My IP TV Plugin (5 Viewers)

[overture]

Hi moiristo!

I'm working on this when I get the time. So far it's coming along well. I have got a good backbone in place which allows mini IPTV plugins to be plugged into this host plugin via an interface which looks like the following:-

public interface IMiniIPTVPlugin
{
/// <summary>
/// Should return a multi-dimensional array return in this order "(string
/// channelname, string channelDescription, string genre, string language, string
/// country, string streamURL)"
/// </summary>
/// <returns>A multi-dimensional array</returns>
string[,] IPTVChannel();
string Author();
Form SetupForm();

}

The interface is my biggest worry. If I get it wrong then it will cause a lot of bother down the line. The IPTVChannel method when implemented should return a multi-dimensional array which contains the following:

-Channel Name
-Channel Description
-Genre
-Language
-Country
-Stream URL

Can you think of anything else?

Phil

 

[yevgenb]

Hi guys,

I've been using my own plugin for watching of russian IPTV channels and would be happy to share some knowledge too.
My concerns are:
1) Some sites (like the one I'm using - www.bestrussiantv.com) have it's own sets of cookies used for logging to the site. I think we might need hook to mini plugin for custom login procedure.
2) Are you guys planning to implement EPG loading? If so it should be probably done in mini-plugin also. Than we need additional method to get EPG for let's say one channel at a time.

So here is my suggested additions for API:

....
DoLogin();
string[,] GetChannelEPG(String programID);
....


Best regards,
Eugene

 

[overture]

Hi Eugene,

I had included the 'Form SetupForm();' method in the interface for anything like custom logins and so on. This would be similar to the current mediaportal plugins setup.

Regarding the EPG - I really would love to integrate this but I have no idea how to do it.

You have suggested to include a method in the interface:-

string[,] GetChannelEPG(String programID);

However, would it not be better to implement the GetChannelEPG in the IPTV Host Plugin rather than using an interface to get different implementations from each mini plugin?...or is EPG retrieval different for each site? (Sorry, I know nothing about EPG's!)

Thanks,

Phil

 

[yevgenb]

Unfortunatelly the way of retreiving EPG can be different for each site if possible at all. That's why I suggested to get it from mini-plugin. Another story is how to show EPG/channels in host plugin. That is might be similar to the way how TV Plugin does it.

Regards,
Eugene

 

[barkerch]

Personally I CAN'T WAIT for a IPTV plugin like you are working on!

Here in New Zealand (yes, way over here...!) one of the broadcasters makes all their video available online, for free:

http://tv3.co.nz/VideoBrowseAll/tabid/245/Default.aspx

And (!!) pushes out an RSS update of new video:

http://tv3.co.nz/News/BusinessNews/tabid/192/moduleid/1480/RSS2.aspx

 

[overture]

Unfortunatelly the way of retreiving EPG can be different for each site if possible at all. That's why I suggested to get it from mini-plugin. Another story is how to show EPG/channels in host plugin. That is might be similar to the way how TV Plugin does it.

Regards,
Eugene

Eugene,

Is there a standard set of parameters which should be passed using the interface (string[,] GetChannelEPG(String programID)? How do you suggest the data should be structured?

Phil

 

[yevgenb]

First of all I think we need some sort of channel ID to pass around ( string or int or whatever).
Than IF main plugin will take care of the EPG showing mini plugin can pass array of times/show names:

class Show
{
Date time;
string showName;
string showDescription;
...... // some other metadata we can think of
};

Mini plugin Api:
Show[] GetProgram(string channelID, Date startDate, Date endDate);

The main plugin has to catch mini plugin exceptions here and show the error somehow .

Think if I missed something...

 

[overture]

yevgenb,

If I upload the plugin source code to the plugin SVN would you be able to implement this structure? If you dont have time don't worry about it.

Phil

 

[yevgenb]

This week I'll be busy but on weekend I think I'll have time.

 

[overture]

hi yevgenb,

I've uploaded it now to the plugin SVN:

https://mp-plugins.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mp-plugins/trunk/plugins

Hope you can help.

Phil