Installation Instructions
This short page will guide you through the installation and use of the script.
Info
Special thanks goes to Erica Sadun who released AirPlayer earlier this month. This was the software which let me discover the world of AirPlay
Before you start
What is currently working:
- Select a video/podcast/serie on the iThing (should also work in other iThings) and launch it on xbmc.
- Play/Pause of the video through the controls on the iThing.
- Switch back the video to the iThing.
- Seeking in the timeline on the iThing.
What is currently not working:
- Playback of Youtube videos. XBMC cannot handle the files.
Known Bugs:
- When resuming the video back to the iThing it's paused even if the interface say it's not. This need some more work.
- When launching a video for the second time xmbc asks wheter it should resume or start over again. Don't know how to fix that.
What you need to know
Actually there is no code in the in the SVN. All the code is just a Python scripts which launches a server on the port 22555. Some work would need to be done here again in order to make a nice xmbc-plugin. But I have know knowledge in this domain.
The choosen approach in the python is script may not be the simplest one. In fact, the script depends upon the Twisted framework. I spend most time decoding and describing the protocol.
Needed software
In orther to make everything work there some additional software is needed. The airplay discovery is based upon Bonjour (avahi). Therefore install the package avahi-daemon (apt-get install avahi-daemon) Furthermore the scripts calls xmbc through either
- xbmc-send (install apt-get install xbmc-eventclients-xbmc-send) or
- through the web interface (be sure to setup Web interface in XBMC on port XXXX)
Furhtermore python needs the Twisted framwork. It can be installed with
apt-get install python-twisted.
Installation
This hack was developed on Ubuntu (but should also work on other linux systems). Therefore installation istruction will be for linux only (Ubuntu). It should be possible to port the code to other platform since it's only python. However I have no ideas about the dependencies (avahi for example).
- Copy the play2wifi.service script to /etc/avahi/services/ and restart avahi service avahi-daemon restart.
- Adapt the play2wifi.cfg script (at least line 3 to whatever port xbmc web interface is running). This parameter can also be overwritten with the -p startup parameter.
- Launch the script python play2wifi.py.
- Launch a video/podcast on the iThing and switch it over to xbmc.
Andreas,
I am in the process of writing an Airplay daemon for the NetworkMediaTank? and I was wondering if I could mail you to discuss some stuff (like chunk streaming). Contact me at gkorte the at sign gmail point commy
I installed this on my Ubuntu maverick box. I followed the instructions and got this back when trying to start play2wifi.py:
htpc@sorbo-htpc:~$ python ~/Desktop/Play2wifi/src/play2wifi.py Play2wifi - /home/htpc Play2wifi - Reading general configuration from play2wifi.cfg Traceback (most recent call last):
ConfigParser?.NoSectionError?: No section: 'XBMC' htpc@sorbo-htpc:~$On my iPod touch (iOS 4) i can see my ubuntu box when chosing airplay when playing a video, and I am able to chose it. the video stops playing though and it doesn't show up in XBMC or on the computer at all. Any suggestions?
Python does not find the play2wifi.cfg file. Instead of launching the script through:
Try the following: htpc@sorbo-htpc:~$ cd ~/Desktop/Play2wifi/src/ htpc@sorbo-htpc:~$ python play2wifi.py That should work
does this require a airport express?
No i don't think so. Everything is handled by the pc running play2wifi
Is it broken with iOS 4.3 update ? doesn't seem to work on an iPhone 4 nor an iPad :/ nice script though !
Good work. Any chance the script will support pictures?
@robert: No I don't think it will ever support pictures :-( First priority is iOS 4.3 support which is still not working... But first i need to get a new aTV for doing the reverse engineering of the new version of airplay. In the meanwhile there is a "new" version in the SVN which includes some minor bugfixes. However I'm not really shure how it works together with iOS 4.3.
Hi, I have setup xbmc per this wiki but I have Fedora not Ubuntu:
su - yum install xbmc python-twisted
wget http://play2wifi.googlecode.com/files/Play2wifi-0.1.tar.bz2 tar xvjf Play2wifi cd Play2wifi cd src cp play2wifi.service /etc/avahi/services/
/etc/init.d/avahi-daemon restart vi play2wifi.cfg # port 8080 python play2wifi.py
But when I try to airplay video from iphone or ipad to my XBMC I just get an error that video can't be played on my Fedora box ;(
I don't have LiveTV menu in my XBMC so maybe that is the issue?!? How can I enable LiveTV menu in XBMC?
Any further ideas how to troubleshoot this and make airplay work?
Thanks, Valent.
Ok, it looks like this is also an iOS 4.3 issue :( Any chance of updated script soon?
@valent.turkovic: I'm a sorry to announce you that is project is "dead". It was meant as a Proof of Concept and I released the code in the hope that somebody more skilled in XBMC integration will pick it up. There is a now new project over at GIThub (PascalW). He also supports IOs 4.3 which this project don't. Furthermore that project does integrate well into the nix world with provided startup script and automatic AVAHI configuration.
Just give it a try ;-)
Cheers Andy