Android App: Phoenix for SageTV

[-=Jeff=-]

I have it working but the HD content does not work on my Nexus 7 with no Transcoding.. Medium and High work though

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by -=Jeff=-

I have it working but the HD content does not work on my Nexus 7 with no Transcoding.. Medium and High work though

Yeah the no transcoding sorta works on my nexus but 1080i plays a little slomo. I can play the 720p with no transcoding. For no transcoding I have to use the vmplayer. So I use 2 players "Video Player" for transcoding "vmplayer" for no transcoding.

[mkanet]

I'm guessing people who can't playback raw, non-transcoded streaming media is because 1080i is played back with pure software rendering; even when using MX Player + respective specialized code. So, if you have H.264 1080i recorded media, you'll need a pretty powerful android tablet/phone to play it back without issues (it has to do deinterlacing in real-time as well). It might be even harder than trying to stream bluray .m2ts 1080p (if you have the bandwidth).

I'm still recording old school cableTV mpeg2 1080i/720p; which my Note 2 can handle just fine non-transcoded (or transcoded at high, medium, etc). I have some satellite TV recordings (1080i /H.264) I'll try streaming without transcoding to see if the Note 2's 1.6Ghz quadcore CPU +2GB Ram can handle it. I think, I'll get the same slow-mo video.

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Yeah the no transcoding sorta works on my nexus but 1080i plays a little slomo. I can play the 720p with no transcoding. For no transcoding I have to use the vmplayer. So I use 2 players "Video Player" for transcoding "vmplayer" for no transcoding.

[thatdude90210]

I'm on Win7 32bit and have no problem using the full folder name either. Mine looks like this-- /Program Files/VideoLAN/VLC/vlc.exe
(with no drive letter)

And I'm using vlc version 2.0.5.

[-=Jeff=-]

I am happy everything is working now.. I think it was wise to switch to a win7 machine from a WHS v1 machine.. just need to finish moving some data around now

[sacrament055]

Out of curiosity, what ports do I need to open on my firewall to access this from the Internet and can I configure secure connections?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Out of curiosity, what ports do I need to open on my firewall to access this from the Internet and can I configure secure connections?

You'd need to be able to access your sagetv webserver externally, since that's what the app uses for communication. By default the webserver is on port 8080.

[sacrament055]

Finally opened up my firewall and tried transcoding over the internet. Here are some observations.
If I attempt playback of 1080i content recorded OTA (MPEG2) it works and I can playback 720p whether it's MPEG2 or H264 but if I select anything that's 1080i H264 I get a "SageTV did not create a stream url" message. This leads me to believe my server needs more time or isn't capable of transcoding 1080i H264 in realtime. It's running an Intel Core2Quad 2.4 Ghz processor with 8 GB of memory. I can see the vlc process kick off so I'm wondering if there is a way to allow it to use more cores or to increase the timeout to see if that resolves this issue.

[mkanet]

Have you tried to play the 1080i H264 media directly in your VLC player? I'm curious if it even knows how to decode it properly.

1080i H264 is pretty hard to decode; and even harder to transcode in real time. It actually has to do this a bit faster than real time to for streaming comfortably.

There is one setting which increases the timeout setting. But, it's already set pretty high. Default is 10 seconds. I set mine to 20 seconds just in case.

When you see the vlc process kick off, do you see it actually consuming CPU cycles... CPU percent usage under task manager?

Lastly, there are some VLC settings which make much better use of your hardware; especially if you have a multiple core CPU. I was able to reduce the CPU consumption by half (from the default configuration settings). I first made it so I could see all settings. Then, enabled both GPU acceleration and Hardware Acceleration, and make sure that there are 4 threads set for the VLC decoder I use (ffmpeg).. one for each core, just to be sure. I also set 4 threads for the transcoder I use (ffmpeg) ...under [Stream output/Sout stream/Transcode].

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Finally opened up my firewall and tried transcoding over the internet. Here are some observations.
If I attempt playback of 1080i content recorded OTA (MPEG2) it works and I can playback 720p whether it's MPEG2 or H264 but if I select anything that's 1080i H264 I get a "SageTV did not create a stream url" message. This leads me to believe my server needs more time or isn't capable of transcoding 1080i H264 in realtime. It's running an Intel Core2Quad 2.4 Ghz processor with 8 GB of memory. I can see the vlc process kick off so I'm wondering if there is a way to allow it to use more cores or to increase the timeout to see if that resolves this issue.

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Have you tried to play the 1080i H264 media directly in your VLC player? I'm curious if it even knows how to decode it properly.

1080i H264 is pretty hard to decode; and even harder to transcode in real time. It actually has to do this a bit faster than real time to for streaming comfortably.

There is one setting which increases the timeout setting. But, it's already set pretty high. Default is 10 seconds. I set mine to 20 seconds just in case.

When you see the vlc process kick off, do you see it actually consuming CPU cycles... CPU percent usage under task manager?

Lastly, there are some VLC settings which make much better use of your hardware; especially if you have a multiple core CPU. I was able to reduce the CPU consumption by half (from the default configuration settings). I first made it so I could see all settings. Then, enabled both GPU acceleration and Hardware Acceleration, and make sure that there are 4 threads set for the VLC decoder I use (ffmpeg).. one for each core, just to be sure. I also set 4 threads for the transcoder I use (ffmpeg) ...under [Stream output/Sout stream/Transcode].

I haven't tried to play H264 1080i in VLC on the server so I can check that.
I do see the VLC process consuming 25% of my CPU cycles until the timeout then it disappears.

Would you mind sharing your settings? I did see in VLC where it had the option for using GPU for decoding but didn't see the other hardware option and I'm not sure the command line parameters you're referring to for more efficient use of resources but I would certainly appreciate it if you could share. (I did google it and came up with a "threads=X" but I didn't see a difference with it so I'm not sure I had it in the right spot.

Thanks for your help

[thatdude90210]

Went through the same thing over a month ago. H264 1080i videos play ok on server, won't produce url for streaming.

[mkanet]

I dont know if these settings help anyone. But, it sure made a significant different on my PC. The only reason I tried messing with the settings in the first place is because CPU utilization was too high for my 7 year old 2.4Ghz Q6600 quad core PC to stream HD video at the highest quality. After I made the changes, it dropped to about half of what it used before. I'm guessing if your CPU is only at 25% utilization, the problem isn't caused by lack of CPU resources. Maybe, it wouldn't hurt to try these settings; and, select the optional process priority setting (shown in one of the below screenshots).

The GUI might be a little different on different VLC versions. I'm using 64bit VLC version 2.0.4 Twoflower.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wsaxv9uypl...34.38AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sgbn2exk4...24.21AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kq81e36p6b...32.21AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/na7yl4og1m...32.55AM%5D.jpg

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I dont know if these settings help anyone. But, it sure made a significant different on my PC. The only reason I tried messing with the settings in the first place is because CPU utilization was too high for my 7 year old 2.4Ghz Q6600 quad core PC to stream HD video at the highest quality. After I made the changes, it dropped to about half of what it used before. I'm guessing if your CPU is only at 25% utilization, the problem isn't caused by lack of CPU resources. Maybe, it wouldn't hurt to try these settings; and, select the optional process priority setting (shown in one of the below screenshots).

The GUI might be a little different on different VLC versions. I'm using 64bit VLC version 2.0.4 Twoflower.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wsaxv9uypl...34.38AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sgbn2exk4...24.21AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kq81e36p6b...32.21AM%5D.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/na7yl4og1m...32.55AM%5D.jpg

For some reason the 3rd one you've got posted there doesn't show up the same for me. I have no drop down option to select FFMPEG. Do I need a separate package for that? I assumed VLC had all it needed.

I tried the 64bit (Same version you mentioned) but I couldn't get the app to recognize it it kept saying VLC isn't configured. I then went back to 2.0.5 32bit and I'm back to where I was. I did implement the rest of the config options you listed which does use much more CPU but I'm still getting the same error.

[silkshadow]

Just wanted to say this is cool, just loaded it so I have no feedback as of yet. For the record, I use BSPlayer and I have true unlimited 4G, so as you progress do not lock out streaming over 4G (forcing wifi) like some other streaming apps do, please?

Oh and this is probably not the right place, but your other app "Hits Playlist Creator" does it work with Google Music?

Thanks!

[mkanet]

If it looks different for you, its because your version might be different than mine. I also had the "VLC isn't configured" in red; But, that was because I didn't set the full path to the executable correctly.

Originally Posted by sacrament055

For some reason the 3rd one you've got posted there doesn't show up the same for me. I have no drop down option to select FFMPEG. Do I need a separate package for that? I assumed VLC had all it needed.

I tried the 64bit (Same version you mentioned) but I couldn't get the app to recognize it it kept saying VLC isn't configured. I then went back to 2.0.5 32bit and I'm back to where I was. I did implement the rest of the config options you listed which does use much more CPU but I'm still getting the same error.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Oh and this is probably not the right place, but your other app "Hits Playlist Creator" does it work with Google Music?

Hits Playlist Creator gets the music charts from Billboard or Apple Itunes Charts, and it will search your local music (ie, on your device) for matches, to build a playlist. Google has been criticized because they don't allow an API access into their Music library (so, no, it won't use google music)

[silkshadow]

Thanks Stuckless! Again, sorry for the OT, but do see any issues with using it with MusicFS, which mounts your Google Music library as a filesystem? I try and ask for possible issues when I install apps that will use a root app (MusicFS is a root app), as I had a serious issue with a conflict in the past.

Thanks!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by silkshadow

Thanks Stuckless! Again, sorry for the OT, but do see any issues with using it with MusicFS, which mounts your Google Music library as a filesystem? I try and ask for possible issues when I install apps that will use a root app (MusicFS is a root app), as I had a serious issue with a conflict in the past.

Thanks!

To be honest, i don't know. My app scans the Music Library database on the Phone (not the filesystem), so if this app imports the content into the music data, then it should be ok.

[silkshadow]

Thanks, tried it and it doesn't do anything bad . I have to try it out to see if it generates playlists correctly.

[stuckless]

2.0.4
➤ Start of Favorites Manager (can drag/drop to re-order and long-press to delete)
➤ Optimized the startup to make it a little faster (hopefully)
➤ Depends on Phoenix Core 2.5.0

I started to add in the Favorites manager and you can drag and drop the favorites to re-order them using the left side arrow handle (I still need to find a better icon). And you can delete a favorite (will confirm).

I wasn't going to push this out yet, but I just called back to another project (non sagetv related) and I'll be spending a few weeks there, so I thought I'd share what I had now, instead of waiting.

Be sure to upgrade to Phoenix core 2.5.0+ as well.