Hulu/joost/vod Sites

[Poem58]

Hello Everyone, I know Firefox is supposed to run well on Pandora and I did see the threads about whether or not Flash would be supported...my question is basically...not so much if it's technically possible but whether it's likely that a service like Hulu or Joost will be viewable on the Pandora....will the flash support that is available be enough to view these? Is it possible but highly unlikely? Just curious as I like to sit outside alot in the summer and streaming some Tv out to the Pandora would be very cool....

Edit: Should things like Shoutcast Radio be no problem at least?

I'm just trying to get a sense of what limitations there will be to the things I do most often in my browser...

 

[argor]

Edit: Should things like Shoutcast Radio be no problem at least?

Shoutcast Radio no problemo B)

 

[SuperRoach]

While you mention shoutcast radio, how about shoutcast-ing?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=275976
Just a small tool.
Currently people doing shoutcasting for games at live events (i've casted the wcg australia) need a secondary computer to help them along. If I could possibly get this to work, the popularity of this thing would be amazing I feel
As an fyi, I connect to a shoutcast server - I don't need to actually host one from the pandora.

 

[mindlord]

@Poem58 - I'm not so sure about Hulu. Being a corporate controlled site I think they use something funky, DRM'd, not exactly flash. I remeber trying to watch in Ubuntu, and it not working. Joost I think is straight flash, so no issue there. Other VOD sites depends on the technology involved. If they use streaming wmv's or the like we will need the Mplayer or VLC plugin for Firefox to make it work.

@SuperRoach - With a built in Mic, and support for external ones through the headphone jack. It's one of those funny 3 ring kind that support headset mics. All you need is the software to stream it to the server. Icecast, I think is just a short compile away since it's GPL'd and console based. So, You're probably in luck.

 

[Poem58]

Well I can live without Hulu although I like it a lot....but as long as Joost would be viewable then it would fit my need for that...that and the streaming radio...I like to sit outside late at night in the summer and be able to watch shows or a movie or listen to streaming radio...tried with my laptop but it's power hungry and I hate to run cables for power etc....this will make it easy cause I used to use my PSP to listen to Shoutcast when I'd fall asleep at night but sold my CF PSP specifically in hopes of getting a Pandora...

Now that I've ordered one my mind is racing thinking of all the things I might be able to do with it...so sorry for all these kind of questions...

 

[sindbad]

Hulu uses flash and you can use the stream directly, that's what boxee does. You could make a greasemonkey script (and probably there already are some out there) that rewrites the flash object tags to native video player browser plugin tags. Don't know about Joost.

Anyway, I remember somene trying hulu with swfdec and it worked.

 

[Poem58]

Hulu uses flash and you can use the stream directly, that's what boxee does. You could make a greasemonkey script (and probably there already are some out there) that rewrites the flash object tags to native video player browser plugin tags. Don't know about Joost.

Anyway, I remember somene trying hulu with swfdec and it worked.

Man do I have a LOT to learn..aside from the boxee statement I didn't understand the rest...swfdec is that a program that will likely end up on pandora? I'm guessing you use some type of rss feed to get away form thier native player or something? Man I hate not knowing stuff...if this were windows I'd be all over this..with Linux..I'm lost...lol but I'm sure it won't take me long once Panda is in my hands....

Oh and from I remember hearing Hulu cut Boxee off...so I don't know if that ended the workaround as well...

 

[TrevorBradley]

Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States

Curse Hulu and their out of country blocking ways,

 

[sindbad]

Hulu uses flash and you can use the stream directly, that's what boxee does. You could make a greasemonkey script (and probably there already are some out there) that rewrites the flash object tags to native video player browser plugin tags. Don't know about Joost.

Anyway, I remember somene trying hulu with swfdec and it worked.
Man do I have a LOT to learn..aside from the boxee statement I didn't understand the rest...swfdec is that a program that will likely end up on pandora? I'm guessing you use some type of rss feed to get away form thier native player or something? Man I hate not knowing stuff...if this were windows I'd be all over this..with Linux..I'm lost...lol but I'm sure it won't take me long once Panda is in my hands....
Oh and from I remember hearing Hulu cut Boxee off...so I don't know if that ended the workaround as well...Sorry about that, I was thinking out loud. While typing I mean.

Swfdec and gnash are both alternative flash players and are both open source and will be available for the pandora.

Yes, either use their RSS feed or take the stream from the page that contains the flash player and replace the flash player on the page with a video player (like quicktime videos, but better). With greasemonkey, you can make a script that modifies web pages immediately after they are loaded, so it would probably be the best technology for doing this.

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

the psp has it, I don't see any reason for the pandora not to have it:
ultimate psptube
CODE
-CrunchyRoll
-Current
-Dailymotion
-Google Video
-Guba
-LiveLeak
-MegaPorn
-MegaVideo
-MetaCafe
-MuchoSucko
-MySpace Videos
-MyVideo
-NothingToxic
-Pornhub
-RedTube
-Revision3
-Shufuni
-Spike
-StageVu
-StreetFire
-ThatVideoSite
-TheTend
-TNAFlix
-Tube8
-TubeIso
-Tudou
-VBox7
-Veoh
-VidMax
-Vimeo
-Wanktube
-xHamster
-XVideos
-YouTube
-Yuvutu

 

[RavenX]

There are a couple of different Firefox plugins that support saving flash videos (flv) to your hard drive (such as Video DownloadHelper, just search for video on Firefox Add-ons). I have never actually tried them on a Linux box without Flash installed, but I think they might still work anyway. And, if nothing else, you can always save all of the clips you want on an SD card with your Windows box so that you can view them offline anytime you want with VLC or something else.

 

[God Ginrai]

All I wish is that the mplayer plugin for Firefox has an ARM version, or is easily ported.

-God Ginrai

 

[Kramy]

@Poem58 - I'm not so sure about Hulu. Being a corporate controlled site I think they use something funky, DRM'd, not exactly flash. I remeber trying to watch in Ubuntu, and it not working. Joost I think is straight flash, so no issue there. Other VOD sites depends on the technology involved. If they use streaming wmv's or the like we will need the Mplayer or VLC plugin for Firefox to make it work.

It works fine on Ubuntu, for me.

The real problem is, I doubt ARM-flash will support hardware acceleration any time soon. Without utilizing that extra chip for 720p video decoding, it'll be impossible to watch anything from Hulu with acceptable framerates.

 

[Chip]

The real problem is, I doubt ARM-flash will support hardware acceleration any time soon. Without utilizing that extra chip for 720p video decoding, it'll be impossible to watch anything from Hulu with acceptable framerates.
This is probably true. Whatever codec Hulu is using, it is absolute murder to decode. My old P4-based HTPC couldn't play hulu videos full screen at 1920x1080 without stuttering. I had to swap out the Radeon 7500 for a Gforce 6600 just to watch streaming video.

 

[fischju2000]

A similar site - BBC's iPlayer - only runs at 10fps in-browser on the OMAP3530 Archos 5. The only way to really do it is to seperate the stream and play it in a media player.

 

[God Ginrai]

A similar site - BBC's iPlayer - only runs at 10fps in-browser on the OMAP3530 Archos 5. The only way to really do it is to seperate the stream and play it in a media player.

From what I can tell from the little information that says something besides "OMAP 3 series" everywhere, the Archos 5 does not use the 3530, it uses the 3430, which although it is a very similar chip, it is not the same.

-God Ginrai

 

[Poem58]

@Poem58 - I'm not so sure about Hulu. Being a corporate controlled site I think they use something funky, DRM'd, not exactly flash. I remeber trying to watch in Ubuntu, and it not working. Joost I think is straight flash, so no issue there. Other VOD sites depends on the technology involved. If they use streaming wmv's or the like we will need the Mplayer or VLC plugin for Firefox to make it work.

It works fine on Ubuntu, for me.

The real problem is, I doubt ARM-flash will support hardware acceleration any time soon. Without utilizing that extra chip for 720p video decoding, it'll be impossible to watch anything from Hulu with acceptable framerates.

None of the content I watch from Hulu is at 720p...as a matter of fact due to the crappy onboard video of my laptop...clicking the 480p enhanced stream causes glitches...So I am guessing the standard stream is probably 320p? So I don't see any problem if the browser/flash will work..I only asked cause of an old thread where it sounded skeptical if flash would be very capable being linux and all (as in Adobe wouldn't be porting to Pandora)

Anyway...I just hope it works...that would be awesome and make my Panda work overtime....

 

[hedwards]

None of the content I watch from Hulu is at 720p...as a matter of fact due to the crappy onboard video of my laptop...clicking the 480p enhanced stream causes glitches...So I am guessing the standard stream is probably 320p? So I don't see any problem if the browser/flash will work..I only asked cause of an old thread where it sounded skeptical if flash would be very capable being linux and all (as in Adobe wouldn't be porting to Pandora)

Anyway...I just hope it works...that would be awesome and make my Panda work overtime....

The standard stream is something like 320p, I forget what it is, but it's roughly in that range. Which is more than fine on a pandora since the resolution and size of the monitor make it somewhat more forgiving on smaller videos.

 

[Poem58]

Hulu uses flash and you can use the stream directly, that's what boxee does. You could make a greasemonkey script (and probably there already are some out there) that rewrites the flash object tags to native video player browser plugin tags. Don't know about Joost.

Anyway, I remember somene trying hulu with swfdec and it worked.

My level of expertise is about 0...So making scrips for things is currently NOT within the realm of possibility for me...maybe once I've used Pandora for a year and know Linux and all it's differences and learn enough HTML to make a page that doesn't look like scrambled eggs...I'll have a shot...
But then again..watching the forums and reading...you guys will probably have me up to speed in no time...

None of the content I watch from Hulu is at 720p...as a matter of fact due to the crappy onboard video of my laptop...clicking the 480p enhanced stream causes glitches...So I am guessing the standard stream is probably 320p? So I don't see any problem if the browser/flash will work..I only asked cause of an old thread where it sounded skeptical if flash would be very capable being linux and all (as in Adobe wouldn't be porting to Pandora)

Anyway...I just hope it works...that would be awesome and make my Panda work overtime....

The standard stream is something like 320p, I forget what it is, but it's roughly in that range. Which is more than fine on a pandora since the resolution and size of the monitor make it somewhat more forgiving on smaller videos.


I was thinking the same thing...on a screen that small it would be likely that most compression artifacts wouldn't be too noticeable at all from a couple of feet away...I watch in full screen on my laptop in the lowest resolution and it's fine for me....it would probably look like DVD, Ok...a rather decent Divx...

frankly as long as it works...I could care less....

 

[Kramy]

The real problem is, I doubt ARM-flash will support hardware acceleration any time soon. Without utilizing that extra chip for 720p video decoding, it'll be impossible to watch anything from Hulu with acceptable framerates.
This is probably true. Whatever codec Hulu is using, it is absolute murder to decode. My old P4-based HTPC couldn't play hulu videos full screen at 1920x1080 without stuttering. I had to swap out the Radeon 7500 for a Gforce 6600 just to watch streaming video.

h.264, but with some pretty advanced encode/decode options.

I'm surprised it could play it with a videocard upgrade. Must've been full-screen resizing slowing it down.

I remember trying to encode stuff with MediaCoder a few months back. The quality was good, but not great. Then I started reading forums, and found a bunch of different options to apply. I messed around with them, and compared the results of about 20 more encodes. By the end of the tweaks, I was getting the same quality with almost half the bitrate.

Hulu caters to real companies and studios. I imagine they must have a very advanced encoder capable of outputting near-perfect encodes. The sacrifice would be encode time. (probably about 200x slower than the x264 encoders we'd use)

I've noticed that for quite a few 480p shows on Hulu, the quality is better than 720p x264 that shows up on torrent sites. I've also noticed that I can actually stream Hulu 480p. Whenever I try to watch Youtube HD, with its "2.0mbit" streams, my connection maxes out at a constant 320KB/sec and the stream stutters like mad the entire time. :lol:

So I know they're using significantly less bandwidth, and getting better quality than most everything out there. Has to be a super fancy encoder!