Couple of Queries ... Controller and Different VLC Question - Shield Android TV Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Rather than 2 threads thought I'd just put them in both.
If I'm using a different remote (mini keyboard) the ESC works as a back button works with most things but not Chrome or BBC iPlayer ... the right mouse click doesn't work at all bu does with the supplied remote.
Also things like skipping forward or back video 10s ... works in VLC but not iPlayer ... there's no way to do it with the supplied remote either ... can I change any settings so they do??
Totally different query re VLC player as well .... It lists every single video I have ... so many you can't see th wood for the trees, the other Android Box I had used to list the folders instead .... is there any way I can change the view on this.

Not exactly the answer you're looking for , but if you use External Keyboard Helper , and probably other apps , you can easily remap your keyboard to get the missing keys you need.
Any reason to use VLC in particular ? Not sure what you mean by " so many you can't see th wood for the trees". I would suggest Kodi instead, it has many more features and much more support than VLC on android. Kodi for instance will allow you to have the refresh rate of your tv , if it supports it, to match the video's refresh rate (most of the time 24hz for mainstream movies, 30 and 60 for a lot of other video types). It is possible to remap any keys within kodi as well. There are a lot of different skins for Kodi which will help you set that perfect video player to your taste. The library layout is very nice. It will easily let you browse files on your network, easiest way is to mount you network shares in the shield's settings, but you can also go through kodi to find your network shares. I prefer through the shield itself , since I use my shares outside of Kodi (like emulator ROMs). Kodi also support a huge collection of plugins, so many you might never even have to exit Kodi at all.. Kodi also easily supports bitstreaming. I haven't come across a video or audio format that didn't work flawlessly on my shield / receiver setup.
Sorry I couldn't help with your specific questions.

Roamin64 said:
Not exactly the answer you're looking for , but if you use External Keyboard Helper , and probably other apps , you can easily remap your keyboard to get the missing keys you need.
Any reason to use VLC in particular ? Not sure what you mean by " so many you can't see th wood for the trees". I would suggest Kodi instead, it has many more features and much more support than VLC on android. Kodi for instance will allow you to have the refresh rate of your tv , if it supports it, to match the video's refresh rate (most of the time 24hz for mainstream movies, 30 and 60 for a lot of other video types). It is possible to remap any keys within kodi as well. .
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I'll take a look at that .... I guess External keyboard Helper is an APP?????
Sorry I wasn't clear, I used to put series onto one folder which may be a few seasons, older films in another ... basically just breaking them down to make them easier to find by category where as this version of VLC just puts everything into the top folder so it's hundreds of titles to go through unless you scroll down and drill into several different folders which again is a bit of a pain.
I did try Kodi on another box but it didn't have smb2 ?????? apparently ........ (not very techie) which made it complicated to access folders across the network (VLC does it very easily) ... that said with this box I'll probably be using it as the media server and since posting the initial query have just set up and found out how to use Plex and added the different folders to it so may try that for a while and see how I get on with it as an alternative

Related

Watching live TV from your pc at home! (?)

I almost completed my post...and then i pressed my backspace key...so i can start over again
Hello,
I was wondering if there are people who are interested in watching live tv on there windows mobile phone from your pc at home...(?)
Last week i was searching for tools/progs like snapstream(stream live tv/record/schedule etc...) but it wasn't working good enough for me...
I just wanted a simple program to scan for tv channels...name them...and watch them on my kaiser...
So after a few hours programming... it worked
A moment ago i was driving my car and watching tv(350kb(its)s) on my kaiser over hsdpa / umts using my tv card in my pc at home...
The only thing i need to do is make a simple GUI that you can access on your kaiser using pocket ie/opera etc... In this webpage there will be very big buttons (for ex. CNN) so when you press this verry big button (you can't miss ) it will start CNN in TCMPM or windows media player...
(These buttons will be created dynamicly using a xml with your tv channels/freq/descriptions) so you can customize it or auto scan for channels...
Also you will be able to customize output quality...
Are there people who are interested in this? If so i'll will post some beta versions here
Let me know!
God bless!
Her are some screenshots...
You can already do this with Orb and a TV tuner on your PC:
http://www.orb.com/
Possibly an interesting free replacement for Sling Box.
Orb (already mentioned) is very good, and my personal favorite for watching TV is WebGuide http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/
Does this only support curtain tv-tuner cards? I would really love an app that works with dvb-s cards. Satillite on my phone would be 2 sweet Orb is good too but no dvb-s support
Microsoft has a free software called Windows Media Encoder that will allow you take in video streams from any source and output as a video stream or record it. It is actually very good. It does not have features to change channels though.

[FIXED] Streaming iPod encoded .mp4 over network

I've got an annoying problem that I don't know how to fix.
I have a script that uses handbrake to encode videos for me and spits them out as a .mp4 file. I used to view these from a local open web directory so I could stream them while I was in the bath or in the kitchen or having a dump or whenever I wasn't in front of my TV.
They work on my iPhone, iPod touch and on the various Android things I put on my HD2. How can it work on a flashed WinMo phone and not on a proper Android device?
What's frustrating is that they work when I transfer them over using Astro or downloading them in the browser. I assume it would work if I put them on a memory stick but all of these solutions take more time.
I was thinking I should root the Tab and put a custom Android on it, but is there anything else I can do without re-encoding a bunch of files?
What exactly is the problem? How are you trying to stream them?
I have an open web directory which is basically just a list of .mp4 files. I open the browser and point it to my site, 192.168.1.3/movies, and then click on whatever I want to watch.
Then usually it gives me an option of what app I want to play it in and I usually just pick the default video player.
This doesn't work on the Tab where it does on my other devices (Android and iOS).
So the problem is that its not giving you an option to pick which app to open the .mp4 with?
Maybe you dont have any other apps that can play the file?-
It does give me an option, it just refuses to play saying that the type is not supported. I've tried the built in video player, rockplayer, meridian. I've also tried it on a file manager like Astro.
The files just refuses to play like they do on my hacked HD2 and iPhone.
Are you trying to emulate this like the AllShare program? Cant seem to get this to work too on the network media
I don't know what AllShare is unfortunately. Did it work on a previous device?
Allshare is sammys DLNA client. Its pretty good for small folders on a LAN server. But it doesn't understand headers very well. Search is your friend.
Someone pointed me in the right direction on another board.
Another Forum said:
OK, figured it out. The problem is that most MPEG4/QuickTime muxers append a critical piece of metadata to the end of the file and it needs to be moved to the beginning to allow streaming/progressive downloading in the Android media player (it's not a Samsung-specific problem).
If you already have a bunch of non-streaming-compatible MP4 files, there's a tool that comes with ffmpeg called qt-faststart that rewrites them (without reencoding) in a compatible fashion.
Also, it looks like Handbrake 0.9.2 and up have an option for producing "Web optimized" MPEG-4 files, which if you enable should fix future videos.
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[Q] Media Streaming

Hi All,
I'm wondering if anyone has had any success streaming media to their A7. I currently have a NAS drive on my network and stream media to all my other devices (Archos 70, Archos 5 Android, EVO, etc.) but for some reason I cannot get the A7 to actually play anything from this network location.
I have been able to navigate to the files themselves, but playing them has not worked out so well. I've tried a variety of Apps and different file formats, but none seem to work. I can attempt to open files, and even get prompted to use various Apps, but nothing seems to work after that, it just fails. Anyone have any ideas or success with this effort please let me know as this is a biggie for me.
Sorry if this is a dup question, as I could not find anything about this for this device in particular.
And many thanks to Dexter, you've made this device surpass it's otherwise limited capabilities. Seems silly such a quality product is being left behind by the Stream, but this seems to be the model of all tablet makers these days. Pump them out as fast as possible regardless of full functionality and forget about them a month later!
The only way I've gotten streaming to work is by using PlayOn.
hi I can access all my movies on my hard drives and play on my a7 this way
download TVersity media server from tveristy.com. I just use the free version. It will change your home page when you install it so you will need to change it back. Install that on your pc and then add your movie files to the library.
On your a7 download a app called skifta from the market and install that. when you run this choose a media source choose TVeristy media server. Under player choose your a7.
then choose browse and play media you will see your library files you added in tversity and some other stuff. You will need a video player installed on your a7. I have act 1 video player and also rockplayer. It will let you choose which to use when you select movie.
select one and your movie should start. Your movies have to be in a compatable format.
it also will let you play music and view photos
I also have a wd live movie box on my tv. With this same setup I can redirect the movie to wdlive box by choosing it as player and the it will playback the movie on my tv.
Thanks for the advice (both of you). I was really hoping for a more direct approach though. I've used apps like Orb that require you to run a host computer, and my NAS drive (Buffalo Linkstation) has a web app built in, but both these methods have proven very slow and often frustrating when trying to access via mobile networks. It just seems odd to me that the A7 doesn't do this while most other Android hardware does. Granted I'm more familiar with Archos products and they specialize in media players. Will keep trying though, Thanks!
DANOinSD said:
Granted I'm more familiar with Archos products and they specialize in media players. Will keep trying though, Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the platform you refer to is different from Tegra2/Nvidia, and you can blame Nvidia for the stock codecs they support.. they partly added mkv's now in latest update.. but 1080p mkv's still stutter on a7 and other tegra2 devices..
LG with their Optimus 2X added their own custom player, and since its incorporated into the framework, its hard to make it run on other devices for now.. but nvidia is primary source for what we can use it for now..
archos is a different story and they havent got what tegra2 can offer for the future, so it might play alot of media's but not perfect for android at all.
Thanks for the info Dex!
Think I'm gonna get a XOOM (been drooling over some honey), then I can officially make my A7 a tinker toy!
by the way, the new 1.41 rom kicks ass, the motoblur keyboard is soo much better!

Some tips, apps and suggestions.

Most of you will already know most of this, but I thought I would post a collection of things I have tried and have found useful on my Transformer, hopefully you will see something you haven't tried or though of.
I will add more as I think of them or find new solutions to problems.
1. Try MultiPicture if you are having problems getting Wallpapers to work on the tablet, it scales the image to fit the screen, so you won’t get your image cropped or distorted. Use a 1280x800, 72dpi image for perfect results. In MultiPicture settings, you can disable the homescreen scrolling so that the image stays still when you flip through your homescreens. You can also use different pictures on each homescreen if you like.
2. Use a static picture as wallpaper, live wallpapers are fun but seem to slow down the home screen transitions slightly in Honeycomb still.
3. Rockplayer, Vplayer and Moboplayer are all great apps that support almost every movie format and codec out there, they allow you to play movie files on the tablet that aren’t supported out of the box. You may have to select the Software decoding option in Rockplayer to get some formats working.
4. If you don’t already have it, install Windows Media Player 11 or higher on your PC and add any folders that you would like to be able to access from the Transformer to the library in WMP. (don’t forget to share them in windows as well by right clicking them and going to the sharing option etc.)
5. Install the app UPnPlay, it will make viewing your shared media much easier. It also allows you to choose the app you want to view media with, so you can choose Rockplayer or Vplayer etc to stream your movies.
6. Plex is another good app for accessing shared media, you have to install a server application on your PC and add any folders you want to be shared to the server application, then run the tablet app. It’s very simple and it adds cover art etc to your movies by searching the files meta data.
7. Install File Manager HD, it’s a great tablet optimised file manager and it can see your network shared files once you add a new W-lan connection. Use 192.168.0.2 (or your PC’s IP address), your Windows log on name and your Windows password.
8. If you are looking for a good news reader for your tablet, try News 360, it has a great interface and works really well. It has the option to show local news as well as national/international.
9. A great Magazine app recently released for Honeycomb is Zinio, try the version from the market, its slightly different to the one on the transformer, I prefer the UI. Zinio has a large and growing selection of magazines, its interface is great and the magazines look amazing on the transformers screen.
10. ACV is a brilliant comic viewer that reads most comic formats, it works well on the tablet.
11. Extended Controls is a brilliant app/widget that lets you add controls for virtually every setting on your tablet to your homescreen, for example WiFi or Bluetooth and even a toggle to force a media scan (useful if you have just transferred files to your tablet and they aren’t showing in the gallery etc.)
12. Plume is the Twitter app I am using, it has a great tablet optimised interface and a brilliant widget.
13. It’s still a bit choppy and laggy sometimes, but try out the website www.m.tvcatchup.com for free to air UK television channels, a huge selection of free channels that play about 5 seconds behind live TV. Wifi recommended but I have had it working on 3G. Some channels work better than others. Try changing your browser agent from android to desktop or even iPhone to get a better result.
14. TV Guide UK is just that, a great TV guide for your tablet, it’s not Honeycomb optimised and runs in portrait mode, but it works well and has a great interface. You can filter the channels in the settings to just show the channels you have or want to see.
CarsnGadgets said:
7. Install File Manager HD, it’s a great tablet optimised file manager and it can see your network shared files once you add a new W-lan connection. Use 192.168.0.2 (or your PC’s IP address), your Windows log on name and your Windows password.
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Click to collapse
Thanks so much for this lol. i never knew that function existed and i've been using it from day one.
EXCELLENT post, thank you! On the News360, I LOVE it, but it doesn't show my local newspapers (Mendocino County in Northwestern California), the nearest it shows are in the San Francisco Bay Area, over 100 miles south of me, maybe I need to shoot off an email to them.
your welcome
Always interested to read TF users tips and some very useful ones here, many thanks
Thanks for this! as a newbie, I needed this

[Q] PC Remote Play ?

I was wondering is there any aplication/concept for aplication that makes PC work as a "cloud" or stream video feed to my mobile phone via WLAN ?
I googled and did quick forun search and could only find aplications that allow you to control your PC, not see video feed.
This could be realy cool App, especialy since Onlive doesnt support some of the older (and free) games and isnt even available in every country.
CrazyRemote is able to control the PC at a very high framerate, which allows watching videos and even playing games remotely. If that's not what you're looking for, look for an app to stream from VLC
jacklebott said:
CrazyRemote is able to control the PC at a very high framerate, which allows watching videos and even playing games remotely. If that's not what you're looking for, look for an app to stream from VLC
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Click to collapse
Wow, thats what i was looking for
Now i need to figure out is there a way to use Xplay controls (touch pads too)
If not, well thats too bad then.
Not exactly sure what you're trying to do but apart from the aforementioned crazyremote, check out teamviewer and vlc direct. maybe what you're looking for.
OnLive basically can do the functionality if you just want to play games. There is also an upcoming service from them called OnLive Desktop which is a whole Windows 7 desktop environment which allows for high framerate video streaming, flash, browsing, actual MS Office document edition in MS Office, etc.
Also, Nvidia was touting a new tech that would work with Tegra3 devices (not ours, I know, but on topic none-the-less) that would use the GPU to compress and decompress the input and audio/video stream to and from the computer to allow remote game playing or any other function.
Beyond that, framerates and others would depend on the technology, overhead, and speed of connection. You could use RDP (SplashViewer, etc) or whatnot. Most of this is not fully feasible for twitch games or suchnot, but okay for turn-based or some RPGs or whatever.
If all you want is just Video (like you have tons of .MPG, .MP4, etc) and audio streaming over the air (I assume by WLAN you mean cellular data and not WiFi) from your machine, you can try ORB. It takes a little setting up on the server end, but works nicely. There are a dozen little services that can be set up on your computer (especially if it is Linux). You just need to open that particular machine and the app's port to the DMZ (or internet directly) and then use a local app or your browser on your phone/tablet to reach it and view your stuff. If I remember correctly, ORB can even auto-downsize videos on the fly to match closer to your phone's viewing specs, and/or bandwidth.
If you mean WiFi, any DLNA source can work. You can even make your computer a DLNA source if you have Windows Media Center or one of a dozen other apps that can do it. Then you just have to get an app that can pull DLNA sources (I think Mobo can, as well as a number of others). Certain routers can also have a USB stick or USB hard drive plugged into them and use that as storage to present across the network as a DLNA source.

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