Kroozbox - PVD to media theatre solution

[Chelli]

Ok after viwing a youtube video of the pocorn mour Media Tank think thats not like D_link Dsm 520 Media center at all so don.t seem to fit the needs I was thinking of
sinch the PCH has it's own idolated hard drive contained within it and possibly can access the web in a way or ways that mine can't
 my system has 9 hard drives attached 5 of which are totally dedicated to my music and video collection  enclosed in a separete server case and share a sata mulyiplexor and using just a hard drive listing is really boring
looking thru 500 plus tirtles  in a Dos format without things such as alphabetical listings or by genre or descriptions or graphical displays
krooxebox may work fine as a web based system on the pc but it is a far cry from I what I hoped it would
and how often do I watch or even want to watch videos on my computer screen only
unless it can adress the web functionality of the DSM 520 and other similar models or get a video card with an hdmi or compononet output that I can transfer the computer to an available componoent or HDMi port have little use for it

[Chelli]

I.d like to know if the startme.bat or installservices,bat can be placed inWindows startup so it automatically loads when does
 also when trying to play a video or audiofile just get an empty webpage and nothing plays Do I hsve to assign it a Media player and if so where do I do that

[Nono]

Sorry for the delay,

An NT service exists so the program will automatically starts when Windows is starting up. You don't need to put the service or the STARTME in the Windows 'startup' folder.
Just run INSTALLSERVICE once and Kroozbox will start automatically each time Windows start (you don't even need to log in).

Now, there are some specifics to Kroozbox running as a service (look at the 'overview...pdf' documentation for details). It needs the proper credentials to access the music/video if they are located on a network drive. If they are located on local drives there is no issue and you can install as a service without more configuration. However, for debugging purpose, I suggest to make Kroozbox work as a simple application (with STARTME) first - make sure that everything is working and only then make it run as a service.

Your other problem is that you see Kroozbox user ineterface on the PCH or on your PC browser but you cannot start the movie!? That's a comon problem. It probably means that Kroozbox is unable to find the media using the location specified in PVD.
Try to make it work in the browser first (http://192.168....:9008) <-- put Kroozbox IP address in there.
Check the link assign to the movie play link. You should see something with "&media=..... " inside the link. This is the location that Kroozbox will use to get to the movie. Be sure that Kroozbox have access to that location. If the movies are entered in PVD from another machine then where Kroozbox is running from, you may have to do a link relocation in Kroozbox. If your movies are localed on multiple drives you should use the 'PVDLinkRelocation.properties' file located in the template root folder. If you have only one drive you can set the value of 'dbaseMediaRoot' and 'localMediaRoot' located in the kroozbox.properties file located in the root of your template (explanation provide in the file).

Another way to see what is happening is to set the 'debug' flag to 'true' in the corresponding Kroozbox.properties (located in the root of your template location) and restart Kroozbox with STARTME. Check the screen output when you click on the Play link (from browser or PCH). Kroozbox will tell you what is wrong - you can also post the output here so we can help more.

Make sense or are you lost?

[Chelli]

 you lost me
tall /Ican say is the video link appears correct
the address bar  of the blank screen says
 my ip add.9008/&media=G:/Tinker Bell/Tinker Bell/Tinker Bell.avi which is where the file is stored but no video player starts only the blamk webpage
  I need to know where I set the default video player up to play it

[Nono]

I don't have a DSM520 to test Kroozbox with. So, my help would be limited.
There is NO place to select your player. Kroozbox is HTTP based and as such is expected to behave with any box that can stream through HTTP.

It seems from the DSM520 specs that it should work. Make sure that you can play that file properly without kroozbox (with the default DSM520 interface).

You could try to force UUEncoding on the link... it might work:

* Open the kroozbox.properties file located in your template folder.
* Change the value of the 'UUEncodeMediaLink' parameter from 'false' to 'true' (without the quotes)--> UUEncodeMediaLink = true
* Restart Kroozbox and test.

You could also try with a very simple link (like G:/TinkerBell.avi )... without any spaces or none-english characters.
I will check if I can dig up more information on the DSM and development.

[Chelli]

  found the problem it wasn;t with krozebox but assigned the wromg drive location on PVD so rescanned that and restarted the web browser again plan on using sp;ittimg the  signal so can run KKroozebox straight thrru the HDMI or Component inputsof the TV set
Would be better if I could just use THE DSM520 so krrp checking into that for me
know that tigerripper keeps recording youtube videos that are being sent directly to The DSM 520 though

[Nono]

Update to kroozbox done to version 2.0.

Can be download at same place at:
http://www.omertron.com/pch/node/77

* Better display + more control on template + a bunch of fixes.

[Paul T]

Hi All, not sure where to start with this.
 I am using Popcorn pointing towards a PC containing all my films on local drive S:  Database using PVD and Kroozebox to display the films. 95% films are .ISO everything works well and plays with no problems

My S: drive is running out of space. I cannot add to it as it is at the XP max of 2TB
I need to create a new drive, say a R:. What is the best way to get it to integrate with my exising setup ? Ideally films on both drives should be display at the same time but I am not sure if I need to/how to configure Kroozebox to work with the 2 Drives. They both be local drives on the same PC.

Any Ideas ?

Regards
Paul T   

[Nono]

If you are using PVD on the same machine as Kroozbox, you shouldn't have to do anything for anything but ISO. i.e if the drives saved in the path of the film in PVD are seen by Kroozbox.

Now for ISO, that's an issue. Not for Kroozbox per say but for the PCH that cannot mount two share drive at the same time and that doesn't have automounting of SMB share.

What you have right now is "MyShare" property in globalParam.properties set to the name of PCH share (pointing to your S:/ drive) and "dbaseMediaRoot" in kroozbox.properties set to "s:/".. right? or are you using MMLinkRelocation.properties file?
Let me know details of your config and we will expand on solution. But, in any case (unless there was something new about share in the newest PCH firmware) you will have to manually switch share on the PCH depending on the movie you want to see.



 

[coolmani]

Hi All, not sure where to start with this.
 I am using Popcorn pointing towards a PC containing all my films on local drive S:  Database using PVD and Kroozebox to display the films. 95% films are .ISO everything works well and plays with no problems

My S: drive is running out of space. I cannot add to it as it is at the XP max of 2TB
I need to create a new drive, say a R:. What is the best way to get it to integrate with my exising setup ? Ideally films on both drives should be display at the same time but I am not sure if I need to/how to configure Kroozebox to work with the 2 Drives. They both be local drives on the same PC.

Any Ideas ?

Regards
Paul T   

Paul
Did you figure out the solution to this problem? I'm going through the same thing now and I'm trying to figure out the solution.
Stay cool

[Paul T]

Sorry for the delay in answering.

On My Setup I have 2 Drives both with a folder called "Films eg S:\Films\  and a New one R:\Films\
O/K for a start CREATE  a NEW folder in the directory where all your existing films are in my case I created a folder called "Films on R Drive" so I have S:\Films\Films on R Drive\
Right Click on your "My Computer" Icon on your Desktop
Left Click "Manage"
Left Click "Disk Management"
In the list of Hard Drives disk 0, disk 1 etc Right Click on your NEW Drive (my example you would Right Click on the R Drive).
After a Right Click select "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
Click "Add" and browse to the New folder you created above ie browse to S:\Films\Films on R Drive\
Click O/K
Click O/K

If you have set it up correctly you should see 2 entries entries when you Right Click on your NEW drive under "Disk Management"

I Have 1) R:
and     2) disk name (S:) \Films\Films on R Drive

Good luck

Paul T 

[Jeramiah]

KroozBox Version: 2.0
Operating System: Windows XP

I am having a bit of trouble with this, I have been trying to figure out how to play the movie without it copying to the Temorary Files directory, I would just like it to play automatically with my media player when I click on the 'play button' link.

Also, is there a way I can change the media player that it opens up with?

P.S. Keep up the good work, the support on this project is outstanding!

Thanks,
           Jeramiah

[Nono]

This is more an issue with the browser and player that you are using.

What is the player?
What type of files (avi. mkv, etc)?
What browser are you using?

As to change the player... I think the easiest way is to right click on one of your video file from the location where your browser is running, choose "open with...", select "Choose default program...", select Windows Media Player (this one should start right away), make sure that "Always use the selected program..." checkbox is selected, ok. It will start to play and next time you call it from kroozbox the selected player should be use.

Make sense?

[Garcia005]

I two am having similar problems with version 2.0, let me give you a short run down on my issue.

I am using 3 hard drives to store my files all in AVI Format.
Drive t is for cartoons ( grand daughter loves them)
Drive u is for movies
Drive v is for recorded TV show's

When i click on a selection using IE nothing happens. I would like to use WMP but am open to others.
My open with selection is for WMP.

I have tried to read all of you posts and documentaton (boy you are good) but since I am not a programmer and have no idea what I am doing Im lost.

I am sure that this is just a simple change that I have mised but like i say IM SOOO LOST.

Thank you for any and all help you can give.

[coolmani]

Sorry for the delay in answering.

On My Setup I have 2 Drives both with a folder called "Films eg S:\Films\  and a New one R:\Films\
O/K for a start CREATE  a NEW folder in the directory where all your existing films are in my case I created a folder called "Films on R Drive" so I have S:\Films\Films on R Drive\
Right Click on your "My Computer" Icon on your Desktop
Left Click "Manage"
Left Click "Disk Management"
In the list of Hard Drives disk 0, disk 1 etc Right Click on your NEW Drive (my example you would Right Click on the R Drive).
After a Right Click select "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
Click "Add" and browse to the New folder you created above ie browse to S:\Films\Films on R Drive\
Click O/K
Click O/K

If you have set it up correctly you should see 2 entries entries when you Right Click on your NEW drive under "Disk Management"

I Have 1) R:
and     2) disk name (S:) \Films\Films on R Drive

Good luck

Paul T 

Thanks for the detailed instructions. It worked like a charm.
I tried that method a while back but I didn't share my new drive so it never worked.
Thanks

[Kotzlowski]

Kroozbox is so cool . Thank you very much.

I have some questions . I use the SD Version for my Videos on a 70 cm tube TV, Kroozbox Version kroozbox2_0a_zip_68101, Windows XP 32 SP3, Sun Java SE 6.13, Personal Video Database 0.9.9.11, Popcorn Hour A-110

Can i make myself / Is it possible to
- only display a single row on listing? 'PVD_EnableSecondLine=false' doesn't work. I want to just 4 covers in a row.
- sort the movies according to the field 'title', not 'origtitle' on listing?
- disable the lines 'Series' and 'Movies Genre' to get more space on listing?
- just display the covers? If there are screenshots, they will be displayed instead.
- use 'title' to show, instead of 'origtitle' in movie detail?
- cut off the movie description text on a given number of rows? Some texts are much too long.

Thanks
Kotzlowski

[Nono]

- only display a single row on listing? 'PVD_EnableSecondLine=false' doesn't work. I want to just 4 covers in a row.

There is no way to disable the second line from globalParam. You would have to modify the template yourself.

- sort the movies according to the field 'title', not 'origtitle' on listing?

There is no config for that(I should have put one - I forgot). So, you would have to change the databse requests in all the appropriate html files.
In all the categories that have 11 html files - change the files number -4, -6, -8 and -10.html. The end of the first request line should end with "ORDER BY 3 ASC" (without the quotes) instead of "ORDER BY 2 ASC". You should also change PVD_POPTitleFieldListing to PVD_POPTitleFieldListing=::uuencode::maxchar(80)::title in globalParam.properties.

- disable the lines 'Series' and 'Movies Genre' to get more space on listing?

Again, that's a matter of HTML editing. The easiest to remove the genre is probably to remove the content of the files numbered -2.html when a category has 11 files (AlphaList-2.html, HDList-2.html, etc). Just open with any text editor (like notepad), remove content and save.
For the series you would have to open all the -1.html (from the categories that have 11 files) and remove the second <div class=navigation to the end.

- just display the covers? If there are screenshots, they will be displayed instead.

Nope. Too complex to explain... sry, you're on your own.

- use 'title' to show, instead of 'origtitle' in movie detail?

Open Moviedetails-2.html and change ORIGTITLEDB-S to TITLEDB-S in the *content* (not in the DBINFO header).

- cut off the movie description text on a given number of rows? Some texts are much too long.

Open up MovieDetails-7.html and change
MOVIEDESCRITION-S=::htmlencode::description
to
MOVIEDESCRITION-S=::htmlencode::maxchar(280)::description

Adjust 280 to whatever length you want. You should also do that for MOVIECOMMENT and MOVIETAGLINE in the same file
Note that this number is the number of maximum characters. The content will be trim to the value you specify.

Make sense?

[Kotzlowski]

- only display a single row on listing? 'PVD_EnableSecondLine=false' doesn't work. I want to just 4 covers in a row.

There is no way to disable the second line from globalParam. You would have to modify the template yourself.

After the changes 2 rows are perfect

- sort the movies according to the field 'title', not 'origtitle' on listing?

There is no config for that(I should have put one - I forgot). So, you would have to change the databse requests in all the appropriate html files.
In all the categories that have 11 html files - change the files number -4, -6, -8 and -10.html. The end of the first request line should end with "ORDER BY 3 ASC" (without the quotes) instead of "ORDER BY 2 ASC". You should also change PVD_POPTitleFieldListing to PVD_POPTitleFieldListing=::uuencode::maxchar(80)::title in globalParam.properties.

except RatingsList-*.html

- just display the covers? If there are screenshots, they will be displayed instead.

Nope. Too complex to explain... sry, you're on your own.

Oki, i must live with the screenshots. Maybe i'll delete them in pvd 

- use 'title' to show, instead of 'origtitle' in movie detail?

Open Moviedetails-2.html and change ORIGTITLEDB-S to TITLEDB-S in the *content* (not in the DBINFO header).

works fine

- cut off the movie description text on a given number of rows? Some texts are much too long.

Open up MovieDetails-7.html and change
MOVIEDESCRITION-S=::htmlencode::description
to
MOVIEDESCRITION-S=::htmlencode::maxchar(280)::description

Adjust 280 to whatever length you want. You should also do that for MOVIECOMMENT and MOVIETAGLINE in the same file
Note that this number is the number of maximum characters. The content will be trim to the value you specify.

With changes in details.css and the maxchar()-thing it's now perfect.

Thank you for your Help 

[Nono]

OK.. I misunderstand your request for the cover versus the screenshot issue. I reread and tried to reproduce issue. In fact, this fix will go in next release as well - seems important.

Easy to fix (kind of).

Open the file that have a image request inside that's (nearly) all files -4, -6, -6, -8 and -10.html in categories that have 11 files (you already know them) and the "MovieDetail-2.html" file.

Change in all those file the image request from:
IMAGEREQUEST=SELECT * FROM IMAGES WHERE IMAGES."mid"=[image]

to:
IMAGEREQUEST=SELECT * FROM IMAGES WHERE IMAGES."mid"=[image] AND IMAGES."imgtype"=0

(adding    AND IMAGES."imgtype"=0   at the end of the image request).

That will do the trick. Would be better to use a "find all - replace all" type of program for this if you have (I'm using Visual Studio).

[Nono]

Oh forgot to mention that the images are cached for efficiency reason. So, you'll have to restart Kroozbox after that change.