Then, I'm tricking it into thinking m3u8s are audio files by changing the extension to .ogg. The transcoder/backend doesn't give a crap, it apparently ignores file extensions.
If you play the resulting file in the Plex web client, it almost always works (having some issues with mms urls, rtmp seems ok, but neither of these are standard... 98% are hls/http).
It will not play on the iOS client. And looking at the logs, it looks as if it never bothers to transcode. I've been looking at the dlna profiles, but I'm not sure what I could change to force it to transcode these for iOS (or if that would mean forcing all audio to transcode or not).
Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I'm looking at both Web.xml and iOS-iPhone-4,1.xml and I do not see anything different regarding audio that might cause it to play on one but not the other. PHT is even weirder in that about one third will play, but the other two thirds will not... and again, the profile isn't shedding any light.
I'd like to get audio streams working, we might even make a big library of m3u8 files for people to download.
It will not play on the iOS client. And looking at the logs, it looks as if it never bothers to transcode. I've been looking at the dlna profiles, but I'm not sure what I could change to force it to transcode these for iOS (or if that would mean forcing all audio to transcode or not).
I think the Plex client uses a different protocol, so the DLNA profile may not affect it, but in any case:
"it is a known fact that Plex Media Server does not transcode live streams"
However, the stream example you provide here is encoded in MPEG AAC (mp4a), and iOS natively supports this codec. The iOS Plex client should not require transcoding for this stream if it can play mp4 audio files stored on the Plex server, so this seems to be a bug. You might want to try an mp4a extension (or something else instead of ogg).
I have found many cases where various media files will only play in 1 of the 3 clients (Plex, web, or DLNA) because Plex Media Server sometimes incorrectly decides the stream should be transcoded when the client does not require it. You might try enabling the DLNA server in PMS and then play the stream through the VLC DLNA client, since VLC supports all popular media types even if the OS lacks the proper codec.
Plex is currently in the beta phase and still very buggy; the .ogg method which you describe here does not even work for me in the web client (with PMS running on the ARM platform). And then when I deleted the .ogg file, the file still appears in Plex as [unknown artist] and I cannot remove it by refreshing the library database.
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There is another method which may be worth some experimentation:
Install the 'IPTV' plug-in and edit the the playlist.m3u file (found in '.../Plug-ins/IPTV.bundle/Contents/Resources/')
It should be OK if the stream is audio only.
Important notes:
1. If you install the IPTV plug-in through the Unsupported App Store channel, the plug-in will auto-update
2. The default playlist included with the IPTV plugin is much too large and will probably crash your server or client. You need to edit the playlist file to make it short (and keep a backup copy).
3. The M3U format goes like this (for example):
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1 group-title="CHANNEL GROUP NAME",Channel Name
http://2583.live.streamtheworld.com/KFMXFMAAC
- Replace the channel/group names with anything you want
- The '-1' indicates a perpetual stream (instead of a fixed-length file)
- You probably dont need the #EXT-X commands
Unofficially, UTF-8-BOM or UTF-8-NOBOM are sometimes used to refer to text files which contain or lack a byte order mark (BOM). In Japan especially, UTF-8 encoding without BOM is sometimes called "UTF-8N".
Another streaming proxy server which uses the M3U format: http://xupnpd.org
Its very frustrating that Plex has no official support for live streams; they cannot expect it to become very popular given the extremely limited content choices. Is the level of public interest in streaming technology not obvious? :wacko:
If I change the file extension to m4a, it still recognizes it. It's playable in the web client. But iOS still chokes.
It's not so much the format (you're right, the iPhone should have no trouble with that container/codec), but that PMS is just shoveling the m3u file at it. And I don't think it can read an m3u file... the reason PMS can do that is because ffmpeg itself has support for it built in.
I have seen a lot of inconsistent behavior with Plex... for example, I have found live streams that will play in Chrome but will not play on the DLNA TV, or Internet Explorer, or the Plex client. And the Plex server on different platforms does not necessarily behave the same way with the same clients. I can not get your stream to play on a web client. Plex is still very much a beta product; the stream and client compatibility is unpredictable. Many things which play directly in VLC do not play in any of the Plex clients. What browser did you get your stream to work in, and what platform is your server running on?
Any word on this? I am trying to implement the same thing and cannot get any stream to play on any Plex client.
I have tested my stream URL in VLC and confirmed it works fine. http://65.19.131.139/wgnam-wgnamaac-ibc2
Getting this to work would be huge for me. Thanks.
