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+-- Forum: Development (/forumdisplay.php?fid=32)
+--- Forum: PVR Development (/forumdisplay.php?fid=136)
+--- Thread: Unified PVR frontend (DVR/HTPC client GUI with EPG) and Addons API for PVR backends? (/showthread.php?tid=28918)
- topfs2 - 2008-01-24 11:18
Hi! Sry for the long reply delay but I didn't notice your reply
I've looked through XBMCTv source and well, it's quite dated and needs major fixes to compile but I might use the XMLTV code from though. May be usefull in the future when I get some progress in the rest.
I've downloaded the gmyth sources and will see if I can get some common ground on how a general pluginbase would look for TV.
My Idea is to have All comunication done in this and just send the URL to the DVDPlayer/Mplayer for it to play..
My work will be done on the linux port and therefor I wonder which network protocol's are currently support in the svn? the wiki just state's that it has limited support
how limited?
Another source of inspiration... - Gamester17 - 2008-02-12 15:57
Maybe some interface/API ideas can be taken from the source code of the mvpmc (MediaMVP Media Center) project? mvpmc is an open source open source suite of libraries and a media player capable of acting as a front-end for multiple types of backends over the network:
http://www.mvpmc.org
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mvpmc/
Quote:The MediaMVP Media Center (mvpmc) is a media player written in C. It currently runs on the Hauppauge MediaMVP hardware. It can play video (including live TV), audio (including live radio), show pictures, and retrieve Yahoo! weather. mvpmc can access media from a MythTV, ReplayTV, Hauppauge, VLC, or SqueezeCenter (aka SlimServer) server. It can also access media via UPNP, HTTP, NFS and CIFS. There is a VNC viewer built in. It understands MPEG1 and MPEG2 video, MP3, OGG, WAV, AC3 and FLAC audio and JPG, BMP & PNG images.
Quote:FAQ: How well does mvpmc work as a MythTV frontend?
ANSWER: mvpmc is not a complete replacement for the MythTV frontend that comes with MythTV. However, it is capable of doing most of the things that a typical user will do on a day-to-day basis.Quote:FAQ: How do I watch live TV off a MythTV server?
ANSWER: Live TV changed quite drastically in MythTV 0.19. However, mvpmc is capable of playing live TV from both older and newer backends.
You can watch live TV either via the filesystem or the myth protocol. If you use the -b option to mvpmc, you can tell mvpmc which directory contains the ringbuffer. If you do not use the -b option, then live tv will be played via the myth protocol.
When you select live TV, you will be given a menu containing all of the programs currently being broadcast. If you choose one of the programs, it will attempt to start playing it on any of the tuners where that program is available. If you use the MENU button, you will get a menu that will allow you to choose which tuner you want to watch the program on.
or?
Let's make this happen - alcoheca - 2008-02-24 18:51
Would this project be a suitable candidate for inclusion in XBMC's & Google's SoC 2008? Perhaps it's too big a task to qualify?
I'm only asking as I would love to tackle this, however realistically I'd need some guidance to get somewhere. I'm also unsure if any of the main developers are willing to mentor on this, as responses to requests for PVR functionality have always been fairly muted.
On the other hand, I'm of the opinion that this is the last big missing feature of XBMC and one that is sorely missed by many, many people. For example I think this project would be far more valuable to XBMC (cross platform) than this suggestion already on the XBMC SoC wiki entry:
"Native DVB television in XBMC for Linux via v4l/v4l2 library and FFmpeg".
For a start it's hard to know what this means, coding an entirely new PVR application for XBMC? Or could it just be having live TV support from local DVB cards? Even if somebody was going to have PVR recording sever in their XBMC/Linux box, it seems like that could easily be achieved by the idea set out above by Gamester17. (Running VDR/Mythtv/Freevo/whatever in the background instead).
Seperating the GUI from the PVR client part must be the smartest way to go on this, rather than targeting particular applications, that some people may not be able/want to use.
My 2 pence
- Nick8888 - 2008-03-10 14:57
One nice feature which I think would need to be included in this new "[live] TV Section" if it were created would be codes to put in the keymap which are linked to each channel.
I am currently setting up a universal remote and am wanting to add my mythtv channels to it...
something like <one<tv.mythtv.channels.abchd</one>
I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this as well.
Nick
- Gamester17 - 2008-03-10 18:07
alcoheca Wrote:Would this project be a suitable candidate for inclusion in XBMC's & Google's SoC 2008? Perhaps it's too big a task to qualify?Just the front-end GUI (user interface) and maybe the XMLTV TV-Guide as well could be one GSoC project, then each backend could each be a separate project by themselves. I think that the two major goals of a such project would be writing the skinable GUI and coming up with an API so that it could command several backend-client plugins from the same GUI, making it seamless to the end-user (and the GUI skinners) no matter if the backend-server was MythTV, VDR, or MediaPortal.
PS! @alcoheca, checkout our qualification tasks and be sure to apply with Google to GSoC.
- elupus - 2008-03-10 20:23
I don't think xbmc ever should strive for doing the jobs of a pvr, it should be a frontend nothing else. that said adding v4l input support shouldn't hinder that.
alcoheca, sure this is something that could be gsoc'ed, and for the interaction against backends and player integration, i'd be able to help out. but i'm not too keen on being the official mentor for it, and am i not very well suited for the gui parts anyway.
- jmarshall - 2008-03-10 23:01
I'm happy to mentor that nasty GUI stuff, and I'm sure between us all we can get something reasonable working.
I'm agreed with elupus in that XBMC should concentrate on the frontend only.
- Nick8888 - 2008-03-11 01:13
Ok I have been thinking about how such a thing would fit into xbmc lately and this is my thoughts. Not sure anything about the programming side so it may not be practical but I think TV would need to be seperated from videos as that section would become too large.
TV
-----Live TV
---------------EPG
---------------Channels
-----Recorded/Downloaded Shows (Perhaps Seperate)
-----Schedule
---------------Upcoming Recordings
---------------Conflicts
Movies
Music
Pictures
Programs
Is this in line with other peoples thoughts?
- alcoheca - 2008-03-11 03:58
It's great to see the number of responses to this thread, and with the talk of multiple projects for this feature I feel a whole lot of progress could be made over the next few months. TV heaven beckons (heaven = no real estate investment reality programmes & no life invading advertisements).
@Gamester17 I've signed up for integrating libnemesi into dvdplayer, and have started work. Assuming no natural disasters occur, I will make the SoC deadline.
@elupus & jmarshall : Producing a cross platform/application frontend certainly seems more pertinent to me. I'm very happy to hear of developers with this in mind.
@Nick8888 I'm of the opinion that a separate TV section would be the most logical route to take too. For the sake of completeness you could always have "TV Recordings" available as a built in source in the videos section.
Thinking aloud while looking at your diagram I see some improvements that could be made. Because of the way many people use televisions a more immediate link to the TV guide and live TV might appease many non-geeks like ourselves. The option to flick at will and pull up the EPG easily would suit many people (excepting myself).
I think the schedule conflicts could be integrated into the EPG for simplicity.
I'm not so keen on merging the PVR facilities with ripped TV series, this might blur the distinction between the two. What could be handy is automatic inclusion in the video library, once you hit "series record" in the EPG/OSD.
I have a few other ideas on the GUI aspects and so perhaps it's a good idea to create a wiki page as a resource site for this sort of discussion.
- Gamester17 - 2008-03-11 12:50
alcoheca Wrote:I have a few other ideas on the GUI aspects and so perhaps it's a good idea to create a wiki page as a resource site for this sort of discussion.Good idea, here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=GSoC_Project_-_One_common_GUI_front-end_that_can_control_multiple_PVR/DVR/HTPC_back-ends