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Please make your products work with URLs

anderspitman.net

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Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#331

Post by satysin »

causality0 wrote: post #320
satysin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very valid complaint however I understand their need to monetise and at least you can remove that items. At least so far. I am always open to alternatives however with everything I have tried over the years nothing has come close to how well Plex works. From the flexibility of running the server to the superb automatic content identification to the frame perfect delivery to my TV it has been flawless for me…

Eh, it's gotten noticeably worse of late, almost as if their resources are going somewhere other than UX. The client as picked up a habit of hard-crashing on certain files when "Automatic" transcoding or "original" is selected instead of manually choosing a certain bitrate.

I do not use the transcoding feature (it murders HDR content) so have never experienced any crashes.

The only UI prompt I recall seeing is some new streaming feature which I haven't looked into but appears to be some kind of partnership with content providers? I was able to get rid of it easily enough to not even remember how I did it and haven't seen it since.

Perhaps the mobile apps (which I assume are updated more regularly?) have had some more prompts? I only ever use the app on my TV.

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#332

Post by dvdgsng »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #258
dvdgsng wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

impossible indeed. however a recent kickstarter is trying to change this: https://ironcast.tv/ lets hope they can deliver.

In Europe I buy dumb panels aimed at stores. https://www.swedx.se/#horizontalTab2

This is great, thanks.

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#333

Post by dvdgsng »

lukifer wrote: post #298
dvdgsng wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fear that soon we're going to need an open-source alternative to Plex. Alternative: Emby https://emby.media/ Open-Source Alternative: Jellyfin (fork of Emby v3) https://jellyfin.org/

> no strings attached, no premium licenses or features, and no hidden agendas Subtle. :) Anyone know the motivation for this fork / dig against Emby, other than the premium licensing?

The gist is that they went from being open to closed source, mostly because they had to invest heavily into transcoding and client support. Naturally, some folks didn't like that and forked.

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#334

Post by comex »

phcordner wrote: post #160
mbreese wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I was going to reply that the AppleTV isn't a good comparison here because they specifically wanted something that worked with URLs. But then I thought about it, and the URL thing is a red herring. That's not what they really want -- that's an implementation detail. What they really want is the ability to play something from their local server on their TV. This is totally do-able in the Apple eco-system. Th…

AppleTV + iPhone + VLC iOS app will give you the URL option too. I did this to watch Terrace House Boys x Girls Next Door when I ran out of Netflix episodes.

There’s also a VLC app for Apple TV, no need for a phone at all (although you’ll probably want the phone remote to enter the URL).

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#336

Post by top_kekeroni_m8 »

JohnFen wrote: post #110
WorldMaker wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your threat model? Apple TV is a pragmatic option for the sort of person that doesn't mind the Apple Walled Garden. Xbox One is a pragmatic option for the sort of person that doesn't mind the Xbox/Microsoft Walled Garden. NVidia Shield and FireTV are pragmatic options for folks that prefer the more Android-ish "mostly a Walled Garden, but". If your threat model is anything with a corporate or walled garden sme…

> What's your threat model? Avoiding tracking and phone-home things.

Check out Vero 4k+, it runs on OSMC (open source media center) with Kodi installed. I run it on my 4k Philips TV and it works perfectly for any kind of media content...

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#337

Post by Mindwipe »

anderspitman wrote: post #326
Mindwipe wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, VLC does have casting, but here I more meant you can run VLC on the TV itself, and you can enter a URL directly into VLC on the TV itself. While that's a bit clunky, if you use the remote app on a phone you can enter keyboard data and, most importantly, paste keyboard data from your phone into an input field on the TV itself. So no casting would be required. Kodi would also enable the same use case.

Wait does Roku have a VLC app? I swear I checked for one.

No, I mean for Android TV in all cases above.

I don't think this is a use case on Roku. Roku has zero international market share, so I don't think there's much of a developer market for it.

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#338

Post by foobarandgrill »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #73

I have a love / hate relationship with Chromecast. When it works, it works well, and it is nice to just press a button and whatever I'd like to use is up on my TV. It does feel a little magic. But even when you're using compatible tools / devices that should work together, sometimes they mysteriously don't, and there's absolutely no way to know what's going wrong. Approximately 25% of the time, my Chromecast device j…

What often happens to me is my chromecast audio doesn't show up on my desktop chrome but does on my other devices and I have to reconnect my computer's wifi and restart the browser for the chromecast to appear. Really wish they have a simple "refresh" button that lets you try checking for more chromecasts.

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#339

Post by dan_hawkins »

anderspitman wrote: post #152
babypuncher wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are set top boxes (Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, etc.) that offer a much better user experience with thriving app ecosystems and regular feature updates, if you don't want the rigamarole of trying to use desktop software in a living room. I used to do the whole HTPC thing but having to use an actual web browser to access half my content felt obnoxious and cumbersome. As for avoiding smart TVs, I found it pretty easy…

Are you aware of any that support the "play this URL" use case I talk about in the blog post?

VLC for AppleTV: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-appletv.html

Re: Please make your products work with URLs

#340

Post by mumblemumble »

jschwartzi wrote: post #142
crazygringo wrote: post #100

I don't believe I've ever, once, in my entire history of browsing the internet, come across a direct hyperlink to a video file to play in the browser. Virtually universally, videos are embedded in webpages, and occasionally a link is provided that downloads rather than plays a video. So I think this is just a use-case issue: the average user is exceedingly unlikely to ever want to watch a raw video file specified by…

Before Youtube this was a thing, just as streaming radio was a thing before Pandora. You'd get a URL and the URL would stream radio or video instead of being a website. Obviously the protocol descriptor would be different from HTTP/HTTPS.

TFA's use case is even simpler than that. It's, "Here, go fetch http://my.domain/some/mp4/file.mp4 and play it." Which was also a common way to share video once upon a time, and something that still happens on occasion. But, realistically, I am guessing that the vast majority consumers would never think of it, and may not even have the ability to set that up.

Uploading the video to YouTube is typically a much simpler way to get the job done these days, because it works off of things you likely already have and require only moderate technical skills, while setting up a server that can serve files over HTTP(s) on your home network is the kind of thing that would get your parents to start calling you a "computer whiz" in public again.

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