Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/01 05:15Hi,
I am still checking the various server alternatives for my Popcorn NMT A-100, one observation I cannot understand:
When playing a movie from LLink, skipping with the 1/2/3... keys or jumping to a specific time works fine.
When playing the same movie from SwissCenter, skipping does not work and the symbol indicating a momentary invalid key is shown
I thought that both server were serving the files as a http stream and that once the playback was started, the Popcorn would take control until the stop key was pressed and the behaviour would be the same, no matter which server was used for the actual navigation before.
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grovve
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Posts: 101
Re: Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/01 06:44Got a hint from the llink developer, maybe this helps the SwissCenter coders:
There was a phase when llink would not skip, this was due to not doing 64bit lseek, and sending the wrong byte counters to "range: bytes=x-y". It is most likely a software bug in Swisscenter, and can be fixed.
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admin
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Re: Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/01 07:10Thanks Chris.
I'm moving this thread to the Simese forum where hopefully Marco might see it
Rob Player : Pinnacle Showcenter 200 and 1000 (wired ethernet) Server : Windows XP Pro running on an Athlon XP 2200, 768 Mb RAM, 1.8 Tb storage.
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grovve
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Posts: 101
Re: Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/01 07:15admin wrote: Thanks Chris.
I'm moving this thread to the Simese forum where hopefully Marco might see it
Rob
As far as I know "Simese" is the windows environment used available for hosting SwissCenter. However my SwissCenter backend is running under Linux with Apache and MySql.
So probably not a Simese problem ...Player : NMT A-100 "Popcorn Hour" Server : Debian Linux 2.6.24, XAMPP, SwissCenter 1.21, TwonkyMedia UPnP Server Specs: PIII 700 MHz, 576 MB RAM, 2.5 TB Storage Network: MSI ePower 200AV Powerline Adapters
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admin
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Re: Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/01 09:21As far as I know "Simese" is the windows environment used available for hosting SwissCenter. However my SwissCenter backend is running under Linux with Apache and MySql.
So probably not a Simese problem ... Opps. I just assumed that you were running on windows, sorry!
The streaming of movie files is done via the webserver, not by SwissCenter (the initial request comes into stream.php which then records the details in the database and then issues a HTTP redirect to the actual file). Player : Pinnacle Showcenter 200 and 1000 (wired ethernet) Server : Windows XP Pro running on an Athlon XP 2200, 768 Mb RAM, 1.8 Tb storage.
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grovve
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Posts: 101
Re: Skipping in videos - SwissCenter vs. LLink - 2008/07/16 07:47Finally found the problem! The HTTP requests from the PCH were perfectly fine - it was an Apache configuration parameter.
In the httpd.conf I had to send "EnableSendfile" to "off".
I had both EnableMMAP and EnableSendfile to off originaly, but when playing around and testing with Apache 2.2.8 due to the reliability problems with the PCH (playback stopping after 10-15 minutes), I switched them both to on, noticed no difference and left them that way.
After the upgrade to Apache 2.2.9, the reliability problems were gone, but I forgot to revert those two settings. EnableMMAP on seems to be OK, only EnableSendfile has to be off.
The symptoms were that "Range: bytes" requests were working fine, if a specific range (even beyond the magic 2GB boundary) was specified. However the PCH sends requests like "Range: bytes=2500000000-" with no upper boundary specified. These requests returned nothing from Apache (but without an entry to Apache's error log).
I disabled my patches to "video_selected.php" and "tv_epsiode_selected.php" where I made the "Play Now" button link to the same file on a "llink" http server I set up concurrently.
Now everythings seems to be working fine with the Popcorn and Apache on Debian, playback seems to be reliable, skipping to 10/20% and time seek all work.Player : NMT A-100 "Popcorn Hour" Server : Debian Linux 2.6.24, XAMPP, SwissCenter 1.21, TwonkyMedia UPnP Server Specs: PIII 700 MHz, 576 MB RAM, 2.5 TB Storage Network: MSI ePower 200AV Powerline Adapters
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