Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder

[latino]

hi michael

sorry i am bothering you.
now i canceled everything and installed the new version but now when i go to setup the video source sagetv do not recognize any video source.

what i am doing wrong.

thanks for your help.

[michaeldjcox]

Sorry if i'm misunderstanding.

When you say cancelled do you mean you upgraded to the new version...

...or did you throw away the old version and start from scratch?

The only thing sagetv needs is the encoder details in SageTV properties (see installation instructions).

Added when sagetv is not running.

Then restart sagetv.

Send me your sagetv properties (taken when sagetv is stopped) and your encoder.props and I'll check them for you.

Originally Posted by latino

hi michael

sorry i am bothering you.
now i canceled everything and installed the new version but now when i go to setup the video source sagetv do not recognize any video source.

what i am doing wrong.

thanks for your help.

Regards,

Michael

[latino]

hi michael,

thanks for all your help. i found the problem and know is working fine.

thanks

[michaeldjcox]

First thing:

In Sage.properties you need:

mmc/encoders/123/1/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/last_channel=5
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/provider_id=1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/video_crossbar_type=1
mmc/encoders/123/broadcast_standard=
mmc/encoders/123/capture_config=2050
mmc/encoders/123/default_device_quality=
mmc/encoders/123/device_class=
mmc/encoders/123/encoder_merit=0
mmc/encoders/123/encoding_host=localhost\:5000
mmc/encoders/123/encoding_host_login_md5=
mmc/encoders/123/forced_video_storage_path_prefix=
mmc/encoders/123/last_cross_index=0
mmc/encoders/123/last_cross_type=1
mmc/encoders/123/live_audio_input=
mmc/encoders/123/multicast_host=
mmc/encoders/123/never_stop_encoding=false
mmc/encoders/123/video_capture_device_name=WebFeedEncoder
mmc/encoders/123/video_capture_device_num=0
mmc/encoders/123/video_encoding_params=Great

But you currently have:

mmc/encoders/123/1/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/last_channel=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/provider_id=0
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/123/1/0/video_crossbar_type=1
mmc/encoders/123/broadcast_standard=
mmc/encoders/123/capture_config=0
mmc/encoders/123/default_device_quality=
mmc/encoders/123/device_class=
mmc/encoders/123/encoder_merit=0
mmc/encoders/123/encoding_host=
mmc/encoders/123/last_cross_index=0
mmc/encoders/123/last_cross_type=1
mmc/encoders/123/live_audio_input=
mmc/encoders/123/never_stop_encoding=false
mmc/encoders/123/video_capture_device_name=WebFeedEncoder
mmc/encoders/123/video_capture_device_num=0
mmc/encoders/123/video_encoding_params=Great

Some key lines are missing.

1. Can you shutdown sagetv.
2. replace the old properties with the new.
3. restart sageTV.

and try again please.

Thanks for your patience.

Michael

[latino]

GOOD JOB!!!!!!!!

[michaeldjcox]

Excellent.



I'm currently looking at an installer to make everything a bit easier. I'm planning a config app to aid the production of channel config.

Hoping this will make it possible to avoid file editing.

Originally Posted by latino

hi michael,

thanks for all your help. i found the problem and know is working fine.

thanks

Michael

[latino]

good morning micheal,

i added some tv channels and is working fine.

thanks for everything.

[michaeldjcox]

Thats great news - thanks for feeding back - cheered me up no end after a crap day at work

I'll have to try and find some good english internet TV channels - my spanish is pretty non-existent.

Michael

[pjpjpjpj]

Guys,
It's somewhat difficult to discern what all has been going on since you've been exchanging data on "effectively" beta testing... so, on the TV streaming side, what is the current state of this plug-in? It sounds like it is allowing internet TV streaming - which would be the holy grail that everyone is looking for, if it allows things like hulu. Yet very few people have been commenting in the thread, so I figure this must not be the case. A solution that allowed true internet TV streaming would surely have everyone shouting from the mountaintops.

Can you give us an update of "it currently works to do A, B, and C, it does not work to do X, Y, and Z"?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

[latino]

i have this nice software (http://jlc-software.com/?page=internet_tv.html)
where i can find all the online tv and for the logo adress i use this site to find it.
http://www.lyngsat.com/

Best regards

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Guys,
It's somewhat difficult to discern what all has been going on since you've been exchanging data on "effectively" beta testing... so, on the TV streaming side, what is the current state of this plug-in? It sounds like it is allowing internet TV streaming - which would be the holy grail that everyone is looking for, if it allows things like hulu. Yet very few people have been commenting in the thread, so I figure this must not be the case. A solution that allowed true internet TV streaming would surely have everyone shouting from the mountaintops.

Can you give us an update of "it currently works to do A, B, and C, it does not work to do X, Y, and Z"?

Thanks, and keep up the good work!

I started out just trying to get regular and internet radio stations on an extender and to be able to record radio shows.

This is now achieved bar a few issues that affect some users but not others.

TV was a new thing at user request, and very easy to do for this plug-in, far easier than radio.

By internet TV here I mean something which you can get via a URL which is a video stream and can play in a regular media player.

Also for the moment this solution is intended to address a radio/tv channel rather than a source of online videos - which would be better accessed from the "online services" menu rather than the programme guide.

I'm pretty sure if the feed publishes a stream URL or dumps an video file of any format I can make it operate as a channel in your lineup.

I'm not really aware of anything I cannot make this plug in do but thats only I have not tried everything that is out there.

If there is something you would like access to in SageTV I am very willing to give it a go.

I chuffed to bits with what I have achieved with this plug in and am slightly disappointed after 10 months of effort that the SageTV community seems a little cool about what I have done. Could be for any number of reasons: its in beta, appears to require a lot of config, badly named, badly described. Who knows. Someone tell me

I am not put off - I will keep making it more accessible and capable of feeding more sources into SageTV.

As plug-ins go it is quite easy to try. It will NOT spray unwanted files over your sagetv installation - it only requires a small config change in SageTV properties. External programs are only the well known LMGestion XMLTV importer and the excellent open source, multi-platform, "play anything", very useful in its own right, VLC media player.

Regards,

Michael

[bcjenkins]

Michael,

Gave this a whirl, I am not having much success with pulling in stations. All of the stations I have tried are not functioning from the command line in linux or from my install on Mac as well. I would post a log but feel it isn't your process as much as it is the ability of VLC to setup and record the mms streams.

I will try to find a stream which does what I am aiming to accomplish.

I will describe my setup though:

Headless Linux server with audio disabled in the bios running 64-bit Jaunty 9.04 server and 1.6.13-64bit java. Also, note X does not run on this box and your command line code seems to require it. (You can run cvlc instead in Linux)

Regarding improvements, I would like to run this jar as a load time option for server much like nielm's webserver. Is that possible? Also, it would be handy to add/manage stations from the gui. I will say though the RadioTime makes it very easy to setup.

B

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Gave this a whirl, I am not having much success with pulling in stations. All of the stations I have tried are not functioning from the command line in linux or from my install on Mac as well. I would post a log but feel it isn't your process as much as it is the ability of VLC to setup and record the mms streams.

Disagree here. VLC can do. Me getting the command line options right for the platform - thats another thing. Please send log. Can you see the vlc sessions running? Do they create the mp3 file in the tmp directory and/or the sagtv recording file. If they are running we may need to add vlc logging:

edit commands/tune.radio.unix.commands and add:

--extraintf logger --logfile "%logfile%" -vvv

to the end of the command line for vlc sessions.

I will able to test linux myself for sure later this month. Don't fancy setting up dual boot but portable ubuntu jaunty should be available later this month and then I can get VLC 0.9.9.

(Mac is another thing altogether - my code switches on file seperator / = unix \ = windows. Haven't given mac a thought)

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

(You can run cvlc instead in Linux)

Edit your encoder.props and use cvlc instead of vlc in the vlc.exe property.

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Regarding improvements, I would like to run this jar as a load time option for server much like nielm's webserver. Is that possible? Also, it would be handy to add/manage stations from the gui. I will say though the RadioTime makes it very easy to setup.

Ease of configuration is very much on my mind. Will be giving this much thought over the coming months.

Michael

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

I chuffed to bits with what I have achieved with this plug in and am slightly disappointed after 10 months of effort that the SageTV community seems a little cool about what I have done. Could be for any number of reasons: its in beta, appears to require a lot of config, badly named, badly described. Who knows. Someone tell me

I am also surprised that more people are not jumping at this. The plugin is ingenious and has huge potential.

My $0.02 is that the setup looks a little daunting. I want to try it out more but I want to have a few hours set aside to get things going. Most plugins and STVs only take a few minutes to install and try.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Disagree here. VLC can do. Me getting the command line options right for the platform - thats another thing. Please send log. Can you see the vlc sessions running? Do they create the mp3 file in the tmp directory and/or the sagtv recording file. If they are running we may need to add vlc logging:

edit commands/tune.radio.unix.commands and add:

--extraintf logger --logfile "%logfile%" -vvv

to the end of the command line for vlc sessions.

I will able to test linux myself for sure later this month. Don't fancy setting up dual boot but portable ubuntu jaunty should be available later this month and then I can get VLC 0.9.9.

(Mac is another thing altogether - my code switches on file seperator / = unix \ = windows. Haven't given mac a thought)



Edit your encoder.props and use cvlc instead of vlc in the vlc.exe property.



Ease of configuration is very much on my mind. Will be giving this much thought over the coming months.

Michael

Sorry Michael, not clear on my side. What I was trying to say is that I could not tune the stations using the command line in Linux as I determined from the log, nor could I from the VLC gui in OSX inferring that the issue was with VLC connecting with the mms stream and not your plugin.

B

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Sorry Michael, not clear on my side. What I was trying to say is that I could not tune the stations using the command line in Linux as I determined from the log, nor could I from the VLC gui in OSX inferring that the issue was with VLC connecting with the mms stream and not your plugin.

B

Oh I see. So you were running vlc directly from the command line.

this way:

vlc <your stream>

should work and play the stream.

and:

vlc <your stream> --extraintf logger --logfile "test.log" -vvv

will tell us the problem VLC is having.

Be very keen to see that log.

Thanks for being the unix trailblazer.

Regards,

Michael

[pjpjpjpj]

Can you take a shot at this site: www.channelsurfing.net

Can you get those videos to play?

There are a few constantly-streaming videos - often HGTV, CNN, The Movie Channel, NFL Network etc., which would be able to be watched any time. For the sports, the stream would only exist when the event was occurring... specifically college sports, many of them are school- or team-specific. They usually just append a "watch-{name}" (roll over the links on the page today and see how they are addressed). For example, the stream for "SchoolX" is typically: http://www.channelsurfing.net/watch-SchoolX.html

You could have your favorite school/team already pre-entered as a channel, but the station would be dead except when they had a game that was being streamed.

If this works, it would be great if a screen or configuration menu could be added which would allow you to type in the stream name (i.e., "watch-SchoolX") inside of Sage, so you didn't have to manually add this on the server. The channel could be "Channelsurfing Special" or something... so if you checked their website (it changes every day, they only list the current days' broadcasts) and saw something you wanted to watch, you could jot down the link ("/watch-xxxxxxxx") and then type in that URL portion in the menu to temporarily assign that channel. This would be especially helpful in the case where your favorite team was playing a road game and the website was carrying your opponent's TV feed, so you wouldn't need to have channels pre-set for every single team that your team might play.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Can you take a shot at this site: www.channelsurfing.net

Can you get those videos to play?

The problem is with this site and many like it is that the URLs for the feeds popup some kind of player. The actual video stream is known only to that player and the only hint of anything different in the web page is some form of id.

In some web sites like www.radiotime.com or the jlc software mentioned by latino the video stream URLs are public and we can reuse them.

In many case sites like these are just repackaging what is already freely available. It is just a case of finding the original source - usually by going straight to the sources own web page.

Much of the benefit of these sites is that they do a lot of searching for feeds and package them together.

Can you find these feeds via other web sites? This is truly the best option to try.

If not I believe may be possible to discover the feeds the player is using with a bit of work. I have some lines of enquiry here.

Michael

[pjpjpjpj]

I hear what you are saying, but some of those feeds seem to be direct. Some are from other sites - you can see that by mousing over the link and looking at the URL at the bottom. But the ones that are simply "http://www.channelsurfing.net/watch-XXXX.html", I have in the past copied that URL, opened the Windows Media Player separately, did "File/open URL" and pasted the line in, and it worked. So even though, from the website directly, they do pop up a window, I hoped that those particular streams were the Windows Media streams you were looking for.

I'm at work now and blocked from video streaming, so I can't try anything out, but I will try to get online at home soon and fiddle with it myself (can't promise anything... new baby in the house takes all my time!)

Regardless, thanks for all your hard work and for being so responsive with everyone on this thread.

[bcjenkins]

Try to get the streams to play in VLC.

B