Enigma2 Plug In for NPVR5

[gdogg371]

Hi all...I am currently a good way along with having a working Enigma2 plug in for NPVR5. For the time being it is pretty basic, but when an initial version is ready it will allow you to:

1. Get a channel List.
   
2. Get an EPG for those channels.
   
3. Pick channels from a bouquet.
   
4. Blast the box to replicate the remote control.
   
5. View the channel stream in NPVR, Kodi-NPVR or whatever using a command line encoding pipe (either cVLC or FFMPEG directly - not decided yet).
   

It's a couple of afternoon's work so far and is basically just some Python plugged into and streaming from the Engima2 box via http and Open Webif. To plug into NPVR you would then have to create a couple of additional config files and create an extra device in the NPVR server web session (Sub - can the steps that I laboured through painfully to get my last STB running in NPVR as an extra be automated any? Am happy to build that step if so).

Of course you can always just run then Enigma2 and NPVR backends in tandem in Kodi, but that introduces various issues, particularly around channel groups and numbering. By using an Engima plugin within NPVR, you can then set up all your channels and groups outside Kodi and just use a single PVR back end.

The Kodi Enigma2 plugin is a lot more customisable and advanced than what I have so far. If no one on here is interested, I will just go as far as I need to and leave it at that. However, I am looking for a hobby project to improve my C++ skills with, so could be tempted to put the effort in if enough people would find it useful.

Please let me know your thoughts...

Thanks

[sub]

Sub - can the steps that I laboured through painfully to get my last STB running in NPVR as an extra be automated any? Am happy to build that step if so

In what way? I'm not sure what I could do to make life simpler for your very Enigma2-specific plugin.

Ultimately the Extra's plugins provide you a very simple, device agnostic, way to get other video from other sources into NextPVR. Most of the complication you describe above are complicated because of Enigma2, not NextPVR.

[mvallevand]

The main difficultly for most people testing extras is getting used to script files that work stdout. The only help you could give it providing ffplay with ffmpeg to help with the testing.

The secondary problem @gdogg371 had was coming up with a good 4k transcoding options totally outside of NextPVR control.

For basic Dreambox support an m3u file should work since each channel has a URL and NexPVR IPTV support should just work The trouble is Enigma2 boxes are now often pirate boxes so there are not just typical channels, there is VOD and changing channels to deal with.

Martin

[gdogg371]

The main difficultly for most people testing extras is getting used to script files that work stdout.  The only help you could give it providing ffplay with ffmpeg to help with the testing.

The secondary problem @gdogg371 had was coming up with a good 4k transcoding options totally outside of NextPVR control.

For basic Dreambox support an m3u file should work since each channel has a URL and NexPVR IPTV support should just work  The trouble is Enigma2 boxes are now often pirate boxes so there are not just typical channels, there is VOD and changing channels to deal with.

Martin

You can access the different channels on the box using a combination of the box IP address and the serviceref for each channel. That's a very basic way of doing things that does not require a full blaster for the box. There is a pretty well established API that allows you to get the service refs from the box via a very simple Python script. The encoding overheads are also a lot lower for this STB as it has pretty much no 4K content on it.

As I say, the M3U playlist approach is very basic and minimal effort to implement, but you do lose the ability to use the remote API commands for things such as VOD etc if you have them. Mine has a legit viewing card in it, but most of the channels are freeview anyway. I currently only have a fixed dish with a single tuner, but I'd like to get a motorised dish and a better enigma2 box with multiple feeds from the dish as my next step.

Most of the pain (for which I owe Martin a huge debt of gratitude) is now out of the way, as I know how to set up the extras config files and use them to trigger my own add on code. With that being said, I might go down the more difficult, but more functional option anyway.

With regards to automating the NPVR bit, copying the config files and some code of my own to a location where NPVR can use it is not a problem. With regards to further automation, I simply meant are there any API hooks into NPVR where I could automate the registering the additional device under extras, rather than doing in manually as at present?

[martint123]

I'll be keeping my eyes open as I got a couple of enigma 2 boxes, mainly used as media players from the NPVR recordings directory.
I've benn using them along with Freds??? samsung TV client for scheduling. It's playing seems to have sadly failed with later npvr versions.

[ardunt]

Hi gdogg371,

Did you get any further with the Enigma2 Plugin, I am interested in using this with my Enigma2 box.

[martint123]

sadly no nearer.