dmsherazi / mqttdlnaplay

Simple dlna player that takes requests through mqtt

MqttDlnaPLay

Small dlna player that can be controlled through mqtt in order to play media to a media renderer (ex: smart TV).

It is currently tied to file naming as generated by the JavaPVR project and the feature to automatically mark/hide media that you have already watched. This allows it to automatically figure out the next episode in a series that was recorded but has not yet been watched and play that for you.

I current use it with [AlexaMqttBridge] (https://github.com/mhdawson/AlexaMqttBridge) so that we can simply say:

Alexa ask Michael whats new on TV
Alexa ask Michael to play XXXX on TV
Alexa ask Michael to pause TV

were XXXX is the name of a recorded TV series and it will play the next available episode that we have not yet watched.

It then also support the regular stop/start/seek type commands so that you can control the media being played once it is started.

You can also ask what new shows are available with

Alexa ask Michael what is new on TV

The list of topic/messaage combinations that can be used include:

• play a show
  • topic - topic from configuration file + /play
  • message - name of the show
• control a show that is playing
  • topic - topic from configuration file + /control
  • message - one of stop, pause, play, seek. If seek is specified then the message should be 'seek:' followed by the minutes into the show you want to seek to
• find out what new shows are available
  • topic - topic from configuration file + /control
  • message - 'whatsnew'

For commands other than 'whatsnew', ',X' can be appended to specify a specfic media renderer where X corresponds to the index for the render in the array within the confirmation file. For example:

stop, 1

this allows multiple renderers(and therefore TVs) to be supported. I use this with both the TV in the living room and one upstairs.

The response to a request or any errors will be published back to the topic from the configuration file + '/response'. For example, if you ask whats new the response published would be (of course depends on the new shows):

New episodes include: chicago fire,22 minutes,the mindy project,greys anatomy,
rick mercer report,the catch,survivor

In the case of errors, the response is the text explanation of the error that occured for example:

No current episodes for:no show

The micro-app provides a simple GUI which simply shows the requested commands and responses with the most recent being displayed first:

Installation

The easiest way to install is to run:

npm install MqttDlnaPlay

or

npm install https://github.com/mhdawson/MqttDlnaPlay.git

and then configure the default config.json file in the lib directory as described in the configuration section below.

Configuration

Configuration is done thorugh the config.json file in the lib directory. Configuration options include:

• title(optional) - title for the indicator window.
• serverPort - port on which the server listens for connections.
• mqttServerUrl - object with serverUrl.
• topic - the topic on which the player will listen for requests.
• dnalServerName - the dlna server to serve media from.
• dlnaSearchRoot - the root in the dlan server to serve media from.
• mediaPlayer - array of objects representing the list of media players the media will be played on. Each object has a "name" and optional "UDN" field. DLNA requests are made to search for media renderers and the responses are matched against the name and optionally the UDN. The order of the entries is signficant in that the first one is the default. When commands are requested through mqtt, if the renderer is not specified it will default to the first entry in the list. To submit requests to other renderers you
  must include the index into the array. To do this ',X' is appended to the command where X is the index into the array.
• newDays - the number of days a show is considered 'new' after this number of days a show will not be included in the response to the 'whats new' command.
• ignore - list of show to exclude when responding to the 'whats new' command.

As a micro-app the bridge also supports other options like authentication and tls for the GUI connection. See the documentation for the micro-app-framework for additional details.

As an example a sample configuration file would be:

{
  "serverPort": 5010,
  "MaxRecentActivity": 100,
  "topic": "house/dlnaplay",
  "mqttServerUrl": "tcp://10.1.1.186:1883",
  "dlnaServerName": "New - Michaels Media Server",
  "dlnaSearchRoot": "New(auto)",
  "mediaPlayer": [
                   { "name": "TV-46C610",
                     "UDN": "uuid:0c23e459-0793-6f51-45f9-5a4255bb8601" },
                   { "name": "ATV@12" }
                 ],
  "newDays": 14,
  "ignore": [ "marvels_agents_of_shield", "blindspot", "scorpion",
              "madam_secretary", "the_blacklist", "the_simpsons" ]
}