ABC iView TV streaming and downloading preview on X5000

Back in 2015 I covered a script written by MickJT to allow AmigaOS 4.1 users to stream local Australian TV channel ABC iView programming.

In May 2015 the ABC changed the method to stream iView dropping PS3 support which broke the script, as I reported back then.

Now, in 2019, thanks again to MickJT, we have a new script and ABC iView streaming works again, now using my AmigaOne X5000!

I have been beta testing the new version of the iview script, which should be released in the not too distant future, and I can report it streams very well.

For this to work well, you do need the latest versions of ffplay and ffmpeg 4.0.2 (as I write this) which you can get from os4depot.net.

Make sure you follow the instructions to use the Shell to unpack the latest versions. There are altivec and non-altivec versions, which means you can use ffplay and ffmpeg on AmigaOne X1000 (Altivec) or X5000 (non-altivec) without a problem. I copied the programs to c: so they are available anywhere I want to launch from.

You step through the menus via a text sequence in an Amiga shell, able to search or browse to find programs you want.

Once a program is chosen, you can choose the resolution to stream the video at:

The script then launches ffplay and shows the content! You can (in theory) modify the script to launch ffplay in full screen, and other options too.

Here is one of my favourite shows at the moment, The Good Place, streaming well on my X5000:

I binge watched The Good Place seasons 1 to 3 on Netflix, bought the DVD's because I really enjoyed it, and now you can watch it on Free to air (ABC) - and no, I don't work for Netflix or the company that made it! Just a fan!

This ABC iView streaming development is maybe not so interesting for people not in Australia (I am not sure you can view it from outside AU without a VPN), but it is very exciting if you are here!

Streaming TV on AmigaOS 4.1 in 2019 - loving it again!

I even watched 'Mad as Hell' featuring the often funny Shaun Micallef (originally from Adelaide):

Next I tried out using the latest ffmpeg to download the streaming programs to hard disk on my AmigaOne X5000! It works!

To do this I need to use the iview script first to get the required header and URL for the video - I then copy the relevant part (as shown below) from the script executed into a text editor:

In the text editor I next need to add ffmpeg to the beginning, -i in front of the URL and add -c copy <outputfile.mp4> to the end, as shown in this example below. I put some line feeds in so you can read it easily, but in reality this should all be on the one line:

I then feed this line into the AmigaShell and the program downloads to my X5000:

With that completed successfully, I then checked the file in the drawer and it is there:

I then opened it in Mplayer, using the MPlayerGUI, both also updated on os4depot recently so grab the latest versions!

With MPlayer for the X1000 use the Altivec version, for the X5000 the non-altivec version.

The resultant downloaded file worked perfectly and played back great!

As mentioned, the new version of the script should be available on os4depot in the not too distant future. Thanks to MickJT for his work in making this happen!

Emotion media player on X1000

It is nice to be blogging again! Thanks all for your patience. I am getting better slowly, although not entirely fixed up yet.

Today though I wanted to take a look at the recently released Emotion media player for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on my AmigaOne X1000.

This is a commercial product, written by EntwicklerX, the guys behind a number of AmigaOS 4.1 games like Swamp Defense 1 & 2, M.A.C.E, and many others I have looked at on this very blog over the years!

It is available to purchase via the AMIStore app for AmigaOS4.1.

AMIStore includes a good overview of the features, and there are many:

This player differs from the existing free MPlayer for AmigaOS 4.1 by it's use of FFMpeg for playback, a minimalist simple interface for navigation and simple configuration options which are easy to set and use.

As you can see, the interface is minimalist but includes the important controls you normally need:

Cranking up a few videos, I can run in parallel and still running smoothly:

The 720p videos work great on the X1000:

There are some more options available in the title bar menus, as below:

In the Play menu you can see the keyboard shortcut for playback, stop, fast forward and rewind, and options to select the audio track if multiple are available.

In the View menu is the fullscreen option, resize the video to fit the current window size, hide border, window on top and frame skip options. By default is disabled. I set it to Auto for the best results.

Have to say I was impressed with the output - it works well:

The X1000 can't play 1080p, so 720p is as good as you get, even utilising the Altivec extensions. But I already knew about that restriction so I convert my videos to 720p using handbrake on my Mac and then copy them over.

Full screen gives the minimal controls available at the bottom, which drop away after a few seconds. Can be recalled by moving the mouse:

Emotion media player running full screen 720p video on my 30" TFT screen on the AmigaOne X1000 - fantastic:

It is wonderful to see a new video player released for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition in 2017! Recommended.

As you may have noticed my room layout has changed a bit. I may cover that significant change work in a future blog entry!

SMTube on X1000

Today I wanted to take a look at SMTube, an application that uses QT 4.7, on the X1000.

Update 9/5/2015: With YouTube changing their API to a new version this week, SMTube no longer works with YouTube. :-( The author said that he is working on a fix for this, release date unknown.

SMTube is a program for AmigaOS4.1.6 or AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition by Ricardo Villalba that allows you to search YouTube.com for YouTube videos, play the videos, save the audio and/or video to your local system, and other features too! It was ported to AmigaOS4.1 by Guillaume 'zzd10h' Boesel.

You can download it from OS4Depot here.

The attraction of SMTube is the small compact uncluttered search interface without the need to run Odyssey or Timberwolf to use the YouTube website. It also bypasses the comments and ads spooled on YouTube before viewing videos! So just for that alone it is a great program already!


SMTube requires QT 4.7 to be installed on the X1000, also available on os4depot here. I have covered QT 4.7 initial installation previously on this blog here, and the updates to apply afterwards here.

In order to play YouTube content, SMTube uses a AREXX script to run MPlayer. This script requires some customisation to suit the X1000, so I wanted to show how this is done.

In the SMTube folder there is an Amiga folder. In there is a script file called PlayVideo.rexx. If you open it up in Notepad, you can make some changes to have SMTube operate at optimal performance on the X1000. First up is to get SMTube to use the faster Altivec version of MPlayer, as below:

The next step is to minimise the annoying console that appears when MPlayer runs:

And finally there is a MPLAYER_OPTIONS optimisation line (for graphics cards that support Overlay - which the X1000 does). You just need to uncomment it in the file (remove the /* and */) around the line so it looks like below:

When running SMTube, it will automatically load Most Relevant YouTube videos based on your country location (specified in AmigaOS4 - but can be changed as required within SMTube):

You can type in your search criteria into the search box on the bottom left of the program window and press Enter to bring up the results.

Next to the Search box is 4 icons - for Recordings, URL, Settings and About. There is also Forward and back buttons to go to the next/previous page of search results.

The Recordings button shows you any YouTube videos you have downloaded, or the audio from YouTube videos that you may have downloaded to your local system. (more on this in a moment)

You can double click on these recordings to view them in MPlayer - below I have the Amiwest 2014 Show floor video playing (click to expand to full size):

Under the Settings button on the main window, you can specify the Recordings location on your hard disk, the quality (high - 1080p, low 360p) of the videos to download when saving recordings, the playback quality when playing back in MPlayer, the region you come from to provide search results for Most Relevant section of SMTube, and Period of Time to search on:

I changed the download location to /Work/Videos. Note the folder syntax is not standard Amiga syntax (which would be Work:Videos). Be careful with this. Click OK to save.

When you click the About button on the main window of SMTube you you get the version number, updates location and other author/translator information.

The Enter URL button on the main window allows you to enter a specific URL for a YouTube video you want to record. This is useful if you have been sent a link on Facebook, Twitter, IRC, Email or similar, and just want to copy and paste the URL into SMTube to record the video to your local system - very handy:

On the main SMTube window, you can right click on any video to see the options available - which are to Play Video, Record video, Record audio, Watch on YouTube (website) and Copy link.

If I select Record Video, it then brings up the Recordings window and shows me the progress in downloading the selected video to my X1000:

You can of course also stream the videos direct from YouTube using SMTube by double clicking on the video in the search results - an example video is shown below (click to expand):

SMTube is a great program, is free, has lots of good features and I now use it in place of the YouTube website on my X1000. Recommended! :-)