Kroozbox- Personal Video Database - PVD (or any DB) and Music Jukebox to Popcorn Hour

[sstavross]

Nono thank you for the quick answer! I forgot to say that I did try your music jukebox and I found it very very good!! The only problem for me is that it doesn't read the .cue files. So have only one big file (flac or ape) but I don't see the tracks. I don't care for playlists etc. The album art is fine! But can you make it work for cue files? It will be perfect! The concept is that if the music database scanner will find a folder with flac/cue or ape/cue files not to read the tag in flac/ape but read the tracks from cue. I think a lot of people here will love your Kroozbox. especially with the database update in the album list( which is perfect!)

[Nono]

Oh... never though about cue files. In fact I never thought there was really any users for the music template (it was my first step toward mobile integration).

I don't have much time right now to work on Kroozbox. I'll put that in the "thing to do" (and "no", it is not a waste basket).
If you really wants it I would suggest to bug me about it from time to time. I really don't see how I can do it during summer (Canada) but.. maybe. Sorry.

Nono

[sstavross]

First of all let me tell you that you are one of the kindest man I ever spoke in an internet forum!! Thank you so much for your kind and honest message!

About your music template: It is one of the simplest and easy templates to use! I tried Yamj and you have to do so many things in order to see a result.... With your template I just point to my music folder and... this is it! No moving files, making this and that, etc. I haven't looked at your project in details because my wife gave birth to our 3rd child 2 days ago and I haven't much time too. But if you can do this thing about cue files it will be perfect for one more reason: no other jukebox can read them! Not even NMJ! In the last firmware update PCH can read cue files and play the tracks from them one by one but only in file mode, no in NMJ. So I'll "bug" you from time to time and I hope that you will find some time for doing this project work for cue files. Again thank you for your effort and time!

[Nono]

Thank you for the kind words.
Strange that no other jukebox can read cue files. If not mistaken, it's just text file with location/index information - should be easy to implement. I'll look at it - be ready to be my beta tester.

Nono

[sstavross]

Hi Nono!

Yes, cue files are just text files location/index information. I'll be very happy to be your beta tester!
Have a nice weekend!

[sstavross]

Hi Nono!

Sorry to bug you but you told me to do so...
Any chance to look at Kroozbox for music in the near future?
Have a nice day!

[Nono]

Yup.. well received. Might want to use the PM instead for those messages.

I've cleaned up my Kroozbox dev. environment - that's already a big step.

Nono

[khisanth]

Greetings,

I've been using kroozbox for a long time now, with ISO files and it always worked fine. It's a really nice piece of software. But recently i decided to re-encode some ISO files to .MKV to save some space.

Then i went to pvd to change the name of the .iso to .mkv. But now the file wont launch from the generated kroozbox web page.

I noticed that by changing the file extention form iso to mkv, the url in the kroozbox generated web page changed from
file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/NETWORK_SHARE/movies/.......
to something like
h t t p://webservername:9008/&media=.........

So i guess it's why the mkv file won't launch since it now tries to access it from an http link web server(h t t p://webservername:9008) instead of the popcorn c200 nfs share conected to my NAS(file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/NETWORK_SHARE/movies/)

Using
kroozbox 2.0a
Popcorn C200
Pvd 0.9.9.21

The C200 give me the error "cannot play file" when trying the mkv, going manually to the networkshare on the c200 and launching mkv file manually works fine. Seems really related to the mkv file link it doesn't like :-(

Any ideas what i'm doing wrong? Can kroozbox manage mkv files or just iso?

Hope someone can help!

Thanks.

[Nono]

Hi,

Kroozbox manage mkv,avi, etc.. better than ISO. The implementation for ISO and VIDEO_TS is more patch to allow those files to be use since PCH wont deliver ISO through HTTP.
The goal of Kroozbox is to deliver file through HTTP so it can manage a collection and the viewing without any shares.

The problem that you probably have is that the mkv files are not seen by Kroozbox at the same location enetered in PVD.
We need to understand how your network is setup. If, for instance, you enter your mkv files in PVD from a PC that see the file at the n://video/...mkv location and Kroozbox should see it at m://video/...mkv. Well, of course that won't work.
There is a a file called 'PVDLinkRelocation.properties' in your template folder that can be use to change the media link in the http request to the proper one. Open and see explanation.

Question:
What is your use case scenario with PVD/Kroozbox (PVD database on its own server and using PVD front end on another - client server architecture or running on same PC or...).?
Can you see the mkv file from PVD (launch the player from PVD).?
What's the complete link h t t p://webservername:9008/&media=......... that you describe above?
moremoremore.

Nono

[khisanth]

Greetings, thank you for the quick reply.

Here is the detail of my setup.

All the movies/mkv/iso are on a Synology NAS supporting cifs/nfs shares through a gigabit network.

The PVD and Kroozbox are both on the same windows 2008 server accessing the movies through a mapped Z: drive on the NAS.

The C200 is usually accessing the same movies on the NAS but directly and without going throught the w2k8 server since the NAS supports nfs and cifs protocols, it's more efficient.

Here is an example of the full url ( i added space in the http to be able to post to the forum)

The movie is Red Cliff and it is located in: Z:\Films\2010-04-13avril\Red Cliff Theatrical Canada.mkv

The complete url is:
h t t p : //tendril-hyperv:9008/&media=%2F2010-04-13avril%2FRed%20Cliff%20Theatrical%20Canada.mkv

That url, even if launched from a browser on the kroozbox/pvd w2k8 server wont work. From what i see, the url seems to be missing the first part of the path: "Z:\Films"

With the NAS beeing the centerpiece of my infrastructure, i do not really need kroozbox to act as a streaming server for the mkv file. Is it possible to make kroozbox behave for mkv files like it does with iso files?


More details below...

Here is an example of iso url that works fine:
file:///opt/sybhttpd/localhost.drives/NETWORK_SHARE/films/%2F2012-05-22%20mai%2FTHE_GREY.ISO

Here is some settings from my kroozbox.properties file:

Quote:# Here you specify the location of the media as seen by the database (returned by the database).
# Kroozbox will adjust the path specified in the database by the one specified in 'localMediaRoot' below
# In essence, you specify here what should be strip from the begining of the media link sent to the NMt or browser
# This property needs to be set if you are using NFS or SMB share for ISO streaming so the drive information gets remove from the link.
#dbaseMediaRoot = c:/
dbaseMediaRoot = Z:/Films

# This property specifies the root location of the media as view by the Kroozbox
# When Kroozbox gets the media link request it will add this value to the beginning of the file to open and serve
# Use this if Kroozbox is running in a location that doesn't see the media file at the same place as the database.
# If you need to use the "\" caharacter you need to double it "\\" (better to use "/").
#localMediaRoot = m:/

# The root of the template UNDER the ./template folder.
# Need to be under the template folder.
# If you need to use the "\" caharacter you need to double it "\\" (better to use "/"). Default to flder ./html under current template root folder.
#HTMLRoot = PVDTemplate-HD/html

# This property specifies which HTML category should be loaded by default (teh default HTML page to be shown)
# Commented out = Index
#DefaultCategory = NewestList
DefaultCategory = UnseenList

# This property will tell Kroozbox to wrap the media link (started with &media= in the template)
# link inside a ASX file.
# Maybe necessary on some systems using a html browser instead of an media extender to launch the media
# in a separate process.
wrapMediaInASX = false

# This property specify if the media link should be UUEncoded by Kroozbox.
# PC Browser may prefer to have the link not UUEncoded (=false).
# You would keep this property to false (default)
# Note that there will always be a small amount of UUEncoding is your link contains none-latin-7 character
# to allow proper integration with none-latin based languages
UUEncodeMediaLink = false

# This property will force UUEncoding of the media link
# if the string specified here is found within the HTTP "user-agent" request
# No real need to use it for now (debug)
#AlwaysUUEncodeThisUser = Syabas

Thanks a lot!

[Nono]

Comment out the dbaseMediaRoot line in kroozbox.properties (by putting a # on first column) and restart. Should work.
Explanation: Normally dbaseMediaRoot is use in conjunctin with localMediaRoot - the dbaseMediaRoot specifies what gets replace by the localMediaRoot entry in the media link. Note that this should not be use anymore in favor of the 'PVDLinkRelocation.properties' file - more options if you have files accross multiple drives.

However, that might breaks your ISO pointers (not sure anymore).

If you really want to use kroozbox to point to the share (not nice, you should really let Kroozbox do the delivery), you could always change the template. Multiple way to do that but I think the easiest way is through the file globalParam.properties located in your template root folder:
1- Make a backup of the file
2- Change the entry PVD-MediaLinkStart and PVD-MediaLinkEnd to be the same as PVD-MediaLinkStartForISO and PVD-MediaLinkEndForISO respectively.
3- Restart or wait 1 minute.

Should work but did not test it.
Let me know.

Nono

---

By the way. There is a new version of Kroozbox coming with flash support with eversion as the skinner (for A-C300 PCH). Also an LG smart TV template. Interrested? I don't think the C200 has flash support. Does it? Do you have an LG TV (I need beta tester).

Nono

[khisanth]

Greetings,

I modified the globalparam.properties to make pvd-medialink the same as pvd-medialinkForIso and it worked perfectly!

With the setup i have, i'd rather not have the w2k8 machine do too much of the job. That machine is virtual, and the VMDKs are on the same NAS where the movies are. I do not like having that machine work too hard since it is hosted on a vmware ESX5 host along with 8 other VMs. To minimize the overhead on that w2k8 machine, once the c200 has the movie link it's a good thing to let the c200 work directly with the NAS.

Also, if my w2k8 machine reboots(because it's a windows machine...and windows machines tend to reboot, it's life), the c200 would probably lose it's link to the movie. Having the C200 working directly with the NAS will make it more reliable (the synology NAS works on linux, it rarely reboots...almost never)

Anyway, i'll start the conversion of my movies from iso to mkv now, that should save me a lot of space!

Thank you very much!

[Nono]

I understand. Note that just serving a file is really not a big job for any modern CPU (but you surely know that).
I am not by any mean a Windows fan boy but I would seriously look to the reason why your w2k8 machine is rebooting. It should not (its not the age of win 2000 anymore - and sp2 was already extremely stable). My two cents.

Good luck with your setup - seams to be a nice ball of joy.

Nono

[sstavross]

(06-24-2012 09:40 PM)Nono Wrote:  

---

By the way. There is a new version of Kroozbox coming with flash support with eversion as the skinner (for A-C300 PCH). Also an LG smart TV template. Interrested? I don't think the C200 has flash support. Does it? Do you have an LG TV (I need beta tester).

Nono

Hi Nono!

How are you? I wish Fine!
Sorry for "vanishing" but I had some health problem! Thank God I am ok now!

Just saw this message of you and I'll be very happy to be a beta tester for LG smart TV. I 've just bought a new LG LM62 series smart tv and I'll be more that happy to test your tamplete! Give me instructions of what you want me to do.

Have nice day!
Stavros

[Omertron]

Just to let you know, the links are outdated in Post #1

Can be download (updated to v 2.0 - 02 March 2009):
http://mediaplayersite.com/Kroozbox

Linux add-on:
http://mediaplayersite.com/node/140