MediaBox

Project Summary

Home Cinema media server built with vlcj, using an Android app for control.

Java
Rich Client
Android

Licensing

Not available

Gallery

The main MediaBox application is a rich client desktop Java application, providing a means to search, browse and play video and audio media.

There are a few different ways to select media, a traditional EPG, a menu with movie poster cover art, and in this case a representation of DVD or BluRay cases on some sort of media unit or bookshelf.

Selecting media from the menu leads to the information screen. As shown here we have a simple clean user interface with some pretty effects like a reflection is a black glass surface.

The MediaBox application can be controlled via keyboard and mouse if necessary, but it is more usual to use an infra-red remote or the companion Android app.

The Android companion app enables you to search for media, get media information, and control media playerback as though it were a regular remote.

Introduction

MediaBox is a suite of bespoke applications designed for Home Cinema installations.

A catalogue is built from your media files, then movie information and posters are obtained from themoviedb.org or Rotten Tomatoes.

A front-end application presents the available media in a rich searchable menu, showing movie synopsis, and optionally the actors, the director and so on.

The front-end application is a rich-client Java application, controllable via an IR remote, a smartphone or a tablet.

The mobile companion applications is an Android app, written in Java, that can be used instead of an IR remote to search for and play media. for media playback the companion app operates in a native full-screne mode and provides the usual media player controls.

Searching for media uses predictive text input, both in the desktop application and the mobile app, to make searching easier and quicker.

Video playback includes all of the expected controls, like DVD chapter controls, pausing, playback speed, cropping and resizing the video, video adjustment (for hue, saturation, brightness and gamma), audio controls and subtitle controls.

A middle-tier media server is used to provide access, via a RESTful web-service API, to the media library. The media server is implemented using Java and SpringMVC.

A PostgreSQL database is used to store the media catalog and various media statistics.