Play MP4 or AVI

[the_witness]

Hello all,

I have the firefly server (1463) installed on a linux box. I can play mp3 files without any problems, from iTunes on my Windows machine.

When I click on mp4 files, I can “hear” the audio, but I cannot see the video.

Also, if I add .avi files, is there a way that I can watch them as well??

Thanks

[rpedde]

@the_witness wrote:

When I click on mp4 files, I can “hear” the audio, but I cannot see the video.

If you change it to “.mov”, or “m4v”, then it should work okay.

Also, if I add .avi files, is there a way that I can watch them as well??

No. Something we’ve discussed a bit was transcoding to a format that iTunes wouldn’t mind, but I’m not sure about how possible or likely that is.

— Ron

[the_witness]

Thanks, changing it to .m4v worked for me.

But will mp4 be supported natively?

Keep me posted!

[rpedde]

@the_witness wrote:

Thanks, changing it to .m4v worked for me.

But will mp4 be supported natively?

Keep me posted!

Yup. I need to work on the tag parsers to be able to tell if a file has a movie element or just music, but it’s something I want to get finished before iTV comes out.

[the_witness]

I was thinking the same thing!! 😉

[jphastings]

AVI files can be supported (I think) Maybe this will help?
On my Mac, I can use Quicktime (you may need the PRO version) to create a ‘Reference Movie’ (creates the atomic references that iTunes expects in it’s media) and – provided you have a Quicktime compatable decoder for the codecs used in the avi – it will decode in iTunes.

There are two major problems with this:
1. Creating the Reference Movies is a *serious* pain in the ass. I’ve hunted in vain for command line pograms that will create them, automator actions and the file structure so I might be able to build them myself.
2. Even streaming from the same computer as watching I can’t get a steady stream. Maybe this is because firefly is optimised for m4v streaming? (Using this method and putting the video directly into the iTunes library allows proper watching)

Has there been any advance on the possibility of an on-the-fly transcode? I’d love to be able to use this to serve my media to an appleTV, without having to transcode *everything* beforehand. (There are similar things for Windows computers that transcode for the xbox360 – surely the processing power is there on modern computers?)

Keep up the good work!

[Anonymous]

@jphastings wrote:

I’ve hunted in vain for command line pograms that will create them, automator actions and the file structure so I might be able to build them myself.

I’m currently doing this (even though I think it’s a lousy idea) on my Linux server. The command line I’m using is:

ffmpeg -i .avi .mov && mv .mov .m4v

.
I would really like to have this built in! I do not want to convert all my files (1.3Tb) and risk loosing information or compability with my other players (XBMC do read QuickTime movies, but…)

[rpedde]

@turbo wrote:

@jphastings wrote:

I’ve hunted in vain for command line pograms that will create them, automator actions and the file structure so I might be able to build them myself.

I’m currently doing this (even though I think it’s a lousy idea) on my Linux server. The command line I’m using is:

ffmpeg -i .avi .mov && mv .mov .m4v

.
I would really like to have this built in! I do not want to convert all my files (1.3Tb) and risk loosing information or compability with my other players (XBMC do read QuickTime movies, but…)

It will probably happen, at least a script-based version. But not until after I get the music part of it working well. 🙂

– Ron

[Anonymous]

@rpedde wrote:

It will probably happen, at least a script-based version. But not until after I get the music part of it working well. 🙂

Good. Then you can start right away! It works (almost? – can’t see any problems with it 🙂 perfect already. If there’s any bugs/problems, they are so minor.
I’ve seen quite a lot of posts regarding Movie support, so get coding :).

I’ll see if I can find the time to look it over and maybe help, but as everyone else, I’m busy with my own projects 🙂

[eladrrats]

MT-DAAPD has been terrific so far, but I would absolutely love to see streaming video support. I have an apple tv and it can’t play videos from daapd so it leaves me between a rock and a hard place. I love daapd, but in order to play my movies, I’d have to hack the apple tv or switch to a “native” iTunes source. Does anyone have any clues on when streaming video formats might be supported in daapd? I saw a suggestion posted on another page that related to this project about a streaming plugin: http://mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net/faq/index.php#Project

thanks so much

[Author]

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