[RELEASE] VDR (LinVDR) plugin for XBMC - Video Disk Recorder
#1
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I have a few days off and I started writing a plugin to stream TV from my VDR. I searched the forum and could not find anything useful for my VDR so I started doing it myself. These are my first steps with Python, so be kind Laugh

Features so far:
- Connects through SVDRP to VDR (you don't need a channels.conf on your htpc)
- Displays all available Channels
- Live TV Streaming through streamdev-server http streaming
- EPG for single Channel (select a Channel and you get the EPG)
- Create new timers through the EPG
- View / Delete timers

You need:
- working VDR with running streamdev-server and working http streaming
- edited streamdefhosts.conf
- edited svdrphosts.conf

Tested with VDR 1.6, streamdev from svn and XBMC Atlantis Alpha3 Windows (Alpha4 is not working for me)

http://rapidshare.de/files/40444427/VDR.zip.html

Jack
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#2
Great!, however for clarification is it a plugin or a script? Huh
(does it go into the "plugins" or the "scripts" directory?)

PS! Short term here is something that you might find interesting:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmcmythtv/
Long term here is something that you should find interesting:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=GSoC_-_Unified_PVR_Frontend

Wink
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Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#3
Its a plugin and goes into the plugin/video dir.

I`m aware of the two other projects but I hate mythtv (X server for backend config) and the other will take some time. This was the fastest way to get my VDR into XBMC
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#4
cheers!

thanks a lot for your excellent plugin!!!
in order to get it to work on my gentoo vdr/xbmc machine
with vdr-1.6.0_p2 and vdr-streamdev-0.3.4
i had to "hardcode" the server IP in settings.xml / server_url
as the server value wasn't read. I also had to add a PES/ after the
port in server_url.
so in my localhost config the settings.xml it looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<settings>
<setting id="server" value="127.0.0.1" />
<setting id="port" value="2001" />
<setting id="server_url" value="http://127.0.0.1:3000/PES/" />
</settings>
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#5
Hey this is good news. I'm going to download this and have a look. I might have to steal some ideas :-).

My script and server back end is nearly ready for release. Heck I might release it even sooner with this announcement. My version is derived from the old xstreamdev code but almost completely replaced with my own and uses the project mayhem theme.

We might have to chat to avoid duplication of effort.

BTW how well is the streaming of the liveTV as I have found audio/video sync a problem on some channels as well as picking the wrong audio stream?

I'm learning Python as I go as well, I really wished I had learnt the basics before starting.


Best regards
Sledeghammer
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#6
It works really good! However, I can only get audio on HD streams. Is it possible to make channel flipping less painful?
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#7
Hi Jack!

I just wanted to try your plugin, but it somehow crashes (actually it doesn't even start) on start-up. How should I debug the plugin?
Sadly, I couldn't find a debug log or something like that... do I need to enable debug-logging first? If yes, how?

Thanks for your help in advance!
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#8
Enable debug logging in System Settings. The log (xbmc.log) can be found in the same place as the XBMC executable OR "/var/temp for Linux", OR "~/Library/Logs/" on the Mac, OR "C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\XBMC\" under Windows. Please do not paste logs to the XBMC forums, instead upload it to one of the many pasting sites such as pastebin.ca instead and link to it.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#9
Just wanted to say that I tried this plugin last night streaming my CaptiveWorks 3000HD FTA receiver and so far it works great! Kudos to Jack83! Great work!
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#10
Hi everyone
I'm back from my summer vacation. Its really nice to see that some people are using my plugin.

I just tested with Beta1 and its still working Big Grin

The question is, should we really develop further, as the "Unified_PVR_Frontend" is already planed? (I don't know the status of that project)

The minimum features I wanted are already working, but there are many things that could be implemented using python and some effort e.g. channel zapping, recordings

@dm71: Your receiver is using VDR?

Jack
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#11
jack83 Wrote:Hi everyone
@dm71: Your receiver is using VDR?

Jack

Yes. It's basically a PC with a customized version of gentoo linux with vdr, and a proprietary java interface. But Captiveworks does market it as an FTA receiver/media center. It works quite well. Probably the most flexible receiver in North America.
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#12
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jack83 Wrote:The question is, should we really develop further, as the "Unified_PVR_Frontend" is already planed? (I don't know the status of that project)

The minimum features I wanted are already working, but there are many things that could be implemented using python and some effort e.g. channel zapping, recordings

I've had a VDR system running for some years, but I'm planning to move it as recording server only and use a Windows machine as frontend for it. XBMC looks to be the most promising media center package so far.

I looked at myTV script, and it seems it would be really easy to make SVDRP-based EPG data importer and save scheduler for it, and implement EPG-based timer programming that way. I'll just have to learn some Python first... The usual lack-of-time problem is the biggest obstacle, I can probably allocate something like 1 hour per night for this stuff. I'd also like to see what I could do for DVB subtitle support in XBMC's player at some point, if I miraculously had spare time.

So, I won't mind if you go ahead with your experiments... My gut feeling is that the unified frontend won't be there for a while.
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#13
Hmm, I just found out that XStreamdev has existed for some years already. It's targeted for primarily for XBOX and could use some updating otherwise, too, but it's pretty polished.

So, I guess the most fruitful target would then be video plugin which could handle VDR recordings over SMB share elegantly - that means handling one subdir containing the .vdr files as one playable object and showing info of the recording. Maybe I'll dig into it...
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#14
WhiningKhan Wrote:So, I guess the most fruitful target would then be video plugin which could handle VDR recordings over SMB share elegantly - that means handling one subdir containing the .vdr files as one playable object and showing info of the recording. Maybe I'll dig into it...

I've recently created a python plugin to handle VDR recordings in a more fancy way. Unfortunately its targeted to run on local file systems (or mounted ones) only at the moment, but i'll try to make it smb capable.
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#15
VDRfan Wrote:I've recently created a python plugin to handle VDR recordings in a more fancy way. Unfortunately its targeted to run on local file systems (or mounted ones) only at the moment, but i'll try to make it smb capable.

Mounted FS is just fine, because SMB does not seem to work in Windows port at the moment (using Atlantis beta, don't know about SVN head).
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[RELEASE] VDR (LinVDR) plugin for XBMC - Video Disk Recorder0