I run a videolan backend with dvb transponders! Using standard http, rtsp and udp(multicasting) stream's.
The plugin I use in Moovida connects to a portalserver that distributes the channel list -and VoD list. This is a simple setup, and requires no special adjustments like for the Myth protocol. The EPG/Channel -and VoD list that the portalserver provides is a simple XML structure and is listed in the moovida menustructure like any of the other plugins do. This ofcourse requires some knowledge to vidoelan and some web development. The moovida plugin can almost be copied from an existing plugin with minor ajustments witch requires very little coding in python. And then zipped to an .egg package when done. I can post some sketces of my platform if this is of interest to anyone. --thomas On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Michał Sawicz <[email protected]> wrote: > Dnia 2009-06-30, wto o godzinie 10:57 -0700, Kevin Fox pisze: > > On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 10:15 -0700, Michał Sawicz wrote: > > > Dnia 2009-06-30, wto o godzinie 16:48 +0200, David McLeod pisze: > > <SNIP> > > > > > > Actually if LiveTV is more important than recorded shows is debatable. > > > According to #mythtv-users most of the users set in their MythTV setup > > > rarely use LiveTV. They have so much recordings set up they don't have > > > the time to watch live. Of course the ability to watch a show > > > currently > > > being recorded is needed, too. The usual PVR does never show a > > > completely 'Live' TV. It's always a recording, just a recording of > > > what > > > is currently broadcasted. This, in turn, allows for all the use cases > > > you've described. > > > > This is how I use it. > > Yeah me too, mostly. Only recently my hw got dodgy on me and does not > record most of my schedules correctly. > > > > What we really need, IMO, is a new way to do EPG. The stale old table > > > of > > > channels vs. time is soooo 90s. We need to leverage the abilities > > > Moovida provides us with in terms of UX and design. I'm not saying I > > > know what to do, I don't even have a set idea of what could we do, I > > > just want us to brainstorm here. > > > > I usually use Myth's search feature rather then the channel vs time for > > this. > > Yeah search is important, but some kind of EPG could be useful, too. > > > > Another thing is channel hierarchy. I don't think a flat list digs it > > > now that we have hundreds if not thousands of channels available. > > > > Again, this is one of the reasons to not bother with live tv. What I > > want to do is watch the shows I want to watch, not "tune to channel 107 > > at 5:30pm". You let the PVR do all of that. > > > > I think the EPG should be designed around letting you pick what you want > > to watch. Sort by Genre of show, similar shows to what you like, etc and > > then let you schedule recordings easily. > > Still, most users that start with PVRs don't get it from start so we > need to allow that, too. > > > > I > > > think the ability to arbitrarily set up a tree of channels (where the > > > same channel can show up in different branches) would allow for easy > > > and > > > user-defined grouping by service provider, channel type (movies / > > > sports / news), favorites etc. > > > > I think thats probably too confining. I'd take your 90's comment and > > apply it to channels entirely. The SciFi channel for example plays > > science fiction and and sometimes fantasy. Say I was a Scifi nut but > > didn't like fantasy. If the tree was more like: > > > > Sports/All > > Sports/Football > > Sports/Basketball > > Science Fiction > > Fantasy > > Drama/All > > Drama/Some kind of hospital show series > > > > Etc. > > > > I could just select based on what I liked. > > That's why I wanted it to be completely user-defined. You want it this > way? Good, have it your way. > > > > I know that 'Watch TV' is the usual way to start watching - just jump > > > to > > > the last watched channel. I find myself doing that even if I want to > > > watch something else, I then have to wait for the channel to lock and > > > start playing before I can switch to a different channel I actually > > > want > > > to watch. > > > > I hardly ever do that. > > I still do, sometimes. > > > > That would, probably, be easier as the backend side of things is > > > complete. On the other hand Myth is recently getting a rehaul and we > > > can't be sure what will the future bring. > > > > One of my biggest complaints with them though has been how far apart > > their stable / devel branches get. Its years before then release. > > > > But, this means if you always target the stable release for your client, > > your pretty safe. It is definitely not a moving target. :) > > I may be biased, but that's just because I'm left with using Myth even > when I don't like it. Most of the ideas they have are great, but IMO > Myth is so big a lump it needs a rewrite. And that's what Moovida's here > for ;P > > > > The thing to notice here is > > > that there's completely no alternative UIs for MythTV anywhere. I > > > think > > > there's a reason. > > > > I think its because their UI is deceptively simple looking. Once you dig > > into trying to implement it elsewhere you find a lot of little, great > > features, that are hard to implement in whatever client your trying to > > bind to it. > > Deception is a good word :D > > > For example, commercial skip. I have it set on by default. It works 9 > > times out of 10. The 10th time, I can just hit back a couple of times or > > forward a couple of times and get past the issue. Or, I can hit 'E', > > bring up the commercial skip list editor and fix the issue, so next time > > I watch that recording its fixed. If I tell it to burn the show to a > > DVD, I can have it use that same cut list that I ensured was correct > > right in the client, and burn to the disk cropping out the commercials. > > Yes, editing is great, simple and effective. > > > If I'm watching a live stream, and the scheduler wants to use the tuner, > > it prompts me if I want to let the scheduler have it. If I don't respond > > in time, it just takes it. > > Yeah I sometimes have problems with that, it sometimes does not ask and > hangs the frontend. And where's the 'Record and watch as it records' option > gone? > > > Or a big one, all the metadata related to a show. They way they order > > things, if you have 30 different episodes of the simpsons recorded, You > > can easily look through them, get a short/long description and find one > > you want to watch and ignore the ones you don't. I've seen very few > > media clients that do that well. > > Grouping by series / season name is something we already have and as > discussed earlier, we could easily integrate it with current TV Show > menus. > > > > I'm also not sure about Gstreamer's ability to play / rewind > > > files saved by MythTV, my quick tests show that playing the file > > > directly or through a mythv:// URI does give me playback, but > > > rewinding > > > is only possible for files that have stopped recording. > > > > We'd need to fix up gstreamers codec then. Which would be harder, > > rewriting mythbackend from scratch, or fixing a slightly broken > > codec? :) > > > > Also, having this codec fixed helps for other reasons. No matter what, I > > still have lots of NUV encoded stuff laying around. > > Yeah but it's a niche, I don't believe there's a proper container ready > for this kind of use. > > > > > > The other method is to use Gnome DVBD, this means providing our > > > own > > > > > code for TV streaming, interfacing with GDVBD's EPG or using an > > > > > outside source (preferable). Also this means writing our own code > > > > > for things like recording, schedules, expiration, ad skipping, and > > > > > possibly alot more. > > > > I think this is pretty hard to do well. It took Myth a long time to get > > all of that usable. > > We can learn from them, simplify and improve even further. One of the > most important features of Moovida is simplicity. > > > > >From discussions we already had on IRC the easiest way to integrate > > > with > > > GDVBD would be to use UPnP. We would need to extend the protocol but > > > that, according to Frank Scholz (d...@#elisa,#coherence), the core > > > developer behind Coherence, should not be too difficult. > > > > This sounds like a good idea to me. It would be nice for my PS3 as > > well. :) > > Yeah that's an additional gain. > > > > One BIG drawback of GDVBD is that AFAIK it's currently DVB-only, > > -- > Michał Sawicz <[email protected]> >
