Win Phone 7 - Meteor Remote Control for 7MC out

Experiences and questions about WMC on your iPhone, Droid, WP7, and more.
sgtpokey

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Win Phone 7 - Meteor Remote Control for 7MC out

#1

Post by sgtpokey » Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:20 pm

Ok,
this is one of the topics from the original TGB that I was following but gave up finding it on the Msoft site...
However, Landdolphin's Meteor Remote Control app for Windows Phone 7 appears to be out and available now as of 4 June 2011!

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/w/index. ... yle.com%29

I'm downloading it now and checking it out when I get home...
Last edited by sgtpokey on Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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holidayboy

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#2

Post by holidayboy » Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:43 pm

I was going to put a post up earlier but got bogged down in various stuff.

I've been running it on my HD7 since Saturday and it's pretty cool!

Let us know how you get on with it :)

Edit:

Also, keep an eye on the landdolphin blog, there's going to be a few updates soon I think.
Rob.

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sgtpokey

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#3

Post by sgtpokey » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:43 am

Well, turns out the 64 bit Meteor Service .msi package is refusing to install on my HTPC... there are no event logs or file artifacts to investigate... it just flat out aborts and rollsback during the install sequence.

I've emailed the team to see if this is a known issue. I did not expect any problems as I don't have a massively customized system :(

I think I'll try installing the service temporarily on my win 7 laptop to try and see what the delta may be on my HTPC system..

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holidayboy

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#4

Post by holidayboy » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:52 am

I've got it running on three machines (both x86 and x64) and haven't seen any problems.

To be fair, all three machines are pretty fresh installs with only Haali, AC3Filter and Media Browser installed.

I hope to get it running on my older x64 install later today, that's running just about every remote control / remotepotato type app on it so we'll see how that goes!

I remember that there was an issue with the 32bit installer a while ago, but don't remember reading about any 64bit issues.
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dduk

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#5

Post by dduk » Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:04 am

sgtpokey,

I've had the service install on two out of three machines. I've emailed a log to Ben via the old(new) TGB and he's replied and said they're working on a fix.

They're also working on an update to get the hub service running on WHS v1 which is great news.

The app itself is brilliant and I'll gladly make a purchase once I get it working on my main media centre.

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#6

Post by sgtpokey » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:52 pm

Yeah, they've also responded to me quickly and I've sent them a log dump (after running the installer via command line and applying some switches).
My issue might be firewall related... if i recall correctly, I might not have windows firewall ruinning on my HTPC and the logs indicate the installer is doing something around the firewall and failing (perhaps because windows firewall is off)

I was able to install it with no issues on another machine so I'm sure I can get it running on the HTPC soon...
Last edited by sgtpokey on Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#7

Post by sgtpokey » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:54 pm

In fact, it WAS Windows Firewall (or lack thereof). Once I turned on Windows Firewall, the Meteor service installed fine... :)

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#8

Post by dduk » Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:14 pm

sgtpokey wrote:In fact, it WAS Windows Firewall (or lack thereof). Once I turned on Windows Firewall, the Meteor service installed fine... :)
i don't think mine's a firewall-related problem. The details in the log suggest a problem installing a component. To be sure, I've tried installing with the firewall both on and off.

Is anyone else getting new media found notifications when their wi-fi is off? I get one every morning about a scheduled to record TV programme when I'm at work!

I've made Ben aware of this forum so that we can hopefully get some direct input.

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#9

Post by sgtpokey » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:39 pm

Hopefully dduk's issue can be resolved, I do have a question for the guys already running it successfully:

I have the service running and I did a quick test before I left for work... what I found was that my music library seemed to be populated, but a lot of album art was not yet populated. However, my recorded TV section and movies sections were empty. does meteor take some time to load data and I just have to wait? We have 300+ recordings and probably 100+ of videos so I can see that Meteor might be working fine and it just needs time to populate...

We don't use media browser yet, I'll probably install that after I do a system backup over the weekend.

One suggestion to Ben if he reads this forum: Need My Channel Logos integration please! I noticed the TV Guide just had call signs... also it may not have been honoring my Media Center channel listing [not sure though], it seemed to be listing a lot of channels that I have removed from the Media Center channel listings...
Last edited by sgtpokey on Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#10

Post by dduk » Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:26 pm

sgtpokey wrote: I have the service running and I did a quick test before I left for work... what I found was that my music library seemed to be populated, but a lot of album art was not yet populated. However, my recorded TV section and movies sections were empty. does meteor take some time to load data and I just have to wait? We have 300+ recordings and probably 100+ of videos so I can see that Meteor might be working fine and it just needs time to populate...
I was wondering the same thing, however just before I left the office, I received a notification from Meteor that 222 items have been added. I dont understand how as I was a couple of miles away from my home wi-fi network!! I also get notifications at the same time every morning, a few minutes after a scheduled recording is due to finish. Meteor tells me that it's added it - how?!

+1 on the channel logos!

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holidayboy

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#11

Post by holidayboy » Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:51 pm

Those wiley Land Dolphins are very clever! They grab the "new media" signal from the Media Center PC and squirt it to the phone.

In the settings area of the phone app there are two notification options.

The bottom one controls whether you receive "toast" notifications - I assume they call it that because it pops up!

I think it will send the new media notification over wifi as well as the phones data connection.

I turned it straight off to be honest - it is a cool feature though.
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#12

Post by adventful » Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:57 am

Hey guys - I'm one of the developers for Meteor, so I'll try to answer any questions you might have. Probably best to address the ones raised so far in point form:

1. I can confirm that the next release will be able to install on WHS 1. For the technical minded people that are interested, we were using running the netsh utility during the install to register the http namespaces that Meteor uses. It turns out that this utility doesn't exist in WHS - instead you should use another utility called httpcfg... but that's not even installed by default. So now we use a custom installer module that calls the Windows API for http namespace registration directly.
2. Thanks to sgtpokey for working out that there is a problem with the installer and Windows Firewall. We'll have this fixed for the next release.
3. The new media notifications (and the notification that changes the new media count on the Meteor live tile) get to your phone via the internet using the Microsoft notification system. This means that you'll always get them no matter where you are, so long as both your phone and your HTPC have an active data connection. If you don't want this, then you can turn it off via settings->notifications in Meteor.
4. Meteor will take a while to find your movies and tv shows the first time it runs. This should only be the case the first time it runs - once it has done an initial scan it saves everything it found so that it will be available immediately the next time it runs. The exception to this is recorded TV (i.e. the shows you see when you go to the recorded TV page in Media Center), which should be available immediately. Movies & TV is the area where there is the most variance between setups, so it has the greatest chance of problems that we just can't see coming - let us know if you think something's not right.
5. Channel logos - when I first wrote the EPG pages, I actually had it displaying the channel logos. In the end we decided we didn't like it as it spoiled the clean metro look. All the plumbing is there though, so we can add it back in as an option relatively easily. This is the kind of feedback that is really useful!
6. I think there may be an issue with some album art not being found. I'll investigate that.

I think that's everything - let me know if I missed something or if you have any more questions/problems. Also, let us know what further features/improvements you're interested in, as we will use your feedback to prioritise any new work we do.

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holidayboy

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#13

Post by holidayboy » Thu Jun 09, 2011 6:17 am

Hi adventful,

thanks for taking the time to stop by and go into detail like that.

Keep up the great work!
Rob.

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#14

Post by dduk » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:01 am

Hi Advent,

I'd like to echo Rob's comment - it's great of you to provide such feedback. I purchased the app last night even though I can't get it working on my primary media centre yet; it's obvious to see the work that's gone into the app.

You mentioned in one of your points that the data should be immediately available once it's done its initial scan. Unfortunately, (and this is my only major gripe for the application) every time I open the app, it takes several minutes to show my music collection (in any view). The letter headings appear almost instantly, and seem to leave exactly enough room between them for the artist names. It's as if it's remembered the count for each artist, just not the names!

Should I leave it open for a certain period of time to perform its big scan?

Excellent news regarding WHS 1!

Thanks!

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#15

Post by adventful » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:16 am

Thanks for the support, dduk!

Music really should be available right away, as Meteor uses the Windows Media Player library for this - it doesn't need to scan. The scan is only necessary for TV & movies. The only circumstance we've found where it can be slow is when your music is on a different computer to your HTPC. That's the setup in my house though, and whilst it is a bit slower it's still pretty good. Can you provide us with some more information about how your music library is set up? Where the music is in relation to your HTPC, the type of network between them, etc. Also there might be something else nefarious going on. If you could email the Meteor log files (as described at the bottom of http://landdolphin.net/meteor/support.htm) to us I can have a look.

The time required for the scan for TV & movies will obviously vary depending on your collection size and network speed, etc, but it should only be a few minutes. It won't do any harm if you close Media Center before it's finished, that just means it'll have to start again next time.

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#16

Post by dduk » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:27 am

adventful wrote:Thanks for the support, dduk!

Music really should be available right away, as Meteor uses the Windows Media Player library for this - it doesn't need to scan. The scan is only necessary for TV & movies. The only circumstance we've found where it can be slow is when your music is on a different computer to your HTPC. That's the setup in my house though, and whilst it is a bit slower it's still pretty good. Can you provide us with some more information about how your music library is set up? Where the music is in relation to your HTPC, the type of network between them, etc. Also there might be something else nefarious going on. If you could email the Meteor log files (as described at the bottom of http://landdolphin.net/meteor/support.htm) to us I can have a look.

The time required for the scan for TV & movies will obviously vary depending on your collection size and network speed, etc, but it should only be a few minutes. It won't do any harm if you close Media Center before it's finished, that just means it'll have to start again next time.
Thanks for the quick reply, Advent.

My music is stored on a WHS v1 machine (~15k 320Kbps MP3s, tagged and sorted impeccably!). It's connected via 100Mbps CAT5. I've not had any latency issues with the network, but I have noticed some strange things with my music library on that machine recently (missing albums mainly). I'll perform a clean down of WMP's library tonight and add everything back in there - hopefully that should fix it.

In the mean time, I've emailed both logs to your support address.

Without wishing to sound cheeky, is there any news on the problem log I emailed earlier in the week?

Thanks again.

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#17

Post by adventful » Thu Jun 09, 2011 9:01 am

Does your HTPC have an active internet connection? I just noticed a problem where if you don't have an active internet connection, or are otherwise unable to access the zune catalog (for example, http://catalog.zune.net/v1.2/music/artist?q=Opeth) then you would see exactly what you describe - getting the number of items very quickly, and then fetching the actual music data taking a long time. The zip files you sent through to support don't contain the logs I need to look at - I'm specifically after "C:\Users\<insert user name here>\AppData\Local\LandDolphin\Meteor\log.txt" for the user that you're running Media Center from and connecting to with your phone. From the contents of that zip it looks like it's from a user that hasn't actually run Media Center with Meteor installed. Does that sound right?

On the other problem, I think I have that fixed - I think it's caused by having a Windows 7 Library with a library type of "General Items". If you do, you can work around the problem by changing the library type (right click properties, change the "Optimize this library for:" value to anything but "General Items") or you can just wait until the next Meteor server release (probably this weekend). If that's not the problem, then I'm back to square 1 :)

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#18

Post by Crispy » Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:11 am

Ben or adventful, what happened to the transport controls in Meteor?

Am I doing something wrong or we're they cut from the launched app?

Image
Image

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#19

Post by thenoumenon » Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:32 am

@Crispy

I'm Ben, one of the developers/crazy people on Meteor. Now that the introduction is out of the way hehe.

There are a couple of ways that you can get to transport controls. The first image you posted is of the main Meteor hub where you'll find Recent and New media items. To get the transport controls, tap on the rectangle (or drag it down) at the top of your screen to bring down the pulldown panel. From here you can change the volume of your media center as well as use some simple transport controls.

The second way to do it is to tap on the big tile in the hub (the 02:38 Vicarious part) to go to the Now Playing page. The second image you posted is the Now Playing page, and from here, you have access to the application bar transport controls.

The pulldown panel can be accessed from anywhere in the app, so if you don't want to go directly to the Now Playing page, that's the best thing to use. I may add a bit of visual indication that the panel can be interacted with in an update, just so it draws a bit more attention and doesn't just look like a floating block hehe.

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#20

Post by Crispy » Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:17 am

Cheers, I'll take another look in the App. I did notice the blue rectangle, yeah it needs a little re-design shame it blocks the large type.
It was the hold and drag search feature I couldn't find.

I hope a keyboard and remote features will be added it's really useful to type '30' and press Ok to skip to 30 minutes in a video for example or type something into Macrotube's search bar.

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