Archive - Samsung Smart TV App - Public Alpha Test

[rickster53 27]

Can you explain this please? Just curious..

Support for music playlists (eg. .wpl or .m3u) is not supported yet on the MB3 server. I didn't know whether you would be dependent upon having it working on the server or whether you could "pull down" a playlist from the server and then sequentially pull down the songs in the list. I guess it's a question of "push or pull" and interpreting the specific playlist file format. You may want to ask Luke what the status is as far as implementing it in the server...

[c0m3r 95]

Just a quick update regarding my previous request to be able to enter a hostname to access the content from outside the local network. Finally got chance to test this at my brothers and it worked flawlessly. Was able to access the content with no issues and even played extremely well over a wireless connection to his TV. Have to say, for an alpha app it worked perfectly. We do have relatively fast connections so that will have helped but wasn't expecting it to work as well as it did.

[chessdragon136 677]

great to see music is getting some tlc. my wishlist
Navigating and queueing during playback. Is being designed to work like this - Music plays through navigation changes and the music bar can be accessed from the top menu when music is playing
Artist and album bios, scrolling if necessary to fit.  Possible but my music collection is a mess and i need metadata for it all.
Albums by artist prioritised or separated from compilations in artist view. Not sure what you mean by this - I will have an Album Artist view and an Album view and an Artist view (And possibly Genre)
Artist albums (as opposed to compilations) sorted in chronological order. Urm... Sorting is something my program really doesn't do as of now and isn't easy to implement.. 
Albums playable, next song plays automatically. Gapless. Could the transcoding engine ensure the queue was fully streamed to ensure gapless on clients with lower resources if necessary? Sorry but this isn't possible. Samsung just doesn't have that much control over playback.
album artist view. Distinct from artist or composer view. How is this different from the above seperations?
Jump in on long lists by first letter. Is already possible with TV with the red button, so is doable
Search by artist. Title. Album There is no search in the app. Frankly most people only have a remote and no keyboard so it takes longer to search than it would to just find the item. Text input is rubbish in Samsungs and I have struggled with the little bit I've done with Server Entry. 
Browse by folder as well by tag. Again this is unlikely to happen
If artist varies within an album then show artist (as well as track number and title) You're right I do need this but I have no idea how! 
Where artists are shown enable hyperlink to jump to that artists view. Possible but totally reliant on the above
Ty for considering.

Support for music playlists (eg. .wpl or .m3u) is not supported yet on the MB3 server. I didn't know whether you would be dependent upon having it working on the server or whether you could "pull down" a playlist from the server and then sequentially pull down the songs in the list. I guess it's a question of "push or pull" and interpreting the specific playlist file format. You may want to ask Luke what the status is as far as implementing it in the server... Will require server side support. 

[ginjaninja 533]

again thanks for considering

 

Albums by artist prioritised or separated from compilations in artist view. Not sure what you mean by this - I will have an Album Artist view and an Album view and an Artist view (And possibly Genre)

When I look at artist 'u2' in dashboard i get a sea of 142 albums, most of which are not actually u2s albums, rather compilations where the artist u2 shows up.

When entering u2 (especially via an album artist filter), it make sense, if possible, that u2's real albums show up distinct and prioritised from their compilation albums. Maybe the server supports select statements for albums where album artist is 'u2' rather than where artist is 'u2'. maybe a separate link to see ALL albums where u2 appears as artist (especially when browsing by album artist)

 

Artist albums (as opposed to compilations) sorted in chronological order. Urm... Sorting is something my program really doesn't do as of now and isn't easy to implement.. 

@@Luke

maybe the server api could allow for sorted select statements from the server/database, especially if sorting is a hard thing for clients to do. Maybe the server api could help in this regard?

 

Albums playable, next song plays automatically. Gapless. Could the transcoding engine ensure the queue was fully streamed to ensure gapless on clients with lower resources if necessary? Sorry but this isn't possible. Samsung just doesn't have that much control over playback.

@@Tikuf

Was a long shot. maybe this is something that could be requested of the server api/transcoding engine? v. low priority i suggest but impressive if possible.

 

album artist view. Distinct from artist or composer view. How is this different from the above seperations?

IMO  an artist view is less useful when you have 7000 artists. A Separate album artist view is critical, As would Separate composer view be useful for classical music.

 

Search by artist. Title. Album There is no search in the app. Frankly most people only have a remote and no keyboard so it takes longer to search than it would to just find the item. Text input is rubbish in Samsungs and I have struggled with the little bit I've done with Server Entry.

Worth noting samsung tvs from 2012 onwards support bluetooth keyboards and very useable voice recognition; but appreciate what you're saying about being a pig to leverage.

 

Browse by folder as well by tag. Again this is unlikely to happen

if much of the views / navigation enhancements above can be implemented, browse by folder would be unnecessary. If simpler (guess) to achieve its a good fallback to find content quickly whilst the sophisticated interface stories are developed.

 

If artist varies within an album then show artist (as well as track number and title) You're right I do need this but I have no idea how! 

@@Luke

Luke, is artist an attribute of a track, just as title and track number is, in the api?

[ginjaninja 533]

Sorting can be done and the Server does have a sort by field, its the actual implementation into the program that is difficult...

Same goes for the last point, the Artist is part of the track details.. 

The first point is moot as there will be an Album Artist view which will work in the way you need..

Search -> Basically its an incredibly low priority to be honest.. If I design my app correctly search won't be necessary

 

Best of luck, if you can deliver those elements you are more keen on, it will be the best music client for MB3 by some margin.

Music doesn't seem to have had as much attention as other parts across all of MB3. Which is a shame, as faffing to start a 1hr film/tv episode is not as much of an issue, but music requires a more sophisticated streamlined interface to be useful imo.

Edited April 18, 2014 by ginjaninja

[ginjaninja 533]

Anyone know of a decent Photo player app for Samsung Smart TVs please ?

 

TIA.

 

the samsung "swipe it" app, allows a user to send pictures from a phone onto the tv..if that helps.

at the risk of being pilloried :-) on the mb3 forums,  the plex samsung client does  support photo slideshows from collections.

[CBers 6766]

the samsung "swipe it" app, allows a user to send pictures from a phone onto the tv..if that helps.

at the risk of being pilloried :-) on the mb3 forums, the plex samsung client does support photo slideshows from collections.

Thanks ginjaninja.

 

I need a Photo player like there is in MBC.

 

I don't really want to have to set up my HTPC again now that I now use @@chessdragon136's app 99% of the time in my lounge.

 

Is that the Plex app in the Samsung Smart TV store?

[jmw2218 0]

Has anyone installed this app on the H(2014) model Samsung TV's? I can log in but can't find anywhere to change the server ip or anything else mentioned.

[chessdragon136 677]

Sorting can be done and the Server does have a sort by field, its the actual implementation into the program that is difficult...

Same goes for the last point, the Artist is part of the track details.. 

The first point is moot as there will be an Album Artist view which will work in the way you need..

Search -> Basically its an incredibly low priority to be honest.. If I design my app correctly search won't be necessary

[CBers 6766]

Anyone know of a decent Photo player app for Samsung Smart TVs please ?

 

TIA.

Edited April 18, 2014 by CBers

[ginjaninja 533]

Oh yeah, thought of one more,

Support for the play to/queue to function of mb3, so a phone can be used as a remote to queue music to tv.

 

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[CBers 6766]

I think we need to allow @@chessdragon136 to fix bugs before asking for stuff to be added.

 

I'm sure he has all of these requests on his to-do list, but bug fixes take priority.

 

TIA.

[user29 2]

this is MEGA awesome - does it update itself - or do we need to manually download?

[DaN 47]

this is MEGA awesome - does it update itself - or do we need to manually download?

when announced a new alpha /beta release, you need to go to menu, and choose Sync Apps

 

Sent from my HTC Butterfly using Tapatalk

[CBers 6766]

this is MEGA awesome - does it update itself - or do we need to manually download?

As DaN says for now, but if/when it's in the Samsung Smart hub store, you will be notified by the TV.

[user29 2]

no timeframe request - but is their an intention to introduce at some stage transcoding?

[stick 0]

I am having a problem with the folders I can't go straight in to a tv or movie folder the only way I see my media is look at all media at ounce is there a way to correct this. Thanks the app looks great

[ginjaninja 533]

Feedback on red button.

Its is useful to jump to next letter. Would be more useful if there was a second button to go backwards..currently if u overshoot you need to go around 25 letters again.

Would be even better for long lists like all albums or all movies or all album artusts, if left and right scrolled through list and up and down bought a jump in letter interface eg up to bring up interface overlay letter a. Up twice more to through b to c. Enter to bring up filter of long list showing objects starting c. Left and right to scroll through Cs. Up/down to change letter again. Makes finding objects in long lists eg 700 artist. 2000 films. Very usable.

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[CBers 6766]

You can use programme up/down to move a screen up/down if you miss a letter.

 

Feature Requests need to be kept to a minimum until all bugs are squashed

[stick 0]

Are you able to watch live TV from this.

[Ron 2]

This is so awesome, got my UE32F5570 on Easter weekend.  Haven't spend this much time in the bedroom since we were making kids.  Wife thought the new TV would get me out of the living room, little did she know I brought all my stuff with me.  Thank you so much for this app and keep up the awesome work

[CBers 6766]

Are you able to watch live TV from this.

Live TV on a TV?

[w84no1 27]

Live TV on a TV?

 

That is valid.  I have all my DirecTV boxes in the basement hooked to my WMC machine.  I stream my liveTV over my network using serverWMC and MB3.  If I have a Samsung TV in another location, then I would like to be able to watch the LiveTV I stream from the MB3 server.

[CBers 6766]

@@chessdragon136 - I can't seem to play anything via the app today - I am getting an error message on initial playback:

 

 

Not sure if anything changed in the latest dev server build that may have caused it, but there is an error in the server log around the same time:

 

2014-04-27 12:42:21.8814 Error - DtoUtils: ServiceBase<TRequest>::Service Exception
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
System.NullReferenceException
  at MediaBrowser.Api.Playback.BaseStreamingService.<GetState>d__1c.MoveNext()


2014-04-27 12:42:21.8814 Error - HttpServer: Error processing request for /mediabrowser/Videos/4fc7b83c1e12b0677f4a6104c7a6f61b/Stream?static=true&MediaSourceId=4fc7b83c1e12b0677f4a6104c7a6f61b&DeviceId=SHCHU5ARL4PQ2&StartTimeTicks=14402300000
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
ServiceStack.HttpError
No Stack Trace Available

Server log here.

 

TIA.

Edited April 27, 2014 by CBers

[CBers 6766]

Due to the above problem, I tried refreshing the app, but I got a network error:

 

 

Not sure what this is, as my TV can access the internet OK.

 

TIA.