[mikegc]

What quality are the condensed and archived, is it 1600 or 3000kbs?

[Carb0]

Live, condensed and archived games are available as 800, 1600 and 3000 kbit/s streams. Classic games are available as 800 and 1600 kbit/s streams.

[mikegc]

Is there a way to adjust the buffer size of the stream? Playback is sometimes a bit choppy (I have a 15Mbs connection so should be ok), but would like to try increasing the buffer if it's possible.

Great plugin though

[smoothaseggs]

Is there a way to adjust the buffer size of the stream? Playback is sometimes a bit choppy (I have a 15Mbs connection so should be ok), but would like to try increasing the buffer if it's possible.

Great plugin though

I agree with mikegc. I know when I first got ATV2 the actual gamecenter app they had on there I had no issues streaming at high bitrate. But since I had to revert back to ATV2 4.3 and using the plugin my video gets choppy every 15 secs or so. Would love to see the buffer increase a bit too. Keep up the good work Carb0!

[sdsnyr94]

Hey guys - quick question or two -

First off - Thanks Carb0 for making this plugin. Does the NHL periodically make a game free to do the same way MLB does? I am currently a DirecTV Center Ice subscriber, so I have no need for NHL GameCenter Live this season... but I want to look at the picture quality (Both through the aTV2 native app and this one using my main HTPC) so I can make a decision for next season.

With MLB.tv, I had some playback issues with the aTV2's app, and using the MLBMC add-on created by divingmule. With both of them, I got some periodic hesitations and general choppiness, and the picture quality would jump from very good to very pixilated, as the software was adjusting based on my connection. This was tolerable for watching a baseball game, but I would go out of my mind trying to watch a hockey game this way. My ISP has recently bumped up the connection from a horrible 7-10 Mb/s connection to a respectable 15 Mb/s, so I am hoping that should resolve some of the issues... but I really want to give this a test drive.

I tried contacting the NHL at the beginning of the season to see if they can give me a 1 day trial so I could test streaming quality and they refused....so, back to my original questions -

1- Do they periodically put a game out that is free to access by non-subscribers?
2- Can you access any other content (archived games, etc...) without a subscription that can give me an idea of the quality?

Thanks in advance for answering this questions, I know they are slightly off topic regarding the functioning of the add-on.

[Cocktus]

One little question:

Why the games played on yesterday do not show up in the menu? First I thought there is a new blackout rule but as I opened GCL from browser I noticed that I still can watch the games played on yesterday. I just can't watch them with XBMC.

I live in Finland and most of the games start 2.00-4.00 am while I'm supposed to sleep. I really can't wait two days to watch the games because it's very hard to avoid the spoilers

[Carb0]

Is there a way to adjust the buffer size of the stream? Playback is sometimes a bit choppy (I have a 15Mbs connection so should be ok), but would like to try increasing the buffer if it's possible.

Great plugin though

I agree with mikegc. I know when I first got ATV2 the actual gamecenter app they had on there I had no issues streaming at high bitrate. But since I had to revert back to ATV2 4.3 and using the plugin my video gets choppy every 15 secs or so. Would love to see the buffer increase a bit too. Keep up the good work Carb0!

I don't think it's possible to control the buffer size, but a 15 Mbit/s connection should be more than enough for streaming at 3000kbit/s. I think the servers are sometimes not fast enough if many people access the videos, but usually it's possible to stream at 3000kbit/s.

Hey guys - quick question or two -

First off - Thanks Carb0 for making this plugin. Does the NHL periodically make a game free to do the same way MLB does? I am currently a DirecTV Center Ice subscriber, so I have no need for NHL GameCenter Live this season... but I want to look at the picture quality (Both through the aTV2 native app and this one using my main HTPC) so I can make a decision for next season.

With MLB.tv, I had some playback issues with the aTV2's app, and using the MLBMC add-on created by divingmule. With both of them, I got some periodic hesitations and general choppiness, and the picture quality would jump from very good to very pixilated, as the software was adjusting based on my connection. This was tolerable for watching a baseball game, but I would go out of my mind trying to watch a hockey game this way. My ISP has recently bumped up the connection from a horrible 7-10 Mb/s connection to a respectable 15 Mb/s, so I am hoping that should resolve some of the issues... but I really want to give this a test drive.

I tried contacting the NHL at the beginning of the season to see if they can give me a 1 day trial so I could test streaming quality and they refused....so, back to my original questions -

1- Do they periodically put a game out that is free to access by non-subscribers?
2- Can you access any other content (archived games, etc...) without a subscription that can give me an idea of the quality?

Thanks in advance for answering this questions, I know they are slightly off topic regarding the functioning of the add-on.

1. I don't think they do that.
2. You need a subscription to access the content.

The best quality available is 720p (3000kbit/s).

One little question:

Why the games played on yesterday do not show up in the menu? First I thought there is a new blackout rule but as I opened GCL from browser I noticed that I still can watch the games played on yesterday. I just can't watch them with XBMC.

I live in Finland and most of the games start 2.00-4.00 am while I'm supposed to sleep. I really can't wait two days to watch the games because it's very hard to avoid the spoilers

The games show up for me. I live in Switzerland btw.

[mikegc]

This message comes up alot when I'm watching a game in the logs:

10:20:22 T:3384 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available

I'm not sure if this is what is causing my stream to stutter, it could well be an isp/network issue though.

[Ogglord]

Great plugin! I am used to watching live games with a 30-40 minutes delay. So I can skip commercials and period breaks. The only thing I am missing is a button/implementation to start from the absolute beginning and jump forward 10 seconds. The native xbmc buttons doesnt really work.

That's what I love about the original web player. Any chance you can incorporate that? Cheers!

[Carb0]

This message comes up alot when I'm watching a game in the logs:

10:20:22 T:3384 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(audio)::Get - asked for new data packet, with nothing available

I'm not sure if this is what is causing my stream to stutter, it could well be an isp/network issue though.

Does it stutter if you use boxee to access gamecenter live? Did you try to watch the videos at different times (morning, Evening)? If you always have the same issues it's probably your isp. Try lower stream qualities to get smooth playback.

Great plugin! I am used to watching live games with a 30-40 minutes delay. So I can skip commercials and period breaks. The only thing I am missing is a button/implementation to start from the absolute beginning and jump forward 10 seconds. The native xbmc buttons doesnt really work.

That's what I love about the original web player. Any chance you can incorporate that? Cheers!

I'll take a look at it, but I don't know if it's possible.

[rcrh]

Is there a particular web page being scrapped for this? I'm hoping it's not the "normal" GCL page as I'm trying to find a site that would be better suited to a remote driven experience.

(I realize the question is a bit off of topic).

Thanks in advance.

[91dxcrx]

Thank you so much for making this add-on, I've been wanting this ever since I got into XBMC. I just upgraded to Eden Beta 3 and when I go to live games it only shows one team and vs (ex: TOR vs.) so the other team and date/time are missing. Also would it be possible to have team logos incorporated somehow? Thanks again.

[anthomacp]

Hi Folks,

I currently have an NHL Gamecenter account (works fine on PC, iPad etc.) but after I've installed this plugin on my ATV2(Eden Beta 2 XBMC) the LIVE games won't work. They just display "The game will start soon" and the rotating NHL logo above it. I can view condensed/archived etc games, just for some reason no live games even though they work just fine on my other devices... Any thoughts?

[mikegc]

Been doing some investigation into how the streams work, it seems that within the playlist for a game (on archive) is lots of small .ts files which play in sequence (about 5 seconds each). I can see my connection monitor spiking a lot as each new file is loaded rather than nice smooth streaming. I wonder if this has anything to do with the sometimes jerky playback.

[anthomacp]

Not sure if this helps but here's the log file from when I try to open a live stream.

20:49:42 T:166608896 NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--
20:49:42 T:166608896 NOTICE: Mode: 8
20:49:42 T:166608896 NOTICE: URL: /live
20:49:42 T:166608896 NOTICE: Name: Live
20:49:42 T:166608896 NOTICE: /live
20:49:43 T:166608896 NOTICE: File Saved
20:49:47 T:175058944 NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--
20:49:48 T:175058944 NOTICE: Mode: 9
20:49:48 T:175058944 NOTICE: URL: /liveANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:49:48 T:175058944 NOTICE: Name: ANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:49:48 T:175058944 NOTICE: /liveANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:49:51 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...URATION:10
20:49:51 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:49:51 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating InputStream
20:49:51 T:174116864 WARNING: FillBuffer: curl failed with code 22
20:49:51 T:174116864 ERROR: CFileCurl::CReadState::Open, didn't get any data from stream.
20:49:51 T:174116864 ERROR: Open - failed to open source <http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobile/iphone/video/redwings/#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:10>
20:49:51 T:174116864 ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...RATION:10]
20:49:51 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
20:49:51 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
20:49:51 T:147607552 ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...RATION:10]
20:49:52 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...SEQUENCE:1
20:49:52 T:147607552 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:49:52 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:49:52 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
20:49:52 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
20:49:52 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:49:52 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating InputStream
20:49:52 T:174116864 WARNING: FillBuffer: curl failed with code 22
20:49:52 T:174116864 ERROR: CFileCurl::CReadState::Open, didn't get any data from stream.
20:49:52 T:174116864 ERROR: Open - failed to open source <http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobile/iphone/video/redwings/#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:1>
20:49:52 T:174116864 ERROR: CDVDPlayer::OpenInputStream - error opening [http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...EQUENCE:1]
20:49:52 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
20:49:52 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
20:49:52 T:147607552 ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 1, path [http://smb.cdnak.neulion.com/fs/nhl/mobi...EQUENCE:1]
20:49:53 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: Opening: http://nlds78.cdnak.neulion.com/mobile/d...0183820.ts
20:49:53 T:147607552 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:49:53 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:49:53 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
20:49:53 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
20:49:53 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:49:53 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating InputStream
20:49:53 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating Demuxer
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Opening video stream: 1 source: 256
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating video codec with codec id: 28
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Open - created avcC atom of size(38)
20:49:54 T:174116864 ERROR: CDVDPlayerVideo::OpenStream - Invalid framerate 1000, using forced 25fps and just trust timestamps
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating video thread
20:49:54 T:180948992 NOTICE: running thread: video_thread
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Opening audio stream: 0 source: 256
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Finding audio codec for: 86018
20:49:54 T:174116864 NOTICE: Creating audio thread
20:49:54 T:187174912 NOTICE: running thread: CDVDPlayerAudio:rocess()
20:49:54 T:187174912 NOTICE: Creating audio device with codec id: 86018, channels: 2, sample rate: 44100, no pass-through
20:49:54 T:180948992 NOTICE: fps: 25.000000, pwidth: 1280, pheight: 720, dwidth: 1280, dheight: 720
20:49:54 T:180948992 WARNING: CRenderManager::Configure - timeout waiting for previous frame
20:49:54 T:180948992 NOTICE: Display resolution DESKTOP : 1280x720 (12)
20:49:54 T:147607552 NOTICE: Using GL_TEXTURE_2D
20:49:54 T:147607552 NOTICE: GL: Using CoreVideoRef RGBA render method
20:49:54 T:147607552 NOTICE: GL: NPOT texture support detected
20:49:59 T:147607552 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:49:59 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit()
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: closing audio stream
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: Closing audio stream
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: Waiting for audio thread to exit
20:49:59 T:187174912 NOTICE: thread end: CDVDPlayerAudio::OnExit()
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: Closing audio device
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: Deleting audio codec
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: closing video stream
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: Closing video stream
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: waiting for video thread to exit
20:49:59 T:180948992 NOTICE: thread end: video_thread
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: deleting video codec
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting demuxer
20:49:59 T:174116864 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::OnExit() deleting input stream
20:49:59 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting
20:50:00 T:166608896 NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--
20:50:01 T:166608896 NOTICE: Mode: 9
20:50:01 T:166608896 NOTICE: URL: /liveANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:50:01 T:166608896 NOTICE: Name: ANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:50:01 T:166608896 NOTICE: /liveANA vs. DET 02/10/2012
20:50:01 T:147607552 NOTICE: CDVDPlayer::CloseFile()
20:50:01 T:147607552 WARNING: CDVDMessageQueue(player):ut MSGQ_NOT_INITIALIZED
20:50:01 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: waiting for threads to exit
20:50:01 T:147607552 NOTICE: DVDPlayer: finished waiting

I've tried 5 different games now over the last 2 nights (home and away) with the same result. I also updated to Eden Beta 3, no change at all.