[cryptonik]

about
xbmc tv is a new project that im starting that lets you take full advantage of that tv card in your pc. xbmc tv will allow you to watch the tv channels on your pc's tv card. it will allow you to take full advantage of recoding tv shows on the spot, scheduling tv shows to be recorded, pausing live, scheduling reminders ect. xbmc tv will use an electronic program guide which will load channel lineups just as fast as set top boxes. with xbmc tv multiple xboxes will be able to watch tv from the one pc card. it will have parental control features so you can control the one xbox or all the xbox's on the networks viewing privelages.

why?
one day i was looking at several tv scripts for xbmc and thought, damn i use my xbox for media related tasks on my tv, i dont have any other media centre hardware and dont plan on getting some so i was disapointed to see the scripts that were available were all just frontends to those media centre os's. this is when i descided to start this project.

compatability
although i do not have other media center hardware other than my xbox i do respect the fact that other people do and thats why i plan this project to be compatable with streams from such media centre os's along with windows, linux and macosx.

how does it work?
on the machine with the tv card is a piece of software which detects your tv card through hardware. not drivers. so no tv card drivers needed. the software is able to determine which tv card you have, and what the specs of your pc are. the software once set up will be able to comunicate to the xbox and tell it what functions are available through your tv card and pc's specs. this software will most likely be some code from two open source applications currently available. dscaler will be my choice for tv card related code and vlc will be my choice for the acual streaming of the tv card over the local area network. making them fit together nicely will be the hard part and adding to the code and abilities will be the fun part. i want this program to be as easy to use as possible, think xlink kai for the pc meets tv cards. i want it to be as unintrusive on the cpu and memory as possible also. the program for the pc when first opened will be the step by step setup of your tv card and networking and after you finish that one time setup the app will work in the background from then on. the application for the pc will simply act to serve to the networked xboxes the part of xbmc tv on the xbox will act to control. it will be hardcoded into xbmc itself rather than being a plugin. im a bit tired right now but il tell you more once i start coding the thing. expect quality of programming, design and functionality in this one kids. currently it is only me working on this one though so i am calling out for programmers, designers basiclaly anyone that can help bring this project to life and one last thing before i go about my preperation. this app could replace alot of the diferent scripts you may have seen on the web, dreambox, mythtv ect. the compatability of this piece of software is of upmost importance to me so i say this. if the coders for these diferent scripts work together we will make tv on the xbox complete if we work on different teams for different compatabilities(dreambox,mythtv,ect) its just gonna take longer to perfect it and it wont ever be perfect for its lack of compatability. we can make a killer xbmc addon if we banded together and would have more chance of getting it added to the xbmc builds also.

i hope that this project lifts off the ground but i cant do it alone. respect to all of the xbmc team, coders ,scripters ect. cya

[spychaser]

:bowdown:

i am not a programmer but i applaud your efforts, i have been searching for this since october and havn't found anything that works the way i want it to. if you want some ideas about how other programs do it or how i wanna see it done...thechad from mediaportal is working on the script but media portal needs some work and it uses dvr-ms which isn't workable by xbmc's mplayer but has recently gotten mplayer support. anyway just let me know if there is anything i can do....thank you!!!!!!

[cryptonik]

thanks for the support, at the moment im sifting through vnc and dscaler finding the code that is relevant to this project. the reason why im reusing the code from these apps in ithis project is that there damn good at what they do but neither have the functionality this project needs alone. for example vnc has code for normal media player abilities that are not needed in this project. it also has the ability to stream tv from the tv card over the internet which also is not needed in this project. though it would be nice to build a sorta p2p backbone to that code so people with multiple tv cards can share tv channels over the xbmc tv internet network. but id say thats ilegal so mayby not. dscaler has great tv card compatability, because it reads data from the hardware not the drivers. if tv on the xbox is viable i still think that people on other tv related projects should band together to make one app that does it all, efficiantly. for this project to survive we need programmers though. even with no prior knowledge of coding in the xdk we need people to code for the pc tv card server. we need skinners. web site designers. anyone that can help. or anyone that feels they can contribute in any way. even people just showing there support of the project helps because they are the people who the project was created for. once people start to join the team we can start project management to get things done faster, more efficently and with less strain on the developement team. thanks again for your support.

[Gamester17]

can i suggest you use xbms/xbmsp as the streaming-protocol to make a ccxstream server on the pc (back-end) side, maybe just extend it to be able send commands via it too)?
...and maybe i also suggest that you use the xmltv tv-guide by jslawler as the base for the electronic program guide (so that the pc-side/back-end converts epg to xmltv?)?

final suggestion (at least for today) is that you start out by creating a plug-in for media portal to get a proof-of-concept, maybe even look at the mp & xbmc intergration script and the matching mediaportal-plugin (by thechad) for ideas. i posted some ideas in that thread which i think also applies here:

@TheChad, can i make a suggestion/request?, use the xbmsp protocol instead of or as an option to smb/samba  

why you ask? well firstly was designed for streaming, (smb/samba is not), it's faster/smoother, and it supports auto-detect,
(the auto-detect function would fit perfectly in here as it would make network configuration so much simpler / almost none).
if you could implement a xbmsp/ccxstream server (in c# code) as part of your plugin for mediaportal that be really great  

you can find more information (inc. code and docs) about xbmsp (and ccxstream) here:
http://mfxstream.sourceforge.net / http://sourceforge.net/projects/mfxstream
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xbmc....ownload
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xbmc....ownload
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pxbmsps

ps! also checkout the tivo-version of ccxstream-server (as it streams mpeg-ts) and it's respective python-scripts:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;t=4005
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....t=14227
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showth...post219033
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum....ount=94

there's no point in re-inventing the wheel (at least not from scratch)

ps! note though that mediaportal's recording-engine is does not yet support creating mpeg-ts files/streams which is a more open standard than the currently used microsoft dvr-ms video container, mpeg-ts is also better supported than dvr-ms in xbmc's mplayer-core, (but i read on mediaportal's website that they did plan to move from dvr-ms to mpeg-ts before the mediaportal 0.2.0 release but they did not into some problems with it and had to postpone it, however mpeg-ts is still on is still on their roadmap for their new recording-engine), ...though if you up to the challange you could try to fix the dvr-ms demuxing/playback support in xbmc's mplayer-core, there is patches available for ffmpeg and mplayer (linux):

a patch was commit on january 21th 2006 to ffmpeg's cvs that fixes dvr-ms demuxing support in libavformat (more specificly in the asf.c and asf.h source code files), (libavformat is the container demuxer/splitter code ffmpeg cvs, but this fix has not yet been ported over to mplayer or xbmc; note and understand that libavformat is not used by mplayer (or the mplayer-core in xbmc) so the fix have to be ported over to mplayer (and the mplayer-core in xbmc) before xbmc can take advantage of it (meaning a programmer/developer need to volunteer to code a patch for it then submit it as a patch to mplayer and xbmc), ...however know that the dvdplayer-core in xbmc is using libavformat so the code could probebely be ported over to that with ease by the avarage c/c++ programmer ('simply' by comparing the difference between the old asf.c/asf.h in xbmc and new asf.c/asf.h in ffmpeg's latest cvs) if he or she has the tools and means to compile xbmc and the dvdplayer-core for xbmc, ...using the dvdplayer-core in xbmc to playback .dvr-ms could at least be a workaround until proper dvr-ms support is added to mplayer, (or until mediaportal starts to use mpeg-ts instead of dvr-ms).

someone then submitted a patch for this to the mplayer.devel mailing-list under the subject "patch] - fix for missing audio stream in dvr-ms asf files" but i can't seem to find that patch anymore.

any volunteers?, if this was implemented in xbmc then xbmc should be able to play dvr-ms files nativly

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin....by=date

pps! sorry but i'm not a programmer/developer myself so i don't have the skills requires do this or help out any more than making suggestions.

[t029248]

lots of kudos for this initiative, tv is really missing in xbmc. yes the linux “gods” can use mythtv but a simple way to watch tv using xbmc is great!!

so please keep me informed…

[PDG1]

well... i guess you beat me 2 it...
was thinking of doing something similar to this
but your way looks way easier:d

i was going to try to do something with the usb controller ports... then i realized that i'd need to make a driver or know someone who could... and thats bloody difficult...

then i thought about making a device that could stream the video through ethernet
it sounds alot easier than my stupid usb idea...
but it still requires me to actually know something about how to make the device... and wok the protocols... and crap...
but i know nothing...
so, i'm thinking that yo're idea is much better and i'm prolly gunna try to join your cause sooner than later

i'm not much of a programmer as of yet... more of a graphics guy...
but i'm sure i could learn something programming wise.

rock on cryptonik

[t029248]

hello

yesterday i was reading on xbox-scene about the plugin vlc 360. it uses vlc to stream out transcoded xvid / dvix to the xbox 360
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/...rmpvof.php
i guess a applications like plugin vlc 360 running as a service utilising vls (vlc) (without to much configuration and running seamless) in an good example of what you want to achieve with xbmc tv.

forgive my ignorance but what happends using dscaler when users who have tv cards drivers and software installed on there pc’s start to  watch tv using there normal tv application, isn’t  this a possible source a conflict! what about the dscalers hardware support http://www.dscaler.com/card-support/index.htm it’s seems to me that that it’s lacking support for the popular wintv-pvr-x50 cards!

[LoL]

hey cryptonik,

i just read this topic when looking for the exact thing you're describing! this is the only thing missing in xbmc and would make it perfect!!
so i was wondering, how is the progress coming along?
i'm not a programmer but if i can help in any other way just let me know!

hope to hear something about the progress! :d

happy coding, lol

[t029248]

hey cryptonik,

i just read this topic when looking for the exact thing you're describing! this is the only thing missing in xbmc and would make it perfect!!
so i was wondering, how is the progress coming along?
i'm not a programmer but if i can help in any other way just let me know!

hope to hear something about the progress! :d

happy coding, lol

yes, i'm also very curious how this feature is developing, i'm not an developer but i'm in it, i know some basic scripting, i could test and write documentation. i don't want this feature just for myself it's the feature missing in xbmc. i willing to help a lot to make this thing happen

i hope to hear something soon and that this initiative is not dead, because i think that the way cryptonik plans to build this, is very doable. it could be very cool!!

[insomniac83]

And again... nothing heared from again... Is someone still working on a tv channel thingy for XBMC? Cause it is a real waste of time if people work on it and then stop half way or so... Let me know fellas!!

Greetz Insomniac

[drakethegreat]

Ya agreed with insomniac. This is a massive undertaking that requires work on both the PC side and on the XBMC. The sheer size of this project is difficult but it would be nice to have an alternative to the Microsoft setup with the 360 interfacing with a MCE box. Mainly because the MS option is more costly and closed. Mainly it would seem the biggest problem is the software side of things on the computer. MediaPortal doesn't seem to be the solution so someone is gonna have to code a wicked program to interface with TV Tuner cards and export that via a protocol that gamster mentioned. Hopefully this person has a lot of time on their hands 0.0

[fidodildo]

Mainly it would seem the biggest problem is the software side of things on the computer. MediaPortal doesn't seem to be the solution so someone is gonna have to code a wicked program to interface with TV Tuner cards and export that via a protocol that gamster mentioned.

checkout this tread on this forum,

or this tv-server option thread of MP