[mythtv-users] MythTV Android Frontend is now available in the Google Play Market

[Daniel Frey]

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 10:53 PM, Ronald Frazier <ron at ronfrazier.net> wrote:

> >> DF: For right now, I think you will only be able to seek if you kick
> off the
> >> live stream and then pause it for a bit.  This is because we kick off
> the
> >> live steam transcode on demand.  It is not queued up or stored except
> for
> >> the life span of watching the video.  So when the video ends, and you
> >> navigate back, another command is sent to the backend which terminates
> the
> >> live stream transcode and deletes all the temporary files created.
> >
> > That's inconvenient (though I understand it's entirely out of your
> > control). The problem is when playback aborts (either through error,
> > disconnection, or intentionally), there's no way to jump back into the
> > middle of things.
>
>
> FYI: I was just playing around with another android app (MythTV Go).
> For playback, I actually like the way it handles things. In particular
>
> 1) When streaming begins, it provides a progress update so that you
> can see (to a limited degree) that something is actually happening and
> you are getting closer to playback, rather than not knowing if it's
> just hung (which happens on occasion).
> 2) When exiting playback, it asks you if you want to delete or keep
> the transcoded files on the backend.
> 3) If you choose to keep them, then the next time you go to play that
> file, playback begins instantly with no delay at all. Also, while MX
> player will take you right back to the beginning, I found that Dice
> Player will actually resume right where you left off.
>
> It seems to me that a nice way to handle things (if you can figure out
> all the right things to do with the API and it's all possible) might
> be that, when you pick a show, rather just launching it you could
> bring up a page with more info about the show. There you could have
> links to play it now, or start transcoding in the background. If
> transcoding in the background, you could show the progress. Actually
> now that I think about it (maybe I should have done that before I
> started typing), you could (if you wanted to get a little fancier)
> show the progress on the menu next to each show name. Something like a
> pie graph where the red slice is percent not transcoded and the green
> slice is percent transcoded. Then you could choose to only watch shows
> once they are completely transcoded.
>
> Also, if I'm starting to understand this streaming stuff a little
> better, I suspect a user could setup their backend to automatically
> start the HLS transcoding as soon as recording is complete. This way,
> for shows you know you are likely to watch from android you can have
> them pretranscoded. If you then put the little indicators right on the
> menu, it would be easier to see which programs are ready to be
> watched.
>
> Sorry if there are too many ideas here and in my other posts. Don't
> mean to overwhelm you with stuff. :-)
>
> Just curious, are you developing this on your own, or are other people
> helping?
>
>
> --
> Ron Frazier
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> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
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>

Ronald,

These are really great ideas. Some we have thought of, but a bunch we
haven't.  Could you do me a favor and put them into enhancement requests on
our issues page on github:

https://github.com/MythTV-Clients/MythTV-Android-Frontend/issues

You should be able to mark them as enhancements. This would be a big help.

There are currently 4 of us working on the app.  A lot has gone into making
the MythTV Services API available as standalone Java library.  It is now
available in Maven Central for anyone to use.

I really appreciate your feedback.

Btw, I have been working what you are saying about when the stream ends and
such.  Have had little success, however.

Dan

-- 
My Google Profile <http://www.google.com/profiles/dmfrey>
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