"Boxee Media Companion" - a Tag Editor and Media Server as a separate software app

[Gamester17]

Please bare with me and read through this concept, as I would like to float this great idea I have of Team-Boxee making its own stand-alone "Boxee Media Companion" software application which would act both as a 'Tag Editor' and 'Media Server' multimedia collection management application that end-users could install and run separately on their Linux/Mac/Windows desktop computers.

Kind of like the popular XBMC Media Companion (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=33961) and Movie Info Plus (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=47071) however for all digital video/music/picture files, and also the ability to write and edit the metadata tags/atoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata) inside the media files (like the ID3 tag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3) in an MP3 file, ATOM in an MP4 file, and EXIF in an JPEG file), as well as more importantly a built-in DLNA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLNA) compliant UPnP AV MediaServer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers).

The point of adding the UPnP AV MediaServer part is that it would serve as a very easy way for average users to share multimedia content to Boxee on their network, this UPnP AV MediaServer part would then always run in the background as a small agent serving the media files even when the "Boxee Media Companion" GUI is not running.

This "Boxee Media Manager" software be made up of cross-platform compatible code and programmed in C++ programming language, (with maybe Python and RSS as add-on plugins), same as the Boxee software is.


"Boxee Media Companion" a stand-alone multimedia collection management application:
This is maybe off-topic but; would Team Boxee could do later is to also add extra features to the above mentioned idea of a "Boxee Media Server" (UPnP MediaServer) software application, features that have nothing directly to do with sharing but instead really to do with managing your collection of video/music/picture files, (which indirectly benefit the whole Boxee 'experience').

I am suggesting that this "Boxee Media Companion" should have features that will not be added to the Boxee Media Center software itself (which is again normally only installed in a set-top-box style setup with no locally stored video/music/picture files), but instead I am suggesting a stand-alone software application meant to be installed on the end-users home desktop computer and used to manage and edit meta data tags, referring to the home desktop computer where you store your media on, (so kind of like similar to iTunes but without the playback functions).

It would features such as music and video file TAG editing, customize their thumbnails, EDL (Edit Decision List) (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21890) modifying, attaching subtitles, and more of such related features that one does to manage your collection of video/music/picture files. Small and useful, but powerful features that make it simpler for a user to manage their large collections of media content.

More features could be include in this desktop computer application like ripping Audio-CD:s (since Boxee set-top-box might not originally have a built-in CD/DVD-ROM drive), media format/codec conversion tool, ...and who knows, in the future it could maybe even be made to rip DVD-Video:s and Blu-ray discs as well, (though that might require a third-party plugin like Slysoft's AnyDVD to keep it legal from Boxee's point of view), or perhaps also transcode unsupported and DRM protected files on-the-fly while streaming over the network by using other third-party plugins.


"Boxee Media Server" a stand-alone UPnP Server application:
One of the most common 'hurdles' and usually the first 'learning curve' issue that XBMC (and thus also Boxee) newbie end-users bumps into with XBMC is setting up a share(s) for their multimedia files on their desktop computer and then access/connecting to those shares from their dedicated XBMC machine (which is usually installed in a set-top-box style setup with no locally stored video/music/picture files).

This issue would easily be solved if Team Boxee produced its own simple-to-use UPnP MediaServer as a stand-alone software application (for the common desktop operating-system, meaning Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X, and GNOME/KDE on Linux), as then it would make it so much simpler for first time users and beginners to get up-and-running with setting up a share (or several shares) on their home desktop computer.

Then in Boxee you can have a big button under "Add Source" in where it says "Add connection to Boxee Media Server" or something similar which when selected automatically detects and adds that source to your video share if you are in the video section, or music if you are in the music section, etc.. Usually you would want to setup three shares on your computer, one for audio/music, one for video/movies, and one for images/pictures, and have those three separated already in the UPnP MediaServer application graphical interface. Nice with installing an server application on your computer is that this software will of course also configure the (windows software) firewall settings for the end-user already during installation of the application.

Another nice thing for end-users about a having a UPnP server as a media sharing server is that the can re-sort the files and folder 'virtually' in the application interface without moving the actual files, it will be very easy for them to setup muli-path shares where they have their all their picture folder from different local harddrive look like it in the same folder, etc. (yes I know you can already do multi-path inside XBMC but I think that it would be so much simpler for most users to manage and edit their files (and file shares) on a desktop computer with keyboard and mouse in a drag-and-drop interface, which this stand-alone software application would provide.

The GUI for this UPnP AV MediaServer part should of course also offer the ability to change access permissions based both on the user and on what player is connected.

Boxee developers would probably want look at FUPPES (https://sourceforge.net/projects/fuppes), or MediaTomb (http://mediatomb.cc), as I think one of those would probably make a good framework for you to work form as the code base, (similar to how Boxee use XBMC as the framework for the Boxee Media Center code base), or otherwise start by looking into libupnp (http://sourceforge.net/projects/upnp) (plus LibUPnP++ Framework (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libupnpcpp/)) and uShare (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ushare/) to use its source code base to build upon, (or just use Platinum UPnP Framework (http://sourceforge.net/projects/platinum/) that XBMC uses. Alternative do a search for UPnP on SourceForge.net (http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=upnp), in any it would be preferable if you choose one that only uses C++ programming-language so that Team-XBMC could assist if needed.


Boxee specific functions:
You could also add an an option to backup or edit your Boxee account information from this application (export and import function), make it easier to add custom RSS feeds, be of assistance to plugin developers, easy access to boxee.tv (http://www.boxee.tv) wiki section for online help and such. Maybe even access advanced configuration not available in the normal Boxee GUI like edit keymapping and the advancedsettings.xml file. Perhaps a support chat room, and other Boxee community chat rooms.


Why not integrate this into Boxee's existing media center GUI?:
So why do I think that this "Boxee Media Companion" should be a a separate software application from Boxee's Media Center software; well I personally do not think it is not the job of a media center softwar to write metadata to media files, in I am in fact of the opinion that a media center software should not touch any of the files or folder structure, editing the tags of media files is the job of a separate desktop software application that is not a media center. Boxee media center software should only write to its SQL databases and at most be able to export those SQL databases into XML formatted NFO files like XBMC can, see:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Import_-_Export_Library


How this could still possibly be integrated into Boxee's existing media center GUI?:
I have not tested My Movies 2 (http://www.mymovies.name) myself (yet) but it sounds like a cool application because it seem to feature something they call "My Movies WebService" which if I understand it correnctly from the description would be a superb solution for the "Boxee Media Companion" concept, as then the idea would be changed so that instead of making "Boxee Media Companion" a stand-alone desktop software you would make it as an PHP, AJAX, and/or JavaScript website and have that ship with Boxee's built-in WebServer. That way there would be no need install any separate software for the "Boxee Media Companion" as it would just be a web service that comes with Boxee, which also makes it platform-independent without modification. There is actually a basic open source web tool on SourceForge available for XBMC that does something similar (but is not quite yet so developed), it is called "Music Browser" and can be used to access XBMC SQL databases for controlling the XBMC Music Library. Checkout: https://sourceforge.net/projects/musicbrowser/

What do you think of this idea? :cool:

PS! Boxee's 'advanced/expert' end-users will of course still have the option to use SMB/Samba network shares without installing this "Boxee Media Companion" software.

[Gamester17]

This "Boxee Media Companion" could re-use the scraper code from Boxee/XBMC Media Center and use the same process chain and RegEx scrapers to do the initial collection of the meta data information. Developers who are interested in that could read more about that here => http://www.meedios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2238

;)

[iBog]

I see the Boxee software as a media player and media manager. Boxee is used for playing and organizing videos, music and photos.

In my opinion, data about media should be stored with the media as metadata. Sure, Boxee will always maintain it's own database of media so it can perform searches and display to users. I just like the idea of a complete solution that allows the writing of tags back to the media if I take the effort to use Boxee to identify media or find missing metadata.

Not that iTunes is a shining example, however, if I take the effort to modify metadata it will write updates back to the media.

A compromise solution could be a preference option that disables writes. Considering SMB shares is likely where most people will keep their media, Boxee may not even have permission to write them (I typically keep my shares read only to protect my media). I don't even think UPnP will have the ability to write to the file either.

RE: UPnP server

I have been unable to get Boxee to recognize my Mediatomb UPnP server. Since I've been unable to use a UPnP server I don't understad what the advantages or disadvantages may be. Could you explain what some advantages and disadvantages are of UPnP vs SMB?

If a new user wants to share media from their PC, it may make more sense for a companion application to assist the user in creating SMB network shares rather then installing an entirely new service.

[Gamester17]

Could you explain what some advantages and disadvantages are of UPnP vs SMB?To not go into too much details; UPnP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play) is faster more efficient network protocol for audio/video streaming, and with it the software can be made more user-friendly than SMB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block), but SMB is more flexible for general raw data sharing as it leaves everything up. However, Boxee could choose to use the UPnP network protocol for streaming as it is more efficient but still share all the files over it just as if they where only raw data files as let Boxee Media Center do the reading of the tags, instead of letting the it as a UPnP AV MediaServer collect and serve meta data, and then it would be just as flexible as SMB, (that is kind of what XBMC's own XBMS Protocol (http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMSP) does, it is a faster and more efficient network protocol but it only serves raw file data so it is as flexible as SMB, plus just like UPnP is it routable so it possible to stream it over the internet, something that SMB is not designed to be able to do).


If a new user wants to share media from their PC, it may make more sense for a companion application to assist the user in creating SMB network shares rather then installing an entirely new service.Sure that is another alternative, but that would make the AV Media Server part of this "Boxee Media Companion" dependent on the under-lying operating-system instead of being platform-independent. Also remember that SMB is not a network protocol that is designed to stream audio and video, whether UPnP where created from the very beginning for that specific purpose.


I see the Boxee software as a media player and media manager.As a project manager of XBMC I have to say that disagree with that vision, at least from XBMC's point of view. Simply put; XBMC Media Center (which Boxee is based upon) is a media player that is on purposely designed as with a 10-foot user interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface) to be used in the living-room couch/sofa with a remote control, running on a dedicated set-top-box type computer connected to your large-screen TV. XBMC Media Center is not designed to be a desktop media management application, so not an application that is controller via keyboard and mouse, (a.k.a. a 2-foot interface).

I highly recommend you read Team-XBMC's 'manifesto' that is available here => http://xbmc.org/about/vision/

I think a good comparison to explain this is iTunes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes) verses Front Row (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Row_(software)); Apple have with those purposely separated the desktop media management function that iTunes takes care of, from the living-room media center GUI part that Front Row is designed for. Microsoft does the same with Windows Media Player (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Player) verses Windows Media Center (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Center), (Windows Media Player serves a a media management application, and Windows Media Center serves as a dedicated living-room media center GUI). Yes it is true that both iTunes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes) Windows Media Player (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Player) have both audio and video playback capabilities, but their interface is purposely design for desktop computers, and not as a 10-feet GUI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface) for you living-room TV. The idea behind this is that you would not want to sit in your living-room couch/sofa editing and sorting metadata tags and your file-structure hierarchy with a remote control 10-feet (approximately 3-metres) from the display. So IMHO for all such media management that you want instead to sit at a proper desk with a desktop application running on a computer.

Again, a smart compromise would be to make Boxee's Web-Interface be the media management part of this "Boxee Media Companion", only have the GUI for it as a PHP/AJAX/JavaScript based application that is always accessed via a web browser running on any computer. This would be an easy way to make the media management part platform-independent, and accessible not only on the local network but also via the internet if boxee's website offered a DynDNS type service, and perhaps also make the Web GUI scale to the web brower on portable devices such as the iPhone.

:rolleyes:

[DGMurdockIII]

this migh be ok but i would like it built in to boxee

[jdarnold]

Why would Boxee want to have a standalone media server, when XBMC already has one built into it?

iBog - the biggest consumer for a UPnP media server is the Playstation 3. I've run Mediatomb on my opensuse box to serve up music for my PS3. One of my main interests in Boxee (and XBMC) is to see if there was some way to easily serve up video.

[xain09]

I've been thinking about this too.

Boxee itself should never be aloud to trash or edit files. Too dangerous when the kids and wife are playing around with it. A separate TAG Editor for all music and movies would be very handy to keep my collection clean and up-to-date. A nice UPnP server would be more than welcome so I can browse my collection on my Xbox 360 or even PS3. Personally I would just prefer iTunes to be my tag-editor but for Movies iTunes is a nightmare. So yeah why not put it all in one little easy to use little app? I wouldn't mind ;)

[iBog]

xain: I have since considered this much more and I agree that it makes more sense not to include the ability to modify files.

I still see Boxee as a client for media playback and not as a server to share media with other media players. I'm pretty strong about this one because I don't think most media players even need a hard drive.

Even in the case of Apple TV, you can have a 40 GB or 160 GB internal drive. When you're dealing with videos that space fills up so quickly and it's hardly a reliable place to store the media (i.e. no redundancy if the drive fails).

I understand UPnP AV may be a preferred protocol because it could offer more interoperability with other AV gear. It is designed for the specific purpose of sharing media on the LAN. I also see the number of support requests from users trying to create a network share on their Windows or Mac OS X system.

UPnP in a companion desktop tool would be useful. Here, we could use the same indexing functions to update metadata tags.

My NAS happens to have a built-in UPnP server.

[PHermas]

+1 think it's a great idea

[joincamp]

I would love to get involved if you are talking about actually coding something. I was planning on doing something like this on my own anyway, but your ideas match mine almost exactly and would like this to be a team project if possible.

[Gamester17]

Like I try to explain to everyone in this thread, my thinking is that a 'Media Manager' software like this should be cross-platform, and design for usage on desktop computers with keyboard and mouse, preferably the application interface should be similar to iTunes with the ability to edit and write tags to each file, but it should also have a built-in media server that can share all those files and the meta data collected to Boxee over a network, (as well as sharing to XBMC Media Center and other player software/devices).

I think best would probably be if the user-interface was web-based so that it can also be accessed remotely, and make it easy to embed this application into storage headless units such as NAS (Networked Attached Storage) devices and stand-alone media-players, with the interface accessible over the network/internet from any web-browser, from anywhere in the world.

Using this 'Media Manager' software on a desktop computer it would be easy to organize and sort all your local audio/video/picture files, mass tag and rename them, then share to Boxee (or XBMC Media Center) over a network, also make it easy to manage online audio/video/picture services and sources via this 'Media Manager' software, like for example subscribe to podcasts, RSS feeds, and TV shows via BitTorrent, etc.

By the way, I am not a programmer myself, but I do think that as such 'Media Manager' software (with a built-in UPnP MediaServer) could be made into a great community open source project if it is developed in a program-language that both Team-Boxee and Team-XBMC developers can code in as well to assist, like C++ or C, and a web design language like AJAX, PHP, or JavaScript for the GUI interface. So which program-language(s) or web-coding are you skilled at? Smartest is also not to try to reinvent the wheel, but instead borrow/copy code from several other active open source projects to build something new that is based on their existing source code.

PS! Looks like the guys at Plex also liked this idea as they started something similar, see:
http://elan.plexapp.com/2008/11/15/plexseven-introducing-the-all-new-plex-media-server/

:cool:

[Kayla Gellerman]

Boxee is amazing. Thanks.

I'd like to be able to do other things while I'm watching. Perhaps it could be a windowed application, so the program doesn't have to be closed before opening another application.

[ruckerz]

I would love to be involved in this project. Personally I like python with frontends for different platforms (see the source code for http://www.getmiro.com/ . It's soo easy to get around). They have different views for cocoa (osx), x11-gtk (linux/X11), and xul (windows) that work off the same controllers/models. Wonderful OOP at work here. Python is super easy to learn and not as lowlevel as C or C++ (which is ok, since all we're doing is manipulating databases and not drawing graphics or what not).

I like the idea of using a UPNP server and having boxee automagically add it as a source. However, without support from the boxee development team (i.e. implementing a uPNP client in boxee), it's difficult to implement.

[richbutler1]

+1 on a UPnP media server to sling my media to an Xbox360, other PC's, over the net...


Like I try to explain to everyone in this thread, my thinking is that a 'Media Manager' software like this should be cross-platform and design for usage on desktop computers, preferably it should be kind of like iTunes but with the ability to edit and write tags to each file but also have a built-in media server that can share all those files and the meta data collected to Boxee (and XBMC) over a network. I think best would probably be if the interface was web based so that it can be accessed remotely and easy to embed into storage units such as NAS devices and stand alone media players, with the interfaced accessed over the network from any web browser.

Using this 'Media Manager' software on a desktop computer it would be easy to organize your local audio/video/picture files, mass tag and rename them, then share to Boxee (and XBMC) over a network, also make it easy to manage online audio/video/picture services via this 'Media Manager' software, like for example subscribe to podcasts, TV shows, etc.

By the way, I am not a programmer myself, but I do think that it could be made into a great community open source project if it is developed in a program language that both Team Boxee and Team XBMC developers can code in as well to assist, like C++ or C, and a web design language like AJAX, PHP, or JavaScript for the GUI interface. Which program language(s) or web coding are you skilled at? Smartest is also not to try to reinvent the wheel, but instead borrow/copy code from several other active open source projects to build something new that is based on their existing source code.

PS! Looks like the guys at Plex also liked this idea as they started something similar, see:
http://elan.plexapp.com/2008/11/15/plexseven-introducing-the-all-new-plex-media-server/

:cool:

[ruckerz]

So the uPNP server is a great idea, but it's much longer off than simply having a nice interface to edit your current DB. Something very simple, such as an iTunes like interface that lists the three types of media: pictures, audio and video. Allow the user to edit each piece of media and save it to the db.

[blastactionhero]

such kind iof software would be awesome, to clean the Library inside of Boxee. I spend a long time with xbmc companion to clean every movie, look for the perfekt Poster and even write own stuff for movies that are not existing at imdb.. now i have all those shiny .nfo files but boxee is ignoring them. yeha...

at least it was not all for nothing, beuase the xbmc on my xbox recognizes all the movies now..

or is there any way, to get boxee using the infos and folder.jpg s as movie posters?

[Gamester17]

There is a few folks that make some of the current desktop media management software tools for XBMC Media Center (http://xbmc.org) that have expressed an interest in doing a unified media manager tool for desktop use that would be available as a new larger open source project with many contributing developers attached to it, coded in .NET framework using Mono (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)) to be cross-platform so that it can be used on Mac, Linux, and Windows, (to compete with commercial offerings like My Movies 2 (http://www.mymovies.dk) and DVD Profiler (http://www.invelos.com)). This "Unified Media Manager" would be compatible with not only XBMC but Boxee and Plex as well, and possible also MediaPortal and MeediOS if any coders join who use those join this project.


Overview of what I think would be good requirements:
Visual Studio (.NET 2.0) and MonoDevelop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)) (GTK# has also been mentioned)
Mono compatible for cross-platform
Modular code/library design
Separating the 'core' from the interface(s) with a well documented API so that also others can write third-party interfaces for the 'core'
Multiple Interfaces Views available from the main GUI (Basic, Advanced, Everything)
Re-using XBMC scraper code and RegEx/XML scraper files 'as is' by default (http://www.meedios.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2238)
Coded from scratch (although a lot of functions can be re-written based off current apps)
Direct tie in to XBMC's SQLite database
Dynamic media reading (once a path is entered the app takes care of the rest, without or with minimal user intervention to add/update/remove/change any parts)

Media Types:
Movies
TV Shows
Home Videos
Music Videos
Music
Games
Emulators (Arcade ROMS)

Cool Ideas:
ASP.NET would be awesome for a WebGUI that is cross-platform

List of developers who volunteered to possibly help out with for this project so far:
fekker (original developer of Media Info Plus media manager)
mafis90 (original developer of iMedia media manager)
Nicezia (XML scraper framework and API)
Montellese
redtapemedia (graphics, photoshop, logos, GUI mockups, etc. non-programmer)If you are a .NET developer that might be interested in contributing to this joint venture then checkout:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=50388

"Unified Media Manager" - one media manager to rule them all :)

[DuraCELL]

I love the idear - i have actually been toying with the idear of starting a thread like this one for a while but as i have been buissy at work i have totally put it out of my head.
And im kinda glad i did, cause your thread is so much more thought threw then what i would have been able to pull out of my hat (to many white rabbits)...

Anyway i indorse this idear 100%...

I personally had a vision of a TIVO feature in the Central Media Server as that would eliminate the last of my home DVD, VHD, HDD Recorder boxes...

But in short i think its a excelent idear and a very good write up...

Regarding the actual programming project, im kinda rusty on my programming as i have only done a few actual programming this past years but im willing to help out with the project if i can be of assistance.

[mimesis]

Actually I think the smarter idea would be to make it webbased as far as the how the client (ps3/xbox/NAS/etc.) goes. This way they could try to keep the nice UI of boxee involved and not have to use the standard look of the 360/ps3 when they access a UPnP server because honestly it's not very nice looking at all. If they could make it webbased then you could just go to the web browser type in something like the following

http://theserversip:boxeeportnumber and you're in to the media server and then it throws the UI to your console's browser and keeps all the functionality just converts it all to html. Atleast if i was a coder that is how i would go about doing it if i were thinking about making this project.

Hopefully someone runs with this idea and builds something like this. If so I would gladly be asking to participate in alpha testing *hint hint* ;)

[fuji0050]

In my opinion, abstracts about media should be stored with the media as metadata. Sure, Boxee will consistently advance it's own database of media so it can accomplish searches and affectation to users. I just like the abstraction of a complete band-aid that allows the autograph of tags aback to the media if I yield the accomplishment to use Boxee to analyze media or acquisition missing metadata.

Not that iTunes is a animated example, however, if I yield the accomplishment to adapt metadata it will address updates aback to the media.

A accommodation band-aid could be a alternative advantage that disables writes. Considering SMB shares is acceptable area a lot of humans will accumulate their media, Boxee may not even accept permission to address them (I about accumulate my shares apprehend alone to assure my media). I don't even anticipate UPnP will accept the adeptness to address to the book either.

________________
IP PBX (http://www.inin.com/ProductSolutions/Pages/Enterprise-Interaction-Center.aspx)

[BuckoA51]

Ah I knew if I searched around someone would have had this idea. Being able to easily manually edit Boxees database across the network to quickly correct incorrectly identified media files would be a superb feature in my opinion.

[octodub]

Love it, would like to get involved too

[Zvonimir]

Did this ever gain any momentum? I think it is a great idea.

[rockatuie]

I use this and out of my 210 movies boxee picked up 207 not too bad... requires some file editing but its the best solution i've seen so far.

http://code.google.com/p/mediarenamer/

[borf]

useful for me info thanks

[logon68]

I've been thinking about this too.