmiranda]

I can easily add "a chunk" of padding (a fixed amount or a % of the total time), but that just seems so ugly.

Maybe I can add a "Watch with Padding" choice on the menu and let the user select the padding. It will get the job done by putting the amount of ugly in the hands of the user

[Fuzzy]

Honestly, I just wish PlayOn would change their writing mechanism to allow other programs to read the PlayLater recorded file while it's being written, instead of having to go through UPnP at all. I've asked and they state that they HAVE to lock the file when writing it out, but I can't see how that is necessary. They should be able to lock it for writing, but still allow other programs to open it for reading only - which is all we need. Then we could simply trigger PlayLater to record the show, and sage would be able to play back the 'recording' progressively, just like any other SageTV recording.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Honestly, I just wish PlayOn would change their writing mechanism to allow other programs to read the PlayLater recorded file while it's being written, instead of having to go through UPnP at all. I've asked and they state that they HAVE to lock the file when writing it out, but I can't see how that is necessary. They should be able to lock it for writing, but still allow other programs to open it for reading only - which is all we need. Then we could simply trigger PlayLater to record the show, and sage would be able to play back the 'recording' progressively, just like any other SageTV recording.

That would make my life easier. I don't think I'll be holding my breath

While you're at it, why not just ask them to tell us the duration with commercials

[Fuzzy]

You're more than welcome to do that.. for me, I just PlayLater it, and have a script that extracts the chapter marks and turns them into an .EDL file. Just can't watch 'live'.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

While you're at it, why not just ask them to tell us the duration with commercials

I don't think you're going to find an elegant solution to this. PlayOn is telling you what it knows based on what the website told it, PlayOn often records the screen that says it's buffering the video, it often records random splash screens/logos injected by the networks into the stream and I'm sure you'll agree that it can't possibly know how many commercials will be injected or how long they will be. With all of these additions not being accounted for by the playback length on the website, even HBO without any commercials is probably going to be off.

I really think the best solution if you want to keep it at clean as possible would be to find a way to keep adding a few minutes during playback to the timebar so long as data is still coming in from PlayOn. This is never going to be as clean as a broadcast where the timeslots are mostly accurate.

Edit: Just as an example, I just recorded an episode of Bob's Burgers on PlayOn using PlayLater. The interface reported that the show length is 21:38 the resulting file was 26:57.