Firestick/KODI+UMS controls

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holeshot1982
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 23, 2018 10:35 pm

Firestick/KODI+UMS controls

Post by holeshot1982 »

Running 3 firesticks all running Kodi just for the purpose of UMS..... On one in particular (it's a FireTV if that matters) I can't use any of the controls after I start playback.... Not able to pause, rewind, fast forward..... I can still use the back button to get out of the movie and home button to exit the program but really need to be able to play/pause the movie... I redid my FireTV completely this morning and still the same issue. Any ideas?

Also, is there a way to jump to a certain time spot in the movie? Even if I have to do it from the computer running UMS that's fine.
Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Firestick/KODI+UMS controls

Post by Nadahar »

This most likely doesn't have an "easy fix". There is a setting in the renderer configurations that determines what kind of seeking "is supported" by the renderer, you can try to modify that for the renderer configuration in question and see if you can make it work.

But, the fundamental problem is a combination of renderer abilities and UMS "loose relationship" with the UPnP/DLNA standard. I doubt you have any such problems if the file isn't transcoded, because all renderers that I've ever seen supports byte-based seeking.

The problem is when things are transcoded. In this case, byte-based seeking isn't possible, simply because the file is generated on-the-fly so byte 1439058 from the start of the file simply doesn't exist except at the time when the playback is at that exact position. Also, UMS has no way to "count" where it is at any time, because the playback didn't necessarily start from the beginning of the file.

Thus, time-based seeking is needed. As long as a time-code is used instead of a byte position, UMS can move the transcoding to that position without issue. The problem is that not all renderers support time-based seeking. Another problem is that UMS doesn't properly follow the standards when it comes to informing what seeking is available, so some renderers don't seem to understand that it's available even though it is. Some renderers also refuse to seek simply because the file size is unknown (again, the file is generated on-the-fly), but that should really only be relevant for byte-based seeking.

So, to get seeking to work while transcoding, the renderer must support time-based seeking, and the renderer must understand that UMS offers time-based seeking. If both of these are true, it will normally work. If you use a 3. party to control playback (I assume that's where Kodi comes in..?), it complicates things further because both the controller and the renderer must understand that they must use time-based seeking.

When time-based seeking is in use, you should be able to jump anywhere in the video using the controller.
holeshot1982
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed May 23, 2018 10:35 pm

Re: Firestick/KODI+UMS controls

Post by holeshot1982 »

Thanks, any idea why I can't use the play/pause and rewind/forward while playing a file on that one Amazon Stick/TV?
Nadahar
Posts: 1990
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: Firestick/KODI+UMS controls

Post by Nadahar »

No.
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