Plugin: PlayOn in Online Services (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, etc.)

[gibsonpa]

I was just reading on the PlayOn site that their software is smart enough to know if your "device" can handle the various codecs/file formats it is streaming...and only do transcoding if your device can not play the native format. I wonder if that applies to the Sage Extenders...not sure how it would know what the extenders can play....or if it tranascodes most everything to mpg for Sage as it is an "unofficial" device from a PlayOn perspective.

This is from the PlayOn FAQ:

"What does "realtime transcoding" mean?
Transcoding just means converting the format of some media to another format. PlayOn is a "transcoding media server". We take media from online websites, which is often in formats like Windows Media, Flash Video, or H.264, and convert it to a format that your networked device can understand, often MPEG, as this is a reliable standard. Some devices have more advanced "codecs" -- this just means that they can play the fancier Flash and H.264 videos. Our server will know in these cases if it can just pass the video along as is, without transcoding it to another format. When we say "realtime transcoding", we just mean that the PC is downloading the video from a site like Hulu, and converting it on-the-fly to another format, and then sending it to your device. It sounds simple, but it's really not. "

[tmiranda]

After my successful trial I plucked down my $29.99 for the PlayOn license this AM but now I have a question before I deploy this on the "production" system.

I run Sage as a service on a headless server and I use multiple placeshifters, clients and HD100's. Does the STVi have to be imported on each sage UI instance or only once? What exactly does the STVi do?

Thanks,

Tom

[gibsonpa]

tmiranda, I have 4 HD100's and only had to do the instructions once on my server (runs as a service as well)...including the STVi Import steps....

[matt91]

right. you just need to have the server's copy of "SageTV3.xml" modified to include the import. That way, when any extender goes to the online services option, it'll pick up this modified file.

as long as you don't get a new copy of "SageTV3.xml", this import will always be present.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

I was just reading on the PlayOn site that their software is smart enough to know if your "device" can handle the various codecs/file formats it is streaming...and only do transcoding if your device can not play the native format. I wonder if that applies to the Sage Extenders...not sure how it would know what the extenders can play....or if it tranascodes most everything to mpg for Sage as it is an "unofficial" device from a PlayOn perspective.

This is particularly interesting to me. My server is a bit below spec (P4 3.0ghz instead of the 3.2ghz min spec) and am having lots of trouble getting smooth performance on my HD200 but have only minor problems with my Xbox360 . It makes me sick to my stomach that I'd have to get another mobo/proc to be able to use Playon. Very disappointed at the horsepower needed but I guess I can't hold on to my 'old' hardware forever.

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I run Sage as a service on a headless server and I use multiple placeshifters, clients and HD100's. Does the STVi have to be imported on each sage UI instance or only once? What exactly does the STVi do?

I think the clients need it local.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by wado1971

I think the clients need it local.

I agree with that. I had to install it on the clients as well. Without the STVi, the clients do not know that they have to use the UPnP2Podcast executable to create the rss stream if the link does not start with http. It also needs the updated custom video feeds to update the online video sections.

Thomas

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by dinki

This is particularly interesting to me. My server is a bit below spec (P4 3.0ghz instead of the 3.2ghz min spec) and am having lots of trouble getting smooth performance on my HD200 but have only minor problems with my Xbox360 . It makes me sick to my stomach that I'd have to get another mobo/proc to be able to use Playon. Very disappointed at the horsepower needed but I guess I can't hold on to my 'old' hardware forever.

I am using an Athlon 3000+ which is way below your spec and it is working just fine. I set the playon settings to low (playon recommendation is high though for my system but I thought I'd be easy on my system). In addition, I upped the priority of the SageTVService to high to make sure it records properly from the HD Homerun (otherwise it misses some of the video while recording resulting in skips) and increased the network buffer. So I would expect your system to be able to handle it with a little bit of tweaking.

Thomas

[dinki]

Originally Posted by Thomas Wischgol

I am using an Athlon 3000+ which is way below your spec and it is working just fine. I set the playon settings to low (playon recommendation is high though for my system but I thought I'd be easy on my system). In addition, I upped the priority of the SageTVService to high to make sure it records properly from the HD Homerun (otherwise it misses some of the video while recording resulting in skips) and increased the network buffer. So I would expect your system to be able to handle it with a little bit of tweaking.

Thomas

Not trying to hijack the thread. My recommendation is LOW and it plays that way. Wishing to find a magical fix.

[cncb]

Playon does not seem to be able to support multiple streams at the same time. I tried watching 2 different programs on my HD200s and the video eventually stops on the one I started playing first (presumably when it reaches the end of what it was able to "transcode"). I guess this is due to not being able to transcode multiple streams simultaneously but this is an unfortunate limitation at this point.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by cncb

Playon does not seem to be able to support multiple streams at the same time. I tried watching 2 different programs on my HD200s and the video eventually stops on the one I started playing first (presumably when it reaches the end of what it was able to "transcode"). I guess this is due to not being able to transcode multiple streams simultaneously but this is an unfortunate limitation at this point.

Which version of PlayOn are you running? I am running v2.59.3559 and can view multiple streams on multiple clients with no issues at the same time. Specifically, I watched an ABC show on my HD200, a NBC show on my Sage client, and a FOX show on my Sage client that's on my server, all of which played back fine with no hiccups.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

Also noticed a new version of PlayOn is available....has quite a few Netflix bug fixes....has anyone updated to it? With this working so well...a little nervous to upgrade....

I don't anticipate that they'll change how I have to get the mpg links so I don't think upgrading will affect playback, however it is possible that they rework their directory structure so that I need to update my customOnlineServices.properties file for it to find the videos.

Originally Posted by gibsonpa

Our server will know in these cases if it can just pass the video along as is, without transcoding it to another format.

I can certainly look into it, the PlayOn guys seem pretty helpful.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by dinki

Not trying to hijack the thread. My recommendation is LOW and it plays that way. Wishing to find a magical fix.

That is very surprising as your processor gets a higher passmark score. Are you running anything else that uses CPU time while doing the test?

[Eckwell]

any way to turn on the HULU Closed Captions?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by matt91

right. you just need to have the server's copy of "SageTV3.xml" modified to include the import. That way, when any extender goes to the online services option, it'll pick up this modified file.

as long as you don't get a new copy of "SageTV3.xml", this import will always be present.

I don't run any UI on the server so I'm not sure what you mean by this?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

any way to turn on the HULU Closed Captions?

Nope, and I think that'd actually be very difficult for PlayOn to do as Hulu's closed captions aren't in the video stream.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Which version of PlayOn are you running? I am running v2.59.3559 and can view multiple streams on multiple clients with no issues at the same time. Specifically, I watched an ABC show on my HD200, a NBC show on my Sage client, and a FOX show on my Sage client that's on my server, all of which played back fine with no hiccups.

I'm using v 2.59.3555. Did you watch them all a long time? It took several minutes for it to reach what I assume is the end of the transcoded portion of the first video and stop. Otherwise, maybe it is due to the fact that you're using PC clients and transcoding may not be necessary?

[Bandit]

I installed this last night. Netflix is having all kinds of issues, but the videos "play" in the simplest form of the word. I know that isnt the plugin's issue so ignore that problem.

Network shows=Working awesome, love it!

Hulu - Worked fine for the first movie I watched. Attempted to watch anything else and "Video download failed, video not found on server"

Server is WinXP and already has WMP11 on it, even though with the latest version of playon that shouldnt be a requirement any longer.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I don't run any UI on the server so I'm not sure what you mean by this?

After thinking some more I thought I should clarify this. If I remember reading through the original thread on this subject, before the STVi was created there was a batch file that had to be run periodically that would somehow "scan" the Hulu links and fix them up because hulu "moved" the videos on a fairly regular basis. Running this batch file every hour or so would make sure all links were up to date.

Then along came the STVi which makes things a lot easier. I am assuming that the STVi forks off some code that does the work that the batch file used to do. If this is the case it seems like if I install the STVi on multiple extenders multiple copies of the code will be running which may cause some problems? I often run two HD100's, 1 MVP and two placeshifters and if this results in 5 copies of the "updater" code running will I be asking for trouble?

Tom

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Then along came the STVi which makes things a lot easier. I am assuming that the STVi forks off some code that does the work that the batch file used to do. If this is the case it seems like if I install the STVi on multiple extenders multiple copies of the code will be running which may cause some problems? I often run two HD100's, 1 MVP and two placeshifters and if this results in 5 copies of the "updater" code running will I be asking for trouble?

Tom

The only problem you'd run into would be if they all tried to load a video list at the same time as it only writes to a single hard coded file name. I can fix that to have it append the client ID at the end of the file name.