Running Emby on Apple TV 3

[sw1tchm4st3r 0]

Would anyone know if its possible to jailbreak the new apple tv3 to run MB3?

 

I know that it can run XMBC but was wondering if that applied to MB3 as well.

[Migmac04 5]

AFAIK there is no jailbreak for atv 3 atm. XBMC only runs on atv and atv 2. 

[yardameus 220]

Roku.  Already a native app for that.

[sw1tchm4st3r 0]

Oh ok, guess I'll try something else.

 

Thanks for that!

[ebr 14923]

ATV is lunux based I'm sure so not until we have some sort of linux client (one day).

[BC101 31]

A feature request of mine would be a client for Apple TV, even if it requires the same Apple TV Trailers hack that Plex uses.

At the moment the hack requires installation of a self-signed SSL cert on the Apple TV, and to modify the DNS server IP entry on the Apple TV to point to some IP of a host running software to intercept requests and masquerade as Apple TV's Trailer server. See http://langui.sh/2013/08/27/appletv-ssl-plexconnect/ and http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/

 

What is stopping MB3 from pulling this off?

[Luke 37095]

A feature request of mine would be a client for Apple TV, even if it requires the same Apple TV Trailers hack that Plex uses.

At the moment the hack requires installation of a self-signed SSL cert on the Apple TV, and to modify the DNS server IP entry on the Apple TV to point to some IP of a host running software to intercept requests and masquerade as Apple TV's Trailer server. See http://langui.sh/2013/08/27/appletv-ssl-plexconnect/ and http://elan.plexapp.com/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/

 

What is stopping MB3 from pulling this off?

 

The lack of enough ios developers. So go find us another, and perhaps we may do that.

[Luke 37095]

but there would still have to be an app on the atv device

[BC101 31]

At the moment its cost prohibitive (and possibly something apple wouldnt allow) to make a real app, Plex works around that by just intercepting calls the Apple TV's native 'Trailers' app makes to trailers.apple.com . This is why a dev is not needing to develop an app on the ATV, just some server side plugin for MB3

 

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0zPkJS4fC0 for a short demo of what the hack looks like on the ATV.

Edited December 26, 2013 by BC101

[ebr 14923]

So, a user tells their AppleTV device to go to trailers and, instead, they get their Plex installation?

[Luke 37095]

Then what are those plex presentation elements? you're saying those are not stored on the device?

 

it's a neat trick but it's still pretty lame, don't you think? 

[BC101 31]

@ebr: correct, check the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0zPkJS4fC0 for how Plex has done it. Other Chinese and Russian movie providers have also done it this way to get their content onto ATV's.

Ex. of chinese interface: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtIou93JVWs#t=140

 

@Luke: Lame or not, it gets you entry to the 6 million ATV Gen 3 devices out there without needing to develop a local client. Gen 2 is jailbreak-able and people would just install XMBC, but they miss out on 1080p output.

 

Plex proved this method works and isn't all that difficult to do. If a user has the skill to install MB3, they can do what it takes to get it working on an Apple TV gen 3 without too much hassle.

 

Someone could start a kickstarter for the dev of the MB3 plugin (to interface with the ATV) and I know i'd jump on that. Or sell the finished product in the plugin catalog, just beat Plex's price and I wouldn't think too many people would be opposed to pay for it.

Edited December 26, 2013 by BC101

[Luke 37095]

ok but you didn't quite answer my question. where to the plex presentation elements come from? that looks like a UI running on the box.

[BC101 31]

Could rip it off from https://github.com/iBaa/PlexConnect if you wanted to see exactly how it responds to the HTTP requests from the ATV to build the UI. Edit: since 27th Aug 2013 the ATV uses HTTPS instead of HTTP to pull content from trailers.apple.com, thus the self-generated trailers.apple.com SSL cert needed to be installed on the ATV since that point.

Edited December 26, 2013 by BC101

[BC101 31]

Apple TV != IOS afaik

 

It's a server side thing needed to spoof as the Apple TV Trailers App, but I don't even know what codecs ATV can support without transcoding needing to be done by the MB3 server software but that would be a awesome feature for the MB3 server to support.

 

Would it be considered a plugin/module to the MB3 server to support this? It would obviously need a developer but don't think they'd have to know too much or anything about IOS development.

Edited December 26, 2013 by BC101

[ebr 14923]

This sounds like a really ugly hack.

[BC101 31]

but ... if it works why not....

If I had time I'd try to modify the https://github.com/iBaa/PlexConnect code to use the MB3 API but... I've never python'd yet....and I've never API'd before

Edited December 28, 2013 by BC101

[Luke 37095]

but ... if it works why not....

If I had time I'd try to modify the https://github.com/iBaa/PlexConnect code to use the MB3 API but... I've never python'd yet....and I've never API'd before

 

maybe you can help find someone to do it?

[BC101 31]

@Luke: http://www.learnpython.org  maybe i'll be able to do it by next week.... probably not tho. I will ask around.

[BC101 31]

Looking at logs, XML files, javascript files, etc and trying to understand how PlexConnect instructs the Apple TV into talking to it  (using a <ATV> xml & javascript) then calling PMS for the backend info and displaying what it should display, without knowing a thing about advanced js/python is hard.

 

Just a first obstacle of trying to find a way to display MB3 users and let the ATV pick one is ... an interesting challenge for me.

 

Here's the first call it makes when loading the application I decided to spoof: WSJ (wall street journal) instead of Trailers app:

ATV> GET /mw2/api-video/appletv/wsjlive/main.js

WebServer> serves /js/application.js instead.

 

which contains

atv.onAppEntry = function()

{

    fv = atv.device.softwareVersion.split(".");

    firmVer = fv[0] + "." + fv[1];

    if (parseFloat(firmVer) >= 5.1)

    {

        // discover - trigger PlexConnect, ignore response

        var url = "{{URL(/)}}&PlexConnect=Discover&PlexConnectUDID="+atv.device.udid

        var req = new XMLHttpRequest();

        req.open('GET', url, false);

        req.send();

        

        // load main page

        atv.loadURL("{{URL(/PlexConnect.xml)}}&PlexConnectUDID=" + atv.device.udid);

    }

    else

 

ATV>

http request header:

Host: secure.marketwatch.com

X-Apple-Store-Front: 143455-6,19

Accept: */*

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

Accept-Language: en;q=0.9

Cookie: kayla=g=2737a1b1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Connection: keep-alive

X-Apple-TV-Resolution: 1080

X-Apple-TV-Version: 6.0.2

User-Agent: iTunes-AppleTV/6.0.2 (3; 8GB; dt:12)

http request path:

/&PlexConnect=Discover&PlexConnectUDID=DY5LMXXXXXXX

 

You can then differentiate Apple TV's by UDID.

[BC101 31]

Trivial amount of progress

[MongooseMan 31]

Considering you're attempting to build only the second ATV media client in the world, with minimal dev experience, I don't think that's trivial at all.

 

fwiw, leave the hard stuff til last.

Take all the short cuts you can to get something playing:

-Hard code the user on the server-side

-Make assumptions

-Return only one video

 

I've found the difficult things become easier once you've tackled the "easy" things.

Edited December 28, 2013 by MongooseMan

[BC101 31]

Thanks,

I had to install Plex so I could find what format the ATV expected. I played with Transcoder Action setting , there's two settings , "Auto" is default , "DirectPlay" and "Transcode" are options.

 

Something that was widely known but I wanted to confirm for myself....

 

I found Apple TV didn't support the mkv served to it directly (in DirectPlay mode):

 

ATV> GET /library/parts/1/file.mkv?X-Plex-Token=gJQ25gK2hTJqY8DJmtf8 HTTP/1.1

PlexMediaServer>

HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content

Cache-Control: public, max-age=604800

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Connection: close

Content-Range: bytes 0-1/1506329585

Content-Length: 2

Content-Type: video/x-matroska

X-Plex-Protocol: 1.0

 

It failed.

 

However my video worked in "Auto" mode (as it obviously would, as Plex is known working product on ATV and transcodes it to a format that works on the ATV)

ATV>

GET /video/:/transcode/universal/start.m3u8?maxVideoBitrate=3000&videoQuality=75&subtitleSize=100&fastSeek=1&session=DY5LXXXXX&audioBoost=100&protocol=hls&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F6&videoResolution=1280x720&directStream=1&X-Plex-Token=gJQ25gK2hTJqY8DJmtf8&X-Plex-Platform=iOS&X-Plex-Model=3%2C1&X-Plex-Client-Capabilities=protocols%3Dhttp-live-streaming%2Chttp-mp4-streaming%2Chttp-streaming-video%2Chttp-streaming-video-720p%2Chttp-mp4-video%2Chttp-mp4-video-720p%3BvideoDecoders%3Dh264%7Bprofile%3Ahigh%26resolution%3A1080%26level%3A41%7D%3BaudioDecoders%3Dmp3%2Caac%7Bbitrate%3A160000%7D&X-Plex-Client-Platform=iOS&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=DY5LXXXXX&X-Plex-Device=AppleTV&X-Plex-Product=PlexConnect&X-Plex-Platform-Version=6.0.2&X-Plex-Version=0.3.1%2B HTTP/1.1

Host: 24.XX.xx.xx:32400

X-Playback-Session-Id: B7649094-7CFC-4376-ADC3-68C360F82779

Accept-Encoding: gzip

Accept: */*

Accept-Language: en-us

Connection: keep-alive

User-Agent: AppleCoreMedia/1.0.0.11B554a (Apple TV; U; CPU OS 7_0_4 like Mac OS X; en_us)

[BC101 31]

Is this the right call to make?:

http://localhost:8096/mediabrowser/Videos/9aa15e8dcc7b90989a977dfa068d9f6d/stream.m3u8?VideoBitRate=3000&AudioBitRate=200 (i used Swagger UI to generate that)

 

the important part is, to append  to the end of /mediabrowser/Videos/$videoID the /stream.m3u8?VideoBitRate=<somevalue>&AudioBitRate=<otherValue> stuff?

Edited December 28, 2013 by BC101

[Tikuf 663]

No your bitrate is too low and you will need a little more info

http://server-ip:8096/mediabrowser/Videos/502e652c886521c5d2bda00dffd6371c/stream.m3u8?audioCodec=Aac&VideoCodec=h264&VideoBitRate=3000000&AudioBitRate=128000&audiochannels=2&maxwidth=1280

will give you 3mb/s h264 video and 128kb/s aac stereo hls  which is almost what you were shooting for

 

 

You can use maxwidth/width/maxheight/height to get the right size for you screen (above will do 1280 as max width)

Edited December 28, 2013 by Tikuf