Http streaming and the Azbox

[brentb636]

I'm not getting any content on those channels, either, but my UDP streaming to the AZbox still works just fine.

 

[Covack]

brent
are You streaming your own content,say a video
or maybe shoutcast tv, using vlc to the azbox
just curious

 

[brentb636]

I've just been sending movies to the AZbox , to see if it worked. Anything I can get with VLC streams fine.

 

[B.J.]

...

I assume you were using a later firmware that also had the above parameter options too? I tried doing UDP several weeks ago, and had no luck, but I had no way of selecting UDP on the Azbox.

Anyway, I'm going to first do what I can to make a backup of all my sats/transponders/channels, etc, then I'm off to the new firmware. Funny, I've been waiting for one of the new firmware versions to list this as one of the improvements, but I never saw it mentioned. Perhaps some version came out that did this, and we never got the improvement list.

BJ ,
My only experience with streaming is the latest firmware, 9.3877 . Haven't tried it much before today.

Well, after getting back up after upgrading from 2371 to 3877, I finally tried playing with the UDP streaming.
Seems to work very well on SD content, both 4.2.0 and 4.2.2 and MPEG2 and MPEG4.
I was also able to stream ATSC OTA HD, HD from NASA-TV, and medium bitrate MPEG4 HD from DN sats. However as expected, I wasn't able to stream high bitrate network HD, although it came closer to working than I've ever got before. IT even popped up video from the ABC HD NET test card, but it was skipping badly. But it worked better than last time I tried playing from computer.

I'm now wanting to figure out how to do HTTP streaming. I tried to set up a channel in much the same way as the UDP was done, but I couldn't even get it to show up in the channel list. I may try altering the one that came as default.

Anyway, neat. I've been waiting for a way to stream to this thing, and it's getting closer.

 

[Babadem]

Well, after getting back up after upgrading from 2371 to 3877, I finally tried playing with the UDP streaming.
Seems to work very well on SD content, both 4.2.0 and 4.2.2 and MPEG2 and MPEG4.
I was also able to stream ATSC OTA HD, HD from NASA-TV, and medium bitrate MPEG4 HD from DN sats. However as expected, I wasn't able to stream high bitrate network HD, although it came closer to working than I've ever got before. IT even popped up video from the ABC HD NET test card, but it was skipping badly. But it worked better than last time I tried playing from computer.

I'm now wanting to figure out how to do HTTP streaming. I tried to set up a channel in much the same way as the UDP was done, but I couldn't even get it to show up in the channel list. I may try altering the one that came as default.

Anyway, neat. I've been waiting for a way to stream to this thing, and it's getting closer.

For HTTP streaming take a look at this and see if it answers your question.

Would you mind detaling the steps you took to get the UDP streaming. I'm a little bit confused as how to set that up.

 

[B.J.]

For HTTP streaming take a look at this and see if it answers your question.

Would you mind detaling the steps you took to get the UDP streaming. I'm a little bit confused as how to set that up.

Thanks.
Re the link above (earlier in this thread), yeah, I was trying to modify that technique with no luck.
What I'm trying to do is to initiate streaming on one of my own computers, and then use the IP function on the Azbox to play the stream. When I set up the IP thing to the IP#ort that I have streaming on, the Azbox sets up a "USER Channel", however it doesn't play. Although, despite having played those Russian channels before, I'm now getting blank screens on all 4 of those too, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I'll keep plugging at it though.

Re the UDP streaming, it was similar. I set up a UDP channel by going into the IP function, selected UDP, and gave the IP# and port number of one of my computers. I used the 256KB buffer size. It set up a UDP1 channel in my channel list, which I played. Then on my computer, I ran VLC, and told it to stream a file to the IP# of the Azbox via UDP. When tuned to the UDP channel on the Azbox, I could select and play different video files with VLC. Worked fine, except for higher speed HD.

Again, the reason I'm trying to stream is that from what I've seen with other boxes, streaming is faster than playing a file from a SMB type share. I'd really like to figure out the HTTP streaming, because that is what TSREADER does, so I'd be able to stream live sat channels that way. I know that my computer is streaming, because I can view the video with other players. I just can't get the Azbox to display it.

 

[Babadem]

Thanks.
Re the link above (earlier in this thread), yeah, I was trying to modify that technique with no luck.
What I'm trying to do is to initiate streaming on one of my own computers, and then use the IP function on the Azbox to play the stream. When I set up the IP thing to the IP#ort that I have streaming on, the Azbox sets up a "USER Channel", however it doesn't play. Although, despite having played those Russian channels before, I'm now getting blank screens on all 4 of those too, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I'll keep plugging at it though.

Re the UDP streaming, it was similar. I set up a UDP channel by going into the IP function, selected UDP, and gave the IP# and port number of one of my computers. I used the 256KB buffer size. It set up a UDP1 channel in my channel list, which I played. Then on my computer, I ran VLC, and told it to stream a file to the IP# of the Azbox via UDP. When tuned to the UDP channel on the Azbox, I could select and play different video files with VLC. Worked fine, except for higher speed HD.

Again, the reason I'm trying to stream is that from what I've seen with other boxes, streaming is faster than playing a file from a SMB type share. I'd really like to figure out the HTTP streaming, because that is what TSREADER does, so I'd be able to stream live sat channels that way. I know that my computer is streaming, because I can view the video with other players. I just can't get the Azbox to display it.

My work around for those Russian IPTV channels to display is this. I choose the channel, and then reboot AZBox by pressing and holding down the power button on the remote. On booting up, I go back and select the IPTV channel(s) and they display video as I choose each channel. Even though, I don't speak or understand a word in Russian, I hope they fix that in the future.
On UDP, what is VLC?

 

[Lak7]

My work around for those Russian IPTV channels to display is this. I choose the channel, and then reboot AZBox ......the future.

I setup the Russian Channels, I did not have to reboot to see video. Sometimes it tokk 10 seconds for it to pop in, but I'm sure my slow internet had something to do with that.

.....what is VLC?

VLC is a free program that play and stream video in many different formats.

 

[B.J.]

Quote:
My work around for those Russian IPTV channels to display is this. I choose the channel, and then reboot AZBox ......the future.

I setup the Russian Channels, I did not have to reboot to see video. Sometimes it tokk 10 seconds for it to pop in, but I'm sure my slow internet had something to do with that.
.....

With the old firmware, when I created the Russian channels, it popped into my channel list without rebooting. With this new firmware, they don't even appear in the channel list until I reboot. The UDP channel pops right in without rebooting. Similarly, I tried editing the streaming text file on my computer and FTP'ing it back, but the changes didn't appear until I rebooted (although I kind of messed it up, and had to delete the results).

When I setup that Russian site yesterday, the Azbox connected, and said that it found 4 streams. After I rebooted to get the 4 channels in the list, I tried to play, and it seemed to be trying to play them, but I ended up with a dark screen on each. The 256K buffer I used shouldn't delay things too long... I think I waited a couple minutes, but maybe transmission speeds to Europe take longer. Maybe I should try a smaller buffer size.
Same thing when I tried to play stuff off my local computer though, and buffer size wouldn't be an issue there. I've read posts saying that the Russian channels aren't always on the air, so maybe they were down, or maybe there is something going on with my network preventing things from working. Anyway, until I get the Russian things working again, I won't be sure what to copy when trying to set up my local network stuff.
I have the feeling that the Azbox expects some kind of a server on the remote computer, rather than just having video streaming there. I have a web server set up on my computer, and also have a UPNP music server, but I don't have a video server, although my PopCornHour will grab video from an HTML file directing it to video on demand format which allows it to view the streaming video. I tried aiming the Azbox at this web file, however, and it didn't work.
Anyway, I'm still trying. I really think that HTTP streaming will be nice capability once we figure out how to do it. I'm going to look for a video server, to see if that helps. I have a Nero package that might include a video server... not sure.

 

[Lak7]

I had an issue after loading the Russian Channels.
If the AZBox was not connected to the Internet. it would lock-up when trying to setup a new TP.
I have yet to test after removing them.

If someone who already has the Russian IP channels loaded could try:
Remove network cable
Reboot
Try to enter a new Sat TP

 

[Babadem]

Thanks LAK7 and B.J. for all the information. I'm kind of new at using Linux system. I'm used to the PC format. I will try testing the UDP feature sometime to see how far, I can get with it.

 

[B.J.]

Thanks LAK7 and B.J. for all the information. I'm kind of new at using Linux system. I'm used to the PC format. I will try testing the UDP feature sometime to see how far, I can get with it.

There's really no Linux involved with what I've been doing for UDP streaming. If you have some .mpg files you want to stream, I'd recommend getting a copy of VLC at VideoLAN, Free streaming and multimedia solutions for all OS! , and play around with playing the files on the computer. THen, after you get familiar with it, there is a little check box to "STREAM", when you load a file, depending upon which version you have, there will be either a check box to stream with a setup button next to it, or a drop down menu to stream , and in the setup stream, you set it for UDP, and give it the address of your Azbox. I use an older version of VLC. The newer versions don't seem to want you to use UDP, but you can over-ride their advise.

Anyway, VLC is a nice program, and it's free. It can do a lot of things that I don't understand, but yet it's simple enough as to be fairly user friendly for people like me who aren't that familiar with video formats.

VLC has some other related program that functions more as a video server, but I think it is only available for Linux. I do have a linux based file server on my LAN, but I'm not sure if the linux version on it is compatable with this VLC server. I have another computer with and older version of Red Hat on it, but it's currently turned off, and I haven't used it for a couple years. I should probably start that up again and modernize it.

 

[B.J.]

As a status reminder, I had created a couple UDP "channels" that worked, and tried to create an HTTP channel that didn't work.

It seemed strange to me that when you viewed the details of these "channels" in the channel list, that it didn't indicate ANY info about the IP# of the IP channel.

So I was curious whether the channel editors might give more info than that which appears on the TV screen. I first tried the MAZ22 editor. It gave nothing but gibberish, basically a 10 digit number for the "frequency", which I was unable to convert to an IP# via the usual methods. It DID, however give the port number for the UDP channel in one of the PID categories (I forget which). But no apparent way of viewing or editing any of the IP data that I could figure out.
When I tried the 2880 version of the Azbox editor, it initially gave the same 10 digit numbers, and showed the same other gibberish values in what it was interpreting as the video parameters for the "channel", however if I right clicked the channel and selected "edit", it popped up a window which had the IP channel data. For my UDP channel (for some reason it only had 1 listed, even though 2 appeared on the Azbox channel list), it gave the proper IP# and port number that I had set up. For my HTTP channel, however, it had the wrong IP#, and it had a blank port number. So it seems like either the HTTP channel didn't get set up properly in the Azbox, or perhaps the editor didn't understand the data it retrieved from the Azbox.
Anyway, no progress to report, but just wanted to comment on what the data displayed by the 2 channel editor programs.


EDIT: Another oddity, the MAZ22 program indicated that the IP channels were in Tuner B, while the display on the Azbox said they were in Tuner A. Not a big issue, since in actuality they weren't coming from EITHER tuner, but just another indication that MAZ22 didn't know how to interpret the data. The 2880 azbox editor didn't indicate which tuners anything was in.

 

[bassist]

Since I'm hoping that Santa brings me an Elite,

Have any of you guys tried streaming ESPN 360 or the on-line CNN???