Continue playback of downloaded file after file has finished downloading.

[jaminben]

Hello,

I have a problem where I can start playback of a downloading file just fine but as soon as the download finishes playback stops with a log entry of:

[ErrorStreamConsumer@86a398] stderr:[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0xbb89b8]stream 0, offset 0x149112: partial file

Anyone got any ideas how I can continue the playback even if the file has finished downloading?

I'm using the default UI menu widget MediaPlayer OSD but even with a newly created menu widget which only contains a Video widget playback will still stop with the above log entry as soon as the file finishes downloading. I've been looking at the default UI online video feeds for clues as I guess this does the same thing but nothings really working for me at the moment.

Once the file has been downloaded fully I can re-start playback and everythings perfect.

Cheers

Ben

[tmiranda]

Ben,

I'm going from memory here but if I recall the default STV handles this in a 3 stage approach:

- Stage 1 is just to display the "progress" dialog and wait a little while the video starts downloading.

- Stage 2 is playing the video while the remainder of the video is being downloaded.

- Stage 3 is waiting around until the video is completely played or the user hits the "stop" button.

Much of this is in place to handle the user hitting the "Record" button but it may shed some light on the issue you are having.

I may be full of hot air but take a close look at the dialog that starts the download to see what happens after watch(). Also take a close look at the listeners in the OSD menu, especially the Record listener, the Stop listener and the one that is invoked when the media file playback is completed. (I forget the specific name but it should be obvious.)

[jaminben]

Thanks for the point in the right direction Tom

I'm pretty sure I can see whats going on now....all I need to do is make mine do the same

Cheers

Ben

[jaminben]

Ok, I can't get this to work.....I can sort of see how the default UI does it but I'm not using StartFileDownload() or any of the default UI calls for downloading so I can't check for download progress in the same way (not that I think thats the problem).

Even when I use the same code as the default UI replacing the bits that I think should be replaced with my file download details the playback always stops at the point where the buffer kicks in (e.g 25% of the file has been downloaded so start playback), or if I set the buffer to 0% playback stops at the point where downloading finished.

Basically what I need to know is if I'm flogging a dead horse here or should I still be able to get full playback of a partial download no matter if its finished downloading or still has some of the file left to download without using the default api's for downloading?

Cheers

Ben

EDIT

Actually the problem isn't quite as I described it above, its more down to the fact that I told it start playback of an incomplete file e.g the buffer size that I've set of 25%. So shouldn't I be able to tell Sage to continue playback past this point of 25%?

[tmiranda]

Ben,

I have always used StartFileDownLoad() so I can't say for sure if there is something special in there that somehow interacts with watch() to deal with progressive downloads or not. I think I'd start looking for some global context variable that somehow tells watch() that a progressive download is in progress.

Going from memory here again but I think there are two variables used, IsPlaybackProgressive (maybe ProgressivePlayback or something else close to that) and IsDownloadComplete (or something close). Maybe that will lead you somewhere?

Another thing to look at is the debug output from StartFileDownload() to see if any of the messages indicate what (if anything) it's doing to interact with watch().

Lastly, as a testcase can you try replacing your download code with StartFileDownload() to see if the results are any different?

Tom

[jaminben]

Hey Tom,

I sent Sage an email asking about this problem and basically if you don't use their download calls it wont work, so that's where my problem lies....There is some good news however, Sage "MAY" add a few more api's to the existing download calls which will allow greater flexibility e.g 'User Agents' and multiple background downloads. Allowing us to use 'User Agents' is the killer one and is the main reason we made our own download stuff originally.

Cheers

Ben

[tmiranda]

Thanks for clarifying, I figured that was the case. If you decide to use StartFileDownload() I can tell you that it is NOT reentrant - you need to make sure only 1 thread at a time is using the API. If you are interested I have some Studio code that coordinates things so that the foreground thread will not crash or block if a background thread is using StartFileDownload().

Tom

[jaminben]

Thanks but we'll stick with what we have for now......it wouldn't work using StartFileDownload() anyway so we don't have a choice currently.

Onto the next problem

Cheers

Ben