HTTP Live on Boxee Box

[peachey777]

Hey guys, I'm working on my first app and I'm having trouble with the HTTP Live Support. The app I'm making gets .m3u8 streams from an RSS feed and plays them using the code I got from the wiki. It works just fine on the Windows version, but on the Boxee Box, it just has the loading cirle forever when you select a video. Am I missing something?

Thanks.

[bartsidee]

.m3u8 streaming has been worked no fro the latest boxee firmwares it can be that you see different results from a platform an boxee box version. To be honest I didn't found it very stable to use. If you can I would switch to another codec.

[peachey777]

I don't have control over the format of the media or the playlist. I read in another post that the files in the m3u8 playlist must have the full url path, is this true? I can't change that if it's true. Is it possible to create m3u8 playlists on the fly?

[tristandwane]

Hi,

I have had HLS running on a test Boxee App for some months now and it works quite well. I am generating my own HLS streams and .m3u8 files of RTP streams using VLC v1.2.

This is the code I have in main.xml

list = mc.GetActiveWindow().GetList(120)
item = list.GetItem(list.GetFocusedItem())
   
DVBstream = {'url': item.GetPath(), 'quality': 'A', 'title': item.GetLabel()}

params = { 'quality': DVBstream['quality'] }

playlist_url = "playlist://%s?%s" % (quote_plus(DVBstream['url']), urlencode(params))   
item = mc.ListItem(mc.ListItem.MEDIA_VIDEO_EPISODE)
item.SetPath(playlist_url)
item.SetLabel(DVBstream['title'])
item.SetContentType('application/vnd.apple.mpegurl')   
mc.GetPlayer().Play(item)

If you would like to see the format of the .m3u8 files, I can send it through to you later when I have access to my server.

[peachey777]

This issue is somewhat resolved. It had to do with spaces in the .m3u8 file. It still doesn't work on all the streams. I wouldn't mind taking a look at your .m3u8 file.

[tristandwane]

Hi,

Here is the contents of one of my .m3u8 files (it has been generated by VLC 1.2)

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:10
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:44234
#EXTINF:10,
http://192.168.1.220/hls/3e-00044234.ts
#EXTINF:10,
http://192.168.1.220/hls/3e-00044235.ts
#EXTINF:10,
http://192.168.1.220/hls/3e-00044236.ts
#EXTINF:10,
http://192.168.1.220/hls/3e-00044237.ts
#EXTINF:10,
http://192.168.1.220/hls/3e-00044238.ts

When running debug on the boxee to look at other external HLS streams I've noticed that the full address is not always there, it still works. I.e

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:10
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:44234
#EXTINF:10,
3e-00044234.ts
#EXTINF:10,
3e-00044235.ts
#EXTINF:10,
3e-00044236.ts
#EXTINF:10,
3e-00044237.ts
#EXTINF:10,
3e-00044238.ts

I use this method of creating HLS so I can play locally generated RTP streams using DVBlast from my DVB-T card on my Boxee.

It seems that Boxee does not support RTP stream playing, odd considering that implementing HLS support would be more complicated!

A note on HLS format: Is far as I know HLS Video and Audio must be encapsulated in a .ts container. Check if all your HLS streams are .ts, this may be the reason that some work and others don't. I didn't do any transcoding as the Boxee handles a lot of Video and Audio formats.

Stream Format-

V: AVC Main@L3.0 25fps
A: MP2 48Khz 192Kbps

Hope this is of some assistance.

[peachey777]

It's all fixed now. Turns out there was spaces in the playlist and Boxee Box doesn't like that.