My PodCasts (1 Viewer)

[fcsobel]

Thanks. I'll install the latest SVN and try to fix.

 

[fcsobel]

The latest svn fix for My Podcasts is here:

http://projects.c3o.com/MediaPortal/plugins-svn-06-16-2006--20-04.zip

Sorry it took so long. The HTMLCache class changed. They fixed the spelling on WebCacheIntialise()...etc. It's used to read and cache web content like rss and opml feeds which are used to add podcasts.

How many of you keep up with the latest SVN builds? Heck how many of you use My Podcasts?

 

[smnnekho]

i use it, and i update to new SVN ~ once per week. just everytime some features are added/bugs are fixed that seem important to me

 

[mikael]

I'm hunting for a solution to stream mp4 files through this plugin. Why will WMP not stream those mp4-files? I believe it's a basic codec problem and I found EnvivioTV MPEG-4 Plug-in at http://cns.utexas.edu/lectures/downloads.html for streaming mp4 files. It works really great in WMP.... but still not in this plugin in MP. What is wrong?

I don't either get the Screencast WMV-feed from Channel9 to work (http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?ForumID=38&Mode=0&sortby=0&sortorder=1&format=wmv). Pretty strange since the video-feed from Channel9 works (http://channel9.msdn.com/rss.aspx?ForumID=14&Mode=0&sortby=0&sortorder=1). Anyone?

 

[johnes]

aloha to all "My Podcasts" developers, testers and users!

Nice plugin, enjoy it very much, much nicer to stream tech shows then has Azureus or some other client download them to hdd.

Anyway, found some issues using MyPodcasts on MP 0.2.0.2 stable, not sure if it concerns other releases also. Sorry for my broken english, but hope you understand.

1. "My Podcasts" does not remember "View:" setting, loads always up "Big icons". Seems to be some kind of default setting.

2. When using "Back" from inside a Podcast it automaticly jumps to "Home" menu, and not to main "My Podcasts" menu.

3. When watching full-screen video feed and pressing "Back" it jumps back to main "My Podcasts" menu and not back to selected Podcast.

4. When "My Podcast" listed in "My Plugins" and using "Back" inside plugin, always jumps back to "Home"-menu, and not "My Plugins". (Same problems seems to concern all plugins listed in "My Plugins".

Ok,ok, enough of these "back and forward" issues Lets continue with biggest issue, ill call it:

5. "Unable to stream video content thru MyPodcasts after streaming other video content or mp3 podcasts".
Ill try to explain it step by step:

- Start MP.
- Start Podcast video feed, working nice and dandy (as reference use http://rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/audioblogs/crankygeeks/cg.wmv.xml)
- Stop video feed.
- Start Podcast MP3 feed, working nice and dandy (as reference use http://leoville.tv/podcasts/sn.xml other streaming content can also be used for example via "My Radio" plugin, video or audio doesn't matter)
- Stop mp3 feed.
- Start Podcast video feed (use CrankyGeeks or any other video feed) Video feed does not start, nothing happens! Nada. Zipp.
- Other video feeds outside "My Podcasts" still work, for example when using "My Radio" plugin and streaming video playlists.

Seems as content stored on HDD does not interfere with "My Podcasts", for example mp3 audio. Only internet streaming content. MP needs to be restarted to reset issue.

6. When trying to add some podcasts thru Setup get error "Unhandled exception... A column named 'category' already belongs to this DataTable". For example when adding http://leoville.tv/podcasts/itn.xml.
This could be that i already have some feeds in my list from same site TWIT.TV, or...?

Similiar error when adding: http://feeds.feedburner.com/openalpha/WMV
"Unhandled exception... A column named 'itunes:explicit' already belongs to this DataTable".

Anyway to get around this?

Wishlist:
- Mark podcasts as "viewed" in some way, check or maybe different color.
- Full support to play and stream M4V and MOV inside MP. Sad there is no proper plugin for WMP. From reading forums i understand that alot of TVcards have full support for WMP-engine and thats why the choice has been WMP to play all media, but couldnt developers give us a possibility to use for example VLC for content that WMP does not support? Giving this embedded in MP, for example to choose from setup witch extensions to be played by VLC? If MP sometime gets a full plugin for IPTV and streaming video this would sure be easier to program ontop of VLC cus its also under GPL. Let the TVcards have their WMP, i want IPTV!

Anybody else have similiar problems?
Tested on 2 different systems on skins BlueTwo and MCE with same result. Not trying to kill any developers with this list, just trying to lift up some issues with this plugin.

I think streaming content is what MP is all about. With high-speed internet connections who needs HDDs?

-

 

[johnes]

Got .mov playback from HDD working with QTAlternative.
Got .mp4 and .m4v playback with Haali Media Splitter.

When trying streaming badly freezes machine, sometimes so bad computer needs to be resetted to get out (usually killing MP with Ctrl-Alt-Del is enough).

MP4 seems to be jungle. Found this FAQ:

MP4 FAQ:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62723

Hopefully somebody gets streaming working with help from this site. Be sure to tell us how and which codecs did it!

 

[fcsobel]

Hello johnes, Thanks for the feedback on the plugin. I love it! I think I can fix most of the items you found except for the some of the playback issues but it sounds like you are making headway there. Keep it up! I have a small fix that will help with some of the back button issues. You can pull it down or wait till I have more of the errors fixed.

http://projects.c3o.com/MediaPortal/plugins.beta.zip

You only need the new windows plugin dlls. Backup your current ones in case you need to fall back.

 

[fcsobel]

Was able to make a small fix. You should no longer get unhandled exception when adding some podcasts. See item 6 in the post from johnes. To get this fix pull down the beta version from here:

http://projects.c3o.com/MediaPortal/plugins.beta.zip

You only need the new windows plugin dlls. Backup your current ones in case you need to fall back.

 

[fcsobel]

I tried to fix the playback problem where video will not playback after an audio stream but I think its a "feature" of the MP player. As long as you play video files you are fine but if you play an audio file the next video files will all fail with the following log entry:

VideoPlayer9:Failed to render file -> vmr9

To make MP play a file or stream you just ask g_Player to Play it. I looked at the MP code and there are references to caching the previous player. Maybe the Audio player is being cached and re-used to play the Video file but thats just a guess? I tried calling g_Player.Release() to force the player to reset but I dont think that method does anything. This could be a bug or just a flaw with my plugin. Perhaps plugins were not meant to do both video and audio? Can any MP insiders help out here? I'm stuck.

P.S. I tried g_Player.PlayVideoStream and PlayAudioStream but these seem to work the same as Play() actually I'm unclear as to why they are there?

 

[keith2045]

Great plugin! 1 problem though, i cant get xvid rss streams to work. Everytime i try it mp freezes up and i cant do anything.