[RELEASE] XBMC TV using MediaPortal TVserver (XBMP-TV Script)

margro Wrote:Just to prevent double work (for a Unified PVR plugin), here a pre-announcement of my MediaPortal PVR plugin for XBMC (pvrtesting2 branch).

See my website for some screenshots and the current status:
http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/~marcelg/xbmc/

Most things are working. I am currently testing and cleaning up my code to prepare a submission to alwinus for the pvrtesting branch.

Well... My development will stop (no use for it now) so I will await your release.

Hello. Say please, can use here such program as a source of TV. Very stably works and has built-in support CAM plugin's.
http://dvblogic.com/tvsource.php

margro Wrote:I will try to put my patches (against a specific svn version of the pvrtesting2 branch) online within one week.

They are not yet suitable for the latest version because I'm having problems with the recent ffmpeg update in svn . The previous version (also used for 9.11) had no sound for the MediaPortal rtsp streams (which I could fix with a small patch), but now I see that streams sometimes start and sometimes just don't play but do after a retry.

any update on this ? livetv (using tvserver) is the only major feature which i'm still waiting for in xbmc.

Cheers

Marcel

derelict Wrote:any update on this ? livetv (using tvserver) is the only major feature which i'm still waiting for in xbmc.

Cheers

Marcel

Yup. the code is online now. See http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/~marcelg/xbmc/

The patches against the pvrtesting2 branch are submitted to the XBMC devs: See http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8525

margro Wrote:Yup. First part of the code is online now. The patch against the pvrtesting2 branch is not ready yet. It doesn't apply/compile against the last svn version yet, so I've to fix it first. Then, I will submit the patch to trac.
Will keep you informed.

Looking sweet, I should get my new HTPC hardware by the end of next week. I'm looking forward to testing this!

Just to get things right, as reading the page confuses me. Now I don't currently have a setup capable of running XBMC + TV Server + tuner, so I can't go with trial and error. Just wondering how it works. Maybe also to help others.

- The "MediaPortal - TV Server XBMC plugin v1.0.4.0" is a plugin to Media Portal's TV-server software. This establises some kind of a protocol, without the database hassle usually going on with TV Server, right?
- The "XBMC - MediaPortal TV Server video plugin v1.0.4.0" is a script which runs in XBMC and it connects to the TV Server XBMC plugin, creating some form of a TV back-end inside the XBMC?
- The "XMBC - MediaPortal PVR client addon" part adds the Live-TV option in the main menu and actually provides the front-end for the XBMC TV server video plugin thingy?

MartijnGP Wrote:Just to get things right, as reading the page confuses me.

- The "MediaPortal - TV Server XBMC plugin v1.0.4.0" is a plugin to Media Portal's TV-server software. This establises some kind of a protocol, without the database hassle usually going on with TV Server, right?

Right. The MediaPortal TV Server is the backend TV server. The MediaPortal frontend uses an internal C# mechanism to control the TV server. XBMC is written in C++, so we need a plugin that provides a way to control and communicate with the TV Server backend and its database. The backend plugin allows both the Python script and the PVR addon to communicate with the TV Server via a TCP socket connection.

MartijnGP Wrote:- The "XBMC - MediaPortal TV Server video plugin v1.0.4.0" is a script which runs in XBMC and it connects to the TV Server XBMC plugin, creating some form of a TV back-end inside the XBMC?

Yes. It is essentially the same as the XBMP-TV plugin, e.g. providing Live-TV to XBMC via a Python script without having to build the PVRtesting2 branch. You can just use your normal XBMC 9.11 installation.
I am using it only for debugging purposes. If this one fails, you don't have to try the PVR addon, because it will also fail.

MartijnGP Wrote:- The "XBMC - MediaPortal PVR client addon" part adds the Live-TV option in the main menu and actually provides the front-end for the XBMC TV server video plugin thingy?

Right. This is indeed a real front-end and basically the build-in version of the python plugin but with more functionality (EPG, recordings, timers, radio) and it relies on the PVR work from alwinus (pvrtesting2 branch).

LordMerlin Wrote:Hello. Say please, can use here such program as a source of TV. Very stably works and has built-in support CAM plugin's.
http://dvblogic.com/tvsource.php

When the API to control the DVBlink tool is available, you could write your own PVR addon for XBMC and use the DVBlink stuff as backend.

From the DVBLinkSDK document, it seems that they provide a virtual DVB-S card, is that correct? If this is true, you will still need software with DVB-S tuner capabilities to watch TV. XBMC+PVR is only a front-end. It does not have tuning capabilities on its own.

However, the same document also states that the tool provides UPnP capabilities and streaming. Maybe this part is enough for XBMC to control the tool.

margro Wrote:However, the same document also states that the tool provides UPnP capabilities and streaming. Maybe this part is enough for XBMC to control the tool.

Here it exactly I and did have because of, in fact XBMC supports very well UPnP, it can be needed to spare attention to this program? Would do everything, but unfortunately quite nothing understand in programming.

I, like many others have been waiting for this for some time now and am very excited by the progress. I've resorted to using Windows Media Player (on Windows 7 64bit) but would obviously rather use XBMC as my one and only home theatre media centre. I gave it a try yesterday and it's looking great although currently the only way I can find to change channel is to come out of a channel back to the main screen and then choose another one but I'm sure that's being worked on. Well done, can't wait for the final relsease. If this works with the soon to be relseased Transparency PVR skin I'll be a very happy chappy indeed! Keep up the good work.

whufclee Wrote:it's looking great although currently the only way I can find to change channel is to come out of a channel back to the main screen and then choose another one but I'm sure that's being worked on.

Assuming that you mean my PVR addon, it is not yet on my list, but I will check how its done for VDR. First, I need to install also the VDR one to compare the two PVR addons for missing features.

Grt,
Margro