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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 24 for Windows => Topic started by: Goatshade on April 13, 2018, 12:51:24 am

Title: [Query] Streaming content in cloud storage
Post by: Goatshade on April 13, 2018, 12:51:24 am
So, I have a RAID controller at home that does its job well. I've been considering the prospect of moving my media assets from local storage to a cloud storage solution, mostly because disks fail and that's a technical and financial head-ache that I am not looking forward to addressing.

A while back, I dabbled in this idea via Microsoft OneDrive and the results were both interesting and promising, if ultimately unsatisfactory. OneDrive integration in Windows 10 has become fairly impressive in its ease of use, so as a test, I decided to have MC move some files there, for me to see how well they stream both to my LAN and to my mobile device through the cloud.

With music, this was...somewhat feasible. MC delivered the content to both with rather long wait times. Video, though, was essentially impossible.

The reason for this was because of the way in which OneDrive files are accessed for local execution: They're downloaded in full first, rather than buffered and streamed.

If I were to sum it up, I guess I'm trying to build my own personal cloud media streaming service, with MC as the delivery application per usual.

What I want to know is whether or not this is feasible in general: Can media be made to stream from consumer-level cloud storage services outside of their proprietary interfaces? Can I accomplish this by, say, installing MC directly to my OneDrive? Can I do it in some way with a different cloud storage solution, such as DropBox?

It's fine if it's not possible for right now; I'm just fishing for ideas and guidance.
Title: Re: [Query] Streaming content in cloud storage
Post by: Goatshade on April 13, 2018, 05:44:33 pm
Anybody?
Title: Re: [Query] Streaming content in cloud storage
Post by: imugli on April 13, 2018, 06:11:06 pm
I know there's a program that lets you access your Google drive as a drive on your PC. Don't know if it works with OneDrive though. Is that the kind of thing you're after?

Edit: Here it is...

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,80221.msg656802.html#msg656802
Title: Re: [Query] Streaming content in cloud storage
Post by: Goatshade on April 13, 2018, 07:43:19 pm
I know there's a program that lets you access your Google drive as a drive on your PC. Don't know if it works with OneDrive though. Is that the kind of thing you're after?

Edit: Here it is...

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,80221.msg656802.html#msg656802
I don't think so...?
You can mount your OneDrive as a network drive by getting your unique URL, removing http(s), replacing all of the slashes with backslashes, and mapping the result as a network location. As far as I know, however, this doesn't have any connection to MC/Windows streaming the content there-in, as opposed to downloading it first in full. It's also notably slower.
Title: Re: [Query] Streaming content in cloud storage
Post by: hoyt on April 16, 2018, 01:45:49 pm
Have you looked into Google File Stream, not Backup and Sync?  I have that through a G Suite account and tested a few things.  It appears to stream the file and not have JRiver buffer.  I'm testing with a FLAC, so it's harder to tell than a huge video file.  But I hit play and it almost immediately started playing (a roughly 2 second delay for a 5:55 file tells me there's no way it downloaded all of it in that time frame).  I could tell that the bandwidth on my network connection was still going for a few seconds, so I'm assuming it was then finishing the download.