Possible LIVE TV solution
#1
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
xbox v1.0 / duox gs2 dual bios chip / x2 5035 bios
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#2
VLC has many web interfaces already available. You setup VLC as a stream server and use a PDA to change channels..

Or setup an IR receiver on your computer, use an RF->IR transmitter to reach from where your XBox is to your computer, then have the IR receiver on the computer control VLC to switch channels. This will let you open "TV.strm" (containing: "mms://192.168.1.2:1234" or whatever that points to VLC) and then use channel buttons on a remote to change channels on VLC.

If you're really interested in ditching MCE and getting Live TV working on the XBox, I believe http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Xbox_Frontend MythTV is the way to go.
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#3
Media Portal's TV server would be an option if we could get it to work with XBMC. I can stream live TV to my laptop. It uses rtsp to stream to clients. DVDPlayer is suppose to play the streams, but I haven't been able to get it to work.
TV Mosaic on Windows 10 as PVR Backend |  1 RaspberryPI 3 Client (LibreElec) | Amazon FireTV box | 5 Amazon FireTV sticks | FireTV Cube | 2 Nvidia Shield TV
Tuners: HD HomeRun 4 ATSC (OTA) | IPTV
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#4
heads up, i have a solution. its going to be called "MM100", something i was working on for myself but the company i work for is looking at taking this forward as a product.

will post a small video asap

joolz
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#5
mediaportalt's tvserver works fine. only issue being that there is no interface for it. if someone could extend their rtsp server to allow for tuning based on url, stuff would work quite well.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#6
I would LOVE to ditch mce and go with a straight xbmc tv interface. i think its the only key element missing from xbmc keeping it from being a true media center. this mce solution is the best ive been able to get working, but theres got to be something better. it really sucks having to load up mce from xbmc each time id like to watch tv. it should be faster.

either way, i thought since vlc already has an included web interface, it shouldnt be hard at all to code something to send http requests over to the server to change channels. even a small tv guide setup might be possible.

ive heard of mythtv before but never thought it was a clean solution as it stands right now, and i think its about time there is a fully functional 'live tv' function in xbmc that is integrated into the xbmc program.
xbox v1.0 / duox gs2 dual bios chip / x2 5035 bios
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#7
well with the MM100 all you do is find the device in the "UPNP.." option and you have a channel list available.

What I was wondering is how hard would it be to allow the "recording button" to be activated on UPnP streams, then we would have a way of recording tv!!

joolz
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#8
youtube video now posted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG2ixXqJ9nw
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#9
15 second latency between channel changes on the PS3...

~7 seconds latency on XBMC is much better, but I'm not convinced that it's "fast" enough for my wife.


It's an enticing product. I'm looking forward to seeing how it matures!
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#10
joolzg Wrote:youtube video now posted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG2ixXqJ9nw


Nice video. I need some thing that works with my existing dvb-s card that is in my pc.
TV Mosaic on Windows 10 as PVR Backend |  1 RaspberryPI 3 Client (LibreElec) | Amazon FireTV box | 5 Amazon FireTV sticks | FireTV Cube | 2 Nvidia Shield TV
Tuners: HD HomeRun 4 ATSC (OTA) | IPTV
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#11
i've porting back the hd based buffering from linux branch (not enabled nor tested yet), that should be possible to extend to allow recording

my initial plan is to only allow direct stream recording. ie dumping the stream to disk, so it'll probably only work well with .ts streams to start with. no eta on this thou.

<edit>

btw, do you provide any EPG information? Current upnp standards doesn't define any interface for it asfar as I know, but maybe we could come up with something for it.
</edit>
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#12
the 15 seconds buffering on a ps3 is due to the UPNP system and the way the ps3 starts the stream 5, yes 5 times before, before it starts playing. i noticed that if you send a file it starts straight away so i will try and add in a duration and see if that helps

also the xbox suffers from the same thing, but it is all dependant of the stream data rate as the xbox reads in 4mb before looking at the stream, if there is a way of lowering this buffer size then it would change the speed of channel changing.

i am also working on adding in a hd so it will become a remote pvr, anybody willing to help in the xbox side, we need to get an epg, i can send all the data, and some way in which to tell the box to schedule the recording.

joolz
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#13
at the moment it only sends 1 video and 1 audio stream but if you would like to work with me i can send all the data that is avaiable, i can send eit, dvb subs, teletext and multiple audio streams we just need to add code into the xbox.

joolz

elupus Wrote:i've porting back the hd based buffering from linux branch (not enabled nor tested yet), that should be possible to extend to allow recording

my initial plan is to only allow direct stream recording. ie dumping the stream to disk, so it'll probably only work well with .ts streams to start with. no eta on this thou.

<edit>

btw, do you provide any EPG information? Current upnp standards doesn't define any interface for it asfar as I know, but maybe we could come up with something for it.
</edit>
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#14
Send one complete program stream as the first upnp resource. (make sure you have correct tables in the ts stream, if you filter stuff as our demuxers won't like pat/pmt tables which refer to missing streams).

Audio switching should already work, dvb sub support probably not. Currently don't have a sample stream with any such thing so i've never tested it.
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#15
do you want me to make a small stream for you with multilpe audio and dvb subs?

elupus Wrote:Send one complete program stream as the first upnp resource. (make sure you have correct tables in the ts stream, if you filter stuff as our demuxers won't like pat/pmt tables which refer to missing streams).

Audio switching should already work, dvb sub support probably not. Currently don't have a sample stream with any such thing so i've never tested it.
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