PleXBMC client for XBMC

[erlis]

One last thing is a future feature request. I like that you are able to add a Plex server by IP address and not just Bonjour announcements since I now have 4 Plex servers in the house, each serving up a different type of content (One for kids, one for me, etc, since there are no profiles yet in Plex). My request would be to allow me to add additional 'static' plex servers to the list since I don't want to use bonjour announcements.

That "feature" is already there, just turn off "**Use bonjour local discovery**" and add your preferred servers under **server list**, how ever it seems like if you need authentication you must use the same username/password for all of your Plex Media Servers.

[jtjacka]

Just tried this on my test Windows PMS server, with a local XBMC install (a nightly from April). I can detect local windows files and playback no problem.

From the Windows server can you definitely access that file on the I: Drive?
Also, could you try connecting to http://localhost:32400/library/parts/3616/file.mkv from a local web browser. Should prompt you to save or open file..

Failing that, I'm just testing a new version of the plugin for release sometime tonight (hopefully), so maybe that will help get things going...

new update fixed everything.. thanks a lot!

now to getting XBMC to be more like PLEX.
Does anyone know how to make it so that when you press escape while watching a movie it will stop the movie instead of just putting it in the background.
Also does anyone know how to make it so if you hit escape it while in menu it will take you back one level?

[darmeus]

I've also upped some new/updated skins:
[list]
[*] Aeon Nox version for PleXBMC
[/list]

The skins are in the repo, but I will create some zip files for stand alone installs. Just need to free up some disk space for them.

I can't seem to find Aeon Nox in the repo?

[hippojay]

I am still having 2 issues:

1.) The audio output is analogue from the computer to the TV and the should volume on the TV is very low. When I play the same file directly in Media Player or VLC the sound is normal volume. From my research it seems like other players amplify the volume automatically. Is there such an option or work-a-round for XBMC to work?

Yes, there is an amplification setting in XBMC somewhere. It's either in the setting menu, or the video OSD setting. For the latter, when playing a movie, bring up the menu (key 'c') and then go to the audio menu. You can adjust the amp there and save it as a default for all movies..

2.) Since I have most of the plug-ins running from the mac mini now they mostly all seem to be working for me (yippe, thanks!). The only issue I am having (which I don't have on the apple TV2) is that some of the plugins, namely hulu, seem to want to cache the whole show before playing it, so it can take 30 minutes or more before the video actually starts (but it does start and play eventually). Is there a solution to this as well?I really know nothing about the XBMC client.

Hmm, I've seen it take a while to start a stream a few times - but not 30 mins!! I always put it down to have to the speed to retrieve the video from the webs site. I wasn't able to reliably reproduce it.

I see there are options for trans-coding in the settings menu, but I have no idea what they are for. Are they to allow another client to connect to the XBMC box and stream from XBMC to another client, or should I be setting that up for the mac mini so it will stream to XBMC?

The transcoding settings are how some videos are streamed from Plex to XBMC. Movies and Tv shows will be sent as is (not converstion) but some of the plugins require that the video is converted into a format that can be played - this is what transcoding does. The quality level determines how good this looks, but bigger numbers require more network traffic and possibly a faster CPU in the server. I tend to find 1.5Mbps acceptable for a laptop window, but you need at least 2-3mbps for a TV screen.

Does anyone know how to make it so that when you press escape while watching a movie it will stop the movie instead of just putting it in the background.Also does anyone know how to make it so if you hit escape it while in menu it will take you back one level?

You probably need to alter the keymap.xml file in the XBMC userdata area (have a look on forum.xbmc.org or wiki.xbmc.org). Not 100% sure what needs changing, but i'll have a poke about. It can be done, as this is how my remote control is set to move back windows rather than go directly to the main menu..

I can't seem to find Aeon Nox in the repo?

Hopefully Erlis will be along to fix my attempt at adding it to the repo! It will be available soon!

[hippojay]

All -



Just uploaded a new screencast (on first post and below) showing the Quartz, Aeon-nox and CirrusEx skins - plus some of the functionality of 1.9.6



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2G2p5C_vbQ



I’m looking to make this (with the exception of bug fixes) the last version for XBMC 10.1 (Dharma) - I’m going to branch and start an XBMC 11.00 version to get it ready for Eden. Eden has a number of extra functions plus an upgraded python instances - so should make for a better and quicker experience (well, hopefully).

[jjense01]

Also does anyone know how to make it so if you hit escape it while in menu it will take you back one level?

In my brief experience with XBMC it seems that 'Backspace' will move back one level/menu and 'Escape' will move all the way back to the parent menu.

Like Hippojay, my remote is capable of stopping the current video and moving back one menu level with the press of a button. Remote Buddy labels that command as "Navigation: Previous Menu" in case that info is useful when you try to configure the xml.

[hippojay]

I think you need to put something like this into keymaps.XML under keyboard

<br />
<escape>PreviousMenu</escape><br />

This is a good place to start:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Default_Controls

[jtjacka]

I think you need to put something like this into keymaps.XML under keyboard

<br />
<escape>PreviousMenu</escape><br />

This is a good place to start:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Default_Controls

thanks for the help! I will work on that later today.

I just got HD audio (DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) working with a build of XBMC that includes the new AudioEngine. I believe that makes this the first Plex client that has potential support for Lossless audio which is extremely exciting for me at least.

Thanks for all your hard work hippojay and harley!

[erlis]

I can't seem to find Aeon Nox in the repo?

Now the repo is up again (thunder shock the configuration of my router) and Aeon Nox is available!

[nrgaway]

Now the repo is up again (thunder shock the configuration of my router) and Aeon Nox is available!

I get an error saying the page is not found when trying to download the latest (0.3 https://github.com/downloads/hippojay/skin.quartz.plexbmc/skin.quartz.plexbmc-0.3.zip) plugin.

[nrgaway]

That "feature" is already there, just turn off "**Use bonjour local discovery**" and add your preferred servers under **server list**, how ever it seems like if you need authentication you must use the same username/password for all of your Plex Media Servers.

Awesome; works great, thanks for the info!

[nrgaway]

Yes, there is an amplification setting in XBMC somewhere. It's either in the setting menu, or the video OSD setting. For the latter, when playing a movie, bring up the menu (key 'c') and then go to the audio menu. You can adjust the amp there and save it as a default for all movies..



Hmm, I've seen it take a while to start a stream a few times - but not 30 mins!! I always put it down to have to the speed to retrieve the video from the webs site. I wasn't able to reliably reproduce it.



The transcoding settings are how some videos are streamed from Plex to XBMC. Movies and Tv shows will be sent as is (not converstion) but some of the plugins require that the video is converted into a format that can be played - this is what transcoding does. The quality level determines how good this looks, but bigger numbers require more network traffic and possibly a faster CPU in the server. I tend to find 1.5Mbps acceptable for a laptop window, but you need at least 2-3mbps for a TV screen.




You probably need to alter the keymap.xml file in the XBMC userdata area (have a look on forum.xbmc.org or wiki.xbmc.org). Not 100% sure what needs changing, but i'll have a poke about. It can be done, as this is how my remote control is set to move back windows rather than go directly to the main menu..


Hopefully Erlis will be along to fix my attempt at adding it to the repo! It will be available soon!

The low volume was corrected using the OSD method you described.

Also, the plugins are now working without having to wait 30 minutes by enabling the trans-coding options.

Thanks for the 411!

PS I think a figured out multi-quote for future replies :)

[erlis]

I get an error saying the page is not found when trying to download the latest (0.3 https://github.com/downloads/hippojay/skin.quartz.plexbmc/skin.quartz.plexbmc-0.3.zip) plugin.

Try this link instead: http://erlandssson.nu/repository.plexbmc.addons/skin.quartz.plexbmc/skin.quartz.plexbmc-0.3-1.0.3.zip

[The-Priest]

Hi,

1. Know error with local windows media - it's fixed in upcoming version.
2. Not sure, but will check it out later.

Hi Again,

The new version fixes problem 2 (Photos)

But i'm still having issues with number 1 (Music)

Been playing arround with it and found that:

On the PMS Server + XBMC + PleXBMC on the same machine gets me:

Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to Auto. Is no music
Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to smb. Is no music
Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to http. Now i do have music.

Other Media center XBMC + PleXBMC gets me:

Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to Auto. I have music.
Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to smb. Is no music.
Set PleXBMC to Stream from PMS to http. I have music.

The error in the XBMC log looks like this:

NOTICE: ===== PLEXBMC STOP =====<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647584768   ERROR: Couldn't connect to \\192.168.1.54\Music, access denied<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647584768   ERROR: Couldn't connect to \\192.168.1.54\Music, error code 86<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647588864   ERROR: CWINFileSMB: Unable to open file '\' Error '1326<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647588864   ERROR: XFILE::CFileCache::Open - failed to open source <smb://192.168.1.54/Music/maroon 5 - songs about jane/01_maroon5_-_harder_to_breathe-tn.mp3><br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647588864   ERROR: MP3Codec: Unable to open file smb://192.168.1.54/Music/maroon 5 - songs about jane/01_maroon5_-_harder_to_breathe-tn.mp3<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647564288   ERROR: CAudioDecoder: Unable to Init Codec while loading file smb://192.168.1.54/Music/maroon 5 - songs about jane/01_maroon5_-_harder_to_breathe-tn.mp3<br />
08:11:36 T:2096 M:2647568384   ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [plugin://plugin.video.plexbmc/?url=smb://192.168.1.54/Music\maroon 5 - songs about jane\01_maroon5_-_harder_to_breathe-tn.mp3&mode=12&resume=0&id=406&duration=173]<br />

So it looks like i have a sharing problem if i try to connect from a remote machine on the same lan, but could this also be a problem if i try to play the file on the same machine? since it should be a local file then, should it not?

gonna try to fix the smb sharing and see what happens then :)

[hippojay]

But i'm still having issues with number 1 (Music)

D'oh - it's now fixed in 1.9.6.1.

https://github.com/downloads/hippojay/plugin.video.plexbmc/plugin.video.plexbmc-1.9.6.1.zip

I'd fixed it for shows and movies, and thought that fix cascaded down to music too - but it didn't!!

[hippojay]

All,



For those looking to use XBMC EDEN - here is a first version of the plugin that is focused specifically on XBMC 11. Don’t try and run this on XBMC 10.1 DHARMA as it won’t load (stick to 1.9.6.1):



https://github.com/downloads/hippojay/plugin.video.plexbmc/plugin.video.plexbmc-EDEN.zip



Changes:

[list]

[] EDEN has transcoder playback abilities built in already - if anyone relies on stable transcoding, I would move to a nightly now.

[] Transcoding now supports seeking and resuming.

[] Transcoding also supports PMS updates for resume and watched.

[] Removed unneeded code and code workarounds for old python version (yay \o/ no transcoding proxy any more)

[/list]



This has been tested on a Windows XBMC built from 10th August - remember that these builds are still in development so YMMV

[classicspam]

So the cspiff hls changes have been merged into trunk? Also in testing pre-eden versions are you getting thumb images when transcoding is used…if so which skins are working?

[hippojay]

No, looks like the HLS changes haven’t been applied, but the ffmpeg version detects the stream type and plays it as normal - only found out by accident when I left transcoding turned on. So you don’t actually need to apply those changes (although I guess we may do in the future to do rate-adaptive) - it really made my day



I do still use the plugin to pull out the bandwidth specific m3u8 from the general playlist, otherwise I can’t get the session ID to stop the session. But this is the only m3u8 manipulation I do, the rest is all built-in.



Currently I’m using Quartz - but this was an upgrade install not clean, so whilst I see thumbs, it might be that they were already present. I’ll do some more testing.

[_tWiSt]

I’ve installed PleXBMC 1.9.6.1, I can connect to my PMS but thumbs and fanarts don’t appers.



My PMS is on a QNAP.



What can I do?

[classicspam]

No, looks like the HLS changes haven't been applied, but the ffmpeg version detects the stream type and plays it as normal - only found out by accident when I left transcoding turned on. So you don't actually need to apply those changes (although I guess we may do in the future to do rate-adaptive) - it *really* made my day :D

I do still use the plugin to pull out the bandwidth specific m3u8 from the general playlist, otherwise I can't get the session ID to stop the session. But this is the only m3u8 manipulation I do, the rest is all built-in.

Currently I'm using Quartz - but this was an upgrade install not clean, so whilst I see thumbs, it might be that they were already present. I'll do some more testing.

Actually you can set the session id for plex to use by sending "&session=" in the string where you set the quality/ect. Basically you could create a global variable for the session id and set it by getting a GUID (requires import of uuid library) right before you build the transcoding string. Then when you send the stop command use the global session id and set it back to an empty string (so you can if test to see if you need to send the stop command). I can send you a hacked version of the script to show you what I am referring to...just let me know where you want me to send it or if you want me to post it here. Also just be aware that you have to define "global " in any local methods that get or set the global variable. Other then that it defiantly was a happy accident about the ffmpeg thing...no more 2 hour build times :)