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

[will]

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"

I may have missunderstood you. I'll revise it later after audio work.

Yes I hope it stays as well, will be a pain if it goes.

http://www.imdbapi.com/?i=tt0835418 no idea why it has no ratings, cannot do anything about it though.


@all Music backend is going well, got a few issue on Jelly Bean where the MediaPlayer records the file length when it starts to play, so I have to keep restarting it while the file is downloading which causes a little stutter each time. I've got some ideas to combat that though. I've decided to implement the first round of audio caching into this version as it would be a waste of time not to.

A few questsion:
1) would you want the music to be available to other music apps
2) how organised is your music in general as in does serviio pick up the artist and album for most of your tracks

[Xmantium]

Yes I hope it stays as well, will be a pain if it goes.

http://www.imdbapi.com/?i=tt0835418 no idea why it has no ratings, cannot do anything about it though.

Very odd to say N/A.
How bout just a Yellow IMBD styled box with the rating and maybe the number of votes.

[will]

Do me a mockup as I'm busy giving myself a headache trying to keep track of the state of this stupid media player.

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.

Hey Will, sorry for the delay, I'm busy etc etc. I'm pretty sure I mostly understand what you are saying about your preferences/requirements. Some clarification for a couple things though: So do you want to not use the words "serviio" or "servii" in the icon then? Also, I figured that blue color was something you wanted to keep. If you want to send me that original serviio font, and that larger ring icon like you mentioned, I'm all for it. The "G" that I created was basically just hand painted yellow over the ring icon whilst deleting the other parts of it, not a font. If you had any more thoughts, feel free to share. I know you said you wanted to think on it a bit.

Also, as far a second level folders go, I agree, it would be very nice to have specific icons. That's a lot of work, and unless you are looking for something pretty simplistic for those, then I wouldn't be able to help. Though, I think it would suffice (for me at least) to just use a custom image directory for the icons. A directory of users' custom images that the app can reference. It's how mediabrowser for Windows Media Center works: http://community.mediabrowser.tv/permal ... es-it-work

This would qualify as being pretty simple:

Or we could try them on top of a folder icon like you said, but for "folders" it may look a little funny having a folder on a folder...

As for the app icon though, personally, I'm liking #3 the most. I can just keep iterating on variations of the 1,2,3,7 icons if you want. Lemme know how you would like to proceed...

Thanks!

[will]

Hey Will, sorry for the delay, I'm busy etc etc. I'm pretty sure I mostly understand what you are saying about your preferences/requirements. Some clarification for a couple things though: So do you want to not use the words "serviio" or "servii" in the icon then? Also, I figured that blue color was something you wanted to keep. If you want to send me that original serviio font, and that larger ring icon like you mentioned, I'm all for it. The "G" that I created was basically just hand painted yellow over the ring icon whilst deleting the other parts of it, not a font. If you had any more thoughts, feel free to share. I know you said you wanted to think on it a bit.

Also, as far a second level folders go, I agree, it would be very nice to have specific icons. That's a lot of work, and unless you are looking for something pretty simplistic for those, then I wouldn't be able to help. Though, I think it would suffice (for me at least) to just use a custom image directory for the icons. A directory of users' custom images that the app can reference. It's how mediabrowser for Windows Media Center works: http://community.mediabrowser.tv/permal ... es-it-work

This would qualify as being pretty simple:

Or we could try them on top of a folder icon like you said, but for "folders" it may look a little funny having a folder on a folder...

As for the app icon though, personally, I'm liking #3 the most. I can just keep iterating on variations of the 1,2,3,7 icons if you want. Lemme know how you would like to proceed...

Thanks!

Yes, don't use the word 'Serviio' and to be honest, the font would have to be quite small to fit 'Servii' in so best to leave it out. What I ment is some of them looked a bit purply in the fade. I'll PM you the font and rings, I actually quite like the G and think that if I did use one of the 'GO' logos that it would look nice with the G you used. Having said that, not sure if it is a bit odd just having 'GO', but then we are back to using the original and just making it look a lot nicer.

For icons I want them simple to the point that I could add just a few to start with and they wouldn't look out of place, which is why I suggested making them suitable for overlaying over the existing folder icons so that they would replace the generic audio/video ones I use atm where avilable. Both of those look nice, but they might be a bit too detailed/the lines are a little thin when I make the smallest versions of them. Anyway, not a priority so it can be left for now, but I would like to at least get a seperate one for movies, tv shows, and online (video/audio/image) at some point soon.

[will]

I've uploaded the first beta for 1.3 (and if all goes well, the only beta) which includes the new music player backend, you can download it from here. You can happily install it over 1.2 and when the final version is released update via Google Play.

Please take the time to test it and give me feedback, please post either if it works or if it doesn't work, its very important that I build a picture of how it behaves on different devices as differnt versions/manufactures have slightly different behaviour.

I need to know the following information:
Phone make and model:
Android version:
Rom: either stock, or if a custom one, which one

I'm specifically interested in:
a) Does it play music (I hope so)
b) Is there any iteruptions in a single track, e.g. it briefly pausing, if so how often (test on Wifi and 3G ideally). If there are it should only be on tracks that were not prefetched. Either way please report if it works/doesn't
c) Does it ever get into a state where it stops playing, and if so what did you do to get it there (if it does, menu->shutdown music player, then menu->music player-> play should fix most problems).

So whats new in this version:
*I'm downloading the music manually and feeding it to the media library from the SD card
*This means that music is now cached on the device which really makes a difference after a while. However, the cache is currently unmanaged so can get big, use a file manage to prune it out for now if you have limited space.
*I prefetch 1 track in advance for reduced gap between tracks
*Lots of files that wouldn't play before, now play
*You can skip around very long tracks
*But I now have to be very careful about managing the state of the player

What I haven't done yet, but hope to do for 1.3:
*Transcoded audio doesn't work (although it didn't previously)
*I need to put a limit on the cache size, and prune it in the background.
*Resume downloads if possible when the connection drops
*Improve prefetching (I'll ad an option to configure how many tracks to prefetch, and also re-evaulate prefetching when the playlist changes)
*Fix stuttering on JB
*Tracks with no metadata (no artist/album), are stored as MEDIA_ID - TITLE.mp3, in future I'll put them in their original folder structure
*Better error reporting, before it just wouldn't play, I will be able to say if it is an authentication problem, a network problem, or an incompatiable file

Even if you don't use it for music, please have a go as I won't be able to return to other improvements until this is done. Hopefully I can get 1.3 out by the 17th, but otherwise it won't be until the beginig of october.

[will]

Only two downloads

Come on guys (and gals) really need you to test this a bit.

Heres a screenshot in portrait mode - http://www.xmantium.com/serviio/Screens ... -34-03.png
As you can see, alot of gaps

and heres landscape - http://www.xmantium.com/serviio/Screens ... -36-10.png

Since the TouchPad is similar size as my iPad and not widescreen i always use it in portrait mode.

I just installed ServiiGo. I have the new samsung galaxy note 10.1. I also have the avengers movie, but the graphics do not look as good as this:

1. I have no backdrop

2. The image (movie poster) on my screen looks very low-res. It looks like the source is very tiny and it's been upscaled. It's very blurry. Is there a setting I change? Is it Serviio getting the low-res images?

Is there anything I can do to get better (hi-res) looking images? Does that change when I donate/purchase ServiiGo?

Thanks,

Vincent

[will]

You are seeing the default metadata that Serviio sends, which as you noticed is low res 160x160 as that is the DLNA standard.
If you donate, ServiiGo will fetch hi res cover art, backdrop and some extra info eg ratings. At the moment this is just for movies, in the future I hope to get it working for TV Shows.

[Xmantium]

Come on guys (and gals) really need you to test this a bit.

Just installed it, didnt see the post.

Is there an option to turn off local music saving, i prefered music streamed.
I dont mind if it caches the current and next track.

Will send you some layout ideas later

[will]

You will be able to configure how big the cache is, I'll have 64 MB option for those that don't want to cache music, although assuming you have space, I'm not sure why you wouldn't as it means less data use and better battery life.

[Xmantium]

You will be able to configure how big the cache is, I'll have 64 MB option for those that don't want to cache music, although assuming you have space, I'm not sure why you wouldn't as it means less data use and better battery life.

I'm on T-mobiles unlimited 3G plan so no issues for me.

[will]

Any feedback/problems with the preview build? I haven't seen any crash reports from it so that is hopefully a good sign.

I've been visiting family this last week but since the preview i've made quite a few improvements to the music player and will hopefully be able push the update out by the end of next week. I've got managing the size of the cache in the background and dealing with some of the edge cases left to do.

@thelken The new update will include an updated Dark theme and a new Light theme, if you have had any other thoughts about the icon this would be a nice time to include it. I'm using #1065CC as the main highlight colour now, although its probably fine to leave the current colours for the app icon.

[will]

1.3 is pretty much done now. I've uploaded the translations and I'll give it another day of testing and then release it friday evening/saturday.

[will]

Its taken a while but 1.3 is now ready. I've done my best to test it, although I'm sure there will be some bugs in the new backend as it has required a lot of code to keep it all running properly. There is also quite a bit of scope to improve it, and that will come in future updates, but I wanted to get something released. As always, feedback is very important, so let me know how it goes.

  Code:

==== 1.3 ====
*New custom Music Player backend (#17) - benifits include:
**Caches music on the device for reduced data and battery usage (#3) (Free version is limited to 128MB)
**Pre-fetches the next track for reduced delay between tracks
**Fixes lockups under JB (#37)
**Fixes certain files that would not play
**Adds support for transcoded audio (Requies yet to be released Serviio 1.1)
**Improved error handling
*Updated the Dark theme and added a new Light theme
*Bug fixes and layout adjustments
*Translation updates
*Library updates


[Xmantium]

Liking the new light theme! Can this be an option for ServiiDroid too?

I'm getting few FC when playing audio, play track, play another While first one is playing, scroll down and crashes

[will]

Yes I plan on adding a new theme to ServiiDroid when I get round to updating the icons for it.

I just saw them, its the OS silently recyling the bitmaps in the background which I cannot control, I think it does it after they have been used for lockscreen artwork, although I think it is device specific.

Is via folders / random, rather than Artist/Album. Is the artwork for the track that was playing visible when you move to the next track, and does it crash when it comes back into view, or leaves the view? Any extra info would be great.

[will]

I've uploaded a fix for that. Let me know if it sorts things out for you.

  Code:

==== 1.3.1 ====
*Fixed FC on some devices due to Android recycling bitmaps after using them for lockscreen artwork


[Xmantium]

I've uploaded a fix for that. Let me know if it sorts things out for you.

Sorry for late response... It was on my Samsung S3.
Looks like you fixed it! Quick turnaround! Tried multiple way to force a FC on purpose after the update and works solid!

Do you think you could get a Video Player built on it like the solid music player?
Im sure MX, Mobo and loads of others just using ffmpeg compiled on ARM mobile chip

[will]

Sorry for late response... It was on my Samsung S3.
Looks like you fixed it! Quick turnaround! Tried multiple way to force a FC on purpose after the update and works solid!

Thats good, well thanks for the hint. I had seen that problem a few times before, but the exception didn't go through any of my code so while I could speculate what was happening, I wasn't sure exactly what was triggering it.

Do you think you could get a Video Player built on it like the solid music player?
Im sure MX, Mobo and loads of others just using ffmpeg compiled on ARM mobile chip

It is something I would like to do, but I think it will be quite a bit of work so I want to deal with all the other issues/missing features first. Once most of the other things on my list are done, I'll try to work out how much time it would take and weigh it up against how many people are actively using the app.