Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder

[mwittl]

Michael,

First, kudos on the nice programming. Also, I just wanted to let you know that I am successfully using VLC 1.1.5 since I wanted to use better quality H264 for my IPCam. Using 1.0.5, I was getting very blocky output in Sage. I created a new channel type (ipcam.props), a new command file (tune.ipcam.windows.commands) and a new addipcam.conf file specifying the H264 transcoding. My IPCam is one of the Foscam clones that sends out motion jpg (MJPG) using the http://...../videostream.cgi?user=xxx&pwd=xxx

Anyhow, working very nicely. Keep up the good work.

- Mark

PS: I'm a software engineer too...just don't have time to work on fun stuff like this!

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by mwittl

Michael,

First, kudos on the nice programming. Also, I just wanted to let you know that I am successfully using VLC 1.1.5 since I wanted to use better quality H264 for my IPCam. Using 1.0.5, I was getting very blocky output in Sage. I created a new channel type (ipcam.props), a new command file (tune.ipcam.windows.commands) and a new addipcam.conf file specifying the H264 transcoding. My IPCam is one of the Foscam clones that sends out motion jpg (MJPG) using the http://...../videostream.cgi?user=xxx&pwd=xxx

Anyhow, working very nicely. Keep up the good work.

- Mark

PS: I'm a software engineer too...just don't have time to work on fun stuff like this!

Thanks for the feedback - glad to hear its doing the Job.

Full support for VLC 1.1.5 for radio feeds might be a while.

I'm taking a short break from web feed encoder and writing another SageTV plugin.

Michael

[zands]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Wonder if it could be this:

main debug: connection: Resource temporarily unavailable
main debug: connection succeeded (socket = 740)
access_mms error: error: HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized
main warning: no access module matching "http" could be loaded
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 1129.000 ms - Total 1129.000 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 1129.000 ms)
main debug: waitpipe: object killed
main error: open of `http://192.168.0.120/stream.asf' failed: (null)
main error: Your input can't be opened
main error: VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://192.168.0.120/stream.asf'. Check the log for details.

also seen in the rstp example:

live555 debug: DESCRIBE failed with 401: cannot handle DESCRIBE response: RTSP/1.0 401 Unauthorized
live555 debug: authentication failed
live555 error: Failed to connect with rtsp://192.168.0.120/live_mpeg4.sdp

Sometimes login details can be put in the tune URL - have you tried that?

Michael

thanks, that was my problem. Unfortunately for me, the sharx camera doesn't allow passing credentials via url. I'll have to figure something else out.

Really do appreciate your efforts here!

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by zands

thanks, that was my problem. Unfortunately for me, the sharx camera doesn't allow passing credentials via url. I'll have to figure something else out.

Really do appreciate your efforts here!

Slightly surprised by that.

If you login to your cameras web interface and navigate to the page that shows the camera image.

Whats is the URL of the image?

Also VLC has got some special screens for web cameras - I remember there is a place there to add user name and password. Might be worth looking at that.

I see you are also looking at DVBLogic to solve this issue - I believe that this too uses VLC - probably to do a similar job - convert to MPEG-2. So I would be very interested to know what that does that is actually different from WFE.

Michael

[zands]

this is a demo link that they supply:
http://sharxdemo2.servehttp.com/en/login.asp

my camera works exactly like this one except I put authentication on it. when it asks for authentication, it always pulls up a dialog box for it. Not being a programmer, I'm not too sure how it is set up exactly. I've been emailing them to try to get a better answer.

Will look into VLC's user/password names to see.

[zands]

I finally got it to work, using the http mjpeg stream. i had a problem correctly passing the username/password via url

http://user:pasword@192.168.0.120/stream.jpg worked for me!

Unfortunately, it looks quite blocky compared to my browser which is smoother. probably some other setting i will need to fiddle with!

thanks for your help!

[michaeldjcox]

Fiddle around in the channel dialog advanced tab a bit.

Aligning the output image height and width with the image size provided by the camera helps.

Also swapping from mpeg-ps to mpeg-ts - or the other way around I cannot remember - can help.

Michael

[zands]

Thanks michael, will look into it and report back.

[zands]

Hi michael. Tried both your suggestions but it is fine at first then becomes blocky. When I use vlc standalone it is fine so suspect something after vlc. I sent you the logs. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by zands

Hi michael. Tried both your suggestions but it is fine at first then becomes blocky. When I use vlc standalone it is fine so suspect something after vlc. I sent you the logs. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

SageTV likes to show MPEG 2 in TV channels and not other forms of video.

So the blockiness is introduced when transcoding the camera MJPEG to MPEG.

Does your camera output video in any other formats that might be easier to transcode?

Michael

[zands]

My camera puts out a mjpeg, an asf and a mpeg4 stream.

I will try each to see if that works better.

Any other way to improve this? Do I need a beefier server or something to improve quality?

thanks so much!

[michaeldjcox]

Just limitations of the transcode process.

Although I suspect there is some tinkering that can be done to get a better result.

If you can cope with your feed as an online service rather than a TV channel then you may have more luck.

I managed to get things working by adding an internet video item to TVersity and then accessing via the UPnP browssr.

Michael

[scanner95]

Hello Michael,

Recently I tried to use the EPG Harvest part of your plugin to grab some EPG from a Russian web page. It appears that Cyrillic is not supported properly there. Any clues? (don't know what to attach; the web page I run the grabber on is http://www.ntvplus.ru/channels/chann...=06.02.2011#tv)

Thanks
Yuly

[scanner95]

Michael, I realize you are probably busy with tons of other stuff you are up to, so I'll just patiently wait
While I'm here: are there any instructions of how should you upgrade from Sage v6 to Sage v7 in regards to WFE? I now have Sage v6 with WFE 0.9.7, and wouldnt want to loose a bit of my extensive configuration...

Thanks!
Yuly

Originally Posted by scanner95

Hello Michael,

Recently I tried to use the EPG Harvest part of your plugin to grab some EPG from a Russian web page. It appears that Cyrillic is not supported properly there. Any clues? (don't know what to attach; the web page I run the grabber on is http://www.ntvplus.ru/channels/chann...=06.02.2011#tv)

Thanks
Yuly

[michaeldjcox]

Hi,

Sorry - been a bit busy lately.

You do not need to do anything initially.

Upgrade to SageTV V7 and it should still work (but don't do anything with the V7 plugin manager to install or upgrade WFE)

If you decide later you want to start managing WFE from the SageTV7 plugin manager then there is a process to be followed to switch control.

Its in the 0.9.7 user guide.

I will try and answer your other query soon as I can.

Michael

[n9cqs]

Michael,
I have a need to change the EPG lineup for one of my tuners. When I try to do it, all I see listed is WebFeedEncoder. No other lineup, for cable, satellite or anything will show up.

Do I have something set wrong either with SageTV or WFE setup?

Thanks!

Love your plugin. It is working WONDERFULLY!!!

Jeff

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by n9cqs

Michael,
I have a need to change the EPG lineup for one of my tuners. When I try to do it, all I see listed is WebFeedEncoder. No other lineup, for cable, satellite or anything will show up.

Do I have something set wrong either with SageTV or WFE setup?

Thanks!

Love your plugin. It is working WONDERFULLY!!!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Theres two possibilities here:

1. Your other lineups are from the EPG data provided by SageTV. In Sage.properties there should be a line for that EPG data source e.g.

epg_data_sources/<some number>/disable_plugin=false

for SageTV provided EPG this property should be set to true. Typically only the WFE epg_data_source entry should be set to false and the others should be true *UNLESS* you are also using another EPG import plugin - then possible that WFE and some others should have that line set to true.

2. You use an XMLTV importer to import EPG for other tuners. WFE set its own EPG plugin to be the EPG import plugin but uses and "orig_epg_import_plugin" property to specify the import plugin that was there before. That second line has probably gone missing.

epg/epg_import_plugin=uk.co.mdjcox.epgplugin.EpgPlugin
epg/orig_epg_import_plugin=xmltv.XMLTVImportPlugin

In either case you should be able to locate your original config in a backup of Sage.properties. WFE makes a lot of backups of Sage.properties in the same directory.

Hope this helps.

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by scanner95

Hello Michael,

Recently I tried to use the EPG Harvest part of your plugin to grab some EPG from a Russian web page. It appears that Cyrillic is not supported properly there. Any clues? (don't know what to attach; the web page I run the grabber on is http://www.ntvplus.ru/channels/chann...=06.02.2011#tv)

Thanks
Yuly

Hi Yuly,

Sorry for the delay - had to use my "plugin dev" timeslot for other stuff recently :-(.

Can you send me your channel properties file please.

Michael

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by n9cqs

Michael,
I have a need to change the EPG lineup for one of my tuners. When I try to do it, all I see listed is WebFeedEncoder. No other lineup, for cable, satellite or anything will show up.

If this is pertaining to the EPG change (the sticky at the top of multiple forums here), and you are using OTA and received the error message recently, you need to follow the steps listed in that sticky and choose "cable or satellite" for your EPG.

However, you also need to clear the line that Michael indicated:
epg/epg_import_plugin=uk.co.mdjcox.epgplugin.EpgPlugin

You need to shut down Sage and clear this line to be:
epg/epg_import_plugin=

Then restart. I don't know what this will do to WFE (might break it?), but this is a known issue with the new EPG change in Sage (meaning, if you have anything in this line in the properties file, you won't get any lineups shown when you choose "cable or satellite"). I had a long, frustrated experience last weekend with this until Opus suggested that maybe I need to clear this line, and that fixed it.

I suspect that the way around this would be to uninstall WFE (or clear that line, at least), then do all the EPG changes per the sticky, and then reinstall WFE.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

If this is pertaining to the EPG change (the sticky at the top of multiple forums here), and you are using OTA and received the error message recently, you need to follow the steps listed in that sticky and choose "cable or satellite" for your EPG.

However, you also need to clear the line that Michael indicated:
epg/epg_import_plugin=uk.co.mdjcox.epgplugin.EpgPlugin

You need to shut down Sage and clear this line to be:
epg/epg_import_plugin=

Then restart. I don't know what this will do to WFE (might break it?), but this is a known issue with the new EPG change in Sage (meaning, if you have anything in this line in the properties file, you won't get any lineups shown when you choose "cable or satellite"). I had a long, frustrated experience last weekend with this until Opus suggested that maybe I need to clear this line, and that fixed it.

I suspect that the way around this would be to uninstall WFE (or clear that line, at least), then do all the EPG changes per the sticky, and then reinstall WFE.

Very annoying

This then also applies to people using Stephanes XMLTV importer which uses this property too.

No need I think to reinstall WFE.

A shutdown of SageTV, edit of the Sage.properties to restore the state of the property afterward EPG changes, and then restart should be enough.

Michael