[Android] UpnpSub

[chimerique]

Hi there, when I discover how powerful can be UPNP, I've been wondering why you can't have subtitles with them ...
Did some digging, and understood why ...

But I did notice that a little hack is possible, not sure it will be working with other media player, but it does with my WD Tv Live!
So this is my POC working under android ==> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.chimerique.upnpsub.free&rdid=com.chimerique.upnpsub.free

Do not hesitate to give me a feedback by email.

Chimerique

[mad_ady]

Hello chimerique.

We too are trying to add subtitle support to UMSP via various hacks (since standard UPNP doesn't support them), so your approach could be useful.
Here's what we've tried (and works): http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=5824&start=10#p52836

But for this we need wdlxtv and an app.bin.

Can you explain your hack as well? Also, provide an example so we can play with it? I don't have a smartphone, so I can't test your app out, but I think whatever it does we should be able to replicate via UMSP...

[chimerique]

Hi there
I'm not sure that the hack I used will be suitable for your case ...
From what I understand of "UMSP" is that you use a custom UPNP protocol between your Upnp Server and Unpnp Render ?

As for me I'm just using the Upnp Render (WD) and a Upnp Controller (Android Engine)
But well, maybe it will lead you somewhere so here is what I found out :

It seems that the player do not check the url path you give threw UPNP. Not sure this is an Upnp requirement but this is the glitch i'm using. Instead of sending a HTTP path, I'm sending the local path of a mounted share.

There is 2 problems with my approach
- How do I know the share local path.
- To have a mounted share, you need to navigate threw the WD menu, an go into the share menu. It will still get unmounted after a reboot ...

For those problem, I've made a synchronisation system that allow me to find out what is the local share
And for the 2nd one, a stating script allow me to mount automatically my share ...

There, you got all my theoretical work

[mad_ady]

Aha, I see. You're probably right - It won't necessarily help us run subtitles through UPNP. From what I understand, you're injecting a local media path into the playback engine, and the mediaplayer software knows how to pickup the subtitle.
We want to do the opposite - have the media player play some http URL and play a subtitle with it.

Anyway, your work is important too, and I'm sure this approach will be useful for other apps that play back local media on the wdtv

[juliojs]

Hi there
I'm not sure that the hack I used will be suitable for your case ...
From what I understand of "UMSP" is that you use a custom UPNP protocol between your Upnp Server and Unpnp Render ?

As for me I'm just using the Upnp Render (WD) and a Upnp Controller (Android Engine)
But well, maybe it will lead you somewhere so here is what I found out :

It seems that the player do not check the url path you give threw UPNP. Not sure this is an Upnp requirement but this is the glitch i'm using. Instead of sending a HTTP path, I'm sending the local path of a mounted share.

There is 2 problems with my approach
- How do I know the share local path.
- To have a mounted share, you need to navigate threw the WD menu, an go into the share menu. It will still get unmounted after a reboot ...

For those problem, I've made a synchronisation system that allow me to find out what is the local share
And for the 2nd one, a stating script allow me to mount automatically my share ...

There, you got all my theoretical work

Is this a right approach?: http://forum.wdlxtv.com/viewtopic.php?p=48383#p48383 (2nd part)

Code: Select all

file:///tmp/media/usb/USBX/XXXX-XXXX/path/file.avi

Any better solution to get the USB and the drive id even on the officical firmware?

I'm currently working on an app update for my app (almost finished the upnp discover and remote control) but I'll leave file browser feature to the coming releases because of the complicated mode to list them... If you want to take a closer look just send a PM.

[mad_ady]

According tot the umsp code, file:// should work, but it doesn't seem to work for me yet. I'll be playing with it some more and let you know if there is an elegant way to access the file.

[chimerique]

Hi there, sry for the dealy!
So yes, this is exactly the kind of path I'm sending threw UPNP

[chimerique]

Just in case people are interested, here a video of how it does work :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmkxO1UZG8&feature=youtu.be