Web Services
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Introduction
You may access to the Web Services directly in the NMT home. The current list of services is:
- Media Service Portal, which features all the official services viewable from the NMT
- MSP Community site, which contains community developed plugins. You may check here the actual screen on the NMT
- SayaTV P2P WebTV
They are all online services, so you need internet access to view them (hence the name). The first two are actually websites and both have different plugins that feature existing or new services that can be used from the NTM.
They allow to access various types of online services
- Video : YouTube, Veoh, Videocast, DLTV, Cranky Geeks, Bliptv, PodfinderUK, Vuze, Break Podcast, Revision 3, CNN The Larry King Podcast, CNN Anderson Cooper 360, The CNN Daily, CNN In Case You Missed It , NBC Meet The Press, NBC Today, CBS Face the Nation, NBC Nightly News, Mevio
- Audio : Live365 Radio, iPodcast, Radiobox, ABC News, BBC Podcast, CNN News , Indiefeed, Jamendo
- Photo : Flickr, Picasaweb
- RSS feed : Bloglines, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo Traffic Alerts, Traffic Condition, Cinecast, Yahoo! News, MSNBC News
- Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV
- Internet Radio : Shoutcast
MSP Plugins explained
MSP plugins are web pages created for accessing internet content through the NMT.
They are created as separated modules, so that can be updated independently.
The goal is interfacing the NMT with RSS feeds or web services API, which could be unaccessible from the NMT, either because there is no such web page to access those information (you need special software, e.g. iTunes) or because the standard web page does work only with a modern computer browser (IE7 or Firefox 3) like YouTube and GoogleMaps.
By creating an MSP plugin, you can create a customized skin or GUI (Graphical User Interface) that will render properly the web content, empowering all the features of the NMT browser (i.e. you can browse and view content using just your ir remote)
What type of content or source is suitable for MSP Plugin?
The MSP Plugin will show a web page in the NMT browser: following, you find a list of the media content formats that can be played by the NMT inside a plugin:
MP4 video with H.264/MPEG4 codec Shoutcast MP3 Internet Radio JPEG photos from photos web service Video or Audio Podcast RSS news feeds (text)
Create your own MSP Community plugin
Yes you can create your own plugin and share it with the community!
There are two options for creating a plugin:
- Use the JSP SDK you may download by registering on the MSP Community Portal
- Build your own web page
Build a plugin with the SDK
The SDK is available for Windows, Linux and MacOSX
- Sign Up at the MSP Community Portal
- Download the MSP SDK
- Develop your own MSP plug in within the Tomcat architecture
- Host it on your server or ask the community to host it (you will receive a link after approval)
- Submit the link at http://www.mspsite.com
Documentation and working examples are included in the SDK. If you need help, don't hesitate contacting the community on the forums
Build your own web page plugin
- Develop a page in your preferred language
- Host it on a permanent ip or hostname
- Submit your plugin at http://www.mspsite.com
Tips
- have a look at the SDK examples and to the Technical documentation before starting the developement
- it's not required to build a resolution detection (though it would help), but just submit the HD version of your plugin and provide an SD version with a different urls
MSP Community Plugin Competition
There is currently a competition due monthly for plugin makers: the winner will have a completely free of charge PCH-A110
Check the rules on the forum. Here you will find a screenshot of the latest monhtly winners (at the time of writing).
Check the website from your browser here.
Help us build the best plugins ever: enter the competition!
Troubleshooting
I am trying to create a RSS feeds MSP plugin but its not working!
The RSS feeds must contain a links to a .mov or .mp4 video, it will not work if it provides an external link. For example, http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/ziffdavis/dltvh264video
I am not familiar with JSP/JSTL language, can i use a static HTML or PHP/ASP script instead?
Yes, you can. If you do not wish to host the plugin in tomcat server. You can design your own static HTML page or using PHP/ASP script and host it in your own web server. You need to however follow the NMT browser specification in order to be compliant.
If i do not have a webserver, can Syabas/NMT host my plugin for me?
In order for Syabas to host your plugin in their tomcat server, you need to follow the MSP SDK in order for Syabas to integrate into their plugin servers.
What is the benefit of using MSP SDK instead of creating my own plugin using static HTML?
The MSP SDK is useful to the JSTL or JSP programmer as it provides functions for reading RSS feeds and some UI element has already been coded. It also provides sample code which you can modify to quickly create a UI for your feed.
How can i add mms links from the internet?
MMS or ' Microsoft Media Server ' protocol is Microsoft's proprietary network streaming protocol. Its designed for playback on windows based devices with windows media installed. It doesn't work on small linuxbased devices like the A-100.
How do I add my own URL for live streaming via the web services?
This is a workaround solution
Create any file with an html extension with the following content on a share or a local drive and navigate to it with the fourth icon (the page with an arrow) in the A-100 menu.
<a href="http://radio.hiof.no/nrk-mpetre-128" aod>NRK</a>
" (this one for adding a Norweigan Radio Channel)
By using this simple solution you could add the channels that are available. However, not all online tv channels allow you to stream via this method due to the website authentication process.
How do i discover the screen resolution of an NMT browser?
You may discover the resolution and other useful info, by using the undocumented text in the HTTP_USER_AGENT variable. Here is an example:
Syabas/01-17-081023-15-POP-402-000/15-POP Firefox/0.8.0+ (gaya1 TV Res720x576; Browser Res624x496-32bits; Res720x576; mac_addr=00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
Where the MAC Address have been replaced by xx for privacy matters
