Video support

[Afterster]

I did a lot of work on current Ampache development work about Video support. 3.7.1 will really support videos. Would be nice if Ampdroid client could support it too.

[meandor]

@Afterster ok, after reading what I just wrote I give you a bit of a warning, as this contains my personal opinion.

Honestly, I don't really get why you would want Ampache to stream videos. In my opinion Ampache is just getting bloated that way.

I don't see the benefit of streaming Videos from your server in your home environment. Especially regarding that it takes a lot of bandwidth for high quality video streaming.

So why would you want to organize your movie data and stream it via a browser? Isn't the whole benefit of streaming access from everywhere? So why would you want to stream high quality videos over your home server via the internet to various locations when your internet is not going to make up for it and give you high loading/buffering times?

I mean a bluray disk image for instance can be from anywhere in the 6gb to 30gb range. Imagine streaming that.

So in my opinion I don't see this whole video thing with Ampache going in the right direction. Especially regarding already available software like XBMC.
The whole Ampache project should focus on the music streaming and usability of that feature and make it a thin and perfect experience instead of adding more and more stuff to it.

If there is a demand for this feature I will definitely look into it. But it won't happen very soon as there is other more important stuff.

[RyanCopley]

Agreed.

[Afterster]

I also agree :) But I will justify the current project direction (and reference ampache/ampache#257).
First it depends how you use Ampache. It could be installed at home or on a dedicated server, and some users stream only on local network and not over the Internet.
Ampache is music oriented: clips are also music (and several users have hundred of them).
XBMC and competitors are great but are media centers, not well suited for self-hosted servers.
Plex makes this separation between server/center: great product but server is closed source which is a bit frustrating as these guys came from XBMC project at first... Since the mandatory move to myPlex as an external trusted third-party authentication system, it makes me feel that we have control over nothing.
TVShow and Movie categories was added because we was few steps away to support it in a more user-friendly way and people will add these to Ampache as there is video streaming capability. It is now done and it shouldn't evolve for now. Video improvement will focus on a better webplayer for video (as soon iframes are removed...) and better transcode. TVShow/Movie aside, these need to be done for music clip too.
I believe video support should be added to clients app at least for music clips.

[meandor]

i still dont really like the idea of streaming on your phone. maybe it makes more sense on your tablet.

maybe you can direct some people who are passionate about it into my direction to start spamming me about how awesome that would be.

@Afterster did you read my issue about the ui experience at the ampache project page? what do you think about it?

[uk3gaus]

Sorry, misunderstood topic :D