Llink

llink is a media streamer that let's you play movies, view online trailers, browse images or play music over a network using the http protocol. It should work with most Syabas NMT hardware (NetworkedMediaTank middleware based players), such as the Popcorn Hour A- and B-series, HDX, iSTAR, Egreat a whole range of others, possibly even a couple of older ones like the LinkTheater. Some of the best reasons to run llink is that it can run on a great many platforms, including most popular NAS devices - even on the NMT player itself - and it can play media directly from RAR files.

llink-2.2.0 aqua skin

llink-1.9.9 jukebox skin

llink-2.2.0 clterm skin

llink-2.2.0 nmt skin

llink-2.2.0 kamaishi_skies skin

llink overview

• List of compatible players

• Parses various video containers: vob, avi, ts, mkv, tp, mov, m2ts, evo.
• Streams any file type the NMT player can handle: mp3, flac, jpeg, png etc.
• Can play straight from rar files: no more need to unrar your media. (Comes with special unrar-3.7.8-seek.)
• SSDP / UPnP discovery support (although minimal).
• Skin support: make your own html templates or choose from pre-built.
• Simple iMDb querying to look up media information for Jukebox skins.
• Both HD and SD skins available.
• Light, tiny and clean code for Unix, OsX and Windows.
• Paginating: support to send listings in pages, with tags for Next/Prev.
• PlayAll cgi tag, and PlayAllFrom.
• External subtitles: subtitle files can be consolidated in one directory.
• libdvdnav support (and libdvdcss): provides basic playback of DVD .iso and .img files and from DVD drives.
• UDF 2.50 BD5-ISO support: provides basic playback of Bluray and HD-DVD.
• (External process support, like mencoder: incomplete).

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Todo

In no particular order:

• Add goto percentage bookmark which may be what WizD uses Appears to only work for MPEG.
• Add a transparent FTP fs layer? this would be well nice if it worked with RAR.
• Convert other playlist (.m3u .pls) formats to Syabas playlist.
• Scraping/parsing of .NFO files (for media info).
• mms:// protocol support (libmms looks ok, but has own select() call, needs deeper inspection).
• Scrape/look for subtitles (ex. http://www.subtitlesource.org/title/tt0325710/).
• Proposed menus.
• Configuration via web page.
• Avalaunch style backgrounds. (Ex. fetch picture from NASA every 30s and refresh) for mp3/playlists.
• Already watched DB. Stage 1: in memory, Stage 2: bdb on disk. How do we visually represent it?
• Playing mp3s, and photos from RAR files don't appear to work.
• When playing music, allow to specify pictures to view.
• Add ROOT that is just a A HREF link somewhere (to support integration of YAMJ and other jukeboxes).
• Explore what more power we get from libdvdnav.
• Support ANT's Movie Database .xml files.
• Remote skin support, e.g. invoke play from an iPhone or any other web enabled device.
• Support Unix builds to handle "~/". It is expanded by getpwuid(getuid())->pw_home;

Additional resources

Feel free to contribute to the wiki documentation:

• User guide for functions.
• Installation guide for Windows.
• Installation guide for Linux.
• Macros supported by the HTML engine in llink.
• Sample Files for configuring llink Jukebox xml.
• Compiling Guide for compiling, cross-compiling and compiling on Windows.

Download binaries

Note: if you are in luck, a devices not listed here may share platform and architecture. Please report your success/failure.

• Windows 2.2.0 Binaries for Windows OS.
• OsX 2.2.0 Binaries for Apple Macintosh Os X (Universal).
• nmt 2.2.0 Binaries for the Network Media Tank. (Popcornhour A-100).
• Linux 2.2.0 Binaries for Linux OS, Intel (add more if you can).
• OpenSolaris 2.2.0 Binaries for OpenSolaris (11/08) OS, Intel.
• ReadyNAS 2.2.0 Binaries and instructions for Infrant ReadyNAS.
• Synology 2.2.0 Binaries and instructions for Synology NAS.
• Asus WL-500GL Binaries for Asus router running OpenWrt.
• Asus WL-500g Premium Binaries for Asus router running Oleg's firmware.
• landisk Binaries for IO-Data landisk uhdl-av, cpu-SH4.
• "llink on a stick" let's you run llink from a USB stick or external USB drive.
• D-Link DNS-323 Binaries and instructions for D-Link NAS.

(Compilers, you can upload new versions directly in the wiki, see Synology page as example)

Sources

• Sources Build your own for your platform. Includes autoconf for Unix and project files for Windows Visual Studio.
• libdvdcss sources are: libdvdcss-1.2.10.tar.gz
• mime.types defining MIME types, generally not needed, only if you use it with a browser.
• libdvdnav sources are: libdvdnav-4.1.2 libdvdnav sources now included.
• libdvdread with MSVC++ Project files: [http://www.lundman.net/ftp/llink/libdvdread-0.9.7-win32.tar.gz
• libdvdread sources for llink v2.0.8 to 2.1.1 only are: libdvdread-0.9.7.tar.bz

Known issues

Special character combinations in directory and file names
Valid from llink 2.0.3 the character combination "&d=" or "&f=" will pass on to unrar and cause problems when trying to play, but ampersands and equal signs can be used in file and directory names. In previous versions you will not be able to play movies with the ampersand (&) or the equals sign (=) characters in the directory- or file name. Note: If no RAR support is needed, it's possible to make a workaround for it.

ISO limitations
Playing ISO has currently three limitations, valid up to llink 2.1.1:

1. Does not play straight from RAR
This function is in the works but not yet supported. This feature now works in 2.1.2 and up

2. Does not autoplay ISO
You must select the individual VOB inside the ISO to play the movie, it will not start automatically when pressing Play or Enter on the ISO file.

3. Does not handle the DVD menu
It is not possible to change the default audio track or embedded subtitles or other features selected in the DVD menu. However it is possible to use external subs, using the redirect function (found in the llink.conf) by using the same name as the VOB-file, for instance TS_VIDEO_01.VOB gives TS_VIDEO_01.srt.

llink-NMT network connections
Due to a limitation in the NMT device it will only open one of the connections at startup, not all. Browse to the share via the NMT GUI first, then open llink if you need to browse another share than the NMT default.

Changelog

The llink changelog contains the basic release notes history.