2007-10-16, 16:31
i know there are a few ways to work around not having a live tv function, i'm currently using microsoft's media center extender to connect to an mce 2005 computer. it works, its half decent, the mce remote is nice, i *do* have access to live tv and pvr functions, but it really really sucks switching back and forth between xbmc and media center. and lets face it, xbmc is far better than windows media center, so i cant just leave it in media center mode all the time.
a possible solution that just dawned on me, is the use of streaming video. the kind of streaming video that you can change channels on, from a web interface. i'm talking about a program called vlc, im using it currently to stream tv from home across the internet, where i can watch it at work (i cant miss a steelers game now can i). vlc can stream in many different audio/video codecs, using many different stream output methods such as http, rtp, mmsh...
best of all, you can control this stream's output. all you need to do is create a playlist that has say, channel 1 through 100 on it. then, you add a web interface through the vlc program, and you now have a web page with links on it to channels 1 through 100. click a link, and vlc will change the channel on the output stream.
it doesnt seem like it would be too difficult to have mplayer play a simple video stream, in an already supported codec. then add a 'guide' section to mplayer that simply reads vlc's playlist webpage, and imports everything on the list. once its imported, click on an item and have it send out a simple http request, as if you clicked the link. you can now change channels.
of course, there wouldnt be any support for pause/rewind, or record, or any sort of pvr function. this may be added later to vlc, ive seen someone on their forums mention it. and you would need a pc with a capture card to stream to your xbox. a dedicated pc for this purpose could probably be built for under $200, it shouldnt need to be very powerful for just streaming. if pvr support is added later in vlc, that might make the requirements a little higher. im not sure what system specs would be for this, but as long as you have a capture card with mpeg2 encoding and dont tell vlc to re'encode the stream, it shouldnt take too much processing power to shove it out to the lan port.
sound good? too much work? already been tried? something else better to work on? i know xbmc is supposed to be just the frontend client, thats why this seemed like a do-able option for live tv support as the xbox will only be receiving a stream from a server somewhere, and shouldnt take too much extra coding in xbmc or mplayer
a possible solution that just dawned on me, is the use of streaming video. the kind of streaming video that you can change channels on, from a web interface. i'm talking about a program called vlc, im using it currently to stream tv from home across the internet, where i can watch it at work (i cant miss a steelers game now can i). vlc can stream in many different audio/video codecs, using many different stream output methods such as http, rtp, mmsh...
best of all, you can control this stream's output. all you need to do is create a playlist that has say, channel 1 through 100 on it. then, you add a web interface through the vlc program, and you now have a web page with links on it to channels 1 through 100. click a link, and vlc will change the channel on the output stream.
it doesnt seem like it would be too difficult to have mplayer play a simple video stream, in an already supported codec. then add a 'guide' section to mplayer that simply reads vlc's playlist webpage, and imports everything on the list. once its imported, click on an item and have it send out a simple http request, as if you clicked the link. you can now change channels.
of course, there wouldnt be any support for pause/rewind, or record, or any sort of pvr function. this may be added later to vlc, ive seen someone on their forums mention it. and you would need a pc with a capture card to stream to your xbox. a dedicated pc for this purpose could probably be built for under $200, it shouldnt need to be very powerful for just streaming. if pvr support is added later in vlc, that might make the requirements a little higher. im not sure what system specs would be for this, but as long as you have a capture card with mpeg2 encoding and dont tell vlc to re'encode the stream, it shouldnt take too much processing power to shove it out to the lan port.
sound good? too much work? already been tried? something else better to work on? i know xbmc is supposed to be just the frontend client, thats why this seemed like a do-able option for live tv support as the xbox will only be receiving a stream from a server somewhere, and shouldnt take too much extra coding in xbmc or mplayer