UPnP playlists aren't behaving like I expect they should

I added an object.item.playlistItem to one of the containers on my UPnP ContentDirectory.

DIDL for parent

The entry is visible in the menu on the TVL+, but when I select it for playing it does not even attempt to fetch the URL mentioned in the tag (according to my apache logs).  It instead plays the URL from the first in the container  (I experimented with moving different movies into the first slot).

Thoth, no one here is really paying attention to this…  This is a USER COMMUNITY, not a Tech Support outlet.

TonyPh12345 wrote:

Thoth, no one here is really paying attention to this…  This is a USER COMMUNITY, not a Tech Support outlet.

    • *> To be fair, I suspect he’s making these reports here partly because there’s really nowhere else to do it.  Personally, I’m glad to see that someone is taking this level of interest - if WD’s QA and development staff are paying attention to the forums, it may result in a better product assuming that what he’s seeing is a valid bug.> In all honesty I’d probably be doing the same if it weren’t for the fact that my day job actually pays me to do more or less the same thing :wink:

Well, there IS a place:  WD Tech Support, HERE:   http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

:slight_smile:

TonyPh12345 wrote:

Well, there IS a place:  WD Tech Support, HERE:   http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php

 

:slight_smile:

    • *> Right, but that’s for support - it’s not really where one would file a bug, which is more akin to what he’s seeing in this case.> From thoth’s posts, I get the impression that he’s used to dealing with free/OSS projects.  Coming from that background myself, I can understand why he reported it here - none of the options for communicating with WD really fit the situation he’s in.> This is actually a frustration I’ve run into myself with this device: there’s simply no good bug-reporting mechanism for it.  User support and the Ideas Lab are there for day-to-day ‘how do I…’ questions and feature requests respectively, to be sure, but for certain things they just aren’t quite the right channels.

I’m no expert on this but if you are referring to this res line:

http://siwa.us.tandbergtv.com/~thoth/aria-s1-d1.m3u

then I think you have got the mime-type wrong.

From what I have been able to discover it should be video/x-mpegurl.

Now I can’t say that it will work but the WDTVLive advertises it will accept that mime-type. From what I can discover that is the mime-type for a video m3u playlist.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/General-Discussions/WDTV-FAQ/td-p/32135 section 6

Although I’m also prepared for 1D.

Good catch.  I just used the force when I made up the MIME type.

No matter what I use there (video/x-mpegurl , audio/x-mpegurl ) the TVL+ identifies the item as a “FOLDER” on-screen and plays the first video.

However: I tried skipping forward and it went to the next video in the directory.  It could be that the WD is jumping to the conclusion that any playlist inside a directory is OF the directory, and ignores the possibility that it could refer to medial elsewhere.

I can see why some content directories might include a magical playlist item, although the UPnP spec recommends including a element on the container as “the way” to provide a playlist of all items in the container (ContentDirecory v3 section 2.6.10.2).

Thoth:  By quoting the FAQ, You’ve made me eat my words.  :smileyvery-happy:

casm23 wrote:

Right, but that’s for support - it’s not really where one would file a bug, which is more akin to what he’s seeing in this case.> From thoth’s posts, I get the impression that he’s used to dealing with free/OSS projects.  Coming from that background myself, I can understand why he reported it here - none of the options for communicating with WD really fit the situation he’s in.> This is actually a frustration I’ve run into myself with this device: there’s simply no good bug-reporting mechanism for it.  User support and the Ideas Lab are there for day-to-day ‘how do I…’ questions and feature requests respectively, to be sure, but for certain things they just aren’t quite the right channels.

 

Actually, that’s not true.  Tech Support is the correct place to file a bug.  They do it all the time.   What they don’t do is assume that everything that comes in is a bug.  They will require extra troubleshooting to make sure that it is a bug, but if they feel it is one, it’s immediately gets escalated up the line.  You can email it in and see what happens if you don’t want to wait on the phone.  Private message me with their response.