Pausing Live TV streams

[KRA]

but it's only as good as the backend is capable (and the plumbing in between).. IMHO.

Ah, but so far xbmc is kneecapping the backends and their capabilities imho.

[osx-addict]

Agreed.. By the way.. I did find an architecture doc -- a bit dated from 2009 but probably large parts are still valid

[mvallevand]

Good discussion, but since NextPVR is not open source, sub can't include any of the software that was written for other PVR servers so he would have to build a brand new rtsp streaming server from scratch. I think he's done an amazing job of plugging in all his existing components and creating new interfaces to get this up in running in under two months, and to be honest stabilizing what he has done for the Frodo final and continuing to make backend improvements would be the most valuable thing he can do. Sub has regularly stated that recording is much more important to NextPVR users so to focus on LiveTV to XBMC via a a new server could end up being a major distraction.

Regarding time-shifting I can get it working in X-NEWA via methods that aren't available in the PVR interface. However how well XBMC handles growing file is very iffy and not all versions can even handle them. Many users who may not understand what XBMC alpha software is (not even beta) might have too high an expectation at this point.

Martin

[osx-addict]

Martin .. Thanks for the background.. I guess I hadn't bothered to look all that closely at NextPVR's site to see whether it was OSS or not -- I assumed it was because it was free but I was generalizing and probably should not have mentioned that without confirming..

Regarding time-shifting I can get it working in X-NEWA via methods that aren't available in the PVR interface. However how well XBMC handles growing file is very iffy and not all versions can even handle them. Many users who may not understand what XBMC alpha software is (not even beta) might have too high an expectation at this point.

Based on this comment can I assume that you are effectively bypassing the official PVR interface to communicate directly with NPVR through semi-published means (or private ones perhaps)? Now that I'm getting more familiar with the politics & thoughts behind these pieces of software, I'm wondering if your add-on (X-NEWA) might be a better approach at least in the short-term for getting things done with XBMC and possibly avoiding the API/Plugin issues that Sub has alluded to..

[wileecoyote]

I'm going to start out with the NPVR/XBMC plugin and try to get it going for OSX to get my feet wet and see what I can glean from the code..

In theory the add-ons from the opdenkamp repository should build on OSX. I loaded xcode (3.2.6) on my Macbook Air (Snow Leopard) but couldn't get it past the ./configure stage. Says its missing something, I forget the exact error message, something to do with ffmpeg dependency I think. I have not tried much further as I haven't had time. If you get it to build let me know I would be happy to test on OSX as well.

As long as we are venting here... Another thing that's irritating is the Frodo OSX nightlies include the opdenkamp build's from a month or so ago. I'm not sure why, but they haven't been pulling the latest from the add-on repository. If they would pull the latest we wouldn't have to build it separately.

[KRA]

I assume X-NEWA plugin uses the same interface as VLC for playing live-tv. Because it can pause and FF but not rewind. Also if pause is done for more than 15-20 sec it stops (same as VLC). However what I want the most when it comes to timeshifting is to rewind live-tv and to join in on a current recording and start watching from beginning rather than live.

For me NPVR is currently the best match for my backend "needs", but this timeshift issue is a blow, like I said I was under the impression that once the code was pulled, all other plugins could use it. I don't get why they would say that if it only works with rtsp, something that those mentioned plugins only use as fallback if tsreader (direct access to TS file) fails. Maybe I missunderstood something ?

[osx-addict]

KRA - you've got me on what X-NEWA is doing -- perhaps Martin can clue us in a little perhaps.. I really like the features of NPVR especially the slick picture-n-picture feature but really like the look-n-feel of XBMC -- kinda the workhorse vs the glitz.. Hence the interest to run the pair together.. IF some things are adjusted to make it a bit more seamless without odd problems (mostly on the XBMC side I think) it would improve our overall WAF rating.. Our current TV viewing box of choice is SageTV but since google bought them out I think it's a matter of time before its a dead product.. That combined with a recent server issue on our machine at home were the impetus to look at alternatives again hence me being here.. Last night I tried to get Sage up and running -- and it was but the media extender (HD300) couldn't see it for some reason.. Doh! So, my WAF was really low last night -- wife had to watch Netflix on the Sony BD player..

WEC - I was stuck last night because I didn't have autoconf & friends on my laptop (running ML) -- I needed to load up the latest xcode (4.5) and that was taking forever.. Will try some more tonight..

[sub]

I don't get why they would say that if it only works with rtsp,

It's not really RTSP-only, but the scheme is better suited to that type of communication. It definitely wasn't well suited to standard HTTP streaming, which addons like NextPVR use.

As mentioned earlier, I'll need to experiment before I can decide if I can add timeshift support to the NextPVR addon support. If I do, I'll be be moving to the live tv streaming from HTTP to a different mechanism. A big pain in the arse, which could have been avoided.

[osx-addict]

Sub/Martin -- is it safe to assume that the X-NEWA add-on is effectively bypassing the API in total or part compared to the regular NextPVR add-on which is following the prescribed API? Just curious..

[KRA]

X-NEWA is a program plugin, not a PVR plugin, so X-NEWA does not rely on the frodo pvr api