VideoLAN external player plugin

[moiristo]

VideoLAN External Player Plugin

This plugin can send video/audio to the VLC engine (natively). Its strengths are that it handles m4 extensions (needed for Apple video podcasts), it can handle UDP streams (supported by some STB's and certain IPTV services) and it can buffer the signal, which is useful for playing webstreams. It also supports recording, timeshifting, seeking; in fact anything VLC supports.

-----Download-----

MEDIAPORTAL - free MediaCenter HTPC Software - Others

-----Installation-----

1) Make sure you installed the latest version of VLC from VideoLAN.

2) Copy 'libvlc.dll' from '\<VLC root directory>\VLC' to the MP root folder (Usually C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\)

3) Install the MPI

4) Enable the VideoLan plugin in the MP configuration

5) Configure the streams and extensions it should play


-----Notes-----

- A bigger buffer size usually helps preventing lags while playing web streams. However, the bigger it is set, the longer you'll have to wait before the stream starts. It starts playing when the buffer has the specified size (in ms). Therefore, you'll have to tweak with this setting a little.

- Video Podcasts usually have the .mp4 or .mov extension, so check these in the config to play them using VLC.

- Webstreams often use the rtsp or mms protocol

- Be careful with setting the VideoLan player to play all http streams, since it may cause conflicts with other plugins. (for example, the Last.fm plugin).

- The .gary extension is no real extension, but was used for a very old version of the Dreambox Plugin. It's still in it for backwards compatibility.



-----Version history-----

0.9
- Redesigned the configuration form
- Added plugin icons
- Modified readme
- Modified HasVideo function. It tells MP that the stream given is an audio stream if and only if it ends with an audio extension. Some webstreams do not end with a file extension; they will be treated as video files


0.8
- Extracted VideoLAN from the ExternalPlayers library; it is now a standalone plugin available in the MP Plugin SVN

0.7
- Switched from ActiveX to a native C# library
- More action support, like big/medium/short step forward/backword, ability to make screenshots, DVD menu handling, audio/subtitle track rotation...
- Recording support (A Record-action in MP starts/stops the recording). It stores the recordings in /<MP root folder/vlciptv/.
- Removed the logo when not playing streams (which was actually caused by the activeX control)

0.6:
- Fixed configuration not being written to file, because the Config class doesn't like text such as
udp://,http://. Now you only need to specify the protocol, e.g. udp,http,...
- Some bugfixes

0.1-0.5:
- Initial release from Zipperzip (this is also in the MP SVN)

[moiristo]

Currently, I'm trying to find out whether it is possible to integrate UDP support in TVE3 or that it is better to directly transcode streams to streams that are supported by the MP built in player (because OSD is not supported by this plugin).

[Spragleknas]

Great news! Even recording is possible now!

Is there anything this plugin can't do that IPTV@UT can?

[moiristo]

Hehe, I think you don't quite understand the picture here. This is only the external player (it has to be installed into the ExternalPlayers directory). It doesn't give you any menu's in MP. So, the IPTV@UT plugin provides a simple frontend to load playlists that are played automatically by the player (if configured in such a way).

[Soap]

Originally Posted by moiristo

I encourage others to improve this player, and I wanted to start this topic so people can provide feedback.

Hi,

I am using this plugin together with the Dreambox plugin. Because the dreambox content is interlaced, I needed to be able set the deinterlace option in VLC.

It was quite easy to add this to your code and I was wondering if you would like me to send the patched files to you or should I try to join the sourceforge project and add the changes myself?

Best regards,

Soap

[moiristo]

I'd appreciate it if you could commit it to the plugin SVN

[pisdu]

Hi there , sorry for the dumb question...but how can i record with that plugin?

Thanks a lot

[moiristo]

The player has an ability to record video, but how that is done should be managed by a window plugin

[pisdu]

Thanks moiristo for quick answer , sorry what what window plugin?

[pisdu]

...mmmhhh