mvpvmc on the Popcorn Hour Update

[MVallevand]

Since Rick is giving potentially misleading information about the
Popcorn Hour (PCH) on the users mailing I thought I'd add my two
cents.

- MVP-like mvpmc functionality could be duplicated quite well
- adding new formats of mpeg-ts needs some work, the mvpmc demux might
need to be modified.
- the PCH doesn't handle the mixed PTS found in many ts files, so file
length based positioning will be needed.
- playing HD is bit demanding for things like comskip, because of the
buffering requirements.
- User expectations are very high, everyone including developers seem
to want a working solution
- the plugin git is proving to be a failure, with only Jon buying into it
- hardware based microwindows is available, but no one has looked into it
- hdcp limits hdmi as an output device, but component HD works as does
svideo and composite
- hdmi works using the PCH media
- GB-PVR users haven't minded the mix of a full UI shelling a media
player.  User on the mvpmc mailing lists don't seem as tolerant.
- HD format mpeg is not being accepted with open arns in the PVR
community, transcoding still seems to be prefered.
- the PCH  supports many cheap usb audio devices so 100% open source
audio players could be built.

Here are some PCH demos with GBBPVR that I have linked to before that
show what could be done today.if there was interest.  It is easier for
me with GBPVR because of the thin client design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtqHLgY8vWw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6FBkQpZSm0

Martin

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[bungle]

MVallevand wrote:

- MVP-like mvpmc functionality could be duplicated quite well

(Serious question) Could be if what happened?

- hdcp limits hdmi as an output device, but component HD works as does
svideo and composite
- hdmi works using the PCH media

This is a bit confusing.  Do you mean HDMI only works when using the internal media player?

- GB-PVR users haven't minded the mix of a full UI shelling a media
player.  User on the mvpmc mailing lists don't seem as tolerant.
- HD format mpeg is not being accepted with open arns in the PVR
community, transcoding still seems to be prefered.

I'm not sure I care unless shelling to the internal player means no comskip.  Also, it may just be me, but I don't like transcoding.  I'd prefer not to do any extra work to the files coming out of the HDHomeRun - they'll just be deleted after I watch them anyway (unless I'm misunderstanding you).  If I were saving something, then mpeg may not be the best...

It is easier for me with GBPVR because of the thin client design

I'd love for there to be an emulation server for Myth, but I feel we're the only two that think alike on that point.  I've researched creating one, but so far haven't had the time to devote.  If one were to suddenly appear by magic, what features would emulation-PCH have over mvpmc+PCH+Myth?

(Sorry for responding to the old post, but I haven't been following lately.)

John

[MVallevand]

Sorry I haven't provided any upgrades since it sounded like everyone
was either jumping on the nvidia ION wagon or happily transcoding with
vlc threads. Still given that there is a cheap  $160 NMT at
egreatusa.com now I am kind of surprised there isn't more interest.

I've pretty much got the knowledge base needed to make a full HD
client for mpeg now, my problems with HDMI have been resolved
sufficiently and I released a client for GBPVR that does everything
the old MVP client did, resumes, comskip, OSD over video etc. What I
was waiting for was other devs willing to get a client to work with
MythTV.  Some clean up but full QAM and ATSC HD here and h264
720p/1080i too.  HD-PVR recordings look and sound great.

Next step for me is to work with Rick to see if we can get a flavour
of mclient running.

As for emulation mode, I like the fact that the server can do the
heavy work of UI rendering.  I guess purists want the MythTV client to
all the work, the irony has been this hasn't been a concern for
Slimserver users.  The challenges are there are some things about the
file content that are best handled by the client.  Of course if MythTV
indexes mpegs (I just don't know) this is less of a concern, assuming
the protocol exposes the seek info.

Martin

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[bungle]

MVallevand wrote:

Sorry I haven't provided any upgrades since it sounded like everyone
was either jumping on the nvidia ION wagon or happily transcoding with
vlc threads. Still given that there is a cheap  $160 NMT at
egreatusa.com now I am kind of surprised there isn't more interest.

Hmm, I didn't know about the "EGreat" product.  Is it a drop-in replacement for the PCH?  I have put off going HD long enough that ION is a possibility, but now for various reasons I'm not so sure.  At $160 it's hard not to get one even if all it does is play recordings off NFS.

As for emulation mode, I like the fact that the server can do the
heavy work of UI rendering.  I guess purists want the MythTV client to

I can see the benefit if you have a NAS or something and like to play movies or music off it without a server, but if I already have mythbackend running somewhere it might as well do things the client can't.  I wonder how hard it would be to hack up some html as a quick frontend, like Sub did with the first GB-PVR client.  

[MVallevand]

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 9:58 PM, bungle <nabble.e.wuuza@...> wrote:
> Hmm, I didn't know about the "EGreat" product.  Is it a drop-in replacement
> for the PCH?  I have put off going HD long enough that ION is a possibility,

Not quite, the remote is missing some buttons but I've got lircd kind
of working know and even have the MVP remote working with it.

> I can see the benefit if you have a NAS or something and like to play movies
> or music off it without a server, but if I already have mythbackend running
> somewhere it might as well do things the client can't.  I wonder how hard it
> would be to hack up some html as a quick frontend, like Sub did with the
> first GB-PVR client.

Sub's original client was a mix of html and jpeg images.  He took the
basic 2D GDI+ graphic used with the Hauppauge protocol and showed them
screen by screen in response to a basic keystroke handler in html.  It
actually was genius, but the PCH browser is slow.

Martin

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[Simon Hyde]

On Tue, 26 May 2009, MVallevand wrote:

> Next step for me is to work with Rick to see if we can get a flavour
> of mclient running.

Hmmm...I think you'd be better off looking at cross-compiling SqueezePlay,
the UI for this is far better suited to a TV display than that provided by
MClient. If that won't fit on your device then it might be worth looking
at SqueezeSlave, which provides full support for the newer TCP protocol,
and would allow your device to support FLAC, etc.

Cheers,

Simon

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[MVallevand]

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Simon Hyde <simon@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 26 May 2009, MVallevand wrote:
>
>> Next step for me is to work with Rick to see if we can get a flavour
>> of mclient running.
>
> Hmmm...I think you'd be better off looking at cross-compiling SqueezePlay,
> the UI for this is far better suited to a TV display than that provided by
> MClient. If that won't fit on your device then it might be worth looking at
> SqueezeSlave, which provides full support for the newer TCP protocol, and
> would allow your device to support FLAC, etc.

I said "flavour" for a reason.  I no longer use SqueezeCenter but I've
been suggesting that Rick move to SlimProtoLib for a few years now. ie
http://www.mail-archive.com/mvpmc-users@.../msg00631.html

Martin

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[stuart-20]

Simon Hyde wrote:

> On Tue, 26 May 2009, MVallevand wrote:
>
>> Next step for me is to work with Rick to see if we can get a flavour
>> of mclient running.
>
> Hmmm...I think you'd be better off looking at cross-compiling SqueezePlay,
> the UI for this is far better suited to a TV display than that provided by
> MClient. If that won't fit on your device then it might be worth looking
> at SqueezeSlave, which provides full support for the newer TCP protocol,
> and would allow your device to support FLAC, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Simon
>

It has been tossed around (using the slimdevices libs as the bases for
the next squeezecenter client for mvpmc).  I think if we do it we will
come very close to replicating the efforts of mythsqueezebox.

However, that will be a jump, abandoning much of the current mclient
code.  Which, among other reasons, is why I haven't done it.  It also
complicates some other things such as code portability between the PCH
and MediaMVP platforms.

So, Simon, if you don't mind, fill me in on some basics.  How do
Softsqueeze, SqueezePlay and the SqueezeOS all relate to each other?
Are they all open source projects?

For now, I'll down load a copy of squeezplay and try it out on my redhat
box before commenting.  But isn't squeezeplay written in Java?

-Rick

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[Simon Hyde]

On Wed, 27 May 2009, stuart wrote:

> So, Simon, if you don't mind, fill me in on some basics.  How do
> Softsqueeze, SqueezePlay and the SqueezeOS all relate to each other?

Okay this is my understanding:

SqueezeOS - This is the operating System that runs on the Squeezbox Duet
Controller. I haven't looked into this much, but I believe it's linux
based, I'm not sure we're bothered about this.

SoftSqueeze - A Java-based software SqueezeCenter client, IMHO this is a
bit slow and with a not very nice UI, and I really don't fancy our chances
getting a Java engine up and running on the MVP.

SqueezePlay - This is the main application and UI that runs on the
Squeezebox Controller with full audio playback functionality. This can be
built both cross-compiled to run ontop of SqueezeOS or directly on
Linux/Windows (although it still tends to build its own set of libraries).
Written in C. The graphics output for this is done over SDL, which does
have an output library for MicroWindows/NanoX. I have managed to
cross-compile the default build for this application and all its
dependancies for the MVP, but I haven't actually tried to run it yet,
because it looks like its set of libraries, theme files, and the app
itself are far too large for the MVP. I intend to try to trim this down,
but haven't really had much of a chance yet.

SqueezeSlave - A simple C-based client to SqueezeCenter which uses
SlimProtoLib, it is designed to drive 2-line displays (like our current
interface). I did some work cross-porting this to my Reciva.com-based
internet radio, but have hit on a problem with the weird sample rate used
in the Reciva boards. This should be very easy to cross-port to the MVP, I
think we already have all its dependant libraries apart from libmad (for
MP3 decoding). libmad is fairly easy to cross-compile, and would mean that
the MVP client drops the hardware MPEG decoder's buffer of unknown length.


> Are they all open source projects?

As far as I know. You can certainly get the full source for both
SqueezePlay and SqueezeSlave.

> For now, I'll down load a copy of squeezplay and try it out on my redhat
> box before commenting.  But isn't squeezeplay written in Java?

Nope, that's SoftSqueeze.

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