[mythtv-users] Mythtube: Internet Video on Demand

Sat Nov 4 12:20:12 UTC 2006

Hello Everybody,

I have created a userjob and webpage to play Myth videos in a browser
over the internet.  I call it MythTube.  It's very simple to setup and
plays video great.  Each flash video is about 80M for an hour long
show (minus commercials).  It consists of a php page, a transcode
script, and a flash player.  I run the transcode job after the remove
commercials script from the Wiki.  The remove commercials may be
important as I saw comments about B-Frames being a problem with
mencoder.  I believe lossless transcoding removes any B-Frames.

To setup Mythtube, first create a directory under your webserver
called mythtube.  Mine was "/data/www/html/mythtube".  You will need
to change any references below to whatever your directory is.

Next, get flvplayer.swf.  Download
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/upload/flash_flv_player.zip and move
flash_flv_player/extras/flvplayer.swf into your mythtube directory
under your webserver.

Then create "play.php" and put it in the mythtube directory as well.
Here's play.php:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 TRANSITIONAL//EN">
<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome to MythTube!</title>
</head>
        <body bgcolor="#002650">
<h3>Now playing: <?php echo $_GET["movie"]; ?></h3>
<br>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="<?php echo
$_GET["h"]; ?>" height="<?php echo $_GET["w"]; ?>"
wmode="transparent" data="flvplayer.swf?file=<?php echo $_GET["movie"]; ?>">
<param name="movie" value="flvplayer.swf?file=<?php echo $_GET["movie"]; ?>" />
<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
</object>
</div>
<br>
<h3>Videos:</h3>
<table border="1">
<?php
$files = scandir("/data/www/html/mythtube");
// filter for only .flv files
$movies = array();
foreach($files as $file) {
   if(substr($file,-4) == ".flv") {
        echo "<tr><td>".$file."</td>";
        echo "<td><a
href=\"".$PHP_SELF."?movie=".$file."&h=640&w=480\">Large</a></td>";
        echo "<td><a
href=\"".$PHP_SELF."?movie=".$file."&h=360&w=240\">Small</a></td></tr>";
       $movies[] = $file;
   }
}
?>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Next you need to create the userjob which generates the flv files.

Here's the MYSQL commands I used in creating userjob 3:
use mythconverg;

UPDATE settings SET data='/usr/local/bin/flashtranscode %DIR% %FILE%
"%TITLE%" %STARTTIME%' WHERE value='UserJob3';

UPDATE settings SET data='Flash Transcode' WHERE value='UserJobDesc3';

UPDATE settings SET data='1' WHERE value='JobAllowUserJob3';

Here's the /usr/local/bin/flashtranscode script:
#!/bin/sh
# flashtranscode
#
# created by Jeff Volckaert (inspired by Zach White)
# modified 11/03/06 to use Flash
VIDEODIR=$1
FILENAME=$2
TITLE=$3
# Remove non-alpha characters from TITLE
TITLE=${TITLE//[^a-zA-Z0-9]/}
STARTTIME=$4

# Sanity checking, to make sure everything is in order.
if [ -z "$VIDEODIR" -o -z "$FILENAME" ]; then
        echo "Usage: $0 <VideoDirectory> <FileName> "<Title>" <Starttime>"
        exit 5
fi
if [ ! -f $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME ]; then
        echo "File does not exist: $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME"
        exit 6
fi

# Transcode the file

mencoder -ofps 12 -of lavf -lavfopts
i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames -oac lavc
-lavcopts acodec=mp3:abitrate=32 -channels 1 -srate 22050  -ovc lavc
-lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=200:cbp:mv0:mbd=2:trell:v4mv:predia=2:dia=2:last_pred=3
-vop spp,scale=360:240,harddup -o
/data/www/html/mythtube/$TITLE-$STARTTIME.flv $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME

# For a smaller file use this instead.
# (It take three times longer to encode though)
# mencoder -ofps 12 -of lavf -lavfopts
i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames -oac lavc
-lavcopts acodec=mp3:abitrate=32 -channels 1 -srate 22050  -ovc lavc
-lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=100:mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3:predia=2:dia=2:vmax_b_frames=0:vb_strategy=1:precmp=2:cmp=2:subcmp=2:preme=2:qns=2
-vop spp,scale=320:240 -o
/data/www/html/mythtube/$TITLE-$STARTTIME-2.flv $VIDEODIR/$FILENAME

# Uncomment this if you want to insert MetaData tags into the file
# /usr/bin/flvtool2/flvtool2 -U /data/www/html/mythtube/$TITLE-$STARTTIME.flv

ERROR=$?
if [ $ERROR -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Transcoding failed for ${FILENAME} with error $ERROR"
        exit 3
fi

After at least one file has been transcoded you can pull up the
play.php page and start watching video.

Enjoy,
Jeff