[mrfatboy]

I just installed the 7-14-12 nightly of xbmc (windows 7 x64) in hopes of trying out the new audio airplay feature. I'm happy to report that the audio and picture viewer features work well. However, airplaying video from my iphone 4s with IOS 5.1.1 is buggy. I'm not sure if it's XBMC, IOS, or the interaction between the two is the problem. I would like to hear from people if they are getting the same problem when airplaying a video to XBMC. I'm testing a 5 second home video. Zeroconf and Airplay turned on in XBMC.

Here is the situation

1) Select a video to play on iphone
2) Select XBMC as the airplay destination
3) Play video
4) Video Plays and the goes back to XBMC home screen
a) iphone still has "AirPlay" logo on screen and says movie is still playing.
b) Tap iphone screen and the "video position" indicator at top of screen is at the end of the movie
c) "pause" icon is active in lower center of screen.


Now if you tap the "pause" icon it then switches to the "play" logo and the video on the iphone screen reverts to the first frame of the video BUT the position indicator of it is still at the end of the video. If you press play at this time there is no response from XBMC.

If you slide the position indicator to the start of the movie and press play there is also no response from XBMC.

However, if you slide the video position indicator to the beginning of the viideo AND also re-select the Airplay destination to XBMC (note: it was already selected) and press play the video now plays on XBMC via airplay correctly.

This is repeatable.

Obviously this is not desirable and would like to know if this is a bug or just behavior that we have to deal with. Everything else works very nicely with xbmc/airplay and would hope the video part would be just as nice.

I would be more than happy to work with the devs to debug this problem.

[Memphiz]

Works here - what kind of movie is this and which app are you using (i've exported a picture slideshow to mov on my mac and added this mov to my idevices and did the tests during implementation with that one).

[mrfatboy]

Works here - what kind of movie is this and which app are you using (i've exported a picture slideshow to mov on my mac and added this mov to my idevices and did the tests during implementation with that one).

I'm just using the standard photos app (to send via airplay) in ios. I used the built in camera app to record the movie.

I have tried using two different computers. Same result. Maybe a router issue? I'm using an Asus rt-n16 with dd wrt v19327 or something. The latest. I have tried messing with the "filter multicast" setting in ddwrt. No difference.

Suggestions on how to narrow down the problem?

[Memphiz]

You try to stream a video with the photos app? I have tested self recorded movies aswell. But since Apple missed the airplaysupport in the recording app i have used a 3rdparty app which takes the self recorded videos and reconverts them so they get airplay compatible.

I use this one:

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/quickplay...80873?mt=8


Still not getting it how you airplayed your recorded videos without something like this.

[mrfatboy]

You try to stream a video with the photos app? I have tested self recorded movies aswell. But since Apple missed the airplaysupport in the recording app i have used a 3rdparty app which takes the self recorded videos and reconverts them so they get airplay compatible.

I use this one:

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/quickplay...80873?mt=8


Still not getting it how you airplayed your recorded videos without something like this.

What iOS version are you using? I'm on the latest version 5.1.1. Airplay has been fully integrated into iOS for a while now. You can airplay most media from any built in IOS app (Photos, Music, Videos, etc) and even 3rd party apps like Pandora. Have you tried viewing a photo or video from your camera roll via the Photos app? The airplay icon is there. Just go to you Camera Roll and select the video and then press your Airplay icon for the destination. There should be no need for a 3rd party app to use ariplay.

Now regarding the app you suggested -http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/quickplay-for-airplay-for/id409680873?mt=8. I have downloaded and tried it and it does work with xbmc. Although, I would never want to use it because the integrated Airplay should "just work". I did notice that the app you suggested has to compress the video before it airplays it.

So basically where we stand now it that (at least for me) the standard iOS integrated airplay does not work with XBMC.

Can you test test airplay with XBMC without the 3rd party app and see if you get the same behavior?

[Memphiz]

Mhh i'm allways testing with iOS 4.3 on iPad1 and iOS 5.0.1 on iPod (atleast IIRC). And afaik you couldn't airplay movies which where recorded on the iPod (e.x. out of the movie roll).

Will have to verify the version on the iPod and maybe update to 5.1.1 there for verification. Its definitly a video format issue then.

So basically where we stand now it that (at least for me) the standard iOS integrated airplay does not work with XBMC.

There is no need for overstating here - as you might have already noticed that i'm willing to help/fix...

[mrfatboy]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was not trying to overstate but rather to clarify. You threw me a curve ball when you posted this:

You try to stream a video with the photos app? I have tested self recorded movies aswell. But since Apple missed the airplaysupport in the recording app i have used a 3rdparty app which takes the self recorded videos and reconverts them so they get airplay compatible.

I use this one:

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/quickplay...80873?mt=8


Still not getting it how you airplayed your recorded videos without something like this.

I have always tried to use the integrated iOS airplay when doing my XBMC airplay testing. I didn't even know there was a 3rd party app to do it. I'm not sure why anybody would want to use the app unless their phone (i believe 3G and below) or iOS version doesn't support it.

Moving forward I think its best to track down this airplay bug with using only the integrated iOS Airplay icon in the Photos app (camera roll) and videos taken with the built in camera app. That way we are both testing the same thing.



I have been testing XBMC airplay since the early days up until the 7-12-12 versions on two different Windows 7 x64 computers. The 3 main versions I have tested are:

1) Dharma 10.1 Stable (with below mod)
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?pid...3pid713084

2) Eden 11 Stable with both below configurations
a) http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?pid...3pid713084
b) airplay support built in

3) Frodo 7-12-12
airplay support built in


I can tell you that the 3 above testing configurations have all yielded different results. The built in airplay in Eden has yielded the worst results and renders it unusable for video playback. In all 3 configurations music and photos work just fine. So at least we can narrow it down to a video airplay problem.

I think your idea of file format or even file size might have merit here since your 3rd party app worked but only after it compresses the video. I also noticed that another app I play around with "action fx" also compresses the video after rendering. I notice XBMC airplay has less issues with this. I believe the iphone 4s records video at 1080p while older idevices don't record at that high resolution. Definitely something to look at. Maybe bitrate??

I noticed yesterday (Frodo 7-12-12 & iphone 4s) that I can airplay video but after the video is over I have to reselect the airplay destination (even though it's already correctly selected) in order to play another video again. Also, sometimes the video buffers and sometimes it doesn't. There is also bizarre behavior if you "gesture/swipe" to the next video and try to play that and then return to the previous video. Sometimes it works and sometime it doesn't.


BTW, I did and do notice that you are trying to help to fix this bug. I hope you notice that I am trying my best as well If you need me I have the time to help track it down.

What do you thing the next steps should be?

[Memphiz]

Well i tested a bit. First off all - i already had 5.1.1 on the iPod and somehow wasn't aware that you could airplay directly from the roll - as of statements other users made.

I tested 3 scenarios.

1. XBMC running on OSX Snow Leopard.
- 1. Started playback of the video on the iPod
- 2. Selected XBMC as AirPlay target
- 3. XBMC showed the video thumbnail as photo
- 4. Had to hit play again on the iPod
- 5. XBMC started loading and playing the video
- 6. Pausing/Seeking from iPod worked
- 7. When i paused XBMC - the iPod didn't notice and still showed that its playing
- 8. At end of Video iPod didn't notice
- 9. Swiping to the next video on iPod felt wacky - and allways needs 2 swipes - where it then shows the thumb photo for a short time via airplay

2. XBMC running on ATV2.
- same as 1.

3. Native Airplay on ATV2
- 1. Started playback of the video on the iPod
- 2. Selected ATV2 as AirPlay target
- 3. ATV2 showed the video thumbnail as photo
- 4. Had to hit play again on the iPod
- 5. ATV2 started loading and playing the video
- 6. Pausing/Seeking from iPod worked
- 7. When i paused ATV2 - the iPod didn't notice and still showed that its playing
- 8. At end of Video iPod noticed it and shows me a round big playbutton in the middle of the video
- 9. Swiping to the next video on iPod felt wacky - and allways needs 2 swipes - where it then shows the thumb photo first via airplay

So basically XBMC behaves nearly identical to the original ATV2. There are 2 issues. On point 8 and 9.

8 - When video is finished the ATV2 seems to send some message which the iPod understands - this seems to be missing in XBMC (though i send alot of that kind of messages but obviously not all).
9 - When swiping to the next video - the video thumb is displayed only shortly and then discards to the XBMC menu (this most likly is a timing issue when the app switches fast from video playback to picture playback).

For both issues i have to do some serious network sniffing / reverse engineering and i don't know when i get time for it.

For clarification. I bet videos airplayed from the videos app and videos airplayed from youtube app work on your side. So basically its the photo roll thingy. It seems that apple has different airplay implementations in its own apps already (i noticed that between 4.3 and 5.0 already). Its hard to find a fitting implementation for XBMC. As i know at least 3 wacky bugs which apple has on its own even between iOS app and ATV2.

So i can't test it on windows atm. But at least on the other platforms XBMC performs better as i thought from your reports. (i know this doesn't help ya).

I'm appreciating your help for tracking it down - but unless you can do the network sniffing for me and compare between ATV2 and XBMC - i think i'm on my own here...

[mrfatboy]

Well, I posted a reply yesterday but I see now that it never posted. I can't remember what i said I did talk to an programmer friend of mine that has all apple equipment - routers, macs, phones 1-4s, ipod touches, atv2. He is the poster child for apple He said he finds airplay extremely buggy. Hopefully in iOS 6 they will fix it.

[Memphiz]

Seems i got 2 new friends ... thx

[mrfatboy]

My friend said his main problem with AirPlay was that it keeps dripping connection. I really can't wait for for AirPlay on xbmc to be 100% stable. It's such an awesome feature.

[mrfatboy]

I just saw this announcement

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/07/in-th...-apple-tvs

[Memphiz]

Lets hope this works automagically with XBMC ... i'm not really motivated to implement more of this airplay crap