[REQUEST] TVNZ OnDemand Video Plugin - Watch New Zealand Television?

Hey Mark,

Any news on an update?

I'm currently in the process of gutting the plugin and re-writing it to make it more robust and easier to work on. The old code was a bit of a mess, as it grew very organically. The new version uses classes and other snazzy tricks, and may even have code comments once I'm finished! So far the TVNZ part is nearly done (just a couple of bugs to squash), and converting the other channels to use the new plugin structure should be pretty quick.

Fingers crossed there'll be a new release for Eden for the weekend.

Hmmm, so TVNZ seem to have changed their streaming for new videos - I'm in the process of trying to figure out how the new RTMP URLs are generated, so this may take some time.

Here's a URL for Criminal Minds:

rtmpe://cp133145.edgefcs.net/ondemand/&mp4:videos/963482467001/963482467001_1382289295001_4683600.mp4

I'm currently searching for edgefcs.net to see if I can find out more about them, and if anyone has already figured out their URL scheme already. Fingers crossed!

It looks like edgefcs is a stream caching service from akamai, and URL schemes vary depending on the corporate user - so it's back to the drawing board.

I'm currently trawling through the following different entry points for TVNZ's OnDemand service, looking for clues as to how to build the URLs:

http://tvnz.co.nz/video
http://tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/xl
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/ps3_navigation...l_skin.xml

If anyone has any bright ideas or insights, please let me know!

Dude...I sure wish I could offer some help...but I'm a programming ignoramus I'm not even sure those last three posts of yours where in English

All I can do is offer energetic support - you know...the stuff from the cosmic realms. When I re-incarnate next time, I'm going to be more knowledgeable on puters and stuff!

Hope you can sort it out.

Regards...

Perhaps the flash player on the tvnz ondemand site might hold some clues?

jmarshall, that's one of the places I'm looking, although I'd rather not have to try to decompile the player. Hopefully everything I need is in the HTML or JS somewhere.

For the example RTMP URL I've posted earlier in this thread (rtmpe://cp133145.edgefcs.net/ondemand/&mp4:videos/963482467001/963482467001_1382289295001_4683600.mp4), I can grab one of the identifying numbers pretty easily from JS embedded in the HTML:


This just leaves 963482467001 and 1382289295001

It's weird that both of these end in 001, and the second one, once you've knocked the 001 off the end, looks like a UNIX date. To be precise, it's:

Sun, 20 Oct 2013 17:14:55 GMT

I reckon this is probably coincidence, but who knows! I'll keep poking around until I find something useful.

Hi Mark,

It is great you are working on this addon. If you could ask a list of questions of the TVNZ Ondemand developers, which would help you develop this addon, what would they be?

Cheers!

Philos

Hmmm, good question. I'll get back to you on that one, once I've had a chance to do some more digging around.

@philos: I'll let markhoney describe what he needs specifically, but as far as XBMC goes basically what it needs for any plugin is a playable URL. If they're sticking with flash video players, then that would be a playable rtmp(e):// URL, i.e. everything the flashplayer itself needs to playback the video. IIRC for the original tvnz plugin this meant that in addition the stuff fed to the flash player, we also needed to know the magic timezone offset that was embedded in the player itself (for obfuscation reasons?) Now that things have changed, there's obviously further obfuscation going on.

This means we need:

1. An easily parseable feed with which to get the available shows etc. (already have this pretty much via the PS3 xml feeds).

2. An easy way, given an episode from 1 to obtain the rtmp(e):// URL(s) for playback (with adverts would be good - IIRC it was a huge hassle to get the ads in the first version of the addon - much easier without the ads, which I suspect tvnz would not be keen on!).

If you have a contact at TVNZ (or at the company that does their development), then I'd be more than happy to chat with them in a more official capacity (or in an unofficial capacity) as the president of the XBMC foundation in case that impressed them (I'm guessing not!)

After all, what other app let's you play tvnz ondemand on your iPad?

Cheers,
Jonathan