[mythtv] A couple of mfd/mfe questions

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Mon Jun 14 16:11:57 EDT 2004


On Monday 14 June 2004 15:20, thor wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 14:32, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> > So, I thought I'd poke around and play with the much-anticipated
> > mfd/mfe framework.  I built the appropriate pieces and fired them
> > up on my Myth box, and lo! I had music :-)
>
> 	Hurray.

And there was much rejoicing. (Yay! :-)

> > Now, I'd like to be able to access the content from my home Myth
> > box running mfd from my work PC running mfe.  I use ssh
> > port-forwarding; I forwarded ports 2342 - 2345 from my work PC to
> > my Myth box.  Using a Java DAAP client (One2OhMyGod), I'm able to
> > see the collection my mfd is sharing and play tracks, but the
> > client is very basic and gives me no control over playlists or
> > track ordering, etc.
>
> 	Hmm, that's odd. Daap is (generally) port 3689, so One2OhMyGod
> should not have been able to talk to your mfd at home (at least, not
> over DAAP).

Sorry; just checked -- I was forwarding port 3689 with One2OhMyGod.  It 
must have dropped out when I was editing my ssh tunneling script.

> 	Also, you cannot edit or control playlists across DAAP. That is, you
> can't edit, create, or reorder a list on a remote DAAP service.

Got ya.  But this client was *really* basic... there are no playback 
controls, just "Play" and "Stop".  You can select a starting track, but 
you can't pause, ff, or rew.  Hence my wanting to get JTunes or mfe 
working.

> 	Fortunately, the mfd/mfe protocol will allow you to edit/create
> playlists etc. Not quite done yet, but soon. While the mfd does serve
> out music content as DAAP to anyone who asks for it (ie. iTunes), mfe
> <--> mfd interactions use a protocol called mdcap.

Cool.  For now I'll just use MythMusic or MythWeb to manage the playlist 
end of things.

>
> >   Using jTunes4 or mfe
> > under the same setup, it can't even find the DAAP server (mfd). 
> > Any suggestions?
>
> 	You need to "advertise" services. Zeroconfig/Rendezvous does this
> automatically on the local LAN (anything before a router hop). That's
> why when you run mfe and mfd at home, they can automatically find
> each other. Similarily mutliple mfd's (ie. multiple myth boxes) can
> automatically find each other and access each other's content.
>
> 	Since there's no way for multicast-DNS (what zeroconfig uses) to
> work across wider networks, you'll need to run a little rendezvous
> proxy. This is a small bit of code which will advertize the existense
> of mfd services (mfdp on 2342, daap on 3689, etc.) from your remote
> (ie. home) computer to your local (ie. office) network. You can get
> such a piece of code from Apple:
>
> 	http://developer.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous/index.html

Would it be possible to set up a port-forward to enabe zeroconf/
Rendezvous itself?  Or does that not work across a fixed TCP port?


Hmmm, now that I restored my 3689 port-forward, JTunes hangs when I try 
to connect to my shared music.  In the xterm running the remote mfd, I 
get:

WARNING: daap server plugin httprequest got bad http version should be 
"1.1" but got "1.0"

So, I take it mfd won't talk to a HTTP 1.0 client?  And what's the HTTP 
used for; is that the transport that daap & mdcap use?

So it seems like maybe having mfe be wholly dependent on Zeroconf might 
be a limiting factor... the other 3 DAAP clients I've looked at have 
the ability to specifiy a host to connect to.  Of course, I realize 
that mfe is just a skeleton to enable you to test stuff.  I'll poke 
around in the code and see if I can get it to bypass Zeroconf and just 
connect to a host that I specify in the DB.

Thanks,

JAC



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