I'm currently working on two new Bibles concurrently & I’ve written a map downloader. I’d certainly welcome any reader feedback BEFORE publishing the first version(s) of these Bibles - what you would like to read, what apps / services I shouldn't forget to elaborate on etc. I also seek info on whether there is any need for an enhanced version of the map downloader introduced in the last section.
The two Bibles are as follows:
a full roundup & tutorial on all kinds of multimedia streaming, including
listening to Internet radio stations & watching TV shows - the basics
accessing non-streamed network resources - file system-based, pre-created files over both local networks and the Internet
ORB, CorePlayer, TCPMP, PacketVideo’s PVPlayer etc. - all streaming-capable Windows Mobile clients
specific radio / TV listing apps like Resco Radio, Mundu Radio etc.
streaming (and/or transcoding) from a desktop computer using SHOUTcast servers, WME etc.
Problems with limited connections and RTSP (RealOne, HTC's Streaming Media etc.)
RTSP -> HTTP converter proxies
using a VPN connection to play back otherwise (using the given restricted connections) unplayable RTSP (non-HTTP)-based streams
etc.
A VPN Bible:
when may you need a VPN, even if you don’t need remote access to any other private network – for example, if and when you want to listen to /watch RealOne or 3GP (for example, Mobile YouTube or YLE Mobile) streams only streamed via RTSP (because of the client’s inability to switch to HTTP streaming)
configuring VPN servers under WinTel (and, probably, Linux) operating systems
how you can access already-existing VPN’s from Windows Mobile (not just the ones you configure yourself, but any of them)
a review & comparison of VPN-related literature (books), should you want to know more of this technology
Finally, upon a reader request (many people know I’m especially well versed in Internet protocols, including HTTP – the protocol behind the Web), I’ve thoroughly analyzed the HTTP communication used by http://map.meta.ua/, a well-known mapping service in Ukraine. My reader asked me to let for saving the individual maps in a file so that they can be browsed even without an active Internet connection and/or on a Pocket PC (where the original interface may prove pretty hard to use).
Needless to say, I've managed to write an early demo (it doesn’t support all functionalities of the original Flash client) of an app that does this. You can find the Java source of the app HERE. It’s just a demo showing it’s possible - it puts 20 images of Kiev (but you can easily modify it to save the fully zoomed-in map of any other city), continuously scrolling to the left, in ResponseX.png files (I've, in case you don’t want to fiddle with Java sources, the images HERE).
My question is as follows: does anyone need anything similar to download the maps of other online map sources? As, to tell the truth, I can’t follow the (desktop-based) advances in this area, I’m not sure whether it’s worth enhancing this app. As most Flash / ActiveX-based solutions seems to use pretty much the same protocol, I can enhance and further develop this application to download any map (of any town, not just in Ukraine) into PNG files for offline browsing or importing for GPS applications. Feel free to tell me if you need such functionality and whether there are other, better, downloadable maps that would result in my enhancing the application absolutely unnecessary.
Now that I’ve published the Radio Stream Transcoding Bible (which has, in the meantime, been frontpaged by MoDaCo and All About Symbian!), I’ve received several questions and a lot of help requests on listening to Sirius streams on all mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian etc.) This article will surely help them a lot. (Note that I’ll also publish a similar article on XM Radio very soon).
Sirius Satellite Radio is one of two satellite radio services operating in the United States and Canada, along with XM Satellite Radio. It also has Internet streaming, which needs specialized clients because of the need for authorization. (Sirius’ streams aren’t free.)
1. If you have a Windows Mobile device...
... then, all you’ll need (unless you have VERY specific needs – more on them later) is SiriusWM5 downloadable HERE for free, for both Pocket PC’s (Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Classic) and MS Smartphones (Windows Mobile 6 Standard).
This app, which is just a front-end for either the built-in (Pocket) Windows Media Player, is really easy to use – you just fill in your official, Sirius login / password credentials in File / Settings (Guest accounts are disabled – don’t tick in “Guest”):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5Credentials.png
and, after saving this info, select the channel you’d like to listen to, enter the captcha text (alternatively, you’ll can also click Play (right softkey) and enter the number it says) and the playback will begin, with the song metadata (artist / title) displayed at the bottom of the screen, while the channel image in the top left corner.
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusInsideAChannel.png
Note that the metadata is only displayed in the GUI of the app, not inside the player:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5TCPMPBackgrounPlayback.png
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/SiriusWM5NosoundMetadataInWMP.jpg
Also note that, while you can use TCPMP to play back the stream, you may have a little less power consumption and a little quicker handset if you just stick with the default WMP. The reason for this is that TCPMP consumes about 4% more CPU cycles at 624 MHz than WMP when playing back WMA. Note that, fortunately, SiriusWM5 itself doesn’t contain about anything: when run in the background, about 0.1% CPU cycles and, in the foreground, with activated song metadata, about ~1%. (Again, on a 624 MHz Xscale PXA-270).
1.1 Additional goodies
In last September, the developers of SiriusWM5 started working on a vastly enhanced (and also XM Radio-compliant) version of the app. See for example THIS for more info. THIS thread may be also of interest: it elaborates on what the developers plan: transcoders running on the clients’ PPC’s etc:
1.2 When NOT to use?
If you have a Windows Mobile device, in most cases, SiriusWM5 will just suit you great. In some cases, however, you’ll want to use a transcoder to be able to listen to high-quality (!) Sirius streams over a slow GPRS connection. This is what SiriusWM5 can't provide - after all, WMA itself is useless when it comes to delivering quality sound at GPRS (read: 32 kbps bitrate at most) speeds. Then, you'll need to turn to a HE-AAC v2-capable solution.
2. uSirius-based transcoding
To be able to transcode Sirius on your desktop computer, you’ll need uSirius, which is a free download and is, in some respects (except for preserving the song metadata / other textual broadcast info), better than SiriusWM5. It’s available HERE; the latest, tested version is 1.0 Release Candidate 5.
Note that, in order to be able to access the high-quality, 128 kbps original streams, you need to subscribe to the CD-quality additional pack - currently for $2.99 a month. If you aren’t a subscriber, I don’t see much point in trying to running a local transcoder for you as that of SiriusWM5 doesn’t degrade the sound quality much – using a 32 kbps stereo WMA as can be seen in HERE, its sound quality is acceptable. As it’s transcoding a stream of already-degraded sound quality, you won’t get far better sound quality with a transcoder running on your device either.
However, Palm, iPhone, Blackberry and Symbian users, who don’t have a native front-end for Sirius, MUST rely on local transcoding. For them, the following three sections will be essential. As you’ll see, I provide you with an in all cases (even over NAT’ed connections!) working and fully remote controllable (you can listen to any of the original Sirius channels) solution.
2.1 Using uSirius
After you install and start uSirius, click the Settings button and fill in your username / password pair:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/UsiriusProvideLoginPwd.png
Press OK and click the now-activated Start (the mouse is hovering over it in the next screenshot):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/UsiriusStart.png
Now, click the XBMC button (the fifth from the top) and select a target directory to export the local URL’s the streams of uSirius can be accessed at by the external transcoder tools:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/xbmcURLExport.png
and rename them to *.m3u:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/RenameStrmToM3U.png
(a Total Commander screenshot of doing this)
Now, you’ll need to change all occurrences of http:// to mms:// in all these files. You can do this by hand; however, if you prefer automatizing this task, download Replace in Files from HERE. Install it and let it start; quickly fill in the fields as in the following screenshot:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/repliaceInFilesInAction.png
and press Replace All. You’ll be shown a success report:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/repliaceInFilesInAction2.png
You’ll need to import these m3u playlist files in the different transcoders – either Orb or Winamp. In the following section, I elaborate on both.
2.2 Transcoding with Orb
Importing the playlists prepared in the above way is pretty easy: as has already been explained in the Radio Transcoding Bible, right-click the Orb icon in the system tray, select Configure, go to Media and click Add in the Music folders group. Select the directory you’ve stored your M3U’s:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/adduSiriusExportToOrb.png
and you’re set – they should, sooner or later, turn up under Audio / Playlists / Imported Playlists on your handset.
2.2.1 If mass m3u playlist importing doesn’t work...
Note that the current beta version of Orb may refuse importing the M3U files for no apparent reason. If you in no way can make your files visible, you’ll need to manually add your favorite stations to Orb. This, unfortunately, involves a lot of work if you have many favorites.
To do this, go to the configuration Web page of Orb (by, for example, double-clicking the Orb icon in the system tray) and select Open Application / Audio:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio.png
In there, click “Internet Audio” and, when the new (top) context-dependent toolbar is displayed, click Add custom at the top (in the following screenshot, the mouse is hovering above it):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio2.png
A new pop-up window, Add a custom channel, comes up; in there, you’ll need to fill in the station name you’d like to listen to and the local URL (to path). You can enter anything in the former field; to fill in the latter, you’ll need to do the following: in the uSirius client, click URLs (the third button from the top), select your favorite channel from the Channels drop-down list. Now, highlight the entire contents of the non-editable URL text area and right-click to access the context menu. In there, select Copy:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio4.png
Note that you shouldn’t ever tick in the “Sonos / MPlayer Compatible URLs” checkbox. Then, you’ll be shown two external (as opposed to local; in these screenshots, 169.254.2.2) URLs; one of them, the MMS one, working only, but only resulting in a runtime, client-side error message like THIS. The local addresses (again, addresses starting with 169 like 169.254.2.2) will work just fine.
Note that you can do the same with the exported M3U files - just copy their contents to the clipboard. Then, you can entirely avoid having to copy all the URL's from inside uSirius.
Switching back to the browser instance running Orb configuration / maintenance, fill this info into the Path field of the Orb custom URL dialog (also fill in the “Name” field!):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio5.png
Click Submit. After a quick test, it’ll be added to your Orb internet stream favorites.
Now, you can go on adding your favorites in the same manner; for example, the following screenshot shows the state after also adding Sirius 0 – The Bridge (in the foreground, I also show the uSirius URLs screen, ready for copying the next URL to the clipboard for a later import to Orb; in the background, you see the IE browser instance with the Orb configuration dialog):
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio6.png
Now you’re done (of course, you can still add additional Sirius stations); when you fire up your Orb client on your handset, you’ll already see the just-added streams under Audio / Internet Radio Favorites:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListing.png
(VGA WM5 PPC)
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListingSym.png
(a Symbian screenshot of the same, with an additional station)
… and can start listening to it; a Symbian screenshot of this:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbSymListen.png
(Again, on Symbian, you can only use non-NAT’ed connections to access Orb.)
Unfortunately, as can be seen, the song metadata (the title / artist of the current song) isn’t displayed in either Windows Mobile or Symbian – unlike with the native WM client, SiriusWM5.
3. Non-Orb-based transcoding (Winamp)
Should you want to avoid using Orb for the reasons I’ve explained in the Radio Stream Transcoding Bible (no support for Symbian-compliant SHOUTcast; no support for the GPRS-friendly HE-AAC v2), your best choice is Winamp + the Oddcast plug-in. Then, you can dynamically switch between the stations (assuming you’ve added the local uSirius-generated URL’s to Winamp manually) with a Winamp remote controller (of which, again, there’re several – also for Symbian and Palm, if you use a Web-based controller) and can enjoy the advantages of Winamp + Icecast2-based transcoding as opposed to that of ORB, particularly if your handset is able to play back HE-AACv2 (currently, Windows Mobile handsets with TCPMP).
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinAmpIceSiriusTranscodeSM2.jpg
(click the thumbnail for the full-size image; it shows all components of the Winamp-based transcoding, including uSirius as the source, Winamp as the player, Oggcast as the transcoder, Icecast2 as the streaming server and a mobile client, CorePlayer, running in SOTi Pocket Controller, the, in my opinion, best, highly recommended remote controller for Windows Mobile)
Note that you can’t use VLC because uSirius just refuses to accept its incoming requests as can be seen in the following screenshot:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/usirisNonVLCCompl.png
Unfortunately, in VLC, it’s not possible to modify the MMS user agent (unlike that of HTTP(S) – screenshot HERE and HERE of this, respectively).
You can’t use StreamTranscoderV3 either because it doesn’t accept MMS (WM) input, only that of SHOUTcast / Icecast.
3.1 Importing M3U files into Winamp
Importing the M3U files exported from uSirius into Winamp is, fortunately, much easier than with Orb – with guaranteed results. In the Media Library view, right-click Playlists and select Import playlist from folder:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist.png
Select the directory and all your stations become promptly available:
Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist2.png
waiting for playing back / transcoding via, for example, the OddcastV3 plug-in.
Again and again, please DO read Radio Stream Transcoding Bible for more information on the secrets of transcoding and Winamp remote control so that you can have the same freedom of switching channels any time as with the Orb client or with SiriusWM5. You’ll find an answer to all your questions in there. Just keep trying to digest the vast amount of info I’ve presented in these Bibles – you’ll, finally, succeed, I’m absolutely sure
I think an easier solution would be to download SiriusWM5...
Turn your phone into a wireless camera! Supports Windows, Mac and Linux.
Turns your phone into a network camera with multiple viewing options. View your camera on any platform with VLC player or web browser.
Use IP Webcam with tinyCam Monitor on another android device or with third-party MJPG software, including video surveillance software, security monitors and most audio players.
Videochat support (e.g. Skype, Chatroulette, only video stream for Windows only via an universal MJPG driver)
[MARKET LINK]
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pas.webcam&hl=en
Sir is this site a little bit like a github by any chance? that would be cool
IPTV Player
Program IPTV player allows you to watch TV channels from different networks. Supports all types of sharing IPTV networks:
1) Direct link to the channel in the format HTTP (Unicast)
2) Multicast IP TV via UDP-to-HTTP proxy (installed on the computer, router, etc..)
3) Multicast IP TV directly without UDP proxy (not all devices support this feature)
In most common cases, a way to play the number 2 IP TV you need:
1) Establish UDP-to-HTTP proxy on Windows computer, UDPXY proxy on the router or Linux computer
2) Register in the program address (URL) of your UDP-to-HTTP proxy server
3) Download the channel list in the format .m3u
The recommended format for the channels' list in the format .m3u:
#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,Channel One
udp://@224.10.10.1:8001
#EXTINF:-1,Channel Two
udp://@224.10.10.2:8002
#EXTINF:-1,Channel Three
udp://@224.10.10.3:8003
#EXTINF:-1,Channel Four
udp://@224.10.10.4:8004
#EXTINF:-1,Channel Five
udp://@224.10.10.5:8005
Download at Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=iptv.player