GETTING STARTED WITH STREAMBABY
Other useful reference pages:
[StreamBabyIni]
[remote_button_summary]
[search_screen]
- If you don't already have 32 bit Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.5 or later installed you need to do that first. You can download latest JRE from here (choose the 32 bit version):
http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
- Download latest streambaby installation zip file from downloads page
- Unpack to a fresh folder somewhere
- Edit streambaby.ini file and at minimum you must define at least 1 top level folder under which your video files are located (video files can be in any folder structure you like).
- For first entry use dir.1=xxx for second entry dir.2=xxx etc.
- Lines starting with a # character are comment lines. Example:
# Top level video shares
dir.1=c:\home\dvd
dir.2=f:\videos
- NOTE: Make sure you have at least one dir.1=xxx line in the configuration file, and make sure it does not start with #. Lines starting with # are ignored
- Consult [StreamBabyIni] Wiki for more details on the many options that can be included/modified in streambaby.ini
- If you are running a Plex server on your network and would like streambaby to list titles available from Plex, add plex.server line with the IP and port of your Plex server as in the following example:
plex.server=192.168.1.226:32400
- If you do plan to use Plex server you will need to disable security PIN from the server or else you will get HTTP 401 error when trying to connect.
- Streambaby also relies heavily on ffmpeg for collecting information on videos and for transcoding videos that are not in TiVo compatible format. For Windows and Mac platforms streambaby will automatically download helper applications it needs including ffmpeg to "native" folder. For Linux you will need to make sure that you have a working ffmpeg installation and that ffmpeg is in your path. If not in your path you should add the following to streambaby.ini to specify the full path to ffmpeg executable:
ffmpeg.path=/path/to/ffmpeg
- Streambaby relies on tdcat and/or tivodecode for displaying metadata for .TiVo files and for pushes of .TiVo files. For Windows and Mac platforms those programs are automatically downloaded and installed in the "native" folder in streambaby installation. For Linux you should have them in your path or consult relevant settings in streambaby.ini to set paths to those binaries. Additionally, you will need to supply your 10 digit MAK in streambaby.ini using following setting:
tivo.MAK=xxxxxxxxxx
- Now you are ready to run the application.
- For windows double click on streambaby.bat or for Mac/Unix systems run streambaby script.
- The first time you run streambaby on Windows or Mac platforms, streambaby will automatically download ffmpeg and other utilities used by streambaby to "native" folder. For Linux platform you should have ffmpeg installed on your system and available in your PATH.
- For windows you will see a console window similar to the one shown below. You should leave this console window running.
- NOTE: For windows if double clicking on streambaby.bat does not work it most likely means you don't have java.exe in your windows path, so you have 2 choices:
- Add full path to folder containing java.exe to windows PATH environment variable. As an example for Vista 64 this would be something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin
- To edit environment variables in Windows go to Control Panel-System-Advanced-Environment Variables and then look for Path entry under System Variables. Then add a semicolon followed by full path to java.exe on your system as in the example given above (will vary depending on your particular OS).
- Alternative to the above is to simply edit the streambaby.bat file and replace java with the full path to java.exe, for example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe"
- NOTE: You should check that the reported IP after MDNS text in the console is the correct one for the machine you are running streambaby on. If it does not match your machine IP then you will need to manually specify the IP in streambaby.ini file for things to work properly.
- On one of your Series 3 or later Tivo go to Tivo Central--Music, Photos & Showcases and scroll down all the way to close to the bottom and look for streambaby launch point
- For Series 4 or later TiVos go to TiVo Central--Apps & Games and scroll down all the way to close to the bottom and look for streambaby launch point
- NOTE: If this is 1st time running an HME app, you may have to choose the following on the TiVo: Enable Home Network Apps
- NOTE: If you don't see a launch point but streambaby appears to be running fine then you should do a HDUI reset on the TiVo using following sequence of remote presses: Thumbs down, Thumbs up, Play, Play
- Once you select or right arrow that item you are presented with Top Level screen:
- Select or right arrow one of the top level entries and then you can navigate the folder structure and select a video of interest:
- Select or right arrow one of the video entries to enter Play Screen:
- For Quality selection if this video can be played back natively there will be a "Same" choice which means play back video as is without transcoding it. If the bit rate is too high for streaming in real time or better you can choose a lower quality rate which will transcode to mpeg2 and stream at that bit rate.
- Here is an example of pause during playback:
Consult the [remote_button_summary] wiki page for details about all the remote control functions in selection screen and playback screen modes.
Note that you can perform searches by pressing Thumbs Up with a folder currently selected. See [search_screen] for more details on that.