Samsung TV App

[smacrae]

Hi Martin...just wondering if you've seen the PlexClient project for the Samsung devices? It's quite feature rich, nice GUI that is impressively similar to that of the full Windows/OSX client.

Personally I'd like to try achieve this for a NextPVR client...maybe we'd have to forgo a few features but generally matching it as close as possible to that of the Window version.

Do you think this may be achievable? I'm happy to talk to the guys over at the Plex Forums and the Samsung guys if you think the above is possible?

Thanks again....

[mvallevand]

Yes, I saw it and they did a nice job, and I gave it good look when I was deciding whether my HTPC infrastructure was going to be XBMC, Plex or Boxee. XBMC won because they are open source. Even the Plex client is restricted and they weren't willing to share their code under any GPL. Last I checked they had a copyright on it and didn't appreciate people modifying it even for Plex.

However a client for the Plex interface is much simpler since it is just glorified UPnP and you just have to work on presentation of text menus. We'd need a real client. I suggest installing XBMC and my x-newa client to see how I mimic some of the NextPVR UI components. I could do that in Flash 10.1 but I don't know if I want to since it is end of life, and I don't know HTML5 or the UI widgets and canvases it has that might allow me to achieve a NextPVR look & feel.

Martin

[psycik]

Yes, I saw it and they did a nice job, and I gave it good look when I was deciding whether my HTPC infrastructure was going to be XBMC, Plex or Boxee. XBMC won because they are open source. Even the Plex client is restricted and they weren't willing to share their code under any GPL. Last I checked they had a copyright on it and didn't appreciate people modifying it even for Plex.

Martin

Going a bit OT now, but I've been a bit of a plex evangelist in my time, and honestly I'd give it all away and settle on XBMC if they had, 1, the server based/headless media collector/db that plex does - this is by far the standout way of doing things. But I must say XBMC eats plex for media collection - it's so much better at it - one of my biggest frustrations with plex. And 2, the trancoding ability (again in a client/server) model - it's handy to rock up with an apple tv/iphone/roku/insert device with plex client here, and have the video transcoded to what the client wants - especially if dealing with things like our h.264 1080i video over here. With plex on my NextPVR system, it's fast enough to transcode the video files to something even an iphone can play.

As for smacrae's comment about ugly names - I worked on a plex agent to take the nextpvr xml files and use them to populate the decriptions (being from oz, like me, we can't use show filenames and dates to work out the episode season/episode number as they don't run with the US schedules that you'd find in thetvdb.com). But I couldn't properly get it to work (3rd -ve point for plex, their community has nothing on nextpvr for responsiveness).

So it's doable. I just wish xbmc would go cleint/server. At least for the collection side.

[reven]

just got a couple of samsung smart tvs, and started playing around with a nextpvr client for it. so far what works after a few hours effort.
- playback of recordings seems fine (NZ freeview recordings)
- live tv, only getting sound no video, tried transcoding, but still just sound
- interface is pretty easy to work with, basically just html,css and js so very easy to create a app for it.

just if anyone is interested in this... i may be able to get recording playback to work and a tv guide for scheduling... for live tv ill use the tuner in the tv, but for recordings i like using nextpvr on a server, so im happy with just guide + recordings.

[psycik]

just got a couple of samsung smart tvs, and started playing around with a nextpvr client for it. so far what works after a few hours effort.
- playback of recordings seems fine (NZ freeview recordings)
- live tv, only getting sound no video, tried transcoding, but still just sound
- interface is pretty easy to work with, basically just html,css and js so very easy to create a app for it.

just if anyone is interested in this... i may be able to get recording playback to work and a tv guide for scheduling... for live tv ill use the tuner in the tv, but for recordings i like using nextpvr on a server, so im happy with just guide + recordings.

Well done, almost makes me wish I had a smart tv.

[reven]

i bought the samsung tvs just for plex dumped my raspberrypis and OUYAs (which turned out to be pretty rubbish).

eclipse can be annoying to work with (you have to close it every 30mins or so due to bugs).

I'll work on the main menu tonight (want to get it looking exactly like nextpvr gui), then ill work on the recordings screen. tv guide will be the most work...

but have to love the fact its all just html/css/js, makes it way easier (IMO html/css is easiest way to write a gui)

[mvallevand]

Yes I thought Samsung would be fabulous after buying my HDTV but then I bought a BluRay for developing on and realized how support varied so much by model and year http://samsungdforum.com/Devtools/Spec that it might be more trouble then it was worth. People by extenders to be plug and play. Now that Samsung have bought Boxee I am not sure if it improves things or makes it even worse.

I also asked sub about HLS and m3u8 live streaming and I didn't get a positive reply so then I let it die. Plex worked ok on my tv though so I'm not sure another interface is needed but I'd be able to test something if this develops further.

Martin

[bgowland]

eclipse can be annoying to work with (you have to close it every 30mins or so due to bugs).

Do you mean eclipse as in the IDE? If so then there are problems with the version you're using or plugins for it. I have it open for days at a time without problems.

[johnsonx42]

I've got a Samsung BluRay player I'd love to try with your NPVR plugin. Is there any way I can get it onto the player directly, or do I have to wait until you put it in their app catalog?

[reven]

to get it on the player, you basically sign in as a special "develop" user (some models require a specific password, some require any password, some require no password) then it opens a "IP Setting" which you set to a machine in your network which hosts a special widgetlist.xml file that lists the apps you can manually download to the tv/blu-ray.

i'll likely make the nextpvrwebconsole bundle with this, but that would require it to run on port 80, since I'll likely use that API to get the data (i'll try and stick to the stock API the xbmc addon uses as much as possible first though, not sure if the recording options are that great in that api....).

bgowland, its the samsung emulator and samsung sdk that requires me to restart eclipse.

i really cant believe there isnt a PVR out there that hasnt done a samsung app yet, really not much too it, the most i could find was a super basic one for myth that only listed your recordings i believe.

was having a problem last night with updating the app, the JS wasn't updating for some reason, only HTML, so i had to create a second app to force an update... no clue why... but emulator is pretty good. im developing it against a series 6 2013 model tv, lower resolution to hopefully support older models (theres 2 resolution options 720p and about 576p i believe).