Video Media Players

btetlow
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Video Media Players

Postby btetlow » Sat Jun 06, 2009 8:53 pm

Has anyone had any luck using Amahi as a video/movie server?

Both Ampache and Jinzora claim to be able to stream video but I just can't seem to make it work.

I can't get Amapache to even find any video media, no matter where I put it.

Jinzora gets a lot closer as in it can identify that I have video media (.avi's) but I can't get it to play them. If I tell Firefox to open vlc when Jinzora sends out the .m3u file, nothing seems to happen. VLC loads and then shows I have a file loaded that is 0 mins long. VLC though has no problem loading the file directly.

MPlayer can also load the file directly, but again when it try to use Mplayer to play the .m3u file, I get a "Could Not Open Location; you might not have permission to open the file". I have even tried using different playlist formats to no avail.

I tried to click the Download link instead that it puts below the media file, but I just get a Page Not Found error, which might indicate what the problem is.

It plays my music files no problem. I have even tried putting the .avi files in the Music folder, but the same problem happens. Thinking it might be a file system issue, I added my DVD drive as a media option "Media Manager -> Add Media Directory" and the same thing happened.

I'm going nuts here! I was hoping to use Amahi has a video/movie server so I wouldn't have to go out and buy a hardware solution.

Anyone? Please?

Bradford



Is it just that video is not yet implemented in Jinzora yet, or am I doing something wrong?

gjc1000
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby gjc1000 » Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:44 am

Hi,
Are you looking to watch movies on other computers inside your home network or out in the wild? Inside should be easy, basicly set-up up your disks as shares and the other computers will be able to read as normal with any player you choose. If you are looking to stream video outside your network, well, that is a tricky business and should be left up to the power users, which I am not one :). Lots of security issues. I'm sure someone around here with more knowledge than me, could help you out.

By the way, I haven't had much luck with either of those two apps myself and I am know farting around with slimsever.
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cpg
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby cpg » Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:10 pm

Has anyone had any luck using Amahi as a video/movie server?

Both Ampache and Jinzora claim to be able to stream video but I just can't seem to make it work.
this is kind of an important issue. being a good media server is crucial for amahi.

let's see. what clients are you trying to use?

if xbox - use ushare (i use this - works - except one bug where it does not see new files until it is restarted).

if laptops, use the shares. i also use this and it's the "bread and butter" - it's like a NAS.

if web browsers with flash there are a few things, like ampache, jinzora, zina, etc.
i do not know much about these ones, however. there are other experts here in the forums, though i have heard some of these tend to be rather picky to set up.

one of the advantages of amahi is that perhaps over time we can compensate for this by pre-configuring them better, so any insights you make about configuring them, please do share them so that the app packagers/maintainers can use that for better packaging and in turn feed back upstream to the projects themselves.
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btetlow
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby btetlow » Sun Jun 28, 2009 7:22 am

let's see. what clients are you trying to use?

if xbox - use ushare (i use this - works - except one bug where it does not see new files until it is restarted).

if laptops, use the shares. i also use this and it's the "bread and butter" - it's like a NAS.

if web browsers with flash there are a few things, like ampache, jinzora, zina, etc.
It's just a networked PC. I have tried using both my laptop (running Ubuntu) and a windows PC. The shares work just fine, no problem at all. I just wanted a nice glossy front end like Windows Media Server which is why I tried Jinzora and Ampache. I gave up in the end. Maybe when they mature a little. We'll see what slimserver can do.

chilli
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby chilli » Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:48 am

I haven't tried it yet, but I believe Boxee will accomplish what you're after. If you want more flexibility and control, you can look at MythTV. Again, I haven't tried these yet, but I will just as soon as my governor gives me back all the money he's taken away in the form of work furloughs.
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boomerang56
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby boomerang56 » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:47 pm

I'm a new user. Besides the easy to configure shares, I want Amahi to be a media server.

Using Boxee or XBMC will be fine for inside my network - but I want to access media outside my network.

Not clear on how to do this. I imagine it has something to do with the VPN client.

But - I want something set up to stream my media, transcoding as necessary to cope with my 768K upstream bandwidth.

Ampache looks like it has the settings to do this if I can figure out how to access it from the outside.

But for video there is nothing I can find.

I'd like to be able to stream my Media Center TV recordings, my DVDs, my .MKV files, etc.

They need to be streamed/transcoded because they are so huge.

I should say that I have not yet connected via VPN - but I think if I do connect via VPN, then simply clicking on the share and trying to play the file won't work because there will be a lot of stuttering. My music files are stored in lossless format.

Something like the SageTV "Place Shifter" is what I need. BTW I tried their placeshifter and didn't like it.

If there is something like this please let me know!

And please tell me how do I connect to my Ampache installation from work?
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orbit77
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby orbit77 » Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:28 am

Has anyone had any luck using Amahi as a video/movie server?

Both Ampache and Jinzora claim to be able to stream video but I just can't seem to make it work.
I'm new to Amahi, and while familiar with several versions of linux, I'm not a power linux user by any stretch, so others may be able to figure out more than me. However, my experience with Jinzora leads me to believe that the description is misleading, as the app if very clearly designed to stream and transcode audio files, and has very limited capabilities to work with video.

The Jinzora wiki is empty, but I did find in their forums that the built-in flash player is only for audio, and the built-in transcode function is also only for audio. From my iMac, I was not able to stream any video (local network), and it seems that there are only a few specific programs that can 'talk' with the Jinzora sever (VLC is not one of them).

I too was hoping Amahi would give me a nice 'wrapper' of my video files via a web browser to easily search via genre/title/etc, rather than having to always browse SMB shares. I am going to try installing MythTV on another box and set it up to see the Amahi shares to see how that works with the Myth video manager (box art, movie info, etc). Anyone else using that setup?

Hope this saves others the time to trying to get Jinzora to stream their video - it won't (at least not out of the box)

Cheers,
George

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lou1z
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby lou1z » Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:23 pm

the whole issue is dependant upon how good your upload bandwidth is. there is a lot to consider.
i use slimserver and it certainly doesn't do video, nor does jinzora or ampache from what i can see.
vpn's will also slow the stream down. most would just use http with maybe a redirect for a secure login.
there was a user on here who had success with something called orb from orb networks. maybe that's a bit closer to what you are after.

joeh018
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Re: Video Media Players

Postby joeh018 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:33 am

I havent tried this with amahi yet but in the pas this has worked well for me both inside and out.

http://mediatomb.cc/

Maybe it could be added to amahi?

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Re: Video Media Players

Postby gjc1000 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:47 pm

Icecast now streams video, open source too. http://www.icecast.org
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