Log from #neuros IRC channel

Btw. This youtube-thing.. I heard about a site that acted like a "proxy" for youtube, and outputted mpeg instead.. But maybe that is not something we want to depend on..

[02:05]

anders_: could be a bottleneck though to go through a proxy site, right?

[02:07]

but anyway FLV is in the OSD codecs now right?

[02:08]

avidemux couldn't read it either

[02:08]

anders_, no that would be of interest.

[02:08]

<anders_>

sourcerror: Probably, and one could probably not depend that it will stay around.

[02:08]

<anders_>

JoeBorn: I'll ask the guy who talked about it next time I see him.

[02:09]

I probably misread the post (open.neurosaudio.com

[02:12]

sourcerror, that's google video not youtube

[02:13]

I see.

[02:13]

I guess I got confused because didn't Google buy youtube?

[02:14]

yeah, it's confusing, but they are still two different services, or at least the technology behind them is different, at least for the time being

[02:17]

I'll try vlc

[02:17]

* JoeBorn needs his GUI

what GUI?

a GUI.

yea.

the Mencoder or whatever that daurn suggested looks like a command line deal

[02:22]

yep

[02:23]

one thing I would be paranoid about in trying to use the google video or youtube video directly is that they could put some hooks that keep you from grabbing them directly if they wanted

[02:24]

i don't know if that is a problem. just saying they could pull the carpet out from under you it seems at any moment.

[02:25]

...especially if it avoids you seeing all the advertisements that they want you to see by visiting the web site.

[02:25]

yep, I don't view this as a permanent solution

[02:25]

[rewrite]...especially since grabbing the video avoids you seeing all the advertisements that they want you to see by visiting the web site.

[02:26]

yea, that's fine then. since you have to get the video playback working well in anyway. you could always work a deal with them I suppose.

[02:26]

them=google.

[02:28]

right, exactly hte only "right" way to do it is to do a business development deal

[02:28]

and if you build it they would see the benefit of the deal

[02:28]

but that will be slow and take up who knows how much time, better to get started sooner and see what interest we get

[02:28]

right, exactly

[02:29]

good plan ;)

[02:34]

<anders_>

JoeBorn: vixy.net

[02:35]

anders_: cool the code is open source (says on the bottom of the page)

[02:36]

<anders_>

Yes.. Very much worth a look. Escpecially since it says "The service is using a compressed domain transcoder technology"

[02:39]

what could be done to make it more reliable would be to have many "peers" running the service... basically anyone willing to run it. You could have the service peers register to some set of central sites, then the OSD could find one of the service peers and get the transcoded video.

[02:41]

...TranscodeTorrent

[02:45]

<anders_>

sourcerror: Except that it would need some way to verify data.. So someone doesn't add a rouge peer that starts feeding porn/spam.

[02:46]

<anders_>

I wonder how fast it is..

[02:46]

anders_: yea,

[02:47]

anders_: I just grabbed the source and tried to compile. It had some errors during compile.

[02:47]

<anders_>

Ideal would be if it was fast enough to run on osd.. But I doubt that..

[02:48]

JoeBorn: but, on the osd, we'll be able to script it so that it automatically converts

[02:48]

OR

[02:48]

just plays

[02:49]

well, even if its not real time it would be a huge value.

[02:49]

this site is dog dog slow for me.

[02:49]

now our connection is competing for worst in the world, but still

[02:50]

JoeyBorn: maybe JoeBorn is using all your bandwidth ;)

[02:50]

or is it jborn_

[02:51]

overall, I enjoy china, but there are two things that really make me dread these trips

[02:51]

no heat during the winter

[02:51]

and the internet connectivity in our office is horrendous

[02:51]

it's just sheer misery

[02:52]

JoeyBorn: not as bad as mine!

well

theres no way.

maybe

it's horrendous.

I don't see you disconnecting 100 times a day from IRC.

[02:53]

I've got three friggin names logged in here.

[02:53]

you also don't get to see me watch as all my downloads fail as the server thinks i've gone, because i can't download international at over 0.2kB/s

[02:54]

<anders_>

It converted a 1minute file in 3s on laptop! That is great.. Except that I can't play the output file :)

[02:55]

anders_: what converted?

[02:56]

3s sounds suspiciously fast and your results seem to confirm that suspicion :)

[02:57]

<anders_>

OMG

[02:57]

<anders_>

Now I get a working file.

[02:57]

<anders_>

But now it took 4s :)

[02:58]

<anders_>

Don't know if the osd can play it though.

[02:59]

anders_: what'z new ?

[03:01]

<anders_>

Can anyone with an OSD handy check if it can play any of these files: people.0x63.nu

[03:12]

anders_: I'm trying it now.

[03:13]

<anders_>

If it works it is really fantastic!

[03:17]

anders_: at my computer I don't have the audio set up but it appears to have played all of them. But after it is done the OSD says...

[03:17]

(sorry, I'm waiting for another one to give me the error message...)

[03:17]

<anders_>

The osd played them? For real?

[03:19]

Yes. how does the video end. Because it seems to play all of it and then afterwards says... "unable to play: no playable video content" in a popup window.

[03:20]

<anders_>

sourcerror: This is the original url: www.youtube.com

[03:21]

(just a sec...)

[03:21]

<anders_>

Take your time.

[03:23]

yea, the OSD plays all of the files (.avi, .mov, .mp4). Don't know what the popup is complaining about maybe something at the end of the video is corrupt.

[03:25]

what was the original file?

[03:28]

...by the way, I'm resisting the urge to call Luke.

[03:29]

anders_: what was the input, what did you use to convert?

[03:29]

<anders_>

The original file is people.0x63.nu

[03:29]

<anders_>

I used sourceforge.net

[03:30]

<anders_>

It took 3s to convert on my (not too fast) laptop.

[03:30]

<anders_>

(1GHz powerbook G4)

[03:30]

<anders_>

This is REALLY good news.

[03:30]

<anders_>

JoeyBorn: ^^^^

[03:31]

audio too, sourcerror ?

[03:32]

let me hook up the audio and see... I need to dig for my adapter thingy. RCA to headphone...

[03:33]

<anders_>

(the mp4 will get no audio according to the documentation)

[03:33]

<anders_>

I just got the urge to take the rest of the day off and go home hacking on this instead.

[03:37]

give it to a powerful urge like that!

[03:38]

<anders_>

Unfortunatly I have way too much to do at work. So it will have to wait to this evening.

[03:38]

anders_, JoeyBorn: audio and video work, but audio seems to be delayed in all three.

[03:42]

lipsync issue you mean?

[03:43]

<anders_>

sourcerror: Does that happen when you play them on your desktop aswell?

[03:43]

yes. audio lagging behind video. honestly I haven't done much video playback on the OSD and none on this firmware .

[03:43]

on the desktop too?

[03:43]

<TankC>

I've noticed severe audio lag on my OSD as well

[03:44]

<TankC>

when playing back a few test files of mine

[03:44]

anders_: I'm playing it over samba from windows machine. so I can go over and test it on windows... let me see...

[03:44]

<TankC>

I thoght it was because the poor thing didn't have enough RAM

[03:44]

oh it just rebooted my OSD as we were talking.

[03:45]

...i'm on 3.27-0.63 firmware.

[03:45]

well submit that file to bugzilla, particuliarly once we know if the PC has the lipsync issue

[03:46]

<anders_>

sourcerror: Great, if lipsync is fine in windows the conversion should at least not have introduced the unsync.

[03:49]

* nerochiaro mornings

[03:49]

playing with flv ?

[03:50]

ok...

[03:51]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: Found a too that transcodes flv to mpeg in compressed space.

[03:51]

<anders_>

tool

[03:51]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: Runs in 2seconds on a 1minute file on my laptop.

[03:51]

I can't get the .mp4 to play on windows.... my WinAmp wants to play it but doesn't do anything.

[03:51]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: OSD plays the output files.

[03:52]

.avi plays fine on windows.

[03:52]

<anders_>

sourcerror: With correct lipsync?

[03:52]

yes.

[03:53]

yes. correct lip sync.

[03:53]

<anders_>

Great, then it isn't the transcoding's fault.

[03:54]

but i imagine it's not relistic to transcode them on the osd directly, right ?

[03:56]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: Need to try it out.. As long as my laptop isn't more than 30 times faster than the OSD it would actually be faster than realtime on osd aswell.

[03:56]

<anders_>

And my laptop is just an old 1GHz powerbook G4..

[03:57]

what is an mp4? why won't windows media player play it?

[03:58]

anders_: where is the source ?

[03:58]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: sourceforge.net

[03:59]

thanks

[04:00]

well, that's certainly cool, I guess it's probably not really transcoding it, but doing the header changing thing that was discussed in the mailing list

[04:00]

I don't believe on a 1GHz machine, it would be 30x realtime to transcode

[04:01]

morning nerochiaro

[04:02]

this could be the YouTube Dream we've all been waiting for.

[04:02]

JoeyBorn: mornin'. looking at their site it seems they actually transcode, but do that in one step, withouth decode-encode process

[04:02]

vixy.net

[04:03]

someone should submit the lipsync issue to bugzilla

[04:03]

well, I'm not sure what the meaning of the word "transcode" is but I guess that it doesn't encode-decode is the point.

[04:04]

JoeyBorn: the other way around, but yes

[04:05]

JoeyBorn: but it's not just header fixing as you mentioned, it seems

[04:07]

JoeyBorn: in other news, some time ago i talked with vmarks about epg, then got distracted by other things. yesterday i give it some more thought. it seems that the initial import of the guide data is the main problem, because contrary to what i expected it can't be done straight from the osd in all cases

[04:08]

JoeyBorn: i've wondered about what you guys use for validating the video. Doesn't ingenient use some test suite of recordings to verify against?

[04:09]

JoeyBorn: so neuros will have to get guide data every now and then, repack it in a format that the OSD can digest and have people's OSDs download these updates

[04:09]

sourcerror, you would certainly think so, but not at all.

[04:09]

JoeyBorn: but i don't know if that will be a problem

[04:09]

we are left to our own devices to QC their stuff, it's sad but true

[04:10]

to QC codecs, that list of test files would go a long way for people in the community to help

[04:10]

nerochiaro, oh. Ok, well I guess it is what it is.

[04:10]

I don't know how much variation there is in recordings out in the wild, but it seems like there should be a test suite of video out there somewhere.

[04:10]

sourcerror, I agree!!!

[04:10]

agree too

[04:11]

my point is ingenient's being in the business should have it already.

[04:11]

I have begged and pleaded for them. No one seems interested in creating them.

[04:11]

JoeyBorn: probably because there's no place to easily upload them, among other things

[04:12]

ok. I see your stuck in teh middle.

[04:12]

well, then somone can provide a method to create them.

[04:13]

i think the problem is not creating them, but more in submitting them and making them available

[04:14]

well we want a systematic list.

[04:14]

i guess the problem is you have many different encoder vendors. you almost have to find all of them and record a test recording with all settings of each encoder.

[04:14]

for example, I now have avidemux open.

[04:15]

s/record a test recording/encode a test recording/

[04:15]

JoeyBorn: let's say you create a test clip. then what ?

[04:15]

nerochiaro, well we should talk to xorlev about that.

[04:16]

I get pooped on hard for asking for an ftp server.

[04:16]

by who ?

[04:16]

for years now, I've been getting crapped on for ftp

[04:16]

deepb, xorlev, srobertson, derober, you name it

[04:17]

everyone says ftp sucks, security issues, etc.

[04:17]

and for years, we've had no alternative.

[04:17]

* JoeyBorn eyes window and considers jumping when thinking about file transfer woes

[04:17]

when i asked xorlev about making some web space available to hackers, he said "ok, i'll have to talk to srobertson about that" then no response. i said the upload access would have been via sftp

[04:18]

sftp, scp, etc etc! they say

[04:18]

sftp is supported by nearly all friendly ftp clients

[04:18]

well, we have a new server just for that purpose.

[04:18]

not in china i hope ;)

[04:18]

We've been setting it up for 6 montsh.

[04:18]

no, it's in the US office.

[04:19]

that's good news

[04:20]

how so? it still isn't available.

[04:20]

it's approaching ready (asymptotically)

[04:21]

but anyway, that's not the problem with the test suite

[04:21]

the problem is we don't know what all these parameters mean

[04:21]

I have an ffmpeg encoding options screen in front of me, from avidemux

[04:22]

Main: Encoding type, bitrate, quantizer, interlaced, greyscale

[04:24]

Motion Estimation: ME Method, Max I-fram interval, Advanced Simple Profile, Number of B-frames, Qpel, GMC, ME comparison function, Diamon type and size

[04:25]

Quantization: H.263, Macroblock decision, Quantizer range, Trellis quantization, Rate distorted CBP

[04:25]

well that is a start right... start with common settings for all knobs, then vary one at a time across its range. still a lot of combinations.

[04:25]

Those are three of five screens and that's just MPEG 4 video

[04:25]

ah, sorry. i think then we were talking about different things. i thought what you wanted to have was a repository of "problematic" clips.

[04:25]

theres all kinds of video

[04:25]

then theres all kinds of audio

[04:26]

all combinations is not realistic

[04:26]

then there's a variety of formats

[04:26]

but I think the idea is to be more systematic or you are chasing your tail.

[04:26]

exactly!

[04:26]

we need two types of testing, field and more systematic.

[04:26]

yep.

[04:26]

for field, we need first a place to upload files.

[04:29]

yes, that's what i was speaking of

[04:30]

well we just don't know what is stopping the upload site from being completed (ftp or otherwise).

[04:31]

sourcerror: no, i've not been hear of xorlev in a while

[04:31]

second we need an automated system from the OSD itself: bugzilla.neurostechnology.com

[04:31]

i remember your message about that.

[04:32]

but we also need someone who knows video details to help us create a good systematic set of intellegently created files that we can run through testing with each release.

[04:32]

we have a dedicated team of testers here, but we're not leveraging them as well as we could be.

[04:34]

the "report to neuros" feature is nice, but there are 2 problems. 1) if the osd can't play a file, it might not even be able to recognize its format, thus what would it phone home ? 2) having people type in comments to the report isn't that good idea. very little would with the remote

[04:35]

I said the same to Joe a while back. but he came back with... you could have a set of checkboxes/radioboxes to choose from.

[04:35]

that's already better

[04:36]

just a bit

[04:36]

you could even provide them with a URL and a code where they go to their computer and enter comments.

[04:36]

or just put the focus on send now with "add comments" as an optional box

[04:36]

sourcerror: that would be great

[04:37]

but the reality is that the the OSD can recognize a lot of formats it can't play.

[04:37]

and all of the ones it can. A lot of it would just be statistical information

[04:37]

"wow, we're getting a 100 requests a day for MJPEG files, we have to fix that!" type of information

[04:38]

JoeyBorn: it's ok. we will still need to provide some server-side space where to submit that info, though. which leads us back to that problem

[04:38]

if you can ask them where they got the video you can learn more. e.g. "my camera model XYZ encoded it".

[04:39]

...which reminds me I have to try the AVI from my camera on the OSD. :)

[04:39]

what kind of camera?

[04:39]

Casio Exilim

[04:40]

give it a shot, we do have samples from one kind of casio exilim. last I saw it wouldn't play the audio, but that may have been fixed by now.

[04:41]

* sourcerror going to windows machine to copy some movies to share drive area...

[04:45]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: JoeyBorn: You were talking about some report-home-on-bug feature? Howabout putting an error report on the memory card/stick/drive? That the user could manually upload from his computer, along with comments.

[04:45]

JoeyBorn: that's right. Audio is not playing.

[04:45]

...video is jerky too.

[04:46]

anders_: that's right, but not extremely consumer-friendly. more things people have to do, less chance people will do it

[04:46]

anders_, could be a combination of things.

[04:46]

<anders_>

nerochiaro: Indeed.

[04:47]

you probably need to do both because not all people will have ethernet hooked up.

[04:47]

try sending, if fails save to first available disk

[04:47]

yea.

[04:48]

<anders_>

Always save to disk, even if sending works imho.

sure

even better :)

nite all!

anyone here founds extremely annoying the fact that a video doesn't play the next one in list will be played ?

[04:51]

automatically, without even a warning

[04:51]

yes, it should be an option.

[04:52]

or at least should pop up for a couple of seconds "file xxx could not be played, moving on"

[04:52]

<anders_>

So a developer can access the error report.

[04:53]

yeah, can be annoying. OTOH useful since you can't pause recording to skip commercials. You can stop and restart recording and the playback will go through all of them.

[04:53]

OK, sorry misread slightly

[05:01]

Is there another release coming out anytime soon?

yesterday ?

.69

not on OdNT?

the osd picked it up though

[05:02]

is auto update working?

[05:02]

yes

[05:02]

running now

[05:02]

My network stopped working with .63. I'll have to look into that.

[05:06]

OK, it just isn't happy if you don't have LAN plugged in at startup. Upgrading now.

[05:07]

theolodian: not happy as in won't boot ?

[05:07]

won't connect to LAN

[05:08]

ah, it won't work if you plug in lan late after boot ?

[05:08]

I'd have to play around more to say for sure

[05:08]

yeah

[05:08]

well, you need to bring it up manually, or go to network settings and try saving the nwork params again

[05:09]

you can get the DHCP stuff to show up later, but still didn't do upgrade. May have been one-time thing though

[05:09]

network is brought up only on boot

[05:10]

Haven't been using regularly yet, so haven't bothered getting it it's own CAT5. Keep borrowing it off for other stuff.

[05:10]

wow, the neuros network auto-update found neuros official .69, but then it's telling me it's not official

[05:10]

and also says invalid package

[05:10]

what the hell ?

[05:11]

mine's on root.cramfs again

[05:11]

which is ok

[05:11]

yours made it past that before invalid package?

[05:12]

I thought that was supposed to happen at the beginning? Did to me. Stupid IE7 that downloads everything corrupt :(

[05:12]

before that is, not today

[05:13]

it stops at "invalid package" for me

[05:13]

if you get that on the auto-update, how do you clear out the download and try again?

[05:13]

reboot probably

[05:14]

OK, so just stored in RAM

[05:14]

didn't check

[05:14]

still going with the root.cramfs here

[05:14]

leave it be

[05:14]

it takes a good 10 minutes or so

[05:15]

has anyone tried a MyBook drive from WD with the OSD?

oh crapola

BAD news for australia

[05:16]

ok, rebooting

[05:18]

looks better already!

[05:18]

theolodian: so for you the network update worked ?

[05:19]

well

[05:19]

australia is now baby usa

[05:19]

any ideas where to move to?

[05:19]

daurnimator: can you summarize that ?

[05:20]

most if not all usa IP laws, + more can now be used in australia

[05:20]

bleah

[05:20]

its times like this i want to move to europe

[05:21]

Ahhhhhhh! Every time I activate the menu it asks me to switch to NTSC!!!! :(((

[05:21]

daurnimator: it's not all roses around here in regard to IP laws

[05:21]

but i then realise that the australian attitude is supreme

[05:21]

theolodian: eek

[05:21]

- of the public

[05:22]

theolodian: did you get that update from network update or did you flash it via media card at boot ?

[05:22]

network

[05:22]

down with drm! :P

[05:22]

crap, how comes it doesn't work for me ? let's retry

[05:29]

on top of that, you can't record without saying that you don't want to change the input every time!

[05:29]

theolodian: can you post these little annoyances to bugzilla ?

yeah

oh

btw, i got a new job

open.neurostechnology.com

[05:36]

if anyone's interested.

[05:36]

daurnimator: what do you do ?

[05:36]

although I guess we're already on 69 internally.

[05:36]

JoeyBorn: what's that one ?

[05:36]

sorry, I guess it is 69!

[05:36]

this one is at an isp

[05:36]

i was ringing to check out plans

[05:37]

and... asked so many technical questions, i got offered a job

[05:37]

i took it :P

[05:37]

JoeyBorn: is that the .69 that the OSD is picking up via network update ?

[05:38]

nerochiaro, I don't know.

[05:38]

daurnimator: that's weird

[05:38]

JoeyBorn: oh well. i'm just saying you should not put out files for network upgrade without the corresponding ODNT page

[05:39]

JoeyBorn: do you know when you will be shipping out OSD to retailers yet?

[05:40]

well, I would assume it's not being network upgraded, it's just an internal release.

[05:40]

unless the upgrade algorithm is broken (which I suppose it could be)

[05:40]

JoeyBorn: it is network upgraded

[05:40]

JoeyBorn: now that auto upgrade is peachy, surely we are near ready for release?

[05:40]

JoeyBorn: i'm actually network upgrading it now

[05:41]

to .69?

[05:41]