Maemo People

mediaserv has now reached v0.04. Thanks to everyone for providing feedback. Here's a demo of my N800 playing back a DVD rip in 720x576 1000kbps video, 192kbps audio DivX off a 1GHz Via C3 processor box transcoding to 770-encode's "average" preset:

Download: mediaserv-0.04.tar.gz (29KB)

Its main features now include:

• On-demand transcoding of videos.
• Easy-to-use web UI, and integration with Video Center.
• Playback in standard Media Player or mplayer, depending on the configuration of your Web Browser and/or Video Center.
• Automatic thumbnail generation.
• Meta-data from MythTV and Freevo for subtitles and descriptions.
• Tested on Linux, Mac OS X and other Unix-like OSes.

It's fully documented, but obviously since it's only v0.04 there are almost certainly still bugs and enhancements which can be made. So comments are, as ever, welcome.

Thanks to everyone who gave me lots of good, positive, constructive feedback on the first version of mediaserv. I've just uploaded mediaserv-v0.02.tar.gz (24KB) where:

• The 770-encode preset can be specified.
• The location of 770-encode can be specified.
• Video Center config files are created, should make adding directories to Video Center that much easier.
• Usage counting works: so transcoding stops when nothing is reading from the result.
• A bug whereby the reading could fall off the end of the result has been fixed: if you had videos stopping too soon, this is almost certainly it.
• Quick links to the RSS feed and Video Center configs added at the top of the page.
• Hidden files and directories are not shown, instead a breadcrumb trail is created in the banner.

I'm very pleased to be able to announce the initial version of "mediaserv", an on-demand transcoding server for videos, targetting the Nokia Internet Tablets.

What's that mean? Well, you don't have to worry about transcoding your video collection in advance: you can just select the video from a web page and get it streamed to your 770, N800 or N810. It's a bit like Orb, apparently, but doesn't require you to sign-up to a third-party website and works on non-Windows platforms.

Even better, it provides RSS feeds which can be used by Nokia's beta Video Center allowing you easy access to files as they are added to your collection.

No fancy web page for it yet, but the tarball for Linux/Unix and Mac OS X (probably) machines is here: mediaserv-0.01.tar.gz (20KB).

Here they are!

Jammie Thomas, 30-year-old single mother of two, has just be fined to pay $220.000 to Capitol Records, Sony, BMG Music Entertainment, Arista Records, Interscope Records, Warner Bros Records and UMG Recordings. She was accused of sharing 24 (twentyfour) songs copyrighted by those majors. This makes about $9.200 for every single song.

Won't comment it, just take your conclusions and remember it when you buy your next music CD...

More infos:
http://www.theregister.com/2007/10/05/riaa_wins_first_music_sharing_jury_trial/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/first_riaa_music_sharing_trial_begins/

Some good (try before you pay) music:
http://www.magnatune.com

(feel free to comment and add more free sources)