Automatic upload of streaming broadcast video playlists

[onkl]

Originally Posted by Vulture

the mail function of this program is to automatically create the playlists everytime you run it with the config file from the command prompt.

Thanks, I think I just looked over it, since this is what I meant. Not at home right now, but I will look at it later.

[Vulture]

new version of the PCZapper2MP program.

changes:

- option to create sub directories so the tree is more logically to navigate in MediaPortal
- filling the tree-fields is a lot faster. now only the direct subnodes are filled. nodes below that are only filled when expanding the tree
- different root-url. the new url is a parent url of the one I used before. so here are more links found, althoug some links lead to nothing.

please let me know of any problems/suggestions

Vulture

P.S. program is downloadable from this thread (first post)

http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.so...ic.php?t=11730

[onkl]

Originally Posted by Vulture

new version of the PCZapper2MP program.

changes:

- option to create sub directories so the tree is more logically to navigate in MediaPortal
- filling the tree-fields is a lot faster. now only the direct subnodes are filled. nodes below that are only filled when expanding the tree
- different root-url. the new url is a parent url of the one I used before. so here are more links found, althoug some links lead to nothing.

please let me know of any problems/suggestions

Vulture

P.S. program is downloadable from this thread (first post)

http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.so...ic.php?t=11730

Was busy for a while, but thanks for the improvements.
It's getting all the playlists and contentlinks automatically now.

I'm still thinking about a better way to implement all kind of webTV in Mediaportal. Maybe an xml, located on sourceforce and editable via the frontpage containing a selection of streams? Might end up in the developing list.

[Vulture]

onkl,

it shouldn't be that hard to create a new plugin to get some sort of menu-tree from a cfg/xml file from a (configurable) location on the internet (maybe more than one).
All that's needed is a proper syntax for that list, a (simple) new plugin for MP and an active community/moderators to fill and maintain the list(s).
I should be even possible to create websites where people place their found links along with fields like title/description/language/picture/etc. so that the listst are filled automatically

[onkl]

Originally Posted by Vulture

onkl,

it shouldn't be that hard to create a new plugin to get some sort of menu-tree from a cfg/xml file from a (configurable) location on the internet (maybe more than one).
All that's needed is a proper syntax for that list, a (simple) new plugin for MP and an active community/moderators to fill and maintain the list(s).
I should be even possible to create websites where people place their found links along with fields like title/description/language/picture/etc. so that the listst are filled automatically

Shall we start a small brainstorm?
What should be a proper way to describe (in pseudo-XML) all the various content available?

I can imagine the following "dividers":
-video, audio
-station or finite stream (could one consider a finite stream, such as podcast, TV programs archive etc. as a "remote recording"
-language
-country?
-some handling of bitrates, various streams provided for various speeds of interent connection
-some favourites handling
-genre?
And the folowing metadata:
-Picture url
-Maybe something about the availabitlity of EPG's, a lot of foreign stations are available as stream and have some site where their EPG's can be grabbed -> might be usefull for intergration in MyTV once?
-lenght of the program

So that leads to some syntax, here an example for NASA's TV:
<list>
<section name="0">
<entry name="INDEX">0</entry>
<entry name="AV">Video</entry>
<entry name="type">netstation</entry> (versus netprogram)
<entry name="Number">0</entry> for custom sortings
<entry name="Name">NASA TV</entry>
<entry name="Country">USA</entry>
<entry name="Language">English</entry>
<entry name="Picture">http://www.nasa.gov/templateimages/template/footer/logo_nasa.gif</entry>
<section name="EPG"></EPG>
<section name="source">
<section name="asx">
<entry name="Minbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Maxbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Address">http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx</entry>
</section>
<section name="rm">
<entry name="Minbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Maxbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Address">http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram</entry>
</section>
<section name="alternate">
<entry name="Name">NASA TV Captioned</entry>
<section name="rm">
<entry name="Minbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Maxbitrate">0</entry>
<entry name="Address">http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram</entry>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<entry name="Isfavorite">0</entry>
<entry name="Genre">WebTV</entry>
</section>
<list>

This could be served in some location, and MP could download the available defenitions.
Afterwards, the user should be able to change at least favourites in GUI, so that he can browse all stations by some Favourites=OFF options and just watch TV whithout being disturbed by several Mongolian streams while he's quite sure not to fully understand Mongol by setting Favourites=ON.
The most obvious point of improvement would be a mapped structure (just like implemented in PCZapper2MP) to the XML, while keeping the global list manageble, but in general, I'm interested in remarks.
Maybe this could be a neat start: XSPF

[Vulture]

that's an impressive piece of xml you just made up.
I thing this is absolutely useable.

some problems/suggestions:

- I think favourite handling shouldn't be in the published list on the internet location. Favourites are personal, so this should be on your local machine.
- the menu system is absolutely useable. I think that this isn't the hardest part to come up with. Perhaps when a lot of people are uploading to this list. it's better to split the list in multiple files, each with their own url. Perhaps by country/genre/mediatype/...
- perhaps it's possible to generate more than one xml file and use the same technique as PCZapper does. their menu system is build on multiple xml files/urls that form their own menu structure. There is a main menu that's just an xml file with links to other xml files. an xml file can have links to media streams and/or links to other xml files (like sub menus).
that's an easy to manage tree system.

of course someone needs to host it on a website. If this is going to be a full functional plugin, I think a lot of people will be using it, so the website is going to need enough bandwidth to support it (if it's going to be a success...).

[jawbroken]

If it is just pulling down xml files then bandwidth should not be too much of a problem? Unless I have wildly underestimated the popularity of MediaPortal and this plugin it seems that it would just be a handful of kilobytes for each person.

[ender]

I've tried this with Uitzending gemist and the asf streams play nicely in WMP but MP refuses to play them and logs this:

PlaylistPlayer.Play unable to play:http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams...bb.laatste.asf

Any idea why?