It was getting good while it lasted.

Experiences
--------------

I've just bought a smart tv and been trying to stream video to it, but struggled.

Serviio seemed to be the answer to some issues. I've read lots and lots of pages and set up all of my media to stream(?) from my PC to my TV. I've found a superb wicki about You Tube and can now stream You Tube videos.

But I have tried to stream internet streams (football) - something I've been doing via an xbox for 8 years - and failed.

I can't find any really simple instructions. Perhaps the subject is too difficult.

I go to the football stream, watch it for a minute and copy the URL into Serviio. I don't know whether it's an RSS, a live stream or a web resource. As a live stream the URL gets bounced with a red cross. It is http://www6.aoso.ru/2012/10/1.html

VLC doesn't play it.

I search and search 'Streaming' 'web resource' 'live stream' 'starter' and lots lots more. I see lots of people with the same problems as me, I ask questions on the forum.

I get no replies, and feel that this is a product for professionals - not for retired IT consultants who can usually get anything technical to work.

That was my experience.

[spudy12]

Have a look at the plug in section of the forum.
There are hundreds of plug ins for all sorts of online streams including sports.

All give good instruction on how to setup

Thanks for your speedy reply (There is somebody out there!)

I did what you suggested.

I saw a post about Reuters. That must broadcast 24/7, I thought. It wasn't a stream - it was someone like me, struggling to get it going.

I looked again and saw something from CW TV. http://www.cwtv.com/ Never heard of it, but I like country and western, so perhaps it will be interesting.

The link takes me to a site (not a stream). I add the link into Serviio as a live stream, but it bounces.

So it must be a web resource(??) (And I can't understand why live streams are validated but web resources aren't).

Save it, save Serviio. Go to my TV, switch it on and off. Browse to Online bla bla bla. There are my you tube links. No cwtv.

I've been doing this for nearly a week now.

Thanks again.

EDIT 5 MINUTES LATER

I've just been back, and looked at some more. Perhaps I hit 2 bad examples. This one seems to support certain sites and require a groovy.

Groovy was one of the terms that I searched on. I found a page entitled something like "All you need to know about groovys". But I didn't learn a thing. (A site for professionals?)

I'll try it.

FIVE MINUTES LATER AGAIN

So I download a plugin for the Food Network. Download it and move it to my plugins folder.

Try to set up http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/?omnisource=gid_uk in Serviio. Again it bounces, so must be web resource, right?

Again, it's a site and not a stream. Don't get that. But again it doesn't appear on my TV.




I'm beginning to understand that you must have a groovy before you can stream something. How could I have spent so long and not realised that? I retrace my steps and finish up at 'start' guide on plugins. This is stated to have an intended audience of developers of plugins. But all I want to do is watch my TV.

Is there any User Guide which explains things in User(!) language, and not Developer's language?

eg Firstly you must do two things. 1. Install an appropriate groovy, and 2. Register the URL with Serviio.

There are 3 (4?) types of streams RSS, Atom, Live streams and web resources. You can tell which one you are watching by ....?
You access some via a web site, and this requires ....?
When you identified what your stream is, this is what you do ....

Is there?

[jhb50]

When using a new product it really helps to read the documentation. http://www.serviio.org/index.php?option ... icle&id=42

[spudy12]

You have to download the plugin file and put it in the plugins directory.

Then you add the URL in to serviio. The plugin is there to parse the URL and provide the video.

  Code:

[code][/code]

Responders,

Thank you for your replies.

jhb50 kindly posted a link to a page which was probably the first Serviio page that I READ. Regarding plugins it says:

*****
Online resource plugins are simple programs written in Groovy language. Their only use is to parse provided feed URLs (those relevant to the plugin's online resource) and work out where the online files are stored.

NOTE: Plugins by themselves do not offer any online content, you still have to tell Serviio the feed URL.

Once copied to the Serviio's plugins directory, the plugin is registered and related resources can be indexed for Serviio to play. To register a new plugin with Serviio you have to copy the plugin file (.groovy) to Serviio's plugins directory. This directory is located under Serviio's installation directory.
*****


I only bought a bloody TV to watch! The description of plugins tells me nothing that I understand and need to know. The written words are probably fairly understandable to those who know about this kind of technology, but they are presumably meant for those without such experience.

Having the above information about plugins doesn't help me at all. I need to know:
Do I need a plugin for every stream that I want to watch?
If I find a stream, how do I find the plugin?
What are the 3 types of streams, and how are they handled differently?
What are the relationships between streams, websites, plugins and Serviio's list of online sources?
How do I know which type of stream any given one is?
Why do addresses for live streams get validated whereas others don't?
IF I FIND A STREAM I WANT TO WATCH, WHAT SEQUENCE OF EVENTS DO I FOLLOW TO SEND IT TO MY TV?

That's the kind of information I expect in an introductory page to a new technology. When I buy a car I like to know how much it costs to run, how many people it holds, and how fast it goes. I don't want to the radius of the input pipe into the carburettor (or even if it has one), how hard I pump the tyres to, or which country the internal upholstery comes from.

This brilliant page about You Tube shows exactly how it should be done (not a link, don't know how to do one) http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=you_tube_videos

It sounds as though there isn't any such documentation.

(In I.T. for many years)

[zip]

Usually, if you just have a website URL that has some player on it, it won't just work in Serviio. The URL points to some HTML code (page source code) and the embedded player then uses a real video stream URL to access the media. That URL is normally hidden to users and might be hard to find. That's when plugins come to play, as they have the code needed to work out the media URL. There are many plugins available on this forum, but there might not be one for the particular page/server you want to use. There is not fit-them-all solution.

The types are:
- online stream - for URLs that are already video streams (not web pages) - ie, what the embedded player on a web page might use. This is only useful if you know that URL and normally only available for live streams (not VOD content)
- rss feed - used when you have a feed with a list of videos. Sometimes the feed includes actual video URLs, in which case it doesn't need plugin. In other cases it includes list of web page URLs (e.g. YouTube), in which case it needs a plugin.
- web resource - used when there is no structured feed. It always requires a plugin. You enter a web page URL (one that the plugin requires, see the plugin description on this forum), the plugin will try to work out the list of videos on that page and then try to get the video stream URL for each of these videos.

As I said, i'ts not trivial, but you might find serviidb.org useful (or it's integration in ServiiDroid or other 3rd party UI apps).

That looks wonderful - just the type of information I'm looking for.

I'll now spend half an hour trying to understand it, but it may be a light at the end of the tunnel!

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Your first paragraph is a big revelation, and ought to be more widely known. It would probably save man-years of wasted effort and frustration (and lost sales).

Thanks again.

[zip]

I will try to put something together as paste it on the wiki.

[atc98092]

I might also add that many (most? all?) plug-ins may be country specific, in that if you are not located in the country the plug-in is designed for, it may not work even if all settings are correct. I have seen that with several plug-ins, and I believe it applies to many.

Hey zip, I hope you are serious about knocking something up. Your short post at 9.25 today is the most important thing I've read during a week of visiting this site.

It taught me more in five minutes than I learned in the previous 5 days of reading about Serviio.

Not only do I urge you to do an article, but I strongly suggest that you make it the first article on the wicki, and have big flashing lights on it!

As I wander around this site I see post after post asking the same questions and getting various responses which don't tell the questioner what he wants to know.

Zoom around and look at the questions asked by people who've made less than 20 posts. They are almost all the same!

"I've set up a stream but it doesn't work"
"I've set up a plugin but it doesn't work"

There's NOWHERE that tells them that they are inter-related - never mind how and why they are inter-related and what the consequences to them are.

And something that's underplayed is the log. It's a revelation to find that there's something that tells you why things are going wrong. But you gradually find out about the log - by luck rather than planned documentation.

I've seen two really good articles on Serviio. They are the wicki on streaming You Tube, and the main post supporting the Sopcast plugin.

They tell people what to do. They are procedural. They are updated when someone finds a flaw or an omission.

That's what newbies need.

I await it with baited breath.