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[RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - Printable Version

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RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - orlando.scarlet - 2013-12-12

Based on some of the comments I read when looking for the "swf fix", it doesn't seem like I'd be missing much by sticking with 2.4.17 (even though it's a year old), though it would be a shame to gove up on the good work that was put into a later release.

I will continue to check back in case anyone has any ideas on why some encounter a problem with 2.4.18 while others seem ok -- hopefully somebody will find a fix that will allow me to update .18 sometime in the near future.

Cheers!
Orlando


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - castalla - 2013-12-12

Glad you have a fix!


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - Crispy2 - 2013-12-12

I have been testing suspend/resume last few days and I did notice if you wake your system up from suspend it won't work with iplayer
giving message

"Playback Failed
One of more items failed to Play.
Check log file for details."

So if you do that perhaps a clean restart is in order.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - dougp - 2013-12-19

Hi, after using v18 for a while I was hitting serious problems with performance, and also frustrations with the way locking and resuming worked. So.... I went to work. Big Grin

I've made the changes below. I just based it on the released version and haven't done nice cvs patches or anything at the moment - partly I haven't had time, partly I wanted some comments first anyway. Happy to do it properly when I have time in the new year.

Fix performance issues

There were two major performance issues. First, a loop error meant that when the resume file was being saved (on every pause & stop), instead of entries being written:
1
2
3

They were being written:

1
1
2
1
2
3

This led to the file getting very large very quickly (mine was 400KB after a few days).

Next, the file was being loaded from disk and parsed once for every single entry in a program list whenever a list was displayed. Multiply that by a massive file... It's now loaded once only and cached.

I also tweaked a couple of loops to move as much as possible outside, but the above were the main problems.

Removed the resume file locking

Personally, I found this nothing more than an inconvenience. The plugin does occasionally fail for whatever reason, and having to go to settings to release the lock is a pain. Its purpose seems to be to protect the file from being manipulated by multiple instances of XBMC. However, due to the mix of static and non-static methods, it was actually allowing the file to be loaded without being locked anyway. Personally I feel having multiple instances of XBMC running is such an edge-case that the protection is actually more trouble than it's worth.

Setting to define whether to play from the beginning or resume from resume point by default

As someone else said, it can sometimes be frustrating when clicking on an item attempts to resume rather than playing from the start. The setting (under "Advanced") allows you to decide which behaviour you prefer.

New context menu entries to allow play from beginning or resume, regardless of the default setting

What it says.

Cosmetic changes

Display the resume time in the program list and context menu.

-----

Ok, now I've just realised there's no way to attach files. Not sure of the best way to get this to anyone interested! Let me know if you want to give it a go.

Doug.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - zag - 2013-12-19

You can email it to zag (at) xbmc.org and I will update the first post.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - dougp - 2013-12-20

(2013-12-19, 18:36)zag Wrote: You can email it to zag (at) xbmc.org and I will update the first post.

Thanks, done.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - zag - 2013-12-20

Try this out from dougp, if it works i'll update the first post Smile

Download

Nice to finally have some progress!

EDIT: Did a quick test on most popular and played the first stream. WORKS!
EDIT2: Live channels not working


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - dougp - 2013-12-20

I didn't (deliberately) touch anything to do with live streams, as they've never worked for me for some reason. If you can confirm they work in 17 and the original 18 but not my updated version, I'll take a look at what I may have changed.

Edit: Reading recent posts, it sounds like maybe live streams stopped working in the original 18 release?


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - exobuzz - 2013-12-20

the iplayer plugin is still in development on the google code site. Rather than updating the first post with someone elses updated version, the correct route is to get the improvements into the official release. Author of said changes has posted on our issue tracker, so we just await the patchsets and we can review/push out a new version.

cheers.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - exobuzz - 2013-12-20

there are multiple issues with live streams. we are pulling meta data from one of the bbc's deprecated API's (according to my wireshark the website doesn't use it anymore) and some of the provided CDN links no longer works. There are some live tv changes on svn which were made earlier this month and are due for the next release after some more testing (http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/source/list). Akamai streams for the live stuff in the svn version seem to work sometimes. lime light didn't work at all. Akamai live streams are also geolocked, whereas the ondemand streams are not (just the auth metadata is geolocked which can be more easily bypassed with a proxy).

It is a lot of work keeping up with BBC changes. Would be better if they offered some official API, but they don't.

I would also please ask people to understand that

a) 6 months between a release doesn't mean the project is dead. Changes are made on SVN from time to time, but I and other contributors have real lives, jobs and other projects on the go.
b) We are not getting paid for this. Please take this into account when complaining/demanding fixes etc.
c) the project is based on an ever changing API that the BBC does not want used on devices they do not support directly. It is a constant battle to keep it working, and was one of the reasons earlier devs have quit.

Thanks for listening. (and thanks to dougp for the changes, please do submit them over at the issue tracker so we can get them applied)


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - dougp - 2013-12-20

I'm absolutely not trying to subvert the normal process, definitely need to keep a single stream of official versions. I just spent a couple of hours playing with these changes and haven't got cvs installed etc at the moment. I was also aware that some changes like removing the locking may provoke some discussion, so thought it worthwhile posting an update here for people to play with and offer opinions. In retrospect maybe that's a dev discussion rather than end-user.

When I get chance I'll definitely submit things properly. This addon is one of the most-used TV feeds in our household, keen to keep the improvements coming!


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - exobuzz - 2013-12-20

(2013-12-20, 06:24)dougp Wrote: I'm absolutely not trying to subvert the normal process, definitely need to keep a single stream of official versions. I just spent a couple of hours playing with these changes and haven't got cvs installed etc at the moment. I was also aware that some changes like removing the locking may provoke some discussion, so thought it worthwhile posting an update here for people to play with and offer opinions. In retrospect maybe that's a dev discussion rather than end-user.

When I get chance I'll definitely submit things properly. This addon is one of the most-used TV feeds in our household, keen to keep the improvements coming!

no probs. wasn't pointing any fingers at you, just the xbmc moderator seemed to suggest the project was dead perhaps so wanted to clarify. Appreciate someone feeding back improvements Smile My second comment was also not aimed at you either, but it's a somewhat thankless task sometimes, where the only feedback you get is negative (although I received a nice PM the other day which was a nice surprise). If more people were willing to give up their free time to try and help, it would be great - so I always like it when we get contributions. The resume functionality was a contributed patchset in the first place (and now the creator has svn access on the project). I'm happy to give contributors access to help more directly if they want.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - exobuzz - 2013-12-20

I had planned to get a release out this month btw, but there were a couple of outstanding things. Just doing them now, and I'll give a download link shortly for a new version. live code is reworked somewhat, and it works for me, but no guarantees. Then we can do another release once we have the resume improvements in.


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - exobuzz - 2013-12-20

v2.5.0 is available from http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/downloads/list

changes:
* implemented live tv functionality into main iplayer2.py code
* various code cleanups/fixes
* more reliable removal of resume lock file


RE: [RELEASE] iPlayer - BBC Video and Music Plugin (UK only!) - zag - 2013-12-20

Yes dougp, please submit your changes to the Google code repo so we are collaborating properly.

@exobuzz, when your happy with it working please consider submitting it to the official xbmc repo. At the moment this add-on has very little exposure so having it on the public website may bring in new developers.