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[RELEASE] Free Cable - US station aggregator - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: [RELEASE] Free Cable - US station aggregator (/showthread.php?tid=101938)



- themoddingden - 2012-02-05

Hi;
Sorry to hear about this enjoy your hard work.
Hope to see your work maybe at a later time as well.
Keep your head up.


- Savon - 2012-02-05

Another medium time lurker who finally registered to post in this thread and thank BlueCop.

Your freecable and espn3 plugins were what led me to try xbmc in the first place and are still my most-used streaming apps.

Selfishly I hope this encourages you to continue work on your repo, but I realize you've put a lot of time and effort into it and it's ultimately a personal decision. But stay or go, either way, just wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that many people very much appreciate the hard work you've put into your repo/plugins.


- davidpwalk224 - 2012-02-08

Blue Cop...

Thank you for all that you do, just downloaded your free cable app, all working. Thanks you are like a God....seriously though THANKS!


Thank You - goofygames - 2012-02-08

I dont write anything very often because that is pretty much all i do is read on here, even if it means starting on page 1 of a 150 page thread. That is how you learn in my mind.

Anyways thanx for all your hard work Bluecop. Free Cable works perfectly in Canada. Just recently got Hulu working also. Thanx again.


Legal? - audiorecon - 2012-02-11

Bluecop,
Thanks so much for this awesome plugin. Can you tell us where you get the content? Does it actually come from the legitimate network's sites themselves? For example, does CSI come from CBS.com? A post or entry somewhere with the stream's source would be awesome.

Also, can you comment on how you remove the ads? Do you think this is legal?

Again, thanks guys for all your hard work. If I missed a post or wiki entry (I did try searching), please be kind enough to point me in the right direction. XBMC is awesome.


- Pednick - 2012-02-11

Is Adblock illegal in firefox? No! There's your answer.

audiorecon Wrote:Bluecop,
Thanks so much for this awesome plugin. Can you tell us where you get the content? Does it actually come from the legitimate network's sites themselves? For example, does CSI come from CBS.com? A post or entry somewhere with the stream's source would be awesome.

Also, can you comment on how you remove the ads? Do you think this is legal?

Again, thanks guys for all your hard work. If I missed a post or wiki entry (I did try searching), please be kind enough to point me in the right direction. XBMC is awesome.



- BlueCop - 2012-02-12

audiorecon Wrote:Bluecop,
Thanks so much for this awesome plugin. Can you tell us where you get the content? Does it actually come from the legitimate network's sites themselves? For example, does CSI come from CBS.com? A post or entry somewhere with the stream's source would be awesome.

Also, can you comment on how you remove the ads? Do you think this is legal?

Again, thanks guys for all your hard work. If I missed a post or wiki entry (I did try searching), please be kind enough to point me in the right direction. XBMC is awesome.

The content is provided by the station websites in every case.

It isn't illegal. It operates in a similar manner to a web browser. There isn't a Terms of Service you can break. The sites are free to access without an account of any kind.

The ads aren't removed. They aren't in the main video provided by the networks. It doesn't actively remove anything.

Their players retrieves and displays ads differently on each station site. I would have to reverse each of their systems which are not documented. I would then need add more code to split up the videos into segments and insert the ads. Many of the ad systems are also tracking user information about their viewing habits. This is something to be avoided imho.

The plugin avoids flash player so the video can be played natively. Flash player doesn't work well or at all on many platforms that xbmc runs great. We bypass it so we can play the video directly.

Flash built in codecs are so bad in many cases the video simply can not be played. Any station streaming H264 on my linux HTPC is a stuttering mess of crap. It isn't even close to watchable It also won't scale with out inducing stutter.

XBMC by comparison accelerates H264 on too many platforms to list. It is just perfectly smooth with low cpu on almost everywhere. This is the primary reason I write any of these plugins. The stations already provide the video for free and the plugin is just a method to play them.


- katmandu42 - 2012-02-12

BlueCop Wrote:The playback is all handled by xbmc. The plugin just passes a url to xbmc.

Which stations are you referring to? they are all hosted by different companies with various CDNs and servers.

I would lower the bitrate if you have buffering issues. You can't currently control the cache used for rtmp in xbmc though.

I haven't had any caching problems that weren't related to not enough bandwidth being available.

Thanks, lowering the bit rate fixed the issue.

Funny thing is this is happening on my wired box. My wireless client doesn't have the issue with streaming at Max bit rate.


- TheCasa - 2012-02-12

Hey BC, have you tried to get the Science Channel? If it's possible, I'll be even further in your debt.


- bharath23 - 2012-02-14

I was wondering if any one noticed that at least for ABC the list of episodes arent updating. Two shows Pan Am and Once Upon a Time have new episodes on the website but not through the plugin.


- nate123dog - 2012-02-19

how do I scrape Shows from free cable into my Library.


- pkscout - 2012-02-19

nate123dog Wrote:how do I scrape Shows from free cable into my Library.

Check out XBMC.MyLibrary.


Nba - Rorzzer - 2012-02-20

i don't live in America and I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but would NBATV and ESPN be a possibility?


- Mighty_Diamond - 2012-02-20

Rorzzer Wrote:i don't live in America and I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but would NBATV and ESPN be a possibility?

Yes. You would need a work around, like a VPN. I use the ESPN service aswell as the NFL and HULU services and Im not based within the US.


- mrdally204 - 2012-02-21

I'd just like to throw out my support and thanks for Bluecop. I use his add ons on nearly every platform XBMC is capable of running on. It saves me a cable bill and keeps me up to date on most shows I wish to watch and staying on the right side of LEGAL. I know I have turned quite a few friends and relatives on to XBMC simply by showing them addons such as free cable and Hulu. It really does "sell" the free software Smile I'd love to learn and help maintain with you but not really sure where to start. (Obviously learning python is where to start but a better first direction I guess would help) Anywho, thanks and keep the head up. More people appreciate the work than you will ever know!