Omertron's Media Player Site

iSkin: The YAMJ skin for  iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch

iSkin brings YAMJ to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Browse you video collection on your iPhone, then once you've decided what you want to watch, start watching it with one final touch, and then control playback using the remote on your iPhone.

There are short video demos at The Digital Life Style:

New in version 0.7:

• Improved iPad support (use full screen)
• Improved support for WebKit based PC browsers (tested on Google Chrome and Apple Safari).
• Added skin-doneURL option to skin-options.xsl to set the URL loaded on the NMT when a video stops playing.

I developed iSkin to fit my personal needs and preferences, with limited time available. There are probably lots of things that potential users would like to change or add. That's fine. I'm open to suggestions but can't promise I'll incorporate any. Remember, if you are able to use iSkin as I provide it, you have everything you need to create your own version. Feel free to do so.

The latest version of iSkin is always available at Omertron's NMT and PCH Site.

All discussion of iSkin should take place in the iSkin thread at networkmediatank forums. It's the best place to ask questions, request help, or make suggestions.

Requirements:

1. YAMJ. Through out the rest of this document, I'll assume it's installed in C:\YAMJ. If you've installed it somewhere else, you'll have to substitute the actual installation directory where ever you see C:\YAMJ
2. A Network Media Tank (NMT) with
   1. An internal HDD (hard disk drive),
   2. NMT Applications installed with
      • FTP Server running, as required by the NMT Community Software Installer
      • Samba Server (or NFS Server) running
      • myiHome running
   3. SMB (or NFS) access to your NMT's internal hard drive from your computer. Through out the rest of this document, I'll assume you've mapped the internal drive to P:\ on your commputer. If it is mapped somewhere else, you'll have to substitute the actual mapped path where ever P\: is used below.
   4. PLoNK-a100-csi.0.0.3zip or PLoNK-c200-csi.0.0.3zip, or newer.

      Use NMT Community Software Installer to install the appropriate package on each of you NMTs. From the File menu, select "Install from file..." and follow the instructions.

3. An Apple iPhone or iPod Touch with wireless access to your network. It may also work with other mobile browsers, (previous versions have been reported to work with Android)

Instructions:

These instructions assume you've already satisfied the above requirements and verified that each one is operating correctly. Please do not proceed any further unless you have done that.

1. Unzip iSkin-0.7.zip into the skins directory of your YAMJ installation ( C:\YAMJ\skins ). This will create the iSkin directory, next to the other skin directories, such as default, gfb107, gfb107-sd, and sd.
2. In the newly created iSkin folder, edit skin-options.xsl with your favorite text editor (I like Notepad++)
   1. Set skin-nmtList as follows:

      Create a comma separated list of entries for each NMT you have. Each entry consists of a room name followed by a colon followed by the ip address of the NMT in that room.

      Here is an example for one room:

      <xsl:variable name="skin-nmtList">Family Room:192.168.1.24</xsl:variable>

      Here is an example for two rooms:

      <xsl:variable name="skin-nmtList">Family Room:192.168.1.24,Bonus Room:192.168.1.25</xsl:variable>

      Note: Using a single instance of iSkin with multiple NMTs requires careful configuration:

      • Every NMT must be able to access your entire video collection using the same NMT paths.
      • PLoNK must be installed on every NMT
   2. Set skin-doneURL to the URL you would like displayed on your TV when videos stop playing.  The default value of file:///share/index.htm works for those who have an HDTV and a custom index (or one generated by YAMJ). Those with SDTVs should use file:///share/index_sd.htm
3. Set YAMJ to use the iSkin skin and to use the NMT's internal HDD as the jukebox root, either using command line options
   
   MovieJukebox -D mjb.skin.dir=./skins/iSkin -o P:

   or modifying moviejukebox.properties

   mjb.skin.dir=./skins/iSkin
   mjb.jukeboxRoot=P:
4. Run YAMJ
5. Open Safari on your iPhone or IPod Touch and point it at
   
   http://ip.address.of.nmt:8088/stream/file=/share/iSkin.html

   replacing ip.address.of.nmt with the IP address of your NMT.

6. Put an icon for iSkin on your Home Screen. Do not skip this step
   1. Touch the "+" in the status bar
   2. Touch "Add To Home Screen"
   3. Touch "Add"
   4. Touch the new icon for iSkin on your Home Screen to go directly to iSkin in full screen mode

Notes

In the above instructions, the myiHome server on your NMT is used to make iSkin available for browsing on your network. However, it is possible to serve the iSkin files from another device on your network, such as a NAS or computer. All you have to do is set YAMJ's jukeboxRoot to point to the appropriate place, and of course use the appropriate URL in Safari.

Please help support further iSkin development.       

Credits

iSkin wouldn't be possible without the efforts of

• The YAMJ developers
• The iui developers
• The MediatankController for iPhone developer
• The iscroll.js developer

To Do List

Here is a list of the things I plan to work on at some time in the future

• Make better use of larger iPad screen with some sort of split-screen navigation.

Change Log

• Version 0.7
  • Improved iPad support (use full screen)
  • Improved support for WebKit based PC browsers (tested on Google Chrome and Apple Safari).
  • Added skin-doneURL option to skin-options.xsl to set the URL loaded on the NMT when a video stops playing.
• Version 0.6
  • Fix play all links
  • Make the header bar fixed by integrating iscroll.js
  • Add lazy loading of thumbnails on the index pages
  • Use the remote control from MediatankController
  • Add support for C200 by switching to PLoNK-csi from MediatankController for iPhone
  • Add support for multiple NMTs. Requires special care to make sure all NMTs can access all videos in your library using the same NMT path.
  • Readme.html updates
  • Updated screen captures
• Version 0.5a
  • Updates for MediatankController 1.0 for iPhone
  • Fix for trailers/extras
  • Fix for file names containing single quotes. Will not work with double quotes.
  • Readme.html updates
• Version 0.5
  • Fix episode/multi-part support
  • Unbundle MediatankController, now using the official version.
  • Added Readme.html
  • Put mjb.detailsDirName in skin.properties so users don't have to change it.
• Version 0.4
  • Fixed playback of .iso/VIDEO_TS
• Version 0.3
  • Fixed cast when cast indexing is turned on.
  • Show director when director indexing is turned on.
• Version 0.2
  • Enable full-screen mode when iSkin is started from the Home Screen icon.
• Version 0.1
  • Initial release

Example images: