Use Video capture card as input to MP (1 Viewer)

[wjw]

Hi,
Not sure whether this is really "off topic" or not as this is really about the abilities of MP, but couldn't think where else to post. So.....

A question to ask whether anyone has either used - or tried to use - a video capture card as an input to MP.

The thought is that as I simply can't get the Online Videos plugin to work with Amazon Prime (or the BBC iPlayer either) an alternative might be to use an Amazon Fire tv stick (which I already have) but to connect that to a video capture card in order to deliver the video stream into a USB port on a PC rather than to an HDMI port on the TV. Obviously the idea would then be to use that input into MP to display/manage the content as part of the whole MP media management rather than having to switch to using the TV whenever I want to watch media sources not handled by MP.

Any suggestions about how this might be set up as an input source to MP would be appreciated.

 

[doskabouter]

Creative solution...
I could imagine that such a capture card produces some kind of stream that could be plugged in the tvservice or onlinevideos, but that's really dependent on what kind of stream that card produces.
However starting, stopping (and possibly changing amazon-stream) is going to be a bit of a puzzle. Could be doable though with enough effort...
That being said, there is some development going on in onlinevideos (by me and @wizard123 ) where Amazon prime is going to work again.
And as for bbc iplayer, that still works in current onlinevideos as far as I know

 

[wjw]

Thanks for the reply - and I will look forward to having a working version of onlinevideos for Amazon.

Actually I see the control of the stream as the easy part. The source of the stream into MP would still be the Amazon Fire stick (or any other streaming device such as the Roku one) so control of the content of what is being watched would still be done by the remote for that device. If you have a multi-purpose controller like the Logitec then it will be a trivial matter to set that up to manage the PC, TV and (in my case a Sony) receiver as I do now.

I have now found that Amazon have a capture card for just £5 (possibly not of the highest quality!) but it will be a very low cost way of finding out whether this concept can be made to work.

I have ordered one and will post again if anything useful comes from it.

 

[doskabouter]

Just had a thought: if amazon prime puts drm on their streams then you won't be able to capture them...

 

[wjw]

Just to let you know where I am with this.

I got the capture card and set it up as required. FireTVstick->Video Capture Card->USB port on PC.

For simplicity at this stage I chose VLC to see if it worked - and it did! VLC sees the new device as a USB capture card, select play - and the stream from the FIreTV appears in the VLC window.

No issues with decrypting/DRM protection as all that is clearly being done by the FireTV device. Using the remote for this controls all stop/start/select whichever streaming app you want, just as if the FireTV was actually installed on the PC.

I haven't yet tried using MP.

If it were made possible to incorporate some way of recognising this new video stream wihin MP It occurs to to me that anyone prepared to spend what is really a very modest sum would get a future proof way of having easy access to lots of streaming services in a very user friendly way. No need to modify anything in MP should the streaming source decide to make changes - this is all handled within the chosen streaming device. So perhaps a relatively simple way of future proofing MP as we move more and more into the streaming age?

I just wish I had the programming skills to consider doing this myself, but sadly all my experience there was back in the prehistoric age (I started my IT life as a COBOL programmer and am long since retired).

 

[doskabouter]

Nice!
Thinking about it, it still could be the case that VLC can decrypt the DRM stream, so that it's showing there might not mean that much...
Next step would be to see if there's anything that looks like an url that you could put into some MP software.
If that can be found but playback in f.e. mplayer isn't working, there still is an option to use VLC as player in onlinevideos... (if that still works is anyone's guess...)

Edit: or find out what the command line paraeters are for vlc to use it with multishortcut plugin (if that still exists/works)

 

[wjw]

These things are never easy! I connected the FireTV/Capture card to another PC I have which is easier to get at and play about with. Same version of VLC on this machine refuses to recognise the USB capture device.

I will need to sort this out before I get much further.

Re the use of VLC in OnLine videos, is this specific to either MP1 or 2?

Would the use of the Launcher function in MP2 work to start VLC?

 

[doskabouter]

I really don't know that much of MP2, but for MP1 there is at least an option to play something with vlc. I remember trying to get this to work a couple of years ago, but it took more time than my patience, so I didn't finish that....
Launcher functions I also don't have any experience with, I'm just throwing some ideas/areas of investigation over the fence

 

[wjw]

Thanks for your interest and suggestions. I am still trying to work out why things work fine on one PC but not on another running the same versions of Windows and VLC - when as far as Windows is concerned Device Manager tells me that the USB camera (which is what the device shows up as) has been properly installed on both.

I post again when I have something new to say.

 

[wjw]

I resolved the issue with VLC not being recognised.

I have now managed to get very close to where I want to be - but only with MP2, not MP1. I really do not want to change as the look/feel/usage of MP1 is well understood and change really would not be welcome!

I have installed a copy of MP2 on a test machine (no TV Server) and explored the use of the Launcher function. This works perfectly. I have set up a .bat file to start VLC with the correct parameters to define the media source to be used (and a few other config details) and added a new function to Launcher to run this .bat file. Run this and MP2 switches immediately to VLC with the Amazon FireTV screen displayed. From there all control is via the Amazon remote. So I now know that it is entirely possible to have access to all streaming services (at least those already implemented on a streaming device such as the Amazon one) from within MP2 without any further software modifications to MP. And for what is really a very low cost.

So the question now is whether this can be done in MP1? I can't find anything in OnLineVideos that will start VLC - or any other external player. The only way I can see to start an external player in MP1 is via the Video setup page where an external player can be invoked for specific file types not handled by MP - so not usable in this case.

Is there anything in MP1 or plugins that I haven't found that can start an external process?