Firewire STB Tuner support

[dmeglio]

Well I finally have a firewire capable STB, so I do have a development environment that can work. Basically, I just need to find time. I'm currently busy with work and writing a thesis so time is short, but I do believe at least the channel changing is 100% possible. Also, someone on the mediaportal IRC channel made it sound like getting the streaming to work won't be too bad either.

[floepie]

dmeglio, Were you able to make any progress on the channel changer that could be triggered with the existing plugin? How would such a streaming video device appear in the device manager? If such a device were installed on the machine, would it appear as an option in MP as a video capture device? I wouldn't mind IR blasting the box to change channels as long as the streaming/recording were an option.

[s0urce]

bump, Still looking for a solution to use firewire with my STB to watch TV through MP.

[elihunter]

Anybody make any progress on this? I just got a Motorola DCH3200 and am able to see the output using CapDVHS and VLC and can change the channel using channel.exe. The only part that doesn't work is using it as a tuner.
What about using VLC to stream it as a work around?
Has anybody found a way to treat a stream as a capture card? I found a plugin for mediaportal but not for the TV server.

[IRJustman]

Originally Posted by elihunter

Anybody make any progress on this? I just got a Motorola DCH3200 and am able to see the output using CapDVHS and VLC and can change the channel using channel.exe. The only part that doesn't work is using it as a tuner.
What about using VLC to stream it as a work around?
Has anybody found a way to treat a stream as a capture card? I found a plugin for mediaportal but not for the TV server.

I, too, am very interested in seeing this improved, having just upgraded to HD after a move.

If that plugin for Firewire works for the latest stable MediaPortal, where does one get it?

Thanks!

--Ian.

[elihunter]

Here's the thread about having a fake tuner picking up a stream, you need to buy the elecard decoder but it sounds like it's a decent solution.

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/ip...&highlight=vlc


Also here's a page with directions on getting channel changing working.
http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/firewire/readme.htm

There's an installer on there called firestb.msi. In order to install it on an XP machine you need to run the installer with some command line options. msiexec /i firestb.msi IDENT=0

Once that's installed use the external channel changer plugin for mediaportal. When setting it up check Send select command.

The options for Select under commands should be:
Program: C:\Program Files\Timmmoore\MCE 2005 STB Controller\channel.exe
Start in folder: C:\Program Files\Timmmoore\MCE 2005 STB Controller
Parameters: -f 2 %2
Window Style: Hidden


Hope this helps you.

Eli

[IRJustman]

Originally Posted by elihunter

Here's the thread about having a fake tuner picking up a stream, you need to buy the elecard decoder but it sounds like it's a decent solution.

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/ip...&highlight=vlc


Also here's a page with directions on getting channel changing working.

[rest removed for brevity's sake]

Hope this helps you.

Eli

Got the Timm Moore drivers downloaded, installed and confirmed capture working via CapDVHS.exe and channel changing working using channel.exe -f 2 (channel). I did this long before I even posted. However, I used a different archive from a different site for the drivers because the DCH3200 is a fairly new product.

I'll have to give this a go since I do notice there is a trial period.

Thanks!

--Ian.

[IRJustman]

Okay, I managed to make some time to give this a go. I'm not doing very well.

With VLC, I can open the tuner up, but I cannot get sound on it at all; I only get video. Further, what am I supposed to connect the Elecard decoder to? I'm getting a bit frustrated here and could use a bit more help.

Thanks.

--Ian.

[elihunter]

I hadn't tried following that yet since I'm trying to do it through the tv server. I've given up on the tv server and firewire support for now. It would be nice if we could just use our own graphs. I set up gb-pvr which has a plugin that you can use a graph file to record. So I've got gb-pvr recording everything and working over the network now. It's not as full featured or as good looking as media portal but everything just works.
I'll see if I can get mediaportal to pick up a vlc stream when I have a day off... hopefully that will be Monday.

I wish this would get more attention. It can't be too hard to let us build our own graphs. I had this working in mediaportal almost 2 years ago with a motorola box using firewire.

Eli

[fairchild]

Originally Posted by elihunter

I hadn't tried following that yet since I'm trying to do it through the tv server. I've given up on the tv server and firewire support for now. It would be nice if we could just use our own graphs. I set up gb-pvr which has a plugin that you can use a graph file to record. So I've got gb-pvr recording everything and working over the network now. It's not as full featured or as good looking as media portal but everything just works.
I'll see if I can get mediaportal to pick up a vlc stream when I have a day off... hopefully that will be Monday.

I wish this would get more attention. It can't be too hard to let us build our own graphs. I had this working in mediaportal almost 2 years ago with a motorola box using firewire.

Eli

any luck? i would love to help, one question if you can get the stream to work in Media Portal how would EPG work? And i am also under the impression the box uses .TS, cant mediaportal already play this type, i am using it for TV3 right now