ServiiGo (Android 3G/4G/Wifi Playback App)

[Xmantium]

Oh will, if your asking for requests, let me see.

1. On my Touchpad, can you move movie description a little higher, similar to the space between Runtime Info and Credit Info - http://www.xmantium.com/serviio/Screens ... -24-26.png
2. Able to swipe across the movie backdrop or have a slideshow (with dots at the bottom representing how many backdrops there are)
3. Directories Bar on top so easy to navigate back similar to Media Browser. IE Videos -> Folders -> My Movies -> The Avengers
4. Can the we have option for Thumbnail view or List View
5. Can ServiiGo pre-cache the Movie info/Cover/Backdrop (will work great loading when 3G signal isnt good)

[will]

1. OK. I'll have a go at re-working the layouts. I'm working out how to fit in a large star with the IMDb rating, without going through the painful process of resizing the rating star images for each platform.
2. I'm thinking about how to implement this, maybe I'll have a gallery for each and you can pick the one you want/set them as your wallpaper.
3. Um... I'll have a think about that, space would be a worry.
4. What do you mean by each of those (I plan on adding the ability to change layouts in the next next version so 1.3 as 1.2 already has a lot of stuff). Examples help.
I'm also thinking about a specail movie view (only when going Video->Movies), which would let me work with just the movie posters and not have to worry about 16:9 thumbnails. I also need to get around to tv database intergration so that I can do tv show views.
5. It is already caching the info in a database and the images on disk, so once you have viewed a movie it will load the data locally the next time. Do you mean making it do it with out even viewing the movie?

[Xmantium]

1. OK. I'll have a go at re-working the layouts. I'm working out how to fit in a large star with the IMDb rating, without going through the painful process of resizing the rating star images for each platform.

Liking the bigger stars

2. I'm thinking about how to implement this, maybe I'll have a gallery for each and you can pick the one you want/set them as your wallpaper.

Was thinking swiping to make it more interactive

3. Um... I'll have a think about that, space would be a worry.

Perfect for tablet, maybe ommited for phones

4. What do you mean by each of those (I plan on adding the ability to change layouts in the next next version so 1.3 as 1.2 already has a lot of stuff). Examples help.
I'm also thinking about a specail movie view (only when going Video->Movies), which would let me work with just the movie posters and not have to worry about 16:9 thumbnails. I also need to get around to tv database intergration so that I can do tv show views.

Liking the special movie mode, im a big fan of XBMC UI - Demo1 - Demo 2 - Demo 3
Ive not used Plex, ive read they made a custom Media server as a bridge so there Visual client can look and respond better.

5. It is already caching the info in a database and the images on disk, so once you have viewed a movie it will load the data locally the next time. Do you mean making it do it with out even viewing the movie?

Yeah load it without so its there for later

[will]

1. Will be in 1.2
2 and 3. Postponed for now
4. I'll try to add one of those XBMC views in 1.3, and we can go from there. Re: thumbnail vs list, what would be displayed in each. Is the current one list, so thumbnail would be much more minimalist?
5. OK, I'll benchmark it and see how long it takes, depending on that I might delay it until I do TV metadata.

[will]

Back to the Music Player widgets, any thoughts/requests?

Here is my first go.

widgets.png (339.42 KiB) Viewed 24394 times

[will]

I'll be releasing 1.2 shortly (tomorrow probably). I'm definately going to pre-fetch online metadata in a later version, as I can then use it to enhance video browsing.

Unfortuately there is a nasty bug in the android media player libraries that is especially apparent on Jelly Bean. Short version is, the media player cannot process some files when serverd via the CDS API, which results in them not playing, annoying but ok ish. On jelly bean, it gets stuck trying to work out if it can play it, if I try to change the track, stop the track, re-start the track (you get the picture...) it locks up the main UI thread for 15+ seconds, which of course throws an ANR dialog. I've tried a number of hacky fixes and they don't work, so I'm therefore going to have bring forward my plan download the media to the SD card manually, and feed it to the media player bit by bit. My hope is that the files will play without any problems, or they will atleast error very quickly because these problem files play perfectly well over DLNA or if I copy them to the device manually so there must be something about the CDS API that confuses the android media player. Hopefully I'll be able to get this done in a weekend, but it may take longer and will definately require improvements over time. The benifit is it is the first step towards gapless playback even on 3G and caching music/pining content to your device. Anyway, those on Jelly Bean (or other version if it effects you) do let me know, and hang tight while I try and fix it.

@zip, other than not supporting Range headers, is there anything else you can think of that is different the webserver that serves content via DLNA vs the CDS API as something is causing the media player libraries from failing to detect if it can use HW decoding for certain videos and fail to recognise certain mp3 files?

[jhb50]

Back to the Music Player widgets, any thoughts/requests?

Is it just single play or could you have, loop(keep replaying this selection), through(play this selection and stop), continuous(play all songs in this directory/plalist sequentially), and shuffle(play all songs in this directory/playlist randomly) options ?

[will]

Was going to add those controls next, depending on how the backend changes go they will be there, otherwise it will be in 1.4

[will]

I've just updated 1.2 to Google Play. I'm now going to focus on the Music Player backend and get that done ASAP, so your not allowed to find any bugs in 1.2 until 1.3 is out

Once I have something I will need some of you guys to help with the testing, espeically on older platforms and with different files (mp3, flac etc...). This change will let introduce the following features over the next few releases: gapless playback, pre-caching of tracks, pinning content to your device and offline playback of music, all of which will bring ServiiGo inline with what you get from Google Music or Subsonic which will be pretty cool and great fun to code. For now 1.3 will just contain at most gapless playback by caching 1 track in advanced, as I will want to go back to refining the UI a bit more.

Anyway, here is the full changelog for those that like to read them as google limits me to 500 chars via google play

  Code:

==== 1.2 ====
*Added Music Player widgets (Donate version only)
*Added the ability to set an image as the wallpaper (#6) and the required SET_WALLPAPER permission (Donate version only)
*Added support for updating online metadata (#32)
*Changed the default behaviour when clicking on a track to add the whole folder to the playlist and start playback at the selected track
*Adjusted the side bar on tablets and added options for controlling when it is shown
*Fixed play/queue actions showing when the folder hadn't loaded yet
*Adjustments to video view include IMDb rating as a number on tablets (#21)
*Added visual feedback when using Music Player buttons (#31)
*Adjustments to browsing videos
*Dim on screen controls in the image slideshow
*Lots of other minor fixes and adjustments
*Added Icelandic (Iceland) translation - thank you!


[jhb50]

1.2 is not downloading from Google Play on my tab. Page opens but just sits there on "Starting download" and does not download. Just gives "cancel download" button.

Hey Will, first off, thanks for the app, it's truly amazing. I bought the full version the first chance I got. Also, I just got the update today and things are working great. No issues to report.

In return for your awesomeness, I wanted to see if maybe you wanted or needed some help developing a new logo for the app (no charge obviously). The current one seems like it's sort of temporary-looking, to me at least. I could be dead wrong and the logo is final. So with that in mind, I'm in no way trying to offend you or anything like that...

So I whipped up a few ideas here. If you would like to use any of them or offer some direction or feedback, just let me know. I'll glady churn out all of the required resolutions necessary too.



Thanks again for the great app. It's really nice.

[will]

1.2 is not downloading from Google Play on my tab. Page opens but just sits there on "Starting download" and does not download. Just gives "cancel download" button.

Working now? There isn't anything I can do really. Try cleaning the cache and or all the data for the Google Play app, that usually sorts out most problems.

[Xmantium]

So I whipped up a few ideas here. If you would like to use any of them or offer some direction or feedback, just let me know.

Nice!! I like them ALL!!
the current ServiiGo is still using the old icon.

I really like the third one! What if got the "serviio" font from the forth icon but without the "o" at the end and placed in the third one.

Have you got ideas for ServiiDroid too? My opinion the Droid needs to more 3D and bolder to match with stock ICS icons.

[will]

Hey Will, first off, thanks for the app, it's truly amazing. I bought the full version the first chance I got. Also, I just got the update today and things are working great. No issues to report.

In return for your awesomeness, I wanted to see if maybe you wanted or needed some help developing a new logo for the app (no charge obviously). The current one seems like it's sort of temporary-looking, to me at least. I could be dead wrong and the logo is final. So with that in mind, I'm in no way trying to offend you or anything like that...

So I whipped up a few ideas here. If you would like to use any of them or offer some direction or feedback, just let me know. I'll glady churn out all of the required resolutions necessary too.



Thanks again for the great app. It's really nice.

Thanks Its always nice to get feedback.

Yes graphic design is one thing I haven't had the time to get good at. No offense taken, it could certainly be better, in fact mavika was helping me refresh the icon a bit, but hasn't been around on the forums for a while now. Not sure where he has gone.

Firstly some requirements, back when I lauched ServiiDroid, zip and I decided to a) drop the 'Serviio' from the app name, and b) make sure the logo wasn't too similar in order to make it clearer to users/anyone with comercial interest in Serviio that we are two seperate developers etc.. So that makes 4, 5 and 6 un suitable in that sense.

Are you using the newer version of the serviio rings icon (there is a 796x796 one floating about which I can send you)? So some other requirements thoughts, I do quite like that specific dark blue colour, and have used it in parts of the app, so the purpuly ones would have to go with it. However, on that note, I'm considering doing a light theme with a dark actionbar which the user could optionally chose to use, in which case this might not matter if I adjust the colours a bit to ensure there it looks good regardless of theme.

So that leaves us with 1,2,3 and 7. I quite like the blue bars on 7 the way they fade out a bit as they go although they fade a bit two quickly, but I think the serviio ring is too big. So unless we go for a refreshed version 1, probably some sort of hybrid between they would be good. If you did use any text (for the G) I have the original serviio font which you can use.

Let me a have a little think, its hard to put into words exactly what I want.

On a side note, one thing I would really love is at least a nice background for the large artwork on Google Play/ a completely redesigned one. And unique (but styled the same) icons for all second level folders, e.g. movies, tv shows, online videos, playlists, artists, online audio etc.. that I would put on the top of possibly a nicer folder icon.

[jhb50]

Clearing the data worked. Thanks for the tip. 1.2 installed!

[will]

So I've got some good and bad news. The good news is i've spent an hour doing hacky coding and if I download the files myself and feed it into the Media Player as I download it a) All my files that wouldn't play before play, and b) I cannot (so far) get it to lock up on Jelly Bean. So my previous hopes have been answered. Its pretty hacky at the moment, but I might have a pre release out by sunday evening for you to test.

Now the bad news, well this kind of confirms what I thought, that the built in android media player libraries do not play nice with Serviio's CDS API. While I'm now in control for audio, this is not something I can fix for videos any time soon. Having said that, if we can isolate the parts of the API configuration that android doesn't like, then we should be able fix the inability to detect decoding and also add seeking support. Hopefully it is just not being able to make range requests, but it may be something more. I'll properly investigate this once I've done the music backend.

[will]

@Xmantium Are the adjustments to video browsing in 1.2 OK?

[Xmantium]

@Xmantium Are the adjustments to video browsing in 1.2 OK?

Spacing is perfect now on touchpad.
The big star with the numeric value was confusing at first thinking it's another star. This star is not in the mobile app version. Think it's best to have this after the runtime info and the big star should be next to the runtime with the stars below

[will]

OK, i'll look at that again, you did ask for a big star with the rating in it though.

@All I updated ACRA (used for crash reports), and for some reason it stopped sending reports (I thought it was odly quite), so a minor update that fixes it. Obviously once I do start getting crash reports I can try and fix any problems that have arrisen.

[Xmantium]

OK, i'll look at that again, you did ask for a big star with the rating in it though.

Did I ask for a big star?
I was thinking of having numeric value below or after the row of stars with saying "x.x/10"
I really hope imdbapi.com stays

Also noticed theres no stars for "The Babymakers"