I have to say I’m rather pleased to find this bit of information cross my way. It appears Xuggler has released a new version 3.4. Xuggler is a java based projected that uses FFMPEG to encode content into flash friendly content. One of the great new features that I’m excited about is the new ability to stream while only using Xuggler. That means if you are just serving video you can do it with out using Red5, FMS or Wowza.
Grab the goods here
A new version of the plug-in is now available for download. There are still issues with Blu-Ray playback. That I’m trying to resolve.
Go here to download the latest version
New Features and Fixes
- Added preference to set the server load time out
- added better support for thumb art, titles and duration
- added better switching and loading with multiple drives
This is my vision of the future for media management.
In my opinion Plex, XBMC and others based off of XBMC have gotten out of control when it comes to media management. If you have one device running any of the mentioned software its fine to an extent. But as soon as you start adding multiple devices with media spanning all of those different devices it starts getting a bit out of control.
So this is my stab at what I think should be done about the different problems that I have with the current Plex / XBMC setup. Don’t get me wrong. I think they are both great pieces of software. I just believe it could be better.
Problems:
- using a remote to add a media destination is bad. User experience is poor and error prone.
- maintaining separate configurations for each player is tedious.
- No asset management across multiple devices.
- No ability to acquire new media.
In my opinion non of these items should exist with inside Plex or XBMC. In fact the only thing they should do is just render the UI and Video / Audio/ Pictures / Launch Games and very basic settings.
Let me explain the diagram… Continue Reading…
A new version of the MakeMKV plug-in has been released.
New Features:
Instructions:
- Download the latest version of MakeMKV and Install
- Download and Install Plex
- Download and install MakeMKV Plugin (Double click to install)
- Launch the plug-in under the video section and update the MakeMKV location under preferences.
- Launch your DVD / Blu-Ray and select the appropriate stream
I have to say Wowza is a cool media server. I’ve played around with the developer server a few times and have found the features to be rather nice. To find out that they have released a new version of their server with these great new features makes it a really enjoyable experience. More so when you aren’t limited to just streaming to the flash platform anymore. Wowza no supports streaming to IPTV, iPhone, Quicktime, Silverlight and Flash.
Download your free developer edition here
I’ve just finished up my first release of a plug-in for Plex that allows you to watch Blu-Ray’s in OSX without ripping. Consider this a Beta release. Please report any bug or any other feature requests in the comments below.
Instructions:
- Download the latest version of MakeMKV and Install
- Load MakeMKV. Click on the wrench (Preferences). Enable “Log debug message”. Close MakeMKV
- Download and Install Plex
- Download and install MakeMKV Plugin (Double click to install)
- Launch the plug-in under the video section and update the MakeMKV location under preferences.
- Launch your DVD / Blu-Ray and select the appropriate stream
Issues:
- There is an issue where MakeMKV might still be running in the background and wont allow you access to your disc. If you load the plugin and it’s running you can select stop MakeMKV or stop the process in Activity Monitor located at /Applications/Utilities/
- DVD or Blu-Ray thumb images to the right may be incorrect for some. please let me know if you have this issue.
- Cannot save a remote source yet. This will be available in the next release.
I’ve always been a fan of the HDHomeRun. I purchased mine many years ago when they first came out. My favorite part about it is how it is open source and a network attached tuner. I love being able to take my laptop to any point in my house and watch some TV real quick while working on my laptop without having to be tied down by wires. I’ve long imagined that the only thing it could do better is have a CableCARD in it so it could decrypt premium content from a cable provider. As it turns out that day will be coming sooner than I had ever expected. SiliconDust has announced that they will be making a new HDHomeRun that does in fact include a CableCARD reader. But for what ever reason I doubt this will ever see much light on any other system than a windows 7 machine. Here again is to waiting and hoping for support for a CableCARD tuner that works on a non windows system.
I have to say I’m a sucker for gadgets and video. So needless to say when I found this little gem it was a ‘WoW’ moment. Samsung has announced at CES its new TV lineup for the next year. All the series are packing a lot of improvements and nice new features. The one that caught my attention is new Samsung 9000 series of LED LCD TV’s. As you can see below it’s incredibly thin (0.3 inches) and incredibly stylish with its beautiful brushed steel finish.
This TV isn’t just beautiful but also includes all the latest features such as 3D television, 2D to 3D up-conversion and wireless internet access for your Samsung applications. It also comes with a beautiful new touch remote which will display video from your different sources before you even select them.
I’m sure this little setup would put a dent into any budget. But here is to always dreaming. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
As promised I wanted to get back after I was able to play with the new streaming feature in the latest release of MakeMKV. To my surprise this was actually in the last release (v1.4.9) but I was unaware of it. Basically after you scan a disc you can choose which title you want to stream.
Something that I found out that I didn’t know about before is MakeMKVCon. As the name indicates this is a binary that lets you run everything from the console. So with the simple command ./makemkvcon stream disc:0 you can stream your movie over an http server. Just point our browser to http://localhost:51000 to find the right vob or .ts file you are looking for and launch it in vlc or another application that can stream over http.
The advantages of running it from the console is it makes it able for your to integrate it with a script. So that brings me to the second part of this post. Getting the blu-ray player to stream directly to plex without having to copy it to your hard drive first. Which in my opinion is great since I have a small hard drive. Unfortunately I don’t have a working script yet. It’s about 50% there. just have to finish learning the other parts of the plex plug-in api. Once when its done I’ll be posting back here so keep checking back.
One thing I found interesting and didn’t understand why at first is why the MakeMKV people would want to use an HTTP server to stream the files. seemed like a lot of added complexity when there are other ways to stream the output just as easily. Looking at the HTTP headers it mentioned UPnP. So that was a nice surprise. Once when all the UPnP stuff is completed you should be able to play these files in plex or xbmc a lot easier.
I figures this was very news worthy. MakeMKV has updated their software to v1.4.10. Some of the new features include:
- New functionality: instant video streaming
- Added support for all blu-ray HD audio tracks:
- Dolby TrueHD
- Dolby Digital plus (E-AC3)
- DTS-HD
- DTS-HD Losless (Master audio)
- DTS-HD Low bitrate
This is great news all around. Until now the HD audio codecs weren’t supported. I have to say the new instant video streaming sounds interesting. It streams content through a web server. After I look into it a bit more I’ll post more details about it.
