[KageYume]

As mentioned in the title, I've had an issue with rewind, fast forward, and seeking all being nonfunctional when using it with MPEG-2 files streamed from a UPnP media server. It is the same with multiple media server programs I've tried and working fine on other clients (hardware clients) on those same files with those same servers. Those functions work fine on other formats or when accessing MPEG-2 files through some other method (but neither are an option in this case).

When attempting the operations mentioned, they basically do absolutely nothing at all, except give some generic error message in the log, which hasn't really been helpful at all when I've tried digging through the code to find the issue. Last time I saw it in the log, I think it was something like "error while seeking" and having no additional information at all. I currently have a more recent build on here and it seems to not even put anything regarding this into the log at all anymore (checked it just now).

Has anyone else seen this issue or have it working? Are there any builds anyone knows of where it is working correctly? I've used some various builds here and there from the Atlantis release to builds near the time of the Babylon release, but haven't tried any older builds yet.

By the way, I'm running the Windows version. I'm guessing it probably isn't specific to that version, though.

[KageYume]

Here's the debug log in case there is anything useful about the format of what is being streamed or anything else going wrong before the actual fast forwarding or rewinding.

http://pastebin.com/fbf0afaa

The first fast forward in the log is at line 3538, but there is no information around that location that appears to be relevant to why it failed, or even that it failed at all.

[KageYume]

Just tried revision 21193 and there is no change in the behavior.

Does anyone know anything about the nature of this issue?

[Temar]

Does anyone know anything about the nature of this issue?

I'm not an expert in this but I give it a try:

From the log, it seems that XBMC uses a normal HTTP connection to get the content from the media server. HTTP connections just send a file but do not allow to navigate within a file. To actually be able to navigate within the file, XBMC had to download it completly. It seems like it does not do that but just plays the data as it is send from the server.

To be able to navigate within a stream you have to use a protocol which is designed for media streaming - for example the RealMedia rtsp protocol. These protocols know commands which allow you to jump to a certain position within the stream - HTTP does not.

So even if you have a real streaming server (which you seem to have, as other programs are able to navigate within the stream) you will not be able to navigate within the file as long as XBMC uses the HTTP protocol. You have to find a way to make XBMC use a real streaming protocol to access your server.

As I said, I'm no expert in this, so I can't tell you howto make XBMC use a streaming protocol. I can only tell you that XBMC supports different streaming protocols, so it should be possible.

[KageYume]

I haven't tried looking at a log for this, but it works fine on other file formats from the same server. I can do all of these operations just fine in XBMC if the file on the server is an AVI instead of MPEG-2, for example.

Oh, almost forgot to mention this. Likely related: while playing it does not show the length for MPEG-2 files over UPnP either, which the other formats where these operations work do show the length. I recall reading that XBMC does not support those operations if it does not know the length of the video.

By the way, I just confirmed in another log that for the formats where these operations do work, XBMC is accessing them over HTTP as well, so the protocol itself shouldn't be the issue.