Saturday, January 10, 2009

Sirius on the iPhone

Getting Sirius on my iPhone was a difficult task for me. I was using Orb with uSirius for a while but I found that orb is too heavy for my home server. Also Orb takes too long to start from the iPhone... I have to click through 5 prompts before I can hear Stern. Then if I got disconnected, which happens all too often, I had 5 more prompts to click through.

So here's my solution using all free software without transcoding and without jailbreaking my iPhone.

This is for the technologically advanced user. If you don't have a web server or never heard of asp then stop here.

Requirements:

A home web server running asp
uSirius RC 8
A sirius subscription
fStream (free on appStore)

A little background info:
When a media player hits a uSirius url (e.g. http://192.168.1.101:19080/streams/stream?bandwidth=low&num=100&r=1229898108), uSirius redirects the player to the correct feed from the sirius servers (e.g. http://g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/?auth=reallylongurl&MSWMExt=.asf)

How this redirection occurs is the source of the problem. Most media players don't like to be redirected. Especially all iPhone media players I tried. So my asp script simplifies the redirect by transforming it into a m3u playlist. Here's how to do it

Open up notepad and paste this code:


<%
response.ContentType="audio/x-mpegurl"
Set stream = CreateObject("MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0")
stream.open "GET", "http://192.168.1.101:19080/streams/stream?bandwidth=low&num=" & request.querystring("C") & "&r=1234567890", false
stream.send ""
If stream.Status = 200 AND stream.readyState = 4 Then
s = stream.ResponseText
s = Mid(s, instr(s, "=")+1)
s = Mid(s, 1, instr(s, "Ref")-3)
s = "mms" & Mid(s, 5)
end If
response.write(s)
%>

Save it as sirius.asp and put it in the your web root directory.

You would have to get the ASX playlist location from uSirius and plug it into my script, substituting your internal ip address and the "r=1234567890" part.


Lastly, in fStream you could add a stream to Howard 100 by calling this script like this: http://myexternalipaddress/sirius.asp?C=100 because Stern is Sirius channel 100.



I have found this setup to be highly effective for me and it puts little strain on my server. I know this isn't the most complete tutorial in the world but I just figured I'd share my findings with you.

If you have a better solution please share in the comments.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Movie Browser

I am sorry I've have not made any updates to this code. The real world has taken hold again and I hardly have free time to wipe my ass. Again, feel free to use my code in your projects, I don't care. I'll probably have free time over the summer to update this code and add an automated importer.

Cheers and beers!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Movie Browser 0.1



Flash and Media Center are a sweet mix. I wish I used flash 2 years when I was breaking my head over hosted html. The picture above is from my newest application "Movie Browser". This runs on MCE 2005, Vista MCE and Extenders :P. It's still in beta and is a little difficult to set up, but worth it :-) I mean, who needs iTunes huh?

I am no flash expert, I got the design from the open source dudes at weberdesignlabs.com It took a couple days to get flash to play nice with MCE but I think it looks great.

If you are interested in the project post a comment and I'll continue development. It is currently running on my Vista and 2005 box without a hitch so any further development is not for me it's for you. This is an open source project, so if you improve the code let me know.

This is still in BETA, so unless your ready to do some post install maintenance please wait for the final release.

Download Movie Browser 0.1 Beta
Download Source Code

Questions? Ask here

Monday, November 19, 2007

Live TV Streaming (SoftSled Anyone?)

My brother has been streaming live TV to his xbox 360 and I am jealous. I don't understand why Microsoft added this feature to extenders and not to full media centers. So to make a long story short, I started fiddling with VLC media player. Using VLC I was able to stream live tv from my bedroom's media center to my living room's media center machine. The best part is, I can stream the video and still use media center in my bedroom. VLC used about 32Mb or memory to perform the stream but the picture quality is outstanding IMO. I know about ORB and other software that does similar things, but I wanted High quality video, accessible through media center's interface without having to go through an outside server.

VLC was a bit of a pain to setup and I had some audio driver issues. But now that it's done and working I couldn't be happier. I'll post a full tutorial on how I accomplished this soon.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

MCE Skipper

Media center does not have seekbar functionality built into it. So, this plugin shows a seek bar very similiar to that of windows media player 10 that can be used from your couch with your remote control. It has a sleek interface in my opinion. Check these screenshots:





I have tested this plugin on MCE 2005 and Vista

Usage:
Once your video is playing, click the i (more info) button on your remote or right click with your mouse, then choose More...

Limitations:
1. MCE 2005 does not allow me to get the duration of the currently playing video. So the Seekbar will default to a 1 hour lenght. If your current video position is longer that 1 hour the seekbar will grow to accomodate. But if your video is less than 1 hour, the seekbar will not shrink. So be careful when seeking videos less than 60 minutes, it might jump to the end of the video.

2. The play, skip forward, skip back buttons on the bottom don't do anything... they are just there for the good looks :)

Download

Friday, June 29, 2007

BookMarkIt! Vista

A couple of posts in the comments to this blog wanted BookMarkit! to work on Vista so this is for you guys. I am dual booting vista now so I downloaded the Vista MCE SDK and started coding. I only have one Vista machine to test it on, so I am relying on you guys to let me know if this works. I didn't add any new functionality just made it vista compatible.

If you are running MCE 2005 don't install this version :-)

Download

My DVD's Dead

Sorry to say, I ihave scrapped the My DVD's for avi project. Unfortunatly, It just takes too long to load. So the project is dead. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up

Sunday, April 29, 2007

My DVD's for avi's

So i must be bored again, cuz I am thinking about creating another plugin. MyDvd's is a feature that comes with rollup2. Read more here: http://blog.mattgoyer.com/categories/mediaCenter/2005/10/20.html

I wrote a My Movies type plugin but never released it because hosted HTML apps blow on a media center. They never quite look right. My DVD's on the other hand looks great. The downside to My DVD's is that it is only for DVDs. So I am thinking about writing a plugin to trick media center into playing avi's through My DVD's. Chances are nobody reads this blog, but in case someone is, what do you think of the idea. Is this a worthwild venture, or just alot of code for no reason?

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Fast Forward and Rewind in DiVX/XViD

Yea man, Damien Bain-Thouverez wrote a plugin to send IR signals from your remote directly to FDDShow to enable fast forward and rewind on DiVX and XViD's in MCE. Kick ASS!!! I've been looking for this functionality since day one! I even wrote plugins to simulate this behavior, but nothing as nice as this.

So here's the bad news: It's only for Vista MCE. I still have 2005 and I am jealous. I sent Damien an email, to which I hope he responds. I am hoping we can collaborate and get this functionality in 2005.

Let's wait and see...

For you Vista people, here is his website: http://damienbt.free.fr/index.php

Monday, April 9, 2007

Free Remote Mouse 2.1

As per some requests I updated Free Remote Mouse.
It has the same download link as before.

Basically I made it so that it will display a message box when the remote mouse is enabled/disabled. Also, I spelled argument correctly this time :)

Old Problems Explained:
In the old version you might find that you have to hold the button down for an eternity before the remote mouse becomes enabled. I'm going to try to explain this. If you use your keyboard and simply press "0" three times the remote mouse will enable/disable. The problem is the IR receiver when using the remote control. Sometimes it doesn't send consecutive signals to the box the way a keyboard would. This varies per machine making it even harder to code accuratly. When you find yourself holding the "0" button forever what you are actually doing it enabling then disabling then enabled and disabling etc... when you release the button, it's potluck, whether its actually disabled or enabled. In the new version a message box will be displayed, hence no potluck. I recommend finding the best method for your pc. Whether it's tapping 0 a couple times or holding it down for 3 seconds. I don't recommend holding the 0 button down forever because then you might find yourself in a parade of message boxes.

Anyways, nothing free is perfect but it's getting better.

Download the new version here: Download

Real World

I'd like to apologize to those of you who have asked for updates on my software. The real world has taken a hold on me and I have so many proects right now it's hard for me to keep up. I am eligable for a free Vista upgrade so as soon am micro$oft sends it to me I will definitly start developing for vista mce. Free time just isn't as easy to comeby as it once was.

Friday, March 9, 2007

I got a webhost :)

Big shout-out to yoavf from the Australian Media Center Community for hooking me up on his webhost! Now I can share my apps once again!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

I need a web host :-(

I am in the need of a webhost for my little applications. If anyone has a website and would consider giving me access to an ftp folder to store this stuff, drop me an email.

I don't want to use rapidshare or anything like that, unless someone knows of something else free without the ads and timers.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

FreeRemoteMouse 2.0

With way too much time on my hands over the holiday break, I compiled Free RemoteMouse 2.0

I basically added an installer, and made it so the user can set exactly what buttons do what. Futhermore, you can set a button to launch any program on your computer. For Example button #3 can be mapped to launch internet explorer or a video game or a family photo from your couch. Yes, it's the epidemy of laziness I know. But hey I was bored so whatever.



Download

Sunday, December 24, 2006

GetLyrics 1.1

griffithc, over at the Australian Media Center community pointed out a bug in GetLyrics. Apparently, the site that the lyrics are scraped from changed some stuff around, so lyrics weren't displaying properly.

Well, the version 1.1 fixes that bug

Download

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

FreeRemoteMouse 1.1

I downloaded MyRemoteMouse yesterday and I was upset that the dude wanted 30 bucks for a plugin and it's heavy and doesn't work very well. So I spent the past 2 hours creating "FreeRemoteMouse". It's written with AutoIt, totally free and opensource for you. You can decompile my exe with AutoIt and modify it. Just share your modifications here and give me credit for original design. I am not an AutoIt expert, so my code might be sloppy but it works!

How to use:
Unrar the download, and run the exe. There's no installation or anything just an exe. You will notice it in your system tray. To start using your remote as a mouse hold 0 for five seconds. Then use the navigational arrows on your remote to move your mouse around. Hold 0 for five seconds again to disable the remotemouse. You could put the exe in your startup folder I guess for easy access.

New addidtions to version 1.1

1 = dblClick
2 = RightClick
3 = MouseDrag
4 = MouseDrop

Download

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Cool sites

The best Media Center forum on the net has to be the The Australian Media Center Community
It's the most supportive forum I have ever been on. It must be because they are not american. Unlike those ungrateful turds at thegreenbutton.

The best plugin site IMO is MoreMCE. The apps I post there get tons of hits. One app I submitted got over 1500 clicks, but not one thank you, so maybe it's not that great.

Also, I googled my own software and found some reviews. Kinda funny how things spread once they hit the internet.

PVR Wire

Missing Remote

I feel so special :P

MusicPlayer

So Thomas Larsen took my File Browser code and did some neat things to it. He turned it into a advanced music player.

Features

Browsing in Windows file system
Fast indexing with the numerich keypad on the MCE remotecontrol
View album cover (Place a jpg file named "front.jpg" in the folder)
You can add all music files in folder to the play list
Multilanguage support (Add new text/code to the language.js file)

Download

Someone once sent me another modified version of file browser that allowed for automatic mounting of Disc Images with a Daemon tools command line interface. Pretty cool as well, I don't think he released it pubically.

MCE File Browser 2.0

I am damn near close to finishing this app, but I gotta say I have never written so much javascript in my life... I think i'm gonna be sick! I am calling this beta because I don't have many MCE machine to test it on, so I am asking for your help. This does mostly the same stuff as version 1.0

Here's a list of stuff I changed for 2.0
Kick ass center scrolling UI
Video & Audio Playlists
Browse Network Places
Dynamic sorting
New Version of AVI Controller, with a dynamic progress bar to skip anywhere quickly

Screenshots:



Download

AVI Controller

This one is kinda sloppy but gets the job done. AVI Controller let's the user dynamically skip forward and back in video files. This is very useful because fast forward and rewind doesn't work on DiVX or XViD Files.

Install the app then goto More Programs to run it, after that you can access it using the More Information button (i) while a video is playing.

Screenshot:


Download

BookMarkIt!

BookMarkIt! is my 3rd Media center application. If Micro$oft did a better job with MediaCenter maybe I would'nt have to write so many damn plugins. This one only took a couple hours to create.

I wrote this because I can never finish a movie in one sitting, so this app allows me to resume the video from the last saved video bookmark.
I hate the fact that I cannot fastforward quickly on a DivX, XviD or Mpeg.
I have to use Skip, which takes forever if your video is long.
BookMarkIt! will create a bookmark in whatever video file you are viewing in MyVideos so you can resume from that bookmark at a later point.

Usage: Once your video is playing, click the i (more info) button on your remote or right click with your mouse, then choose More... Then you will see a screen like this:



Then simply hit Save bookmark to save, or open bookmark to resume from saved bookmark.

I have only tried this on MCE2005 with rollup2. I am unsure about other versions.

Download

GetLyrics 1.0

Here's my first attempt at a Media Center background addin. My first app was hosted HTML. GetLyrics does not have a GUI other than media centers GUI.

This is what it does:

Get Lyrics is a background addin that will automatically scrape lyrics from the internet for the currently playing song in media center. When lyrics are downloaded a popup will appear with lyrics. Like so:


Then you can hit view, to display lyrics in a messagebox. Like so:


After lyrics are downloaded they are saved in MyDocuments/MyLyrics
This was Designed for MCE 2005 Rollup 2
IF YOUR ID3 TAGS ARE INCORRECT THEN IT CANT DOWNLOAD THE LYRICS
Also, all of my apps are made for english versions of MCE

Download

MCE File Browser 1.0

This was my first Media Center plugin... it took me forever to match the media center look and feel. It is also my first experience in getting flamed.

Here's what it does:

MCE File Browser allows you to browse and play files from any drive or directory on your computer, including hidden files, with your remote. MCE file Browser can play Videos (mpg, avi, wmv), Music (mp3, wav), or Pictures (jpg, gif, png). Also, it adds options to create favorite folders, so you can get to them from the home page. It also has functionality to create playlists *on the fly* from videos located in a folder. Media you play in MCE File Browser will not give you thumbnail previews under My Videos, so you don't have to worry about covering your tracks.

Screenshot:


Download

What the hell is this?

Yea so this is my first post in a futile attempt to centralize all the software I have written. So yea... thats what this is about.