TV Server (1 Viewer)

[dman_lfc]

Yes, however it's not easy to do by any stretch of the imagination.
But an interesting proposition none the less.

DMAN.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm all for it, but don't have the code know how

I think this is a must have feature. It's the whole reason I haven't moved form mythtv. with my myth tv box, I've got 3 tuners spread across multiple computers. It figures out what to record where, and when I want to watch something, it figures out where it's at and just sends it my way. I'd really like something that ran ontop of windows, as I'm much more familiar with the windows interface, but until there is a piece of software that supports multiple viewing and recording machines, I just don't think I'll be able to switch.

 

[Inker]

I would absolutely love that feature....

Basically i guess you would have to encode the TV signal on the server into a streaming format (wmv9?) and then just serve it, that shouldnt be much different from a recording setup, then listen for channel change requests by the client, on the client, its merely a stream that is opened.

Im guessing here, but maybe it would even be enough to give the client automatically access to the timeshifting mpg file and simply open that file (and listen for channel change requests of course)

This would be my top request right now, thnx

 

[Anonymous]

I would love to do this but I think we have to take a step back and improve and refine the features we already have. I think once we have the major software cards working, the DVB -T/S/Whatever working and MP's performance sorted out then we can start looking at it.

However at the moment I don't think it would be wise.

Do keep reminding me about it however.

 

[Anonymous]

Frodo if your reading this can we run two playback graphs off the same SBE?

I will give it a try, just one thing however Inker, I am afraid we have no access to the actual timeshift MPEG2 files. The SBE allocates its own files (important: files not file) and storage space which I don't believe we have any control over.

There are 2 ways that I can see us doing it

1. SBE Sink
1. SBE Source for local machine TV
1. SBE Source for networked output.

Encoding to WM9 will hurt MP's performance too much so thats out. Ideally the MPEG2 would work as there would be very little rencode needed, however network access would be considerable.

Frodo could we take the decoded MPEG and retransmit via BDA TCP/IP sinks? This would however require a special client (as WMP/VLC will not work directly with these and directshow?)

Bare with me hear just thinking aloud.

 

[Inker]

ob2,

first, i didnt really understand that last post of urs about SBE.....anyways, inspired by ur response I gave this some more thought.

so ok, wmv reencoding is out, i agree its too much cpu usage if the server is also being used as a htpc of its own, otherwise it wouldnt be a problem

so, with the timeshifting mpegs (plural) , granted i dont know how it really works, but, given that the htpc understands these files, and knows how to put them together etc., shouldnt it be possible that the client 8also running mp understands them? maybe the server tells the client how to handle them.

so on the server (with the tv-card): the user simply runs mp (maybe in the option configure port etc.)

on the client, the user also runs mp, and this time goes into myTV, mp has a new option called SharedTV (or something), upon that, the client contacts the server and tells it to start timeshifting, the server does so and tells the client where the timeshifting mpegs are (if necessary mapping a windows network share should work too), so, it should be as if the timeshifting mpegs were created by the client (if on a windows network share it should appear as if they were stored locally even), but in reality they are done by the server, now playback is of course done by the client(s), maybe the same code since the server understands these files, the client should do, if it needs data from the tv-card to understand them, the server could tell this data to the client.

once the client has found a server, it will request the channel list and epg, when the user changes the channel, the client tells the server aobut it and the server does so

i realize there will be a bit of delay, however this should be no more than a few seconds i recon

make sense? just a quick thought, maybe it can help u a bit.

about network usage........well 100 mbit should be enough i guess and thise seems to be the standard today, even wlan (54 mbit version) should easily do i suppose.

Ok, thnx for ur time

 

[Anonymous]

Hi guys - I've been thinking about this also. I wrote a simple SHOUTcast server plug-in for audio streams as a test for a bigger project. See http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2123 The ultimate aim is to have something like the Media Center Extenders.

My idea is for the following features to be built into a single plug-in:

1. Server runs MediaPortal, starts playing content
2. Client(s) run(s) MediaPortal
3. Client goes into "My MediaPortal Network"
4. Client auto discovers and lists all MediaPortal Servers on the network
5. Clicking on a MediaPortal Server starts playing on the Client exactly what is being played on the Server
6. Optional that Clients can send controls to the Server (haven't thought too much about this yet)
7. Optional that Server can "push" content to Clients (again, haven't thought about this too much yet)

I don't think the above would be too hard to achieve based on my work for the SHOUTcast plug-in. It will also allow streaming of content via HTTP, which should play in Windows Media Player if that's what you are into and provided you have the correct codec. One assumption is that network traffic is essentially free, so its not really going to work over a wireless connection. But I think thats a fair assumption.

Unfortunately my development machine isn't working at current, so it might be a little while before I get into it again.

 

[CoolHammer]

Do we need MP to act as a server?

My scenario would be like this.

Server computer running Videolan server part. It has some control elements so we can write a MP plugin to control the server (to control it from client).
So instead to incorporate server to MP we could use one of the best GPL packages out there for this. But how to display videostream in a MP?

CoolHammer

 

[Anonymous]

Do we need MP to act as a server?

Yes, if its gonna do what I'm planning above. Besides, MP already has all the controls, interface, codecs, etc. Just add a auto discovery and a streaming engine. In my opinion there is much to be said for a single interface and single application.

But if you want to paste VideoLAN to MP, go for it.

 

[Anonymous]

The ultimate aim is to have something like the Media Center Extenders.

Why compete? Windows Media Extenders are built upon the upnp spec which is a complete standard for controlling devices as simple as a light switch and as complex as complete home theater systems.

You can find some great documentation at www.upnp.org and intel's developer website. Intel's site even has source and binaries for complete working servers and clients. You can even go as far as to use the intel client connected to a windows media connect server. I assume it would work the other way around too. The code intel provides already supports file transport of video / audio / pictures (really anything) and streaming video and audio aswell. I believe the Intel code is released under a license allowing any use, commercial or non.

Upnp's backbone is http1.1, and all the data sent for controls and configuration is pure xml. It's really quite simple and elegant to work with.