[RELEASE] PseudoTV Addon: Virtual EPG and TV Channel Surfing Script

(2012-04-09 20:09)Nietchie Wrote:  Ok, I'm quite excited.

I just installed the Openelec 2 Eden beta and used the latest release (that froze on Openelec 1 - Dharma) and it seems to be working!

Its painfully slow, but it says its added 21 entries to channel 1! It takes about a minute between entries, so its going to go all night, but you're definitely getting somewhere! I'll post a log in a bit.

edit : Log : http://pastebin.com/KAPsnuxY

I had that same issue...I never had problems creating channels in the past...and the channels were taking forever to populate.

I found that after playing around with it for a while. That the fix for me was to install PsuedoTV from the repository. After that it repopulated the channels at normal speed. I then reupdate PsuedoTV to the stable-pre and it worked like a charm.

Im not sure why...maybe the stable-pre didnt install some dependencys??

Hope this helps

(2012-04-09 23:43)boccman Wrote:  I had that same issue...I never had problems creating channels in the past...and the channels were taking forever to populate.

I found that after playing around with it for a while. That the fix for me was to install PsuedoTV from the repository. After that it repopulated the channels at normal speed. I then reupdate PsuedoTV to the stable-pre and it worked like a charm.

Im not sure why...maybe the stable-pre didnt install some dependencys??

Hope this helps

Are you populating from a network source?

Suggestion, ability to access audio settings while in PseduoTV. I.E. Enable/Disable Sub-titles and change audio streams.

Reason,I have some anime on the TV Tokyo playlist BUT some are in En, some JP. Others have odd subs and I need to set the correct ones. As far as I can tell pressing the 'green' button on my mce remote use-to open up a dock with play/pause and video/audio settings. However when in PseduoTV pressing this button asks if I wish to exit the add-on. I've found a work around by pressing 'S' using XBMC remote for Android which opens up some type of 'exit/reboot' menu and I can then access the audio settings in the back-ground.

Anyways, long story shortened, need a better way to enable/disable subs and audio settings while watching.

how i can add more than 200 channels?

(2012-04-10 10:55)Nietchie Wrote:  

(2012-04-09 23:43)boccman Wrote:  I had that same issue...I never had problems creating channels in the past...and the channels were taking forever to populate.

I found that after playing around with it for a while. That the fix for me was to install PsuedoTV from the repository. After that it repopulated the channels at normal speed. I then reupdate PsuedoTV to the stable-pre and it worked like a charm.

Im not sure why...maybe the stable-pre didnt install some dependencys??

Hope this helps

Are you populating from a network source?

Yes, a FreeNAS server.

Sadly I'm unable to get PseudoTV to run here.
I want to use the shared channels for my 2 ATVs and Laptop. To create the channels I started on the laptop hoping that it might be quicker in creating the channels, however it takes ages (30mins) at least.
I can also see that the SMB share I specified for the shared location gets a settings2.xml file. Then i copyed the settings.xml to the atvs but every time I try to start PseudoTV it tells me "unable to load/find channels"

I'm running latest Eden build and used PseudoTV from the built in repo

(2012-04-10 23:39)blubberx Wrote:  Sadly I'm unable to get PseudoTV to run here.
Every time I try to start PseudoTV it tells me "unable to load/find channels"

I'm running latest Eden build and used PseudoTV from the built in repo

me 2

(2012-04-10 23:39)blubberx Wrote:  Sadly I'm unable to get PseudoTV to run here.
I want to use the shared channels for my 2 ATVs and Laptop. To create the channels I started on the laptop hoping that it might be quicker in creating the channels, however it takes ages (30mins) at least.
I can also see that the SMB share I specified for the shared location gets a settings2.xml file. Then i copyed the settings.xml to the atvs but every time I try to start PseudoTV it tells me "unable to load/find channels"

I'm running latest Eden build and used PseudoTV from the built in repo

I am not using ATVs nor Eden, but I can tell you what I did to get shared channels working. I Created a shared folder on my server. This was for the channel sharing itself. On one of my computers I had PseudoTV run and create the channels, without channel sharing enabled. After that was completed (The initial run took about 45 minutes to complete all channels), I moved the settings2.xml file and the folder created (Sorry, I am not at my pc now and can not remember its name), anyway...I moved the folder and the settings2.xml file to the shared folder I created on my server.
On each of my pc's that was going to share these channels, I had to "map a network drive" to my shared folder on my server. After that, I could then select to "use shared folder" within Pseudo and select the mapped folder that pointed to my shared folder on my server. You also have to make sure that each of the pc's or whatever is running Pseudo and sharing folders has the exact same initial playlists (if you use them) in the video folder of playlist.
Hope this helps a little.

Mark

Hey all, (sorry for the long post, I tend to ramble)

Firstly just want to say what an awesome little addon this is. I've been telling everyone I know that uses XBMC about it and they are all impressed. Keep up the great work.

Now on to problems. I've tired going through this thread to find answers, but it's not easy to scan through 278 pages of posts to find what I'm looking for, so here we go.

I believe there are currently problems with Eden and non-windows server sharing channel info. Something about an SMB issue? I have a semi-working work around for this, but I've now come to a point where I can't see how to fix the problem.

Basically I have my main machine running XBMCUbuntu with all my media shared and using a MYSQL db for the library. In PseudoTV I have configured the shared directory to point to a local folder which is accessible via my network as well. Any directories I use in channels are all local directories as well. So far everything works perfectly.

Now I add my Windows box to the picture connecting to the main servers DB for it's library. PseudoTV settings for the windows box point directly to the SMB share for the channels and for channels which use directories for content I just have pathsubstitution settings so that the windows machine can play the directory content fine.

That works too, and in fact with both servers running I can see the same content and the same channels.

The problem I'm having is that any channel that is being watched by the Windows box drops off the channel list on the Linux Server.
EG:
Watcing channel 1 on Windows and channel 2 on the Linux Server
Try to change to channel 1 on the Linux server, the channel is no longer valid and drops from the list.

Note: If both servers start on the same channel at startup (IE: both start on channel 1) then they will play in sync until I change the channel on the Linux server to another channel and then try change it back. Also if I change the channel on the Windows box to one that the Linux box is playing, then everything is fine. As soon as I change the Linux channel and try change it back to the channel it was on (and the windows box has played) it's now invalid and drops from the list.

This doesn't affect the windows box at all though and it can happily change channels back and forth without losing any.

I can get logs if that might help.

So close to getting this working, there must be some way to get around this problem.

One thing I did notice is that the Windows box changes the channel config by placing the entries one line after the other. (IE: If I open it up in notepad it all looks nicely formatted) whereas the Linux server writes to the file with CR and no LF, I assume (IE: if you open it up in notepad it looks all jumbled)

Another thing I noticed is that the permissions on the channel files change when the Windows server access them. IE: channel_1.m3u will have rw-rw-r-- permissions when the Linux box access them, but when the Windows box access them it changes them to rwxrw-r--

Don't think either of these would affect pseudoTV though.

Oh, and another thing I'm trying to do which I see others are struggling with is getting a channel with random content on it and then having that content still play episodes in order. I had this working with Force Random and Play in order, but that resets the channel everytime you start up another instance of PseudoTV and breaks syncing. Perhaps we could look at having an option that says "Force Random on Channel update only"

Another thing that would be nice would be to have some way to read an nfo file or some info file for files that are in directories and not in the library so that you can still get info on an episode or movie or whatever. Currently all my documentaries have been manually added to XBMC and the metadata manually adjusted so that it has the correct info. This works, but it's alot of work to get it all correct.

One last request is to have a way to add Music only channels. IE: Create playlists for genres or something and then have a channel that displays a static background with music in the background. Possibly with a little box scrolling the song info in it? That way I would never have to close PseudoTV and I can have both Video and Music content running on it all the time.

Thought of a cool new idea! How about when pushing up to change channels its just brings up a advanced channel windows pop up that scrolls through the channels as your still watching an episode. And when you find the channel or episode you want then you push Enter to select it. Im telling you I have 200 preset channels and need more! and it takes Forever to change channels up and down and to bring up the guide all the time. You all know what i mean like in Real TV guide. You still watching your channel while you flip through a channel pop up window to scroll through? this would be icing on the cake as with at least 500 channels to ADD.

But i know the programmer has a million ideas to implement..pls make this script open source?

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or an the ability to fade in or reposition the TV logos pleeaaassseee!!

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omg i forgot! to also ADD the Jump to previous channel button.. I forgot what channel i was watching and couldnt find the station and then the show was over!! hahhah lol