VLC media player on NMT?

[NMT_Explorer]

Looks like it's not available - though it would be great to have it there because some movies PCH cannot play. I was even surprised how many honestly, I thought it would play almost anything, but it does not. Any other players?

Anything on NMT like MediaInfo? What about downloading codecs from the Web automatically?

Any clear guides how to stream video from PC and watch on NMT?

Any other alternatives to play "unplayable" videos on NMT? (of course except "manual" off-line converting)

[nuke12]

Is this your first media player?

I don't mean to sound nasty but the MNTs are just media players and not a computer loaded with codecs and tons of CPU power. NMT's do pretty much play most everything, if the encoding is reasonable and as listed as one of the formats.

[Mental]

VLC may run on it (after a lot of fiddling) but it will never give the performance you'll want.
A whopping 0,5fps should to be managable by the unit. (vlc can't use the hardware chip which decodes the video and has to rely on the 300mhz mips processor to do the decoding, it'll be like flushing a toilet trough a 1mm hole.

[nuke12]

(06-15-2009 09:36 PM)Mental Wrote:  it'll be like flushing a toilet trough a 1mm hole.

Ya, that pretty much describes it. Never quite thought of it that way before but good job!

[NMT_Explorer]

(06-15-2009 09:33 PM)nuke12 Wrote:  Is this your first media player?

I don't mean to sound nasty but the MNTs are just media players and not a computer loaded with codecs and tons of CPU power. NMT's do pretty much play most everything, if the encoding is reasonable and as listed as one of the formats.

No.

I just want to play all movies I got on MNT, but it turns out to be impossible. If it's a matter of yet another codec then why not to get it from the Web automatically?

[Mental]

(06-15-2009 09:41 PM)NMT_Explorer Wrote:  No.

I just want to play all movies I got on MNT, but it turns out to be impossible. If it's a matter of yet another codec then why not to get it from the Web automatically?

Problem is, the videos are decoded by a dedicated chip.
Downloading / installing codecs in the operating system will not raise the chip's functionality i'm afraid.
It can or it can't decode a codec, that's it.
The only codecs that are giving a lot of problems are the windows media (wma / wmv) and flash codecs (flv).
Also a combination of codecs in a container can cause problems as well.
Xvid and mp3? No problem, xvid and ac3? no problem.
X264 MKV's ? No problem (there are some limitations as to the maximum bitrate though, but that problems shouldn't occur unless the release group doesn't encode their releases properly)

[NMT_Explorer]

(06-15-2009 09:42 PM)Mental Wrote:  Problem is, the videos are decoded by a dedicated chip.
Downloading / installing codecs in the operating system will not raise the chip's functionality i'm afraid.
It can or it can't decode a codec, that's it.
The only codecs that are giving a lot of problems are the windows media (wma / wmv) and flash codecs (flv).
Also a combination of codecs in a container can cause problems as well.
Xvid and mp3? No problem, xvid and ac3? no problem.
X264 MKV's ? No problem (there are some limitations as to the maximum bitrate though, but that problems shouldn't occur unless the release group doesn't encode their releases properly)

Oh, I see - that explains it actually.

Streaming then? Any clear guides how to get it to work on NMT?

[nuke12]

(06-15-2009 09:41 PM)NMT_Explorer Wrote:  No.

I just want to play all movies I got on MNT, but it turns out to be impossible. If it's a matter of yet another codec then why not to get it from the Web automatically?

Because the NMT is not a computer. It uses low CPU power and hardware decoders to play stuff.

A computer has huge CPU power and uses software decoders to play stuff.

You can't take a software decoder and put it on the NMT and expect the poor CPU to decode it in real time.

Meet the specs of the NMT's hardware decoders and it does a really good job.

[Mental]

(06-15-2009 09:48 PM)NMT_Explorer Wrote:  Oh, I see - that explains it actually.

Streaming then? Any clear guides how to get it to work on NMT?

Well, that's where myIhome gets into the picture.
If i'm not mistaken it transcodes unsupported files for the pch.
You can also try streaming it with vlc using mpeg2-ps.

[NMT_Explorer]

(06-15-2009 09:50 PM)Mental Wrote:  Well, that's where myIhome gets into the picture.
If i'm not mistaken it transcodes unsupported files for the pch.
You can also try streaming it with vlc using mpeg2-ps.

aha - that was my first impression too - but in practice it does not work.

Any hints?

[Mental]

(06-15-2009 09:52 PM)NMT_Explorer Wrote:  aha - that was my first impression too - but in practice it does not work.

Any hints?

Well, i used vlc to stream it and it works nicely.
Only when using mpeg2-ps though, any other codec doesn't work properly.

[NMT_Explorer]

(06-15-2009 09:53 PM)Mental Wrote:  Well, i used vlc to stream it and it works nicely.
Only when using mpeg2-ps though, any other codec doesn't work properly.

what did you do on PCH to watch it?

[Mental]

Read the wiki and create a hyperlink to my stream
you'll have to create a html page with a link like this:

Code:

<a href="ipaddress:port" vod>Stream</a>

[dc11ab]

The simplistic way:

Make a file called mystream.htm

contents of mystream.htm:

Code:

<html><head></head><body><a href="192.168.1.111:1234" vod>Some stream</a></body></html>

The IP and port goes to your PC/server/wherever your VLC is. Note the VOD attribute.
VLC should set to transcode as mentioned above, start with low bitrates and work yourself up until you hit the best quality.

Place the mystream.htm (or give it any .html name) on a share or disk which you can reach from your NMT. Open it through the fourth "playlist" filter (e.g. not via video, photo or audio filters), and it should initiate your stream.

You can make the playlist file appear more nice by using the same pictures as used on the normal GUI. If you have telnet enabled it's easy to find the path.


EDIT: Mental beat me to it, but I added some info ;-)