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dan3o3 · (This post was last modified: 2012-05-27, 16:18 by dan3o3.)

Hi,

since there is a special TVHeadend Version which is able to transcode streams before putting them out to clients (bandwidth), I wonder if there is a support of that function planned.
Since the PVR addon for TVHeadend works very well I would love to see a way to activate transcoding for streams to XBMC.

Anyone know if such is planned or if there's another way to archive this?

I am using the patched TVHeadend version from https://github.com/john-tornblom/tvheadend.git.

Thanks,
Dan

ntadej · 2012-05-27, 17:09

Is there any documentation about this feature?

If you can set the transcoding by default, you are already good to go. Otherwise you need a setting in the tvheadend xbmc plugin to request transcoding when trying to play TV.

dan3o3 · 2012-05-28, 01:48

(2012-05-27, 17:09)ntadej Wrote: Is there any documentation about this feature?

If you can set the transcoding by default, you are already good to go. Otherwise you need a setting in the tvheadend xbmc plugin to request transcoding when trying to play TV.

Well, there is a Android App which is capable to use the transcoding. Have a look at https://github.com/john-tornblom/TVHGuide.
I didn't see any option to generally transcode every stream so I guess you definitly have to enable it.

To my opinion only a change to the vdr addon would to the trick.

Dan

smiley2billion · (This post was last modified: 2012-05-28, 04:14 by smiley2billion.)

Any info on how you got the transcoding to work in general (even outside of xbmc)? I've been using tvheadend for a while to stream across the Internet over a VPN, but I'd love to be able to get the transcoding part working to cut down on some of the bandwidth.

-EaS- · 2012-05-28, 05:16

Why does transcoding have to be handled by TVHeadend? Extra coding, extra debugging, extra...whatever.
Please leave it out of TVHeadend (unless it can be done bugfree and does not delay TVHeadend development).

There are shitloads of intermediate transcoding tools that can do this.
Example: VLC works great transcoding a live soccer stream to a mobile device.

Why would an extra transcoding piece of software be a problem?

ntadej · 2012-05-28, 08:31

I think the idea is to stream video over internet or WiFi, where bandwidth is important. On the other hand, tvheadend should be as lightweight as possible and from my experience transcoding uses a lot of CPU.

Extra transcoding piece would complicate usage in XBMC. You would need another plugin for that software.

Currently the only option is to patch tvheadend plugin for XBMC and include the required feature.

dan3o3 · (This post was last modified: 2012-05-28, 12:15 by dan3o3.)

(2012-05-28, 05:16)-EaS- Wrote: Why does transcoding have to be handled by TVHeadend? Extra coding, extra debugging, extra...whatever.
Please leave it out of TVHeadend (unless it can be done bugfree and does not delay TVHeadend development).

There are shitloads of intermediate transcoding tools that can do this.
Example: VLC works great transcoding a live soccer stream to a mobile device.

Why would an extra transcoding piece of software be a problem?

Cause to my opinion TVHeadend has no way to handle streams via scripts or 3rd party tools like vlc. This way via the transcoding branch should be the most easiest for users.
I don't see any reason why you're against this, the normal coding branch isn't even affected.

Dan

(2012-05-28, 04:11)smiley2billion Wrote: Any info on how you got the transcoding to work in general (even outside of xbmc)? I've been using tvheadend for a while to stream across the Internet over a VPN, but I'd love to be able to get the transcoding part working to cut down on some of the bandwidth.

Well, use the TVHeadend Version from the git url of my 1st post. If you compile that source you get a TVHeadend version with transcoding support.

Dan

(2012-05-28, 08:31)ntadej Wrote: I think the idea is to stream video over internet or WiFi, where bandwidth is important. On the other hand, tvheadend should be as lightweight as possible and from my experience transcoding uses a lot of CPU.

Extra transcoding piece would complicate usage in XBMC. You would need another plugin for that software.

Currently the only option is to patch tvheadend plugin for XBMC and include the required feature.

You're right.
With the transcoding branch only the plugin needs to adjusted to ask for transcoding parameters and use other stream url's to get the transcoded video data.

Dan

Snippo · 2012-05-30, 15:06

I'd like to see this feature too, especially with the upcoming ARM devices.
The source for the android app (TVHGuide) can be found here. I suppose it's relatively for the addon developer to add this feature when it's known how to ask TVHeadend for a transcoded stream.

cheelio · 2012-11-12, 07:49

Yesterday, I've successfully created an altered version of the tvheadend addon with support for transcoding based on the john tornblom-branch. From what i saw, he actually use a vlc compnent for transcoding.
Zapping speeds are still ok! I will release the modified version as soon as I've tested streaming over vpn over a 3g connection on xbmc-android...

xxxnelly · 2012-11-13, 21:18

Can you confirm what transcoding parameters are passed? e.g a normal stream is...

http://[username]:[password]@[server]:9981/stream/channelid/[channelid]

How does the transcoded version differ?

FutureCow · 2012-11-16, 09:40

transcoding url looks like this:

http://[username]:[password]@[server]:9981/stream/channelid/[channelid]?mux=matroska&acodec=AAC&vcodec=H264&resolution=576

skerit · 2012-11-29, 01:07

I'm eagerly awaiting some kind of diff or fork of the addon that supports the transcoding options.

GaMeR64 · 2013-01-02, 12:41

Does this also mean that with this Fork the streams can be used on different devices (i.e. iPad/iPhone) ? I would like to use the basic stream in a iOS compatible format so i don`t need 3rd party software. This fork has an Android app but no app for iOS.

With more flexibility in streams maybe i can have someone look into building a dedicated app for iOS. Because the Apps that are existing now have no support for passworded TVheadend installations (i.e. LeonTV).

newpipe · 2013-04-20, 08:59

Hi!

(2012-11-12, 07:49)cheelio Wrote: Yesterday, I've successfully created an altered version of the tvheadend addon with support for transcoding based on the john tornblom-branch. From what i saw, he actually use a vlc compnent for transcoding.
Zapping speeds are still ok! I will release the modified version as soon as I've tested streaming over vpn over a 3g connection on xbmc-android...

How is the progress on the XBMC Tvheadend plugin that supports the transcoding fork of Tvheadend? Is there anything available in the meantime?

newpipe

barberio · 2013-10-06, 22:29

Just bumping this to note that transcoding is now in the official upstream for TVheadend, albeit requiring editing a flag in the source to enable it.

I would also like to see this enabled in XBMC, because FreeviewHD broadcasts using 6 channel HE-AAC which is an issue when using embedded hardware. Watching FreeviewHD channels on a raspberry pi is currently limited to 2 channel software downmixed. But transcoding would open up an option to transcode to AC3 on the backend server, which can then be bitstreamed by the client on the pi.