XBMC 12 (Frodo) - So What's The Plan?

moin !
one big key point for xbmc is: you can choose your tv-backend.
there are so many good and perfectly working tv-backnends out there. windows AND linux based.
the world is wide open right now, eden with pvr shows the way it should go.
what i'm missing:
- deeper integration with the tv-backend, make it more seamless
- nearly all main functions of the backend should be available from the frontend.
- frontend function scan for channels, organize them in groups and so on.
- show details from the dvb hardware
- and much more...

my2cents

(2012-04-05 20:19)XBMCUser4657 Wrote:  Series scheduling would be awesome. More sophisticated series scheduling (where it looks for only new episodes, or actually looks for the name of the show instead of a straight-up recurring time slot) would be even sweeter

use Margros builds and switch to the 4theRecord Argus TV-Backend. 4theRecord has so far the best scheduling options I know of. It also has a App so you can manage recordings from your smartphone. On windows it's "THE" backend to use IMO.

(2012-04-09 14:45)da-anda Wrote:  use Margros builds and switch to the 4theRecord Argus TV-Backend. 4theRecord has so far the best scheduling options I know of. It also has a App so you can manage recordings from your smartphone. On windows it's "THE" backend to use IMO.

Man, I'm starting to think I'm the only person in the world that has problems with 4theRecord. On my cable system, FTR almost never gets an entire show recorded without the tuner backend failing. If you have multiple stations on one QAM frequency, FTR thinks they are the same channel and does some very strange things. And mixing QAM and ATSC is a real pain, as FTR treats the same station on QAM and ATSC and different channels for scheduling and guide purposes.

All that said, when it works, it works really well. If you have only ATSC or your cable company is nice enough to have a separate QAM channel for each broadcast channel, then FTR is definitely worth a look.

On Windows you can choose between MediaPortal TV Server and 4TR both of them work pretty good and are easy to setup. As soon as you want more than analog cable or dvb-t windows 7 mc is a catastrophic failure regarding tv - i since i've used it for a few years.

In MP you install the server, start the config tool, scan the channels and remove the stuff you don't want + activate the preferred epg source. This isn't so hard is it?

Unfortunately the XBMC pvr plugin for MP only uses a custom webservice instead of the latest and greatest MPExtended which would also give you a web frontend for tv ( and android app support).

(2012-04-15 16:04)Mike Lowrey Wrote:  Unfortunately the XBMC pvr plugin for MP only uses a custom webservice instead of the latest and greatest MPExtended which would also give you a web frontend for tv ( and android app support).

Still on my todo list. As far as I can see from the MPExtended TAS API, most of the required calls are there so porting should not be that difficult.
Right now my focus is still on bugfixing and getting the addon (tsreader version) running on Linux and ATV2. The TVServer plugin is indeed 'custom' but that part just works fine.

(2012-04-15 20:23)margro Wrote:  

(2012-04-15 16:04)Mike Lowrey Wrote:  Unfortunately the XBMC pvr plugin for MP only uses a custom webservice instead of the latest and greatest MPExtended which would also give you a web frontend for tv ( and android app support).

Still on my todo list. As far as I can see from the MPExtended TAS API, most of the required calls are there so porting should not be that difficult.

That's good to hear! As i already said, if you need any further methods you can just send me a PN and i will implement them asap!

Quote:The TVServer plugin is indeed 'custom' but that part just works fine.

Aside from a problem i'm experiencing with it(i still need to check what's the reason for that) it's more about the amount of work for the user to get it working.

MPExtended in it's current form is on it's way to be installed on any MP tv server setup with mobile app access (referring to aMPdroid and an upcoming iOS app), it's easily extendable and so also able to support a complete XBMC setup (with windows at least).

(2012-04-15 16:04)Mike Lowrey Wrote:  On Windows you can choose between MediaPortal TV Server and 4TR both of them work pretty good and are easy to setup. As soon as you want more than analog cable or dvb-t windows 7 mc is a catastrophic failure regarding tv - i since i've used it for a few years.

Haven't tried PVR with XBMC for many months - tried MediaPortal about a year ago and failed miserably (more my downfalls than the software elements I'm sure) - but have to disagree with Mike's comments on W7MC. I'm no lover of Windows products and can't wait until we have PVR in XBMC as standard, but I currently use WMC for live TV and PVR functionality with DVB-S2 and DVB-T tuners and it works brilliantly. In fact the options available make Sky or BT Vision (I'm in the UK) look pretty poor in comparison - I'm sure MediaPortal has more functionality again, but compared to a standard PVR box it's great, imo. The menus hang from time to time (as does XBMC) but apart from that, no complaints.

After reading a couple of threads, I might give 4TR a go and see how I get on - bit reluctant to try MediaPortal another go to be honest.

Looks like it could be an exciting year for PVR on XBMC, so many thanks to the devs involved.

For The Record + MediaPortal TV Server is currently (in my opinion) the very best solution there is for backends. MePo's TV Server is solid, uses very little memory, supports nearly every modern (and some not so modern) tuner/capture device on the market, and is very stable. It also has very solid plugin support for things like IR blasters.

For The Record sits on top of it (it has a plugin). FTR actually comes with it's own tuner software, called Argus, but it doesn't support nearly as many devices, and there's no analog capture support at all.

However FTR's scheduling, tuning, and web interface options are hard to beat. The only problem with either of them is they are Windows-only - it's not that I have a philosophical issue with Windows, I just like options, and I find Linux based HTPC's (such as XBMCBuntu) to be much easier to deal with day to day. That could just be me though, since I am used to shells and scripting. All that said the FTR/MePo combo is so far ahead of any other backend for XBMC at the moment that I deal with it anyway. Hello remote desktop.

I'm confused why timeshifting is something that XBMC needs to implement. Isn't that something that the backend needs to implement? As far as XBMC is concerned, it just needs to connect to a buffered stream instead of a live stream. The interface would need a pause button, but that would simply send commands to the backend.

Attempting to buffer live video on the frontend would start causing major issues as the frontend is most likely not the proper place to store TS streams.

MUCH of the complexity could be removed by simply having the backend be the buffer.

Some of the backends already support this. TVHeadend will allow you to play the live stream if you're recording it. They have some issues to work out (You can't see the proposed end of the stream, it simply updates the stream length on the fly, but it DOES allow for a bit of time shifting)

I've heard that VDR also is allowing a bit of this.

I'm not trying to troll, I'm just asking what are the other tech hurdles I'm not thinking of?

MediaPortal would support that since the buffer is server based. XBMC has to support going back in time and checking the available timespan of the timeshift buffer.