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[Andrew Koransky]

Hello All...

I think I may have found some problems in video podcast support within the latest release of Media Center (11.1.196).  The problems occurred in the prior release I had installed too (191 I think?)

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Problem #1: I recently subscribed to this ABC News video podcast:

http://abcnews.go.com/xmldata/xmlPodcast?id=1478958

You'll notice in the enclosure tag:

type="video/quicktime"

And the filename looks something like

060907wnt_webcast.mov?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381

But Media Center seems to think that the file is of type "MP3" and attempts to tag it as such, giving me the following message:

Media Center encountered errors while tagging and moving files.  Check that the files exist, are not read only, and are not in use by other programs.

Tagging Error: C:\Podcasts\Episode59898190.mp3

If I rename the extension to .mov, it plays just fine in Media Center.  In summary, Media Center is failing to recognize that the file is a .mov file.

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Problem #2: I'm not sure you could call this a "bug" per se, but it is annoying nonetheless and thought you should be aware of it.  I subscribed to this video podcast:

http://www.blueman.com/podcast/blueman_podcast_feed.xml

The file is downloaded, and this time, it is even given it's proper extension (.m4v), but it will not play in Media Center.  All I get is the warning icon next to the file after I attempt to play it.  No further details are provided to me.  If I attempt to load the file into QuickTime directly, I get the following useless message:

Error -37: a bad filename or volume name was encountered

Now, as a developer, I've dealt with the "lovely" QuickTime SDK for windows, I suspect I know what the problem is here.  The full path to the file on my system is:

C:\Podcasts\BlueMan\2006-07-11 Blue Man Group Podcast- Chapter 2_ Blue Man Group Music.m4v

I'm pretty sure this filename is incompatible with the Apple QuickTime SDK, since the SDK bizzarely emulates an Apple OS level SDK to deal with files and file names.  The file name is apparently way too long.  If I rename the file to something alot shorter such as C:\Podcasts\BlueMan\3.m3v, it plays back just fine in media center.

There is a workaround though.  "Edit this feed" and manually "Set Tag Properties", changing the filename to something simple like "[date]" and it works just fine on the next download.

Unfortunately, long filenames simply represent an ugly situation that Apple still hasn't dealt with.  One option you guys should consider is sending the short 8.3 filename to Apple QuickTime SDK, using the Win32 SDK call GetShortPathName to conver the string.

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Hope this information helps.

Take care,

Andrew Koransky

[Andrew Koransky]

I never received a response on this.  Has anyone been able to replicate this problem?  Did I post it to the wrong area?

[JimH]

Can you try the latest build and then post a link to this thread in the thread that announced it?   Thanks for the details.

[BartMan01]

1)  Looks like ABC is doing something odd with their enclosures:

Here is a 'normal' enclosure tag:
<enclosure url="http://a.media.abcnews.com/podcasts/060910_wnt_webcast.m4v" length="34" type="video/quicktime"/>

Here is ABC's:
<enclosure url="http://a.media.abcnews.com/podcasts/060909_wnt_webcast.m4v?CMP=OTC-3V9R06864381" length="51" type="video/quicktime"/>

My guess is that MC is expecting the link to contain a valid file name without additional scripting elements and is defaulting to .mp3 if it does not see an extension at the end.  After you download the file, try doing an update tags from file and see if that fixes it.

[Andrew Koransky]

Hi BartMan01...

My guess is that MC is expecting the link to contain a valid file name without additional scripting elements and is defaulting to .mp3 if it does not see an extension at the end.  After you download the file, try doing an update tags from file and see if that fixes it.

Thanks for your response.

I tried as you suggested (but I think you meant "update library from tags").  Same problem is occurring.  I think the problem is that MC is attempting to read the file tags from an MP3 file when in fact the file is in M4V/MOV format.  In the end, it doesn't change the fact that MC is trying to read it as an MP3.

You are right about the wierd URL.  But parsing out the "true" filename extension isn't difficult.  You first need to throw out anything after the first "?", and then throw out anything before the last "/".  Extension discovery is then easy.  Other podcatchers handle this properly.

Take care,
Andrew Koransky

[Andrew Koransky]

Hi All...

I just upgraded to 11.1.198 and have further information to add regarding problem #2 (filename too long for QuickTime).

I am getting a proper error message from MJ now:

QuickTime: Filenames longer than 64 characters are not supported.  Please shorten your filenames and try again.

This may be coming from QT SDK or the upgrade to MJ. 

I still would still recommend using the Win32 SDK call GetShortPathName to convert the string to something QuickTime can handle.

Take care,
Andrew

[JimH]

We tried the short name a while ago and QT didn't like that either.  We've also looked at other work-arounds and they aren't simple.

Could you bark up Apple's tree for a while?  They should have fixed this 64 character limit a couple years ago.

[Andrew Koransky]

No worries about the 64 char limit.  I have a workaround for that.  I will write Apple though... it is very annoying.

But the more important problem #1 with the ABC news feed is still occurring in the latest MC12.

Take care,
Andrew