Hello all,
Hi,
i'd like to implement a better plugin to integrate Klaus Schmidingers VDR (see http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr ) as DVB component into freevo. There is already some nice work from Ove Risberg on freevo.org available. I talked also to Rob Shortt in IRC and it seems that there are some parts done by him as well.
Yes, I'm resurrecting vdrpylib:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/freevo/freevo/WIP/RobShortt/lib/vdrpylib/
This is an interface to VDR using SVDRP and VDR files if available on the system (epg, timers, recordings...).
Why i write this: Lets talk about this topic in this mailingslist to to coordinate the needed efforts and get a good solution for everyone.
Sounds good.
Here is my personal wishlist:
- usage of either Xine (for software mpeg decoding) or TVTime (for full featured DVB cards) to watch TV
-usage of mplayer. Better yet, I want an MPEG PS from VDR. This should be easily handled by most programs. We'd also like to be able to timeshift live TV, this should make it easier.
BTW have you tried using TVTime with the /dev/videoX device created by the DVB driver?
- talk to either a local or remote VDR using the SVDRP protocol
No problem for vdrpylib. We talked about SVDRP's limitation of only one open connection though, more in a sec...
- import VDR's EPG as tvguide into freevo
I'd like to see means to import additional EPG data into Freevo, using this it would be easy to fetch the EPG from VDR using vdrpylib and then import it into Freevo's program database.
- manage scheduled and finished recordings in freevo's gui
We can interface with the timers.conf to schedule recordings. Actually we could still maintain the schedule totally in freevo and have a recording plugin to add a timer for "now" at the time of recording. We can get a list of VDR recordings (finished ones) from SVDRP/vdrpylib or even have VDR's recording directory in TV_RECORD_DIR or VIDEO_ITEMS.
- convert recordings to divx or other format using freevo's gui and propably the vdr-convert package.
Are also are / will be Freevo plugins for transcoding / compressing video.
Tell me about your ideas what the "vdr mode" should do. Afterwards we can decide how to implement it.
Personally, I don't think there should be a "vdr mode" per se. I think if things are configured properly and there are Freevo plugins for VDR activated it should Just Work, meaning it will integrate VDR information / channels / recordings into the existing Freevo interfaces.
I have some other ideas to follow in our quest here:
-Look at the Xine plugin for VDR. That plugin creates some fifos for Xine <-> VDR communication and MPEG data. The VDR side also uses that plugin as its primary display device... _very_ _cool_ IMO... I don't use the tv-out on my DVB card at all. Perhaps we could talk to the vdr-xine author and learn the interface. The VDR side could be used for lots more than Xine. It might be easy to develop an mplayer input plugin for it.
-Look at streamdev. That VDR plugin is actually two plugins, streamdev-server and streamdev-client. There are at least two interfaces there, the VTP (Video Transport Protocol) and HTTP. The HTTP interface is the easiest to use but there are other advantages to the VTP interface using the streamdev-client plugin. You can have a VDR machine running with no DVB card using the streamdev-client plugin to provide its "device" for input.
As for the HTTP interface you can do things like:
mplayer http://localhost:3080/PS/<channel number> (or channel name)
Doing this you will receive some nice mpeg. The problem with using this to watch TV in Freevo is the delay in changing channels you will see. What I would like to see from streamdev is (maybe I should talk to the author) a live-tv mode using HTTP, as in:
mplayer http://localhost:3080/PS/live-tv
And see an MPEG PS of what is showing live on the primary device. To change the channel you'd only need to send an SVDRP command and your stream would simply start showing the new channel. It is importand here to be receiving MPEG _PS_ data as well. With TS we'd continually need to look for new PIDs, I know mplayer will totally mess up if you are feeding it an MPEG TS and change the PIDs on the fly.
Another thing about streamdev: it impliments some SVDRP commands and does NOT have the single connection limitation. I have read that it would be easy to add more commands.
Another approach to VDR <-> Freevo communication is what you just mentioned on IRC. Someone could build a plugin for VDR that uses mbus, and talk that way. We'd still need a good way to receive MPEG data though.
That's all going through my head about this at the moment.
-Rob
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