Windows Store / ARM fork

[savage8811]

Hi lucas-j,

I don't know why, but I'm unable to find your App in the “Windows Store” on my x86 machine. Maybe there some store restrictions?

Nevertheless, I forked your project and made some minor changes.

• ARM build works (tested on Surface 2)
• Extended player to view livestreams of a Dreambox-Receiver

Can I publish the project for my ARM-Devices to the Windows Store? (licensed as GPL)

[lucas-j]

Hi savage81,

The app name is 'MPEG-2 TS Video Player' and technically hasn't been released outside the US market yet. (I was told by a MSFT rep that adding other countries increases the turnaround time and the chance of having the app rejected.) I've been meaning to release a small fix, ARM support and WTV demuxing internationally for a while now, but have been busy with a new job in Seattle. I don't yet even have 8.1 or a proper dev environment setup. I'll have to get that all taken care of this weekend.

Thanks for contributing to this project. Since libmpeg2 is GPL, the entire project (unfortunately) has to be GPL, so I couldn't stop you from posting this to the Windows Store if you have a dev account there. However I'd greatly prefer any new changes being merged into the mainline app, so that people who already have downloaded it here in the US will get the new updates, and so that there aren't five possibly obsolete versions floating around a year from now.

One other caveat is that Microsoft's app store guidelines prohibit apps which are too similar to others to avoid this problem, and their automated review process might flag the new app.

Just out of curiosity: is your 'Dreambox Receiver' something similar to the HD Homerun Prime? A cool new idea for an app might be to stream from one of these tuners, complete with program guide and such.

[savage8811]

technically hasn't been released outside the US market yet. (I was told by a MSFT rep that adding other countries increases the turnaround time and the chance of having the app rejected.)

Ok, I'm outside the US. I can't imaging that it's a problem to publish the app worldwide, because I see many apps in the store which are not in my region language. I'm new to windows store but I published several apps in GooglePlayStore and AppleAppStore, it was never a problem to publish regional apps worldwide.

However I'd greatly prefer any new changes being merged into the mainline app, so that people who already have downloaded it here in the US will get the new updates, and so that there aren't five possibly obsolete versions floating around a year from now.

I'm right there with you. So I created a pull request, take what you need :) It would be nice, if you publish the app worldwide.

is your 'Dreambox Receiver' something similar to the HD Homerun Prime?

I don't know HD Homerun Prime, but it looks similar. Dreambox is very popular in Europe.

A cool new idea for an app might be to stream from one of these tuners, complete with program guide and such.

Have a look at “dream web tv”. This app do this exactly. ;)

[lucas-j]

Hi savage81,

Thanks again for your pull request. I greatly appreciate any contributions to my projects, and I think you did a pretty amazing job extending this app with functionality I can't really promise. (For a while I was thinking about begging on Craigslist for a Surface RT to test on!)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I had to reinstall Windows 8.1 + MSVS 2013 + a hundred other things over the weekend, and my new job is keeping me very busy during the day.

I've integrated your request into the mainline code, with some minor formatting changes. A few notes:

• Rather than #ifdef for the specific case of _M_ARM, I decided to use #ifndef _M_IX86 as this is closer to the intent behind the sse2/mmx assembly optimizations. This should still build cleanly for ARM, as long as you disable /SAFESEH in the linking options. (I should add this as a special-case for ARM manually...)
• My coding style is a little odd, stemming largely from Python where indentation determines scope, but I'd like to stay consistent. I've reformatted all code to match.
• Thanks for migrating from Callisto to the new 8.1 flyout dialog. I've made some changes so that it displays like the old one did.
• Adding the ability to play streams via M3U playlists is a pretty cool idea, and I'd like to someday add proper playlist support. Registering the app as a file handler might cause some unwanted side effects, though. There are plenty of apps which register themselves to handle almost anything, and that can get pretty annoying for users who end up sorting through dozens of possible apps whenever double-clicking on a file. I'll keep the M3U registration for now but keep in mind that most people tend to use these playlists to play music.
• In addition I've registered most common MPEG-2 file extensions and MIME types, so that the app can play files with a double-click of a video file in Explorer.
• I might need to take another look at PlayerPage.xaml.cs when (if?) I get a chance. To be honest I'm not sure if SaveState() is still correct, and there may be other places in the code where I'm assuming file is not null.
• One other minor thing: in PickFile() in App.xaml.cs, there are references to things like ApplicationViewState.Snapped() which are deprecated in Windows 8.1 (since there's no longer a concept of 'snapped', it's all dependent on the window size). It's OK for now but I'll need to take a closer look later.
• My webserver is down at the moment (and it's back home, over a thousand miles away, and I can't really get anyone to fix it). Unfortunately it also hosts the privacy policy page, and that might be a blocker if the App Store rejects it because the privacy policy isn't available.
• If you like, I can add a URL or email address for you under the credits :)

Thanks again for contributing. Please take a minute to look over these changes if you get a chance. If everything looks good on your end, I'll make a few last-minute changes and tests as soon as possible, submit a new version to the Windows Store and release to as many countries as they'll allow. It may take a while for the app to go through the release pipeline (the first time, it took over a week!) but eventually you should see your changes show up in the Windows Store.

[slyi]

Did you submit the ARM version yet to the store?