Boxee Remote Beta for Palm Pre

[Jibe]

I just released a beta version of a boxee remote application for the palm pre at http://slansky.net/boxee

Anyone care to try out?

[flavarite]

I've downloaded your beta app. for the palm pre but can't seem to connect to boxee on my PC. I'm running WebOS 1.4 and the latest version of Boxee on my Windows 7 (x64) home PC. I entered the host name and port that's listed in the Boxee network > server setup. I don't have a password enabled at the moment.

Note - I have the boxee remote app on my Apple iPod and it works fine. It actually automaticall finds the PC running boxee and did not require me to manually enter the settings. It seems to work ok but I'm unable to get the Pre to connect.

I like the idea and would love to help test it.

Bill

[Jibe]

I've downloaded your beta app. for the palm pre but can't seem to connect to boxee on my PC. I'm running WebOS 1.4 and the latest version of Boxee on my Windows 7 (x64) home PC. I entered the host name and port that's listed in the Boxee network > server setup. I don't have a password enabled at the moment.

Note - I have the boxee remote app on my Apple iPod and it works fine. It actually automaticall finds the PC running boxee and did not require me to manually enter the settings. It seems to work ok but I'm unable to get the Pre to connect.

I like the idea and would love to help test it.

Bill

Hi Bill,

check if a firewall on your system is blocking request on the port your boxee is listening (by default port 8800). Maybe thats the problem.

About the iPod/iPhone App: Although I don't exactly know, I think this app uses the broadcast api of boxee. I couldn't use this because at the moment the pre has some technical limitations.

[flavarite]

Thanks. I tried shutting down Norton 2010 and reconnecting the PRE to BOXEE but no luck. I'll try some more this week and see I can figure it out. What Port are you using? Do you think leaving the password blank is causing it?

Also - what should the host name be? Is it just my computer name? That's what it is on the iPod.

[Jibe]

Use the ip address of your pc and by default port 8800. If you haven't changed any settings in boxee, the password can be left empty. And look at the settings in boxee (Settings / Network/ Servers), the "Enable webserver" checkbox has to checked.

[flavarite]

Ok...I got it to connect and was able to control Boxee on my PC from the Pre. Playing around with it a little here's what I found:


Remote - Worked perfectly as expected.
Now Playing

Screenshot of what's playing works fine. I tried movies through Netflix, Justin.tv and Funny or Die.
Reverse / Foward Button - Did not work on any movie / video I played from above sources. Message from Boxee on PC - "Player action is currently not supported". Only place where I'd expect this to work is on Netflix movie since there are options for track foward / reverse and rewind and fast foward. In the others...Boxee does not have the option to do any of these through the app on the PC.
Pause Button - Worked on Netflix but the others did not have this option on PC app so I'd assume it wouldn't work through your app.
Stop Button - Worked as expected.
Volume Slider - Worked fine in Netflix. Other video sources above did not allow changing volume or muting.
Mute Button - Worked find in Netflix. Other's didn't allow it.
Cover Art - Single tapping the cover art displayed the movie title, director, genre and duration. Option to close worked fine. Only tried this with a netflix movie of Donnie Brasco. Image quality came through great.
Yellow Progress Bar - Appeared to be consistent with the yellow progress bar on the PC Boxee app.
Other - If I changed what was playing on Boxee on the PC and still had the "now playing" screen up, after a short period of time the screen on my Pre refreshed with the new video playing. Worked as expected.

My Media Button

Clicking Through Music > Local Music > Gives Error "Ups, the location you tapped on is not available." Click OK.
Clicking Through Videos > Local Videos > Gives Same Error as Above
Clicking Through > Videos > Itunes Movies > [Movie Directory] > {movie_name.m4v} > Starts the movie in Boxee
Clicking Through Pictures > Local Pictures > Gives Same Error as Above



Some suggestions:

Preferences - Would be nice to use the computer name instead of the IP address. My IP addresses changes periodically as do most. Would also be nice to have the Pre automatically find the computer running Boxee like iPod (you addressed this in earlier post but wanted to mention it here).
About > Help Topics > Clicking on this button doesn't do anything currently. Perhaps due to still in beta. Other buttons here work as described on the page.
Gesture Based Options - Just an FYI - Available iPhone app gives option to use gestures to move around on the boxee app from the phone. Makes for nice feature so you don't have to look at the screen on the iPhone make decissions on Boxee.
Local Files - Couldn't get this to work as mentioned above. Hope to see how this works...I'm on Windows 7 Home so I'm not sure if this is a permissions issue for the files or directories.


All in all...very exciting stuff. Let me know if I can help in any other way. I enjoy testing this type of stuff.

Thanks.

[Jibe]

Hi flavarite,

nice that you got this working and thanks for the great feedback.

The issues with the "Now Playing"-Screen are kind of a boxee problem. I think there is no way to check if a functionality is available or not, but I could be wrong, maybe somebody knows more about this. The lag in the change of the information on screen is also a problem with the before mentioned broadcasting api, hopefully I find a way to make this better.

The my media section is kind of, mh, lets say experimental :), on my boxee the Local ... directories are also not working, seems to me like a boxee issue. I'll try to get some more information about this.

For your suggestions:

1. Yes I know, this is the most common issue people have at the moment. To solve this, I could use the so called PDK for Webos. This is the new c-API for Webos and at the moment not usable on normal devices. But that feature will come :)
2. This is clearly a bug
3. I'm a bit undecided on this feature. But let's see how many people also want it.
4. Yeah, needs more testing :)

Again, thanks for the feedback,
Alexander

[loki131]

Hi Jibe,

Not sure if you’re still monitoring this thread but I downloaded your app last week and it’s fantastic! It took me a little time to get it working (haven’t opened a port in win7 before) but once it was up and working I absolutely love it!

I have been playing around with the My Media section and was getting the same error as flavarite but it has a simple fix! The issue is with the “Local” folders which are set up a bit differently in Boxee (I think it’s linked to the Libraries in win7). My movies worked but my music didn’t so I just went into Boxee and pointed it directly to my music folder on my hard drive and now I can browse my entire music collection from my phone! The same will work for movies and pictures.

I do have a couple of suggestions, not many though it’s close to perfect!


I agree with flavarite about the computer name thing but I would add profiles so you can switch between multiple Boxee instillations :).
It would be awesome if under the My Media section you could access the My Shows section, not just local content.
I’m not sure if this one is totally necessary… but adding buttons to directly access Home, Movies, Music, etc. (if you do want to go this way I can create the graphics for you to save some time :))


All in all great program and if you need testing or graphics work done I would be happy to help!

[Jibe]

Hi Jibe,

Not sure if you’re still monitoring this thread but I downloaded your app last week and it’s fantastic! It took me a little time to get it working (haven’t opened a port in win7 before) but once it was up and working I absolutely love it!

I have been playing around with the My Media section and was getting the same error as flavarite but it has a simple fix! The issue is with the “Local” folders which are set up a bit differently in Boxee (I think it’s linked to the Libraries in win7). My movies worked but my music didn’t so I just went into Boxee and pointed it directly to my music folder on my hard drive and now I can browse my entire music collection from my phone! The same will work for movies and pictures.

I do have a couple of suggestions, not many though it’s close to perfect!


I agree with flavarite about the computer name thing but I would add profiles so you can switch between multiple Boxee instillations :).
It would be awesome if under the My Media section you could access the My Shows section, not just local content.
I’m not sure if this one is totally necessary… but adding buttons to directly access Home, Movies, Music, etc. (if you do want to go this way I can create the graphics for you to save some time :))


All in all great program and if you need testing or graphics work done I would be happy to help!

Sorry for the late answer, last week was very busy. Thanks for your thoughts.

Support for multiple boxee installations is planned, but right now I can't say when it's ready, my plan is to implement this together with the auto discovery feature
Yes, this would be nice, but currently not supported by the boxee api, for all I know
Mh, maybe, I'm not sure about this, lets see if my friend (who made the design of the app) finds a place for the buttons :)

[Tiako]

I can't even download the beta. When I tell it to send me the sms it just never does.

[Jibe]

I can't even download the beta. When I tell it to send me the sms it just never does.

Try to download the app directly from http://slansky.net/boxee. Go to the page with your pre's browser and tap on the install button at the bottom of the page.