PMSEncoder

• Description
• Prerequisites
• Installation
  • Upgrading
  • Uninstalling
  • Building
• Tips
• Downloaders
  • Windows
  • Linux, Mac OS X &c.
  • All platforms
• Scripting
• Troubleshooting
  • Reporting Issues
  • Support
• Version
• License

Description

This is a plugin for PS3 Media Server (PMS) that adds scriptable support for web video streaming.

Prerequisites

PMSEncoder should work on all platforms/renderers supported by PS3 Media Server.

These instructions assume you have the latest version of PS3 Media Server and the latest version of Java.

Installation

• download the PMSEncoder jar file and place it in the PMS plugins directory
• restart PMS

Upgrading

To upgrade to a new version of the plugin:

• check the release notes to see if there are any breaking changes or other incompatibilities
• replace the old jar file in the plugins directory with the new version and restart PMS

Uninstalling

To uninstall PMSEncoder, remove the jar file from the plugins directory.

Building

To build PMSEncoder from source, see the Wiki.

Tips

• To work around the PMS bug that causes web video playback to be delayed for ~40s, uncheck "HTTP Engine V2" in the PMS "General Configuration" tab. This can also be done by setting http_engine_v2 = false in PMS.conf. Then restart PMS. See below for caveats.
• To take PMSEncoder for a spin, try this WEB.conf, which contains a list of feeds that are regularly tested.
• For help with particular feeds/streams/sites, see here.
• For details on configuring PMSEncoder, see here.

Downloaders

While PMSEncoder has basic support for a few sites built-in, it can be configured to support a much wider range of sites by means of external downloaders. Specifically, youtube-dl is highly recommended since it supports a much wider range of YouTube videos and, unlike PMSEncoder's built-in YouTube support, is regularly updated to keep track of changes on the YouTube site. It also supports many other sites that are not natively supported by PMSEncoder.

Several downloaders are supported. See here for more details.

Setup is simple:

Windows

• Save youtube-dl.exe (direct link) to the PMS plugins directory.
• Optional but recommended: extract rtmpdump.exe from the latest rtmpdump-windows.zip (direct link) and save it to the PMS plugins directory.

Linux, Mac OS X &c.

youtube-dl is updated regularly (sometimes several times a day). Homebrew (Mac OS X, Linux) is recommended to get the latest version:

brew install youtube-dl rtmpdump

All platforms

Downloaders can be enabled in one of three ways:

1. by placing them in the PMS plugins directory.
2. by placing them in PATH directories.
3. by providing explicit paths to the executables in PMS.conf as described here.

Scripting

PMSEncoder can be configured to support any video site by writing a small script, similar to a Greasemonkey-style userscript. Scripts are written in Groovy with a page-scraping syntax very similar to jQuery. See the source of the builtin scripts for more details and here for details on where to add your own scripts.

In addition, PMSEncoder scripts can be used to change or customize transcoding commands for local files and to dynamically script all aspects of PMS. Almost all of PMSEncoder's own settings are implemented in scripts and can be customized and overridden by user-created scripts.

Troubleshooting

• For help with particular feeds/streams/sites, see here.
• Make sure you're using the latest version of PMS and the latest version of PMSEncoder.
• Make sure the WEB.conf is in the profile directory (see here for the default locations).
• Make sure there's only one version of the plugin in the plugins directory.
• Make sure PMSEncoder is first in the list of web video engines.
• Make sure the error is reproducible after a PMS restart. Caching in PMS and/or the PS3 often produces one-off errors.
• If you disabled "HTTP Engine V2", try re-enabling it as some renderers, such as the Sony Bravia KDL-37V5500, require it.
• Internet Explorer saves .jar files as .zip files. Either save the file with a different browser, or rename it, replacing the .zip extension with .jar.

Reporting Issues

First of all, please make sure you've followed all of the steps in the Troubleshooting section before reporting issues.

If the issue still remains:

1. restart (or start) PMS
2. try to stream a web video
3. wait until it fails
4. stop PMS
5. upload the full debug.log, PMS.conf and pmsencoder.log to Pastebin.com or MediaFire
6. create a new post in this thread describing the problem, along with links to the uploaded logfiles and any relevant WEB.conf entries

Support

For more details, discussion and troubleshooting tips, see the wiki and this thread.

Version

2.0.0

License

Copyright 2009-2014 chocolateboy.

PMSEncoder is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.