Android/AndroidTV Placeshifter client (Discussion)

[PLUCKYHD]

that makes sense with projects like the dolphin emulator have gone 64 bit only. not saying you should do that but it appears an issue with many projects on android either maintain two builds or pick one.

I think now you should focus on what you would use and what would help you.

[KarylFStein]

Let me know if I can help with any testing or information gathering on the SHIELD TV platform.

[coppit]

> Also, since I don't have a Shield, this will be hard for me to verify and test.

One should be on the way soon.

[cncb]

I know it is very early and you are just trying to get basic playback working, but do you anticipate being able to play back in-progress recordings with a growing file size/dynamic end time and have it behave like the HD300?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by coppit

> Also, since I don't have a Shield, this will be hard for me to verify and test.
One should be on the way soon.

And a very big thanks for that I'll post back once I get it, and do some preliminary testing.

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

Let me know if I can help with any testing or information gathering on the SHIELD TV platform.

Now that I'm getting a shield, I can hook it up directly and figure out why it's failing (I suspect it's a 64bit issue).

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

that makes sense with projects like the dolphin emulator have gone 64 bit only. not saying you should do that but it appears an issue with many projects on android either maintain two builds or pick one.

I think now you should focus on what you would use and what would help you.

Now that a shield is on its way... I guess my focus may be the 64bit version (I'll likely support both, since I have both 32 and 64bit hardware, and the libraries that I'm depending on, are also available in 32 and 64bit... I just need to spend the time updating the build scripts to compose separate downloads. I can ship all the binaries in a single build, but the native libraries are about 15mb per architecture)

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by cncb

I know it is very early and you are just trying to get basic playback working, but do you anticipate being able to play back in-progress recordings with a growing file size/dynamic end time and have it behave like the HD300?

Once video playback is working (and it is working to some extent, just not well enough that I'm willing to release it), then playing back in-progress recordings would be the same as the HD300. The Android MiniClient is using all the same protocols as the HD300, so, while I havent' tested a live recording, I don't see why it would not just work.

[brianrent]

Hey stuckless, below is a post from me in the customization's forum. Wondering what insight you might have as to the difficulty of this.

Originally Posted by brianrent

There's an android app and built in functionality in recent SAMSUNG TVs (last 3-4 yrs) that let you mirror the TVs picture on an android device. Also some remote functionality but all I'm interested in is the mirror part. How hard would it be to create an app that would let you chose an extender from the list of active extenders and mirror that to the device. I'm guessing it would have to be trans coded by sage but the Samsung app has a delay too of about 2 to 4 seconds behind the TV. Samsung in their infinite wisdom has decided to remove the screen mirroring part of the app so now it is just a remote. ???? Basically they don't want me to buy Samsung phones, TVs or tablets anymore. The app was nice for when you eat too much Lasagna (Mmmm lasagna) and then need to squeeze a steamer. The wife can keep watching on the main screen and I can do my business.

The Samsung app mirrored the whole screen and if the show ended the boss could simply start a new one and i could see the Sage home screen and her choosing another show. I realize that it may be easier to just allow the user to start at that spot in the show that you choose to mirror the extender and once it ended you would have to start it again once a new show was started on the extender. So the basic functionality would be to find out how many minutes into the show you are and trans code it and send it to the phone. The only hiccup could be comskiping so it remains close to the extender time wise.

Obviously it would be ideal to mirror the entire extender but don't know how hard that would be. I'm not one of you coding geniuses but I would be happy to have my wife bake you a lasagna for such an app designed for taking a crap.

[VCRUser]

Is there a post somewhere that describes system requirements for this app? I tried it on my Samsung Galaxy 8.9, which runs Android 4.1, and could get only a mangled main menu display.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

Is there a post somewhere that describes system requirements for this app? I tried it on my Samsung Galaxy 8.9, which runs Android 4.1, and could get only a mangled main menu display.

To be honest, I have no specific system requirements... We'll likely figure that out once the app is further along, by simple what devices can run it well, etc.

[brewston]

I had a thought - will the fact that android TV has no back button (other than to quit the app) be a problem in the EPG ? Everything else works with the direction keys, but left in the EP takes you back in time. Would it be possible to re-map the back button *just* whilst in the EPG ?

I haven't forgotten about testing placeshifter Sean - just need to drag the old macbook out.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by brewston

I had a thought - will the fact that android TV has no back button (other than to quit the app) be a problem in the EPG ? Everything else works with the direction keys, but left in the EP takes you back in time. Would it be possible to re-map the back button *just* whilst in the EPG ?

I haven't forgotten about testing placeshifter Sean - just need to drag the old macbook out.

I suspect that the "dumb" remote that ships with the Android TV will be somewhat problematic.

Android Remotes, typically do have a "Back" buttom, but it's mapped to exit you out of the application. I may have to map it to send the back command to sagetv and maybe a long press to exit the app, or something like that.

The Android client doesn't actually know anything about what menus you are on, etc. It's more of a "mirroring" technology that sends screens from the server to the client, but the client doesn't really know where you are at, etc. I do know when a video is playing, etc, but not if you are in the EPG or main menu.

[brewston]

Might be worth remapping the remote back button to the SageTV back command for the entire session then, you can always use the 'home' button on the remote to get back to the leanback launcher

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by brewston

Might be worth remapping the remote back button to the SageTV back command for the entire session then, you can always use the 'home' button on the remote to get back to the leanback launcher

Yeah, that's true... so I'll look at mapping the back button to send the back command.

[stuckless]

It's been awhile. Here's what's in the build.

The few weeks has been primarily spent getting video to play using the SageTV Media protocols (push and pull). This is complicated on Android, mainly because the video players typically don't allow for a media source other than a file or url, so there's a bit of magic to make SageTV protocols work with the android players.

This build has 2 built in video players. VLC and IJKPlayer (a ffmpeg based player). VLC is only supported on armv7 (in this app) where as ijkplayer has support x86 and arm. I'm testing both, but it's likely that I'll end up dropping VLC and going with ijkplayer.

In my testing, I've been able to play back HDPVR .ts files (h264 encoded) and .mp4 and .mkv files (h264 encoded). I don't have any other video formats, so I haven't tested them.

My testing is also entirely wifi bases... I get some stuttering of the video during playback. I'm guessing this would not happen on a wired connection, but, I haven't tested that theory. My wifi connection is also pretty bad to where my TV is located.

If you have a media remote, then pause and play should work (hopefully). If you have game controller, then Y is pause/play and X is stop.

The "Back" button has been remapped to send a "Back" command.

There is new Settings screen. You can enable logging to the SDCARD from there. If enabled, then all miniclient logging will be written to a file, /sdcard/sagetv-miniclient.txt. If you install ES File Explorer you can view the file. You can also probably use ES File Explorer to send the file via email. If you are going to send it to me... (metadatatools at gmail dot com)

The settings screen has the option to disable/enable VLC. Basically if VLC is unchecked, then it will use ijkplayer. If you are on an x86 sytem, you probably won't see this option, or you won't be able to change it, since VLC isn't supported (in this app) on x86.

Skipping is not supported. In fact if you try to skip, I'm sure bad things will happen. Getting skip forward/back to work is my next challenge.

Keep in mind this is still ALPHA. ie, the code to get this working is mess, so it's likely you might get force closes or abrupt exits, etc. Once we (I guess me) get the base feature in the build, then I'll start moving towards beta, and eventually, an actual release (I think we are long ways form there -- but there is progress)

EDIT: One More Note
On a phone/tablet, when you are playing a video, you can slide out a menu from the left side of the screen. This is a very simple menu with pause, play, stop, fw, and rew. Eventually, I'll have a full remote in the slide out but for now, just some simple actions.

[SHS]

Cool I have try that out on android x86 laptop

Update darn that was no go

[nyplayer]

Unfortunately on my Nexus Player it will not even start all I get is unfortunately, SageTVMiniClient has stopped. Running Marshmallow. When I go to check the Permissions it states that it was written for an older version of Android.

[KryptoNyte]

Galaxy S4. Uninstalled the old client, installed the new one. Launched the new one, it had my server IP address already there, so I selected it. It appeared to launch, screen went black, playback control slid in from left. I retracted the playback control a couple times, but screen remained black. Webserver claims a new client is connected.

I hit home button, went back to home screen and restarted the phone. This time, I entered a new server with the same IP as the server that already existed, and set the preferences to use the IJKPlayer. Launched Sage from the new server entry, got the blue background, said something like it couldn't resolve "my server" (the new entry) then a message that "Unfortunately, SageTV Miniclient has stopped <OK>". The phone hard locked for about 5 minutes, couldn't go to home screen and any form of soft restart. Let the screen go to sleep, and woke it, at which point miniclient was back to the first screen with preferences. Relaunched, all with the same results. I have it saving a log - I'll see if I can get one.

I couldn't reboot my server right at the moment, would like to do that also.

[stuckless]

The only devices that I've tested this on are
Nexus 5 running Android 6 (mashmellow)
Nexus Play (arm version -- developer version -- running Android 5)

So, i don't have an x86 device (although the Nvidia Shield that is one the way) is x86.

Also, some of the older Android devices if they are not armv7 will not work as well, but i don't know what they are.

The Log file will dumpt out the architecture first thing, so hopefully we can start building a list of what works and what doesn't.

[KryptoNyte]

It's strange that when I select the server entry from the previous install I get the black screen, but when I select the new server (at the exact same IP address, different name), I get the blue screen and then crash. Is there some kind of cache that needs to be cleared?

It's crashing before it can create the log file. Do some devices treat "sdcard" differently? For example, some devices have some internal storage that emulates "sdcard" perhaps?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by stuckless

The only devices that I've tested this on are
Nexus 5 running Android 6 (mashmellow)
Nexus Play (arm version -- developer version -- running Android 5)

So, i don't have an x86 device (although the Nvidia Shield that is one the way) is x86.

Also, some of the older Android devices if they are not armv7 will not work as well, but i don't know what they are.

The Log file will dumpt out the architecture first thing, so hopefully we can start building a list of what works and what doesn't.

It appears not to work on my Nexus Player with Marshmallow the older version at least started.... just no video but I could schedule recordings do you still have alpha 3 I cannot find my download.