Hi,
I saw ServerWMC was recently updated and added an HTTP service. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what does this do?
It enables swmc to send all the data to the client using a http urls rather than relying on network shares, this was required to support plex clients. I also experimented using this mode with kodi, and it works, but streams are not seek-able currently and FF and RW don't work, but I think we can address this in a later version. Although net shares work fine, so I am not sure what the point is other than it's interesting.
Also it obviously enables swmc to serve web pages, so I made a first cut at having it serve a simple status page for swmc (similar to the status tab in the app). This enables remote machines to check the state of swmc without having to login to the server machine. If there are other web page ideas people would like to see, let me know. Like timers, recordings, or a way to schedule recordings, etc.
Lastly it enables players like vlc (actually maybe only vlc, since that's all I tried) to remotely watch recorded tv and live tv using urls. I don't know whether this is useful either, but its cool that it works.
I suppose I could just try it, but would it speed up channel changes? I'm using dlna and it works great, but it'd be nice to be able to pause, etc live tv again.
But I would love to be able to access/edit recordings and do general maintenance from another machine. (I'm running this headless and remote in via Chrome's remote desktop.) On the recording side, I only import a day's worth of EPG at a time since the guide is otherwise too slow. If I could see the full WMC EPG and set recordings there, that'd be awesome.
(2015-03-17, 03:41)krustyreturns Wrote: [ -> ]It enables swmc to send all the data to the client using a http urls rather than relying on network shares, this was required to support plex clients. I also experimented using this mode with kodi, and it works, but streams are not seek-able currently and FF and RW don't work, but I think we can address this in a later version. Although net shares work fine, so I am not sure what the point is other than it's interesting.
Also it obviously enables swmc to serve web pages, so I made a first cut at having it serve a simple status page for swmc (similar to the status tab in the app). This enables remote machines to check the state of swmc without having to login to the server machine. If there are other web page ideas people would like to see, let me know. Like timers, recordings, or a way to schedule recordings, etc.
Lastly it enables players like vlc (actually maybe only vlc, since that's all I tried) to remotely watch recorded tv and live tv using urls. I don't know whether this is useful either, but its cool that it works.
Hi Krusty. Let me say a new forum member, thank you and I love ServerWMC. Awesome job.
Is there a way we could configure a DNS name in the HTTP Service URL instead of the local subnet IP address from MAC binding? I'd like to access this 9180 port through a port forward and NAT firewall using same DNS name depending if I'm coming from the Internet WAN or my local LAN subnet.
Rignt now, swmc just uses the ip in the addresses it sends to clients (I guess you know that already), but that would be simple to change - I think. What are you using the http service for?
(2015-06-27, 00:29)krustyreturns Wrote: [ -> ]Rignt now, swmc just uses the ip in the addresses it sends to clients (I guess you know that already), but that would be simple to change - I think. What are you using the http service for?
For streaming video to my mobile device from outside the home (and inside the home). If I could configure a DNS address instead an ip, then I could resolve that either public (Internet) or local IP address (LAN) addresses depending on which DNS server I get from my mobile DHCP.
we actually implemented the lient side (eg Kodi addon) foundation for this sort of thing previously, so we might be able to finish the job now. I made it so that when pvr.wmc clients connect to serverWMC they send through the host/IP that they are using to get there. The theory is that we can then use that in ServerWMC to format up the paths we send to clients to include the route/host/IP/port that individual client was using to get to ServerWMC.
In this way it would be possible to have some clients connecting through forwarding VIP/NAT type setups and other clients connecting directly, some on hostnames some on IP addresses etc, even using different ports (assuming HTTP is being used, obviously different ports wont work for SMB file shares), and in all cases ServerWMC would just replace it's local IP/name with whatever that client uses to connect.
We have a pretty central place where we "format the path for the client" so it should be a fairly straight forward change to make and since i made the pvr.wmc change a fair while ago, all of our supported clients should hopefully be providing the required information now. It would be optional of course, so existing setups wouldnt be impacted
Does this sound like it would suit your needs?
But is their bandwidth to make this work for for external connections without transcoding?
Also, are you using http to stream to Kodi for the LAN already? If so, how is that working for you? The way swmc is now it either streams to ALL clients use the http service or not depending on config. It seems to me that, for what you want, the http service should be used on a per-client basis - maybe a new feature?
Yes, in my case from my office (where I want to stream live tv from swmc), there's bandwidth over the Internet and Wi-Fi.
Have you been using http for streaming with kodi on the lan?
Krusty, how do I set this up on the receiving end.
The way I used to setup sharing channels across the lan no longer works with this newer version
Hi hoops,
there is nothing to change as far as using http on the receiving end. With the http service enabled swmc serves up a very crude status web page. you can also use it to stream livetv and rec tv by using http rather then network shares, but its not recommended as ff and rw don't work for kodi in this mode
If you are having trouble sharing channels it must be due to something else. Provide more detail about the problem and include the swmc log. maybe in a separate thread since it shouldn't have anything to do with http.
Krusty,
I have been using swmc on a desktop PC running Windows 7 and a SDHomerun Prime to provide live tv to a Pi 2 and a FireTV stick, each running Kodi Helix 14.2. I was having stuttering problems with some 720p .mkv files and with live tv on the FireTV stick, so I thought I'd try to use MXPlayer as an external player for Kodi. Apparently MXPlayer can handle http: pathnames but not the smb: pathnames, so I decided to try the http service in swmc. I have enabled the service and told swmc to use it for Kodi, but when I try to launch a channel in Kodi on the FireTV stick, MXPlayer doesn't play the video stream. I looked in the Kodi log and an error is reported with MXPlayer because the filenames that I see being sent from swmc have the form pvr: rather than http:. Are there any other settings that I need to change in swmc to get the http: service working? I was using the dlna features for Kodi, but I've tried both "true" and "false" for those along with enabling the http: service without success.
As a side note, I am also running the Emby for Kodi addon, which has a setting to play using http. When I enable that setting, my local files are played correctly with MXPlayer on that FireTV stick, so I know I have the external player set up correctly in Kodi.
Any ideas? Thanks.
Please post the serverwmc log when you tried the above, put it on pastebin.com and post a link to it here.