Online Sources questions

Hi Zip,

I am new to Serviio and like it. It's more stable and easier to customize than PlayOn though less online resource available.

I have a few questions about Online Resources:

1. I cannot find how to sort web items by release date. And sort by Year option doesn't work properly

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/1794/1tv.jpg

2. I cannot find a way how to update RSS feed from DLNA player (in Wild Media Player it's done as an extra menu item)

3. It will be nice to add RSS/Web resources in plugins not just as a flat list but as a Tree similar to most media servers. It will be helpful to present hierarchical lists like TV listings, i.e. Channel > Date > Program list

4. It will be nice to be able to resume playback from a specific time if it was interrupted for some reason. For example, Wild Media Server allows to start from any minute in transcoded file.

Again thank Zip for the great program.

Regards,
Mike

[zip]

1. Serviio sends items in the order they appear in the feed. Any further sorting is up to the player.
2. Right-click on the resource in the console.
3. Folders for online items are planned
4. It should be possible if the client supports time based seek.

Petr -- thanks for quick response.

RE # 2 I understand about updating from the console But my question was about updating RSS feed directly from DLNA player without touching PC.

- Mike

[zip]

you cant do that and I'll not be providing such functionality via the folders in the player - in my opinion it clutters the UI. You can grab ServiiDroid and then you can do it from your phone while sitting on the couch.

you cant do that and I'll not be providing such functionality via the folders in the player - in my opinion it clutters the UI. You can grab ServiiDroid and then you can do it from your phone while sitting on the couch.

let say you come home in the evening and want to watch latest video news from serviio on TV. you have no idea if online feeds are recent or not. i would like to use one standard remote control device (i.e. TV or BD player remote) to select an online feed and update it if list doesn't look up to date. mandating to use two devices to manage one thing doesn't look convenient.

[jhb50]

You can try the Refresh plugin viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6084

You can try the Refresh plugin viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6084

jhb50 - thanks a lot for very useful link. that's what i was looking for.

i have made some changes to remove dependency on curl, ffmpeg.bat and to allow video RSS feeds as well.

so now it's very easy to install this plugin to refresh video resources on demand.

the only problem is that when this plugin is loaded first time, it automatically forces refresh for all resources because serviio validates all plugin's items which causes item refresh. i don't know how to avoid this.

new version 2 is attached.

[jhb50]

Well done. Why not create a routine that can be added to any groovy which will create a refresh icon within that groovys menu?

Well done. Why not create a routine that can be added to any groovy which will create a refresh icon within that groovys menu?

that's a good idea but it won't work for RSS feeds where items list is generated automatically.

but it's all just workarounds because using Refresh plugin requires too many steps:

- exit from a feed list
- find Refresh folder
- select feed in that folder
- return to the feed list where he started

it would be much better if such menu item was added by Serviio.

[jhb50]

Don't get me started!

The whole online streaming thing in Serviio needs to be re-thought. Users should have the ability to control when the online sources are enabled and refreshed the same as they currently can control the individual display and refresh of folders.

Currently the only way to disable the automatic refresh of feeds on a boot or console feed expiry interval is to disable the feeds but then it will not display and cannot be viewed with its existing parameters. Then when you enable the feed, its contents are removed from the cache, so you still can see it, and if there is a current refresh underway, you have to wait for it to finish before the re-enabled feed can be viewed.

With over 100 feeds, my cpu is doing nothing but re-refreshing, even if I don't even watch them! That's nonsense.

I think that each Feed in the console should contain the same icons as do folders. Currently the type (video,audio,image) boxes are unclickable and can only be set by editing, and there is no update(refresh) icon as with folders. If they were consistent UI's, the type check would enable/disable the feed and update(refresh) icon would activate auto refreshes. If the refresh icon was unticked the feed would only refresh on demand and would always be available for play with its currently cached values, and disabling/enabling a feed would not trigger a refresh.

That solution would allow the current setup to continue as the default, but would allow a user to disable/enable a feed or disable the auto refresh of any feed without losing its cached values.

The only other solution is to only enable my feeds individually when I want to watch them using a remote console on my android.

very good points. especially this

With over 100 feeds, my cpu is doing nothing but re-refreshing, even if I don't even watch them! That's nonsense.

i wonder how other media servers (PlayOn, Roku, Boxee, XBMC, etc.) solve this caching / refreshing issues so they always display current content from apps & plugins without any need to refresh when feeds & plugins in Serviio do require periodic refresh.

maybe resources caching should be make optional so a user could disable it to always see fresh content?

[zip]

The automatic refresh is there because of:

1. keeping online content up-to-date in terms of what items feeds include
2. keeping only items that are available by the content provider at that time. If you keep an old list of feeds in (e.g. BBC iPlayer), chances are half the items will not be playable because they expired or the URL changed.

So the point is to give the normal users as consistent experience as possible, without wondering why an item from iPlayer won't play.

If you don't watch some feed, why not just disable it?

You can try the Refresh plugin viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6084

jhb50 - thanks a lot for very useful link. that's what i was looking for.

i have made some changes to remove dependency on curl, ffmpeg.bat and to allow video RSS feeds as well.

I have tried this now, but when I install it Serviio goes haywire. The CPU load skyrockets, browsing becomes sluggish and my Samsung BR-player disconnects frequently.
Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I run this on a Vortexbox (Fedora 16). The online services I have enabled are livefeeds (1 folder), tv4play (4 folders) , myiplayer (5 folders) and hahasports (2 folders), apart from that I have a configured a handful of streams. Currently I'm a bit too busy to troubleshoot this, but when I get the time I will enable them one by one to see if it's a specific service that's to blame for the issue.

And just so I got this straight, all I have to do is to place the groovy file in the plugins directory, configure an online resource pointing to www.refresh.com and that's it? I get the refresh folder and when I select a service I get the rocket launch so I must have done something right, but I don't know if there is anything I've missed.