[irrelevant]

Hi All.

I'm new to xbmc, indeed new to the xbox at all (I only got one for this, after my old media player got too unreliable) so please be gentle..

I'm just wondering if there is anything approaching a definitive list of live streams (video and audio) out there for use with xbmc? I've found the 'xbmc-tv' package of several, but this hasn't been updated for ages. I've not really been able to find anything else, bar various plugins to stream from individual sites. This seems the wrong way around to me: I don't care where a stream comes from, just what it is!

Now what I'd like to see is a plugin that offered /every/ stream known, with suitable user-led filtering, sorting, etc, that could be auto-updated from a web based repositary that maintained and monitored the list. I'm surprised that I can't actually find such a thing - I'm quite capable of creating such a beast - subject to a bit of reading up on creating xbmc plugins, and then finding some time to do it - but there's no point reinventing the wheel if it's already been done.

So.. where do I look, or do I have to get my coding hat on?

Thanks for a great platform to work with,

Rob

[EvilDude]

Would be a great python plugin.. Especially if it's done as a nice video plugin

At the moment, I dont think there are any scripts like this - most seem to be either zip files with lots of streams, or scripts made for specific sites.

[w3bkat]

rob - i'm in same xbmc nube dude boat and think your coding hat would be helpful for us legacy xbox users... the thing i like best about xbmc is that it does everything you need forever - since the human eye can't detect the difference between 1080 and 720p (I have the big telly to prove this). i hope we can keep some quality geek talant to keep the show on the road, rather then people moving to brighter, shinier looking things... xbmc rocks!

[irrelevant]

Well I'm glad I've had some positive responses.

I've had a look around the net and found some other sites, non-xbmc related, that also offer lists of streams, TV and radio, but mostly for view-online stuff, and also mostly terribly out of date. More broken links than working, in some cases.

So.. I've had my coding hat on and started working on the web-based backend to my proposal. It's still very definitely in pre-alpha stage at the moment, but I'll let people in to play soon enough.

I'm moving towards making the web side of things generate a list in a variety of formats, e.g. a straight list in the web browser, a tar-archive of strm files that can be unpacked into your /videos folder, am xml file for use as a bookmark file or whatever, format to be decided, or as a straight RSS feed. I'm hoping that one of the existing authors would like to integrate this into a current plugin, rather than my writing one, as I've had a quick look and I can see I'll have to spend some time reading to do one from scratch.

The focus on all this of course will be to maintain and monitor an up-to-date list!

[irrelevant]

OK. very first pre-alpha release of website side of things is at http://strm.irrelevant.com/ - login with username 'test' and no password if you want to try adding stream URLs. All comments are welcome.

[Clumsy]

How will the list be maintained ? I bet 99% of all the lists on the web are outdated just because nobody is willing to check those huge lists of streams. If this would work somewhat automated, that would be a nice thing.
Cool idea btw. !

[irrelevant]

That is my idea. There will be a cronjob that checks each one on a regular basis, flagging dead streams so they aren't displayed any more. (but holding onto them and checking periodocally incase it's only a temporary failure.) There's nothing more irritating than going through a long list finding most of them are dead..

I've got the actual stream-exists validation working for most formats already, and it's used when you submit a new entry. Just need to code up the regular checking..