BBC iPlayer Plugin (2 Viewers)

[happyf1sh]

Hello All,

I have been looking into this some of the while. Please remember I am new to programming altogether.

At the moment I have been investigating (and learning) at two solutions:

1) Using Mozilla plugin. This uses an active x (mozctl.dll) which the plugin then manipulates. However the original development install of this finished 2005 (Mozilla Active X). However the mozctl.dll itself continues with each Gecko build. BTW Gecko is the basic rendering engine used by Mozilla applications Firefox et al

2) The other solution uses xulrunner and geckofx.dll. XULrunner is supported and appears to be the preferred method for embedding web browsing, by the Mozilla team. XULrunner was released by Skybound as a control, for XULrunner, written in c#.

If this all sound like gibberish - you may imagine how I feel.

I guess it may be easier to use IE active x, as it is well supported etc, but I am a believer in free software, so it's the road least travelled I suppose.

My original code was hacked together from about three different areas. In fact the base code was based on tunermce (used on mediaplayer). So, once I get this working a bit better (in Vista), I should (in theory) be able to pull in the other channels (ITV etc) as well.

Laters.

 

[adam_purkis]

sounds brilliant, let us know if you need help with anything, im sure people will be willing to chip in a few ideas and things.

 

[Grahamgo]

I think both the BBC and the Hulu people check the IP address of the requesting viewer - if you are not in the correct country you are not going to get the programs
This is mainly a licensing thing AFAIK

Yes, I agree. I tried Hulu yesterday 1st from with my normal IP. Hulu responded with a polite reply that it was not authorized to connect outside the USA. Then I tried this Get Behind the Shield! Hotspot Shield by AnchorFree which was said to be a workaround. This gave me a VPN USA IP, but Hulu detected this as a proxy and again gave me a polite no.

You may not have noticed but I did provide an attachment. They claim to be the cheapest USA and UK VPN provider service, I have not tried them out or compared prices etc, it is something that I need to do.

I am living in the Lake Chapala, Jalisco area, currently using a USA subscription to watch USA Dish Network. But I believe DN are changing Satellites soon and Mexico will get new sat with more power (smaller dish required) but the content will be mainly Spanish. Bad news for me. Therefore the idea of getting TV / movies via internet becomes more necessary.

I am just getting comfortable with MediaPortal and the plugins etc. So I was really happy to see this thread, even though it seems to be in the early stages. I was also wondering about internet paid movie content, I have used Netflix in the USA, but have found other services that offer online movies and TV, but I have not found any MP plugins (yet) that support those.

Thanks

 

[Statick]

i've had a look at the sources and have started work on this project.

however, i have very little free time to devote to this, so it will be a slow development. this is compounded by the fact i've never written a plugin for MP, so i'm learning the MP IDE as well, and i've also not coded anything in c++ or c# for a few years either (and don't have the reference manuals handy that i used to work from).

also, some of the sources i have looked at are not documented or commented in any way, which makes things even harder!

i'll keep this thread updated on any developments

 

[SpudR]

Are you two guys combining efforts (Happyf1sh and Statick)?
It seems a little mad to develop this separately...

 

[Efros]

Just like to say that this thread has saved me a weekend of installation (W7) and the move to MCE.

 

[mr_si]

any idea why I'm just getting a black screen when I click on a program thumbnail?

I'm using biosonik's plugin.. ummm.. works in firefox, works in media portal on my laptop, not in my media centre
XP SP3 / MP 1.0.1 / latest flash

Finally... can this link to the live BBC streams?



-26 20:43:12.390625 [Info.][BassAudio]: BASS: Initializing BASS environment done.
2009-06-26 20:43:13.218750 [Info.][FilterChecker]: FilterChecker: Found TsReader.ax from 24/02/2009 located at C:\Program Files\WinTV\WinTV7\HCWTSReader.ax
2009-06-26 20:43:13.218750 [Info.][FilterChecker]: FilterChecker: Found TsReader.ax from 22/03/2009 located at C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\TsReader.ax
2009-06-26 20:43:15.000000 [Info.][FilterChecker]: FilterChecker: Found quartz.dll from 20/12/2008 located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\quartz.dll
2009-06-26 20:43:15.000000 [Info.][FilterChecker]: FilterChecker: Version of installed quartz.dll: 6.5.2600.5731
2009-06-26 20:43:18.578125 [Info.][MPMain]: xml:C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Skin\Blue3wide\MP_iPlayer.xml image id:1 width:0 height:0 gfx:
2009-06-26 20:43:18.812500 [Info.][MPMain]: No translation found for id 103324
2009-06-26 20:43:22.875000 [Info.][MPMain]: Loading external players plugins
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: found plugin:MediaPortal.FoobarPlugin.FoobarPlugin in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Plugins\ExternalPlayers\ExternalPlayers.dll
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: player:Foobar2000. author: int_20h/rtv
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: found plugin:MediaPortal.ITunesPlayer.ITunesPlugin in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Plugins\ExternalPlayers\ExternalPlayers.dll
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: player:iTunes. author: Frodo
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: found plugin:MediaPortal.WinampPlayer.WinampPlugin in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Plugins\ExternalPlayers\ExternalPlayers.dll
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: player:Winamp. author: int_20h
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: found plugin:MediaPortal.MyFLVPlayer.FLA_PLAY in C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Plugins\ExternalPlayers\FLA_PLAY.dll
2009-06-26 20:43:22.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: player:iPlayer Flash Player. author: Biosonik, based on work of Dukus
2009-06-26 20:43:22.921875 [Info.][MPMain]: PlayerFactory: Disabling DX9 exclusive mode
2009-06-26 20:43:22.921875 [Info.][MPMain]: fonts.SetDevice()
2009-06-26 20:43:22.937500 [Info.][MPMain]: Playing flv with FLA_PLAYER :http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/9player.swf?b00jz4c9
2009-06-26 20:43:23.187500 [Info.][MPMain]: g_Player.OnStarted() http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/9player.swf?b00jz4c9 media:Video
2009-06-26 20:43:23.218750 [Info.][MPMain]: g_Player: ShowFullScreenWindow switching to fullscreen video
2009-06-26 20:43:23.281250 [Info.][MPMain]: No translation found for id 103324
2009-06-26 20:43:23.343750 [Info.][MPMain]: xml:C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Skin\Blue3wide\videoOSD.xml image id:350 width:0 height:0 gfx:-
2009-06-26 20:43:23.390625 [Info.][MPMain]: Flv:Fullscreen
2009-06-26 20:44:01.843750 [Info.][MPMain]: No translation found for id 103324
2009-06-26 20:44:01.843750 [Info.][MPMain]: xml:C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Skin\Blue3wide\MP_iPlayer.xml image id:1 width:0 height:0 gfx:
2009-06-26 20:44:01.906250 [Info.][MPMain]: No translation found for id 103324
2009-06-26 20:44:05.343750 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Exit requested
2009-06-26 20:44:05.343750 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Minimizing to tray on GUI exit and restoring taskbar
2009-06-26 20:44:05.656250 [Info.][CommandProcessor]: Commandtop all card except card:-1
2009-06-26 20:44:05.656250 [Info.][CommandProcessor]: Commandprocessor: MediaPortal.TV.Recording.StopTvCommand failed reason: No tuner cards installed time: 0 msec
2009-06-26 20:44:05.671875 [Info.][CommandProcessor]: Commandprocessor: Currently playing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/9player.swf?b00jz4c9 pos: http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/9player.swf?b00jz4c9/0

 

[happyf1sh]

Hello All,

I wondered if anyone wanted to try an experiment.
I have changed the iplayer2 plugin so that it uses XULrunner (see previous post). Before I develop any further I wondered if someone with VISTA could check if the attached plugin produces a google search engine web page.

To run you will need to install the XULrunner files at "C:\Mozilla XULrunner\1.9\xulrunner". These can be found at
Index of /pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/releases/1.9.0.11/runtimes

These are the gecko runtimes (used by firefox etc).

Install the plugin as normal (attached), configure to include BBC.
Then go to the plugin. It's all very manual at the moment.

When you navigate to the final page, you should see a google web page where you would expect the BBC iplayer. If this works then I should be able to move this project a bit further.


Thanks
Happyf1sh

 

[microfrost]

Yes I'm runninng Vista and get a google search page.

 

[happyf1sh]

Yes I'm runninng Vista and get a google search page.

Thanks for that,

If you replace the iplayer2.dll in Mediaportal with the one attached you should at least get navigated to the appropriate iplayer page. You may need to manually start the program but I am working on automating that bit.

Many Thanks for your help.

happyf1sh.