UbuStream v2.0 - Beta

[HTPCGB]

I think I've found another bug. I can't seem to set the CNN dynamic source's to anything other than "Windows Media Player". After making a different selection and hitting refresh it just goes back to it's default setting.

That's by design. I figured it was possible (unlikely, I agree) that someone might want to stop getting new content for that section but might want to keep something they had already downloaded from it. Better to have to explicitly delete the group than to curse me for having deleted something you wanted to keep. I could be persuaded otherwise if you think this is being excessively "anal".

You have a good point there. However, if I remove a checkmark, it will re-check itself after hitting "refresh". The only way to permanently un-check an item is to delete its associated group first.

At the moment, I'm working on a "media player" similar to the overlay found in the CNN Videos plugin. I'm doing this to help wean people off my plugin and onto yours. (I guess it could also function as convenient built in player for Ubustream.)

Regards,
HTPCGB

[ubu]

I think I've found another bug. I can't seem to set the CNN dynamic source's to anything other than "Windows Media Player". After making a different selection and hitting refresh it just goes back to it's default setting.

I think I've already fixed that one. I'm going to upload a "bug fix" release of the plugin later today or tomorrow. I'll double check this one before I upload it.

You have a good point there. However, if I remove a checkmark, it will re-check itself after hitting "refresh". The only way to permanently un-check an item is to delete its associated group first.

Whoops! Looks like I'm not "persisting" the unselected section quickly enough (the Refresh button event gets control first). I'll check it out. (BTW - The Refresh button shouldn't really be needed. I left it there as a convenience for anyone who likes to hand edit the xml file so they could see the results without having to exit the config app.)

At the moment, I'm working on a "media player" similar to the overlay found in the CNN Videos plugin. I'm doing this to help wean people off my plugin and onto yours. (I guess it could also function as convenient built in player for Ubustream.)

I'd been thinking along the same lines. Your custom "media player" could solve some problems for UbuStream. Because UbuStream invokes the "native" media player, the user has to worry about controlling the player (seting buttons on their remote to send the right keystrokes for each player, for instance) and, since each player behaves differently, I get into a whole world of pain when I try to minimize them or set focus to the right window (see my discussion with Stefan about this).

By using your media player form, we'd have total control over the window (and it would use standard GB-PVR keystrokes for Play/Pause/Stop etc.). You'll notice that, for similar reasons, I'm using the same approach for displaying a "schedule" page when you hit the WebSite button. I used to just invoke the default browser which was pretty ugly. Now it comes up in a browser control embedded in a form which is much cleaner. (It's a bit basic. I'd like to make it a bit more useful. More of a proof of concept at this point ).

So my question is, how difficult would it be for your media player form to embed other players than WMP? Just from memory, I think RealPlayer, VLC and Quicktime all provide some sort of embedded player (or Active/X plugin) which can be controlled via JavaScript or something. Not sure about Winamp but I think I've seen it embedded in web pages. I guess if the user wants to use a player not supported by the form, UbuStream could just revert to plan A and fire up the player app instead.

If we could solve the mediaMVP problem by providing an MPEG2 transcoding/recording service (did you get around to reading my "manifesto" on this subject yet?), I'm thinking we'd have a pretty poweful solution. Non-MVP users would see the media player form. MVP users would see the GB-PVR video playback from the MPEG2 file

[ubu]

IHowever, if I remove a checkmark, it will re-check itself after hitting "refresh". The only way to permanently un-check an item is to delete its associated group first.

Turns out I was dreaming or something. The only way to "persist" deleting a DynSource section is to delete its associated group. So I'm doing that now when you uncheck a section. However, since it executes the same code as "explicitly" deleting a group, you get prompted with an option to delete or not delete the associated stations. So that covers my concern about blowing away content people wanted to keep. So it should work to your satisfaction in the next bug-fix release.

[ubu]

Here's a zip file with a new version of the UbuStream plugin that fixes some bugs and adds a few more features. I've also included a DynSource directory containing upgrades to my three DynSource apps and the DynamicSource dll.

Check for your personal favourite bug and check that I've fixed it (in the way you expected). I've done quite a bit of tweaking and rejigging of the code so it's just possible that I've introduced some new bugs. Hope not.

The two main additional features are 1) the station Description field (which was already defined in the database) is now visible on the station panel in the config app and 2) a Details button has been added to the UbuStream menu.

I had always planned to implement the station description as a "nice-to-have" feature so people could store notes about each station and display them at run time. With the introduction of DynSource apps, the ability to view a text description of each item before deciding if you want to view the video clip makes this a much more compelling feature.

The Details button brings up a text box containing (for the currently highlighted station) the station description, the player it uses and the url. Pressing the back button will close the text box.

I have added two new optional lines to the PLX file format: Description1= where text describing the item can be placed and Website1= where you can put the url of a web page you wish to associate with the item. The WebSite button in UbuStream was originally intended for the url of a web page containing the program schedule for the station, but it can really be used for any page relating to the station/item that you want to be able to look at via the built-in browser.

I've already changed my 3 mini-plugins so they populate these two lines so you can see all this in action. HTPCGB and Remco: take advantage of them if you feel so inclined.

Stefan: I still haven't fixed the whole minimizing and getting back focus thing. My weekend task is to try to figure out how to do this down at the Win32 API level.

Download: [ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[HTPCGB]

Those two bugs seem to be fixed now. I haven't spotted any others which is great.

Enclosed is the completed (hopefully) windows media player overlay. It responds to volume, ESC and play/pause/stop commands via the remote control. It does not take a fullscreen parm. If you (or anyone else) would like the source code in order to make it look more "GBPVR-ish", just ask.

Right now I'm working on a VLC counterpart which hopefully won't be as picky was the WMP overlay. (The WMP-object insisted on handling some keypresses itself.)

Regards,
HTPCGB

[ubu]

This one is for Stefan (and anybody else who likes their streaming audio to play without the player being visible). It should raise the WAF a notch or two.

Stefan noticed that the "Minimize player when playing audio" setting didn't work quite right with VLC, minimizing the player but not returning focus to GB-PVR. And then I found that RealPlayer completely ignored the request to minimize iteself.

So thanks to the magic of .Net InteropServices, here's a version that uses Win32 calls to force the players to obey. (It does not take prisoners! ). The player window now gets completely hidden (doesn't even show up on the task bar) and focus always returns to GB-PVR.

Download: [ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

The only downside to this solution is that, if GB-PVR were to terminate abnormally (not too likely), you would have to use Task Manager to stop the player since it's not visible on the desktop. Seems likely you'd reboot if that happened in any case, so I don't see this as a major problem. Also, the player gets minimized just before being hidden (so you never see it at all) but, since RealPlayer ignores the minimize command, it will show up for a fraction of a second before being hidden. (If this bothers you, email RealMedia and complain about their failure to comply with the rules of polite behaviour within Windows.)

[ubu]

Those two bugs seem to be fixed now. I haven't spotted any others which is great.

So far so good.

Enclosed is the completed (hopefully) windows media player overlay. It responds to volume, ESC and play/pause/stop commands via the remote control. It does not take a fullscreen parm. If you (or anyone else) would like the source code in order to make it look more "GBPVR-ish", just ask.

Looks great! I notice that the context menu shows up if I right click on the player window and I can switch to fullscreen from there, so I'm guessing there's a way to have your app respond to a fullscreen parm?

I'd love to take a look at the source so I can see how you are doing the magic.

Right now I'm working on a VLC counterpart which hopefully won't be as picky was the WMP overlay.

Will this be a separate app or do you plan to have a single app that embeds the appropriate player depending on the stream type? If the latter, how will the app know which player to embed?

For the short term, I'm thinking your player app could be defined to UbuStream as an "alternate" Media Player (or even the "default" player). Hopefully, this would require only minor changes to the UbuStream code. Longer term, maybe you could implement this as a class library dll instead of an exe, which would a) enable closer coupling and greater control (without having to pass arguments to an external program) and b) allow it to, as you suggest, look more "GBPVR-ish".

One irony: I notice you set the window title to "GB-PVR" so it will respond to standard GB-PVR remote control buttons. My latest bug-fix version (see my previous post) uses the window title to set focus back to the GB-PVR window, so it wouldn't have worked if your app was the player. I'll change it to use the window handle instead. :o

[stefan]

This one is for Stefan (and anybody else who likes their streaming audio to play without the player being visible). It should raise the WAF a notch or two.

Stefan noticed that the "Minimize player when playing audio" setting didn't work quite right with VLC, minimizing the player but not returning focus to GB-PVR. And then I found that RealPlayer completely ignored the request to minimize iteself.

Thank's I'll try it when I get a chance

[ubu]

Right now I'm working on a VLC counterpart which hopefully won't be as picky was the WMP overlay.

What would be really cool would be a version of your media player overlay that would embed Flash Player in it. That would mean people could watch videos from google, yahoo, youtube, etc. with the current version of UbuStream.

Those sites all display each video's url to "embed" in a web page. People could copy that url into the UbuStream config app and it would become a new "station". We can continue deliberating on the "elegant" way to implement a search/browse capability targeting these sites, but that would at least give people a "quick and dirty" way to view these videos from GB-PVR.

EDIT: Also, did you see this post. Seems relevant.

EDIT2: I know VLC has Flash video support (.flv files, anyway) but I've heard it's a bit flaky. If it does work OK, maybe the above idea is overkill. Haven't had time to try it.

[garetmax]

The download for v2.0 on the Wiki doesn't seem to work as it goes to a login page.

Also, on the system requirements page, the downloads act the same way.

This plugin looks pretty cool so I wanted to give it a try.