AMIKO Big things coming to little Amiko Nano HD: WebTV!

[KE4EST]

If you don't listen to Satellite Nation radio you missed an important hint a few weeks ago. We were discussing how the Amiko ALi based STB's all use 8Mb images instead of 4Mb used on other brands, and how there is a ton of blank codespace. The codespace isn't going to be empty for long, WebTV live streaming and probably VOD is coming!

This isn't something we are talking about doing or would like to do, it is running on a Nano HD here right now. There are a couple things to sort out before a public release but nothing major.

Here are some details:

- It is a rather basic system compared to Alien/Alien2 WebTV and WebTV2. It takes awhile to load the channels and it doesn't support the wide variety of feeds that A1/A2 can do. Even so, we're still putting together a package for it.

- The system is similar to the A1/A2 server side controls. Channels can be added and updated server side without constantly having to install a new WebTV file. Nano HD owners can add their own channels too.

- Some VOD looks to be possible but again it will be much more limited than what we can do with A1/A2.

- There is no plans to do an authorization system like on A1/A2. It is already setup to only work only on our boxes. Initially WebTV will be limited to USA & Canada.

- As mentioned in the Nano HD review/first look, wireless does not work that great on any ALi box. It is highly recommended that you run an Ethernet cable to your Nano while waiting for the release file.

- Nano HD is meant primarily as a True FTA satellite receiver. We're not going to develop a huge live IPTV system for it like we have for A1/A2. This new feature is a big bonus since we didn't say anything about it or advertise it with Nano. If you are looking for a bunch of IPTV and VOD the Alien2 is still the way to go.

Source: http://www.fridgefta.info/forums/showthread.php?tid=32784#ixzz2h2X7qHkC

 

[Jim S.]

I wish somebody would make one of these cheap boxes play media files from network shares. They play files from USB, and apparently they have enough memory to support networking, so there's only one layer missing really.

 

[wallyhts]

I wish somebody would make one of these cheap boxes play media files from network shares. They play files from USB, and apparently they have enough memory to support networking, so there's only one layer missing really.

I hear ya but then the question becomes what kind of file sharing? smb etc...

One idea would be to Install IIS or apache on your file server then convert your files to mp4 (flash) and add each http://mp4.file to your own custom XML file then the nano could play that way. Seems like a lot of work lol. Another idea would be to emulate a root folder via a USB cable so the STB thinks its a harddrive but then u need a computer.

Just wondering what are the majority of your files encode in? (File format, codec etc)





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[KE4EST]

It’s a feature on more expensive Amiko models for a reason. Ali isn’t really setup to do that. You’d need samba and other crap in there to read Windows network drives and the networking is basic at best. Then you need to look at codec support. Ali has fixed codecs based around what is used for satellite streams. Basic MPEG-2, MPEG-4 type stuff. Nothing fancy like more expensive and powerful boxes can do.

If you tried to do this on Ali you would end up with a very slow unit that plays very little media compared to expensive units. Probably not impossible to make it work but I’d say the end product would not be desirable.

It should be possible to use VLC with the new WebTV function to live transcode a media file to a simple format that Nano will work with but that is about as far as it will go. Probably easier to just put the media on a USB drive, plug it into Nano and play it assuming it is compatible.

 

[wallyhts]

I'm looking forward to Amiko getting the new firmware with WebTV out. I'm going to build a few Linux VM's to transcode streams into the format supported by the nano. That way people can get more streams on the nano with the special XML file.

Still pretty darn cool if you ask me.



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