# MP3tunes.com HME Server upgrade



## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

As originally announced in 2006, MP3tunes.com has an HME server out there... (168.143.122.49 ... sounds like it was listed on apps.tv at one time...trying to get it listed again) though for some reason I never heard of it until last October when they contacted me to upgrade/rewrite their app to support Video streaming in addition to the existing mp3 streaming. I also am attempting to make it a "real" app, rather than the awfully minimal and ugly thing they had before.

You can try out the app with a built-in demo account and can set up a free account from within the HME app.

MP3tunes is pretty neat - you download their synch software to simplify the task of uploading all of your own music and video collection and playlists to their server (2Gig for a free account, pay accounts get a lot more space). Once it's there, you can stream your music or video to just about anything, not just your computer(s). They have partners in all sorts of arenas including cell phone apps, internet radios, roku, eclipse, there's even a car gps model that works with it.

The MP3tunes TiVo app upgrade is not 100% yet, but it's getting there. I'm still doing this in my spare time. 
It supports Video streaming (all videos uploaded to MP3tunes get converted to h264, so that part works nicely with TiVo) and auto-plays the next track (audio or video) in the playlist. (Video streaming only works in Series 3 and above, of course) It's much prettier than it used to be (thanks to one of the mp3tunes guys making graphics I request), displays album art (currently just art extracted from your files (or uploaded) at mp3tunes.com, but more soon) and it now has a decent play bar.

I need to completely rewrite a big chunk of the original code because it is horrible about memory so I have to currently limit all results to at most 200 tracks.

I'm hoping maybe somebody out there knows something about the biggest problem: we often get stuck in a state where none of the streams will work anymore. MP3s report an error text of "mp3 I/O error 'PlayUrl failed (159)' " and videos start reporting "Resource Unavailable" errors.
The error tends to be "permanent" and is specific to the TiVo (not the account, nor the server). It cleares up on a restart of the TiVo. Strangely, this is not the same as when the mp3 player process crashes in the TiVo since other mp3-playing apps continue to work fine.
I currently believe this message is not coming from the mp3tunes connection, but instead it is an internal message from the TiVo DVR.

Next chance I get to work with this I'm going to change the "next track" code to not actually start the next stream until it gets the "closed" status of the previous stream's cancellation. This is based on the fact that leaving it alone to play songs on its own never seems to get the error... it only happens when you're interacting with it. When things are on their own, the next track begins as a result of the previous stream totally completing.

I have lots of plans for enhancements (like track info editing, playlist creation/editing, additional art, text search, support for mp3tunes "playmix" automatic playlists, better handling of thumbnail-sized album art, etc). Feel free to make other suggestions.

I also need to upgrade it for HD and to report it is using HME v49 so the Slide Remote works 100% (with my slide-remote-supporting BKeyboard). Right now it just has V40 keyboard support which is a little wonky.

Enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions.

Disclaimer: I'm only getting paid for this work via commissions on paid accounts through the TiVo app... I expect little or no money, but I'm having a good time ;] If you actually want to make sure I get the commission when you upgrade to the paid service, make sure you sign up for the free account via the App's sign-up page (which I haven't tested, by the way :-/ ) I think they'll eventually have an "advertising" page on the website that would link to my commission also, but that doesn't exist, yet.

Thanks,
David.


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

That's awesome, David! I think you should cross-post this to the HME user forum, there may be more interested people there that won't see your post in here.

I'll see if I can find some time to play with it this weekend.


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## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

gonzotek said:


> I think you should cross-post this to the HME user forum, there may be more interested people there that won't see your post in here.


Well, I didn't post there yet on purpose since it's not 100% yet, and, to be quite honest, I don't know if the commission stuff is working yet and don't want to send what little audience I have to it until I have some belief that it works, rather than risk sending them there when it doesn't work and I can never get hooked up with the account credit ;]

I'll post there after another patch or two of the software... I don't want to turn people off with any outstanding bugs, and I really want to get the memory stuff fixed since that's a big turn-off if you can't actually get to all your music you uploaded.


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## davidblackledge (Sep 9, 2008)

I forgot to mention: 
They also run sideload.com which, as I understand it, is a crowd-sourced mp3 search engine. People install its plugin in their browser which spots mp3 files on websites and adds buttons to the links so you can send a copy of the song to your mp3tunes "Locker" (and/or your phone) and I believe action also adds it to the sideload.com search engine so anybody can find that same public link. (Some weird results sometimes since you're counting on the "crowd" to correctly enter the song title/artist). You don't have to install the plugin to "sideload" the content from the search engine, though.


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