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Stream MythTV to Your Cell Phone

lerhaupt writes "I've setup a howto for streaming your MythTV recordings to your 3G cell phone. In involves getting your myth box to convert recordings to 3gp format and then setting up Apple's Darwin Streaming Server to handle streaming the videos from a webpage it sets up. "

19 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Fair use... by jginspace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Triumph. Indeed some beautiful uses of fair use. Fair use to record the tv program to my hard drive... Fair use to convert the video format to one viewable by my cell phone... Fair use to stream it to my cell phone for my own personal enjoyment.

    M'lud that wraps up the case for the defence...

  2. No Comments And Referenced Site Down Already by mysticwhiskey · · Score: 2, Funny
    In other news:

    I've setup a howto for Slashdotting pages submitted to Slashdot. In involves getting someone (the "submitter") to submit articles to Slashdot and then setting up your browser to point to the webpage in question.

    --

    Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!

  3. Oh good... by gearmonger · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Our access is becoming more and more universal just as the amount of watchable content on TV becomes less and less.

    I'd prefer a truly rich web experience on my phone WAY more than streaming TV garbage.

    1. Re:Oh good... by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Funny

      Our access is becoming more and more universal just as the amount of watchable content on TV becomes less and less.

      Says you! Right now I'm using my phone to watch a great program with Chuck Norris talking about the Total Gym. I can't wait to see what happens in the next episode!

      --
      This guy's the limit!
  4. Re:3GP by dtsazza · · Score: 4, Informative
    Can someone enlight us with the quality and/or bitrate of 3gp videos? TFA and the wikipedia link are light on details.

    3GP is just a multimedia container format - so the quality and bitrate depends on what codecs you use for the video and audio contained within it. Video is stored as MPEG-4 or H.263, and audio streams as AMR-NB or AAC-LC. 3GP does apparently describe "image sizes and bandwidth" - though from searching on www.3gpp.org I couldn't pick it out. There's a lot of technical specifications there though, so if you really want to know (as opposed to idle curiousity) I'm sure you can find out from their specifications.
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    My, that was a yummy potato!
  5. Re:Slashdotted already? by agoodm · · Score: 2, Informative

    OK its back: Currently mirroring site here: http://stats.photojerk.com/www.torrentocracy.com/b log/archives/2006/05/streaming_mytht_1.shtml incase it goes again!

  6. Re:I've used 3gp before... by ToddML · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And when I'm traveling, or otherwise far away from my recordings, I'm supposed to just run home and load up my SD card, then make the trip back to wherever I was originally in order to watch video? That really makes no sense whatsoever, it solves a different problem altogether.

  7. Re:I've used 3gp before... by Tx · · Score: 3, Informative

    3gp is a container, what you said makes as much sense as saying you're unimpressed with the quality of AVI video. It depends what codec was used (MPEG4 basically), what bitrate, and the quality of the playback software and hardware.

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    Oh no... it's the future.
  8. Re:Darwin Streaming Server by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hmmm. Someone named Whiney Mac Fanboy who's unaware of Apple technologies (open source even) that have existed for many many years. Somehow it all makes sense...

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    This guy's the limit!
  9. vlc by Lussarn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use vlc to stream TV to my work. Seems to be very similiar to this but possibly easier to set up.
    Beyond my GUI this is basicaly what I do. I use http but I think vlc can do rtsp if needed.

    At home:
    vlc -I http /mnt/big1/incoming/now.mpg --sout '#transcode{deinterlace,vcodec=mp4v,acodec=vorbis, vb=300,ab=80,width=320,height=240,fps=12}:standard {access=http,mux=ogg,url=111.111.111.1111:9000}' &/dev/null &

    At work:
    vlc http://111.111.111.111:9000/

  10. Changing channels? by Durzel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unless I'm missing the obvious, how would you go about changing the channels whilst streaming Live TV?

    The article seems to mention streaming movies you have already pre-recorded, which is all well and good but if you are just going to watch pre-recorded films whats stopping you from just sticking them on your phone the next time its in the base station?

    I would've thought with MythTV in the equation that streaming live TV and being able to change channels (on your phone) would be the killer app.

  11. No use here in Europe by OlivierB · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While we may get all the new shiny phones here in Europe, 3G and other data plans are priced so high that nobody uses them (as opposed to the US where you typically get unlimited bandwith).

    FYI, I am with Orange in the UK where I am charged £4 for 4MB per month (that's about a Slashdot page per DAY!).

    I went to the Netherlands for week-end and unfortunately needed to lookup a few things on my PDA while over there, I totalled £60 for almost 5MB (that's USD 100 for you guys).

    So I won't be streaming 24 and al from no mythbox to my cellphone.

    T-Mobile launched web-n-walk which they sell as unlimited usage for £30 except you can't use it for P2P (duh), but excludes as well any IM (!!) or VOIP usage.

    I hope data-plans are next (after roaming charges) on the EU's commission list of but-rape things to fix.

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
  12. Re:Orb is here now and it works by Radi-0-head · · Score: 2, Informative

    Uh, Orb is free. I've been using it for 6 months and they have never requested any type of payment.

  13. I've set up a web page too by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 2, Funny


    On it, I tell you how to take a book with you and read when you're bored.

    1. Re:I've set up a web page too by hobbesx · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ok, I'm on the table of contents, but I can't figure out where to click to get to the first chapter. Any hints?

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      This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
      Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
  14. Re:Orb is here now and it works by MrDoh1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If I had mod points I'd mod you up. I can't believe this was called flamebait as it's a wonderful service and more feature rich alternative than what the TFA provides.

    Orb can stream pretty much any (XVID, DIVX, MPEG, QT, RM, WMV and more) prerecorded video to any device with an internet connection. I've even used it over 26.4k dialup with acceptable results (considering the speed). At 26.4k normal streaming radio stations want to buffer every three or four minutes, but with orb streaming video at that same speed I can watch for an hour or more without any rebuffering.

    Throw a capture card in your PC and it can also record via antenna, cable, satellite, etc. You can then watch the recorded content via stream at any time.

    Better than that, you can stream live TV! You can change the channel right from your normal media player (pretty much any) while watching. You use the forward and back buttons and it changes the channels up or down. Need a break? Hit pause. When you are ready it will pick right up where you left off.

    You can put up pictures so anytime you want you can look at the picture of your baby (or your PC if you are that much of a geek).

    Orb also streams whatever audio you may have and want it to.

    Another nifty thing, you can setup "shared folders" so you can allow others to see your media (suppose to be for only media you actually own the rights to, not TV or the Simpsons episodes you ripped from your DVDs.

    I'll tell ya, it makes the weekend or holidays at the in-laws bearable. Pick up my iPaq and hit an access point and at least I'm entertained for a while.

    The only current draw back for me is that it won't currently run on any flavor of 64 bit Windows (at least not the live TV part which is the biggest draw for me. And it's likely that is an issue with Directshow and the capture card drivers.)

    Shhh... Lets not tell the **AA about this! This is a service I for sure don't want to lose but I can't believe exists in the first place.

    --
    I am Homer of Borg. Resistance is Fut.. Mmmmmmmm, Donuts!
  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. Re:I've used 3gp before... by ncc74656 · · Score: 2, Informative
    And when I'm traveling, or otherwise far away from my recordings, I'm supposed to just run home and load up my SD card, then make the trip back to wherever I was originally in order to watch video?

    No, you log into your MythTV box, transcode a show to a suitably low bitrate with MEncoder (or whatever), and download or stream the resulting file. I typically encode video to 320x240 MPEG-4 at 384 kbps and audio to 22.05 kHz mono MP3 at 64 kbps. If the remote location has broadband access of some sort, I could theoretically do HTTP streaming, but I can usually download one hour of video in 30-40 minutes instead. A few minutes' editing with VirtualDub trims out the commercials, after which I can either play it on my notebook with MPlayer or transfer it to my Treo's SD card and play it there with MMPlayer.

    I've also downloaded shows through my phone's data connection, but since it's only ~150 kbps, it takes a while. I've not tried encoding at bitrates that low; the resolution would have to be reduced so low that I don't know if it'd be worth watching.

    Encoding is fairly quick for SD sources (maybe 15 minutes for a good-quality encode, 5 minutes if you don't care as much about artifacts). HD takes a bit longer, but it can also be transcoded.

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    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.