[Suggestion/Request] Just One Video Channels Viewer w/ Import feature

I've been pondering where exactly this request / thread should go in this forum. If the mods have a better place, please move it. (But tell me where you moved it to, please.)

Subject: Imminent possibility of having too many add-ons resulting in "scroll fatigue"

Long term solution: One add-on as "bucket" for similar add-ons

Reasoning: As people get more comfortable with Eden APIs and the overall architecture of XBMC, more people have the freedom to build add-ons on their own that either build upon or mirror existing work. This is a good thing and we should not discourage it. However, over time, it is possible that an end user could have a dozen similar add-ons that do the same but point to a specific instance/url/scrape/etc. The idea of going into an add-on, cycling through the choices, then exiting the choice, then go back to add-ons main directory, selecting another add-on, diving down into that one's directory of choices is tedious. Yes, you can have shortcuts to favorites on the main screen but you cannot make favorites of everything.

What I suggest is thinking about XBMC root settings in a different way. Instead of the video setting sublevel as add-on lists, think of it as being channels.

Today in XBMC:
Main Menu --> scroll to select a setting (this case scrolling to Video) --> Selecting Video brings up listing of Video Add-ons. Selecting a particular add-on "rtmpGUI" brings up a submenu TV channel streams. To get to another add-ons' set of streams, you exit out to add-on root, scroll to next add-on, click and scroll through those streams.

Suggested future XBMC:
Main Menu --> scroll to select a setting (this case scrolling to Video) --> Hovering over Video shows subselections "Video Library" and "Video Channels." Selecting Video Channels brings up a submenu of stream-based videos (from all the different add-ons, not just a single add-on).
The submenu would be reminiscent of what you see now when you bring up the cable or satellite box channel menu. The Video Library brings up the sort selections for what you have stored on your mapped internal drives, by the way.

How to Get There from Here:
There are different protocols to view streams (UDP, RTMP, RTSP, IPTV, etc.) However, we would need just one container program that would know what to do for each particular protocol. (Import Libs?)

Adding new streams should be as easy as pointing to URL-hosted or XBMC server file hosted XML files. By creating in the configuration screen a way of setting location(s) of XML file(s), the end-user has the freedom of creating or updating manually stream lists. Which, by the way, is now becoming an issue with more and more dead links either by changes to stream locations or the host XML file not being kept up to date, as in the case of some current video add-ons.

[In the future I see more and more subscription-based streams, either paid or ad supported, and less open ("free") streams. There will always be a grey market for relayed streams (See Justin.tv) but these streams should not be a part of this XBMC forum due to certain restrictions imposed by certain countries.]

In the transition from today to future state, your existing add-ons would be scraped for local or remote XML files that contain stream listings, basically looking for stream protocols. A companion wiki would describe how to build your own XML using Internet scrapers. (Aside: Back in my day, we called them spiders or spiderbots instead of scrapers.) Future new users would just install this single plugin with a few XML files in place?

Future of Video Add-ons?
Will this stop development of video add-ons? No, but I think it might take development into different areas though. There might be improvements to the video stream container like password encryption for subscription-based stream gateways, or more robust viewers (no more Silverlight, and what comes after HTML5?); to also having connectivity to other add-ons like enabled chat so you can ping others to watch the same stream as you. Anything is possible but it will likely slow down or stop development of individualized container add-ons of content.


Does this make sense or sound familiar? Music could go the same way with it either point to local or remote files. However, companies like Spotify or iTunes will probably want to have their own add-on (controlling development) or close their APIs (limit connections).

Thanks for reading.

I think I'm working on what you're looking for: https://github.com/bstrdsmkr/plugin.video.waldo

Long story short, it's a meta-addon. You (or an addon) provide it with a set of parameters (such as TV show title, season number and episode number), and it searches all other addons and displays the results in one list.

It also allows for browsing sites by whatever method they expose and then searching all addons for that content. The framework is there, I just need to get time to make a couple of adapters for sites.

The idea is that in the end you can use content recommendation services such as trakt.tv or getglue.com and just straight from the recommendations in that addon to a list of all available versions of that content, whether it's from your local library, amazon.com, or bittorrent, or news groups.

Once you set the parameters and have a list created, does clicking on an item launch the viewer with the right stream connectors?

Yes. The returned list are all executable items, whether that's a local file or a plugin:// url which in turn plays the content. Some results may have intermediate steps, like confirming a purchase for amazon/itunes, but they should at least start you down the the most direct path to watching that content.

It defines a concept of Indexes and providers. Indexes categorize and list content, like imdb, your local library, amazon's top sellers list, etc. Providers actually provide versions of content, like hulu, your local library, amazon prime, and etc. Notice that sources like the library can be both.

Looks like I have something new to test next week!

OS: Win7 64-bit
Platform: GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 AM3 AMD 890FX with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T