Direct Stream to External App not working anymore

[cwarren.qc 2]

At some point in the last few months, the application "lost" the ability to direct stream to MxPlayer on my tablet. 

 

I did some tests and I think I found the problem.

 

First, I tried all the settings in "Streaming Options" but it doesn't look like it's doing anything when using an external player. The URL that is sent to the external player is always the same (when looking in the android client log) :

[Sat Jan 24 16:18:54 EST 2015] , Info , External player URL: http://192.168.1.100:25000/mediabrowser/videos/5a005324e30801200d239181968ff308/stream.ts?Params=;233a33634d9d604c;5a005324e30801200d239181968ff308;false;h264;aac;1;2;20552000;320000;;30.0;1920;1080;0;;1422134334986;;;; , 1 , main

On the server, I saw that the stream was transcoded. Which was unexpected since the android client state that "The media is direct streamed rather the transcoded" when we choose the "External Player" option.

 

After some digging in the server source code, I found the place where URL is parsed (in method "ParseParams" in MediaBrowser.Api/Playback/BaseStreamingService.cs) and noticed that the client gave an URL with "Static = false" to the External Player.

 

To test my theory, I sent this URL directly to MxPlayer ("...;true;h264;aac..." instead of "...;false;h264;aac..."):

http://192.168.1.100:25000/mediabrowser/videos/aaf343101d2ee244d4b51b90c2a20342/stream.ts?Params=;233a33634d9d604c;aaf343101d2ee244d4b51b90c2a20342;true;h264;aac;1;2;20552000;320000;;30.0;1920;1080;0;;1422132883220;;;;

And everything worked perfectly in MxPlayer! I could seek, I could see the duration of the video, etc. On the server, I could see that the stream was not transcoded.

 

 

[Luke 36990]

great stuff. now we can look into why the app is passing that.

[dark_slayer 103]

Have you tried toggling the setting "strict h264" mode under streaming options?

[cwarren.qc 2]

Yes, I tried all the possibilities in "Streaming Options" (HLS On/Off, Strict H264 On/Off). I didn't see anything difference, including the URL that is send to the External Player.

[dark_slayer 103]

Hmm, out of ideas then

[jepsefan 0]

I have the same problem With H265.

[cwarren.qc 2]

I installed the latest version (2.2.19) on my tablet.

 

It's a lot better but the streams are still transcoded. At least, now, with "HLS Support = On", I can see the duration of the video, seek, etc with an external player (MX Player). Which is almost as good as direct streaming.
 

I checked the source code a little bit to see what changed. I noticed that the URL format is more 'explicit' :

http://192.168.1.100:25000/mediabrowser/videos/b6fad03caea981b866d333848aa8387b/stream.webm?DeviceId=233a33634d9d604c&MediaSourceId=b6fad03caea981b866d333848aa8387b&VideoCodec=vpx&AudioCodec=vorbis&AudioStreamIndex=1&VideoBitrate=20552000&AudioBitrate=320000&ClientTime=1428359441302&PlaySessionId=2b34a7425639444a816dcf1940493672&api_key=053554cee8594654a1e1b6d656b83a3f

I was still able to "force" a direct stream by adding "&Static=true" at the end of the URL: 

http://192.168.1.100:25000/mediabrowser/videos/b6fad03caea981b866d333848aa8387b/stream.webm?DeviceId=233a33634d9d604c&MediaSourceId=b6fad03caea981b866d333848aa8387b&VideoCodec=vpx&AudioCodec=vorbis&AudioStreamIndex=1&VideoBitrate=20552000&AudioBitrate=320000&ClientTime=1428359441302&PlaySessionId=2b34a7425639444a816dcf1940493672&api_key=053554cee8594654a1e1b6d656b83a3f&Static=true

I didn't have access to some of the class of the android client (StreamInfo, StreamBuilder, etc) but I assume that the java class have the same method/properties as the c# ones (ex. https://github.com/MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser/blob/master/MediaBrowser.Model/Dlna/StreamInfo.cs).

If that's the case, I wonder if the following change could fix the problem:

in PlayerHelpers.buildExternalPlayerStreamInfo, add the bold line:

AppLogger.getLogger().Info("Create StreamInfo");
StreamInfo streamInfo = new StreamBuilder(AppLogger.getLogger()).BuildVideoItem(options);
streamInfo.setPlayMethod(PlayMethod.DirectStream);

 

 

[Luke 36990]

No there's a separate external player profile that's intended to direct stream everything. So that's what needs to be looked at