Open stream in external player

[ctrlbrk]

Hi guys,

I want to switch from TVH to NextPVR.  I love the simplicity and the "it just works" philosophy, although I do miss some of the power user settings I get in tvh.

Anyway, I have one HUGE gripe that is preventing me from switching.  The wife factor!!

She needs to be able to open the app, click the guide, and then Chromecast.  With TVH, there was a client called tvhclient by Robert that had Chromecast built-in.  However, this is not needed.

What is needed is super simple... please let us choose a default player!  In my case, I would chose VLC for her on Android, and then she'll get the Chromecast icon right there even if the stream needs converting - VLC will do it seamlessly.

How hard would it be to do this please?  I would love it if you could send me a test APK.  I have a four Chromecasts in my house, three Android devices that would have the client, and a huge library of videos and IPTV streams to test against.

Thank you

[ctrlbrk]

@sub, just a side note.

This thread:
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=59393

a) The link for auto-restarting Docker is broken.
b) The thread title has a type-o in 'information'

Also:
c) You should append to the dockerfile and readme:
--name nextpvr
--publish 16891:16891/udp
--restart unless-stopped

[sub]

@sub, just a side note.

This thread:
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=59393

a) The link for auto-restarting Docker is broken.
b) The thread title has a type-o in 'information'

Also:
c) You should append to the dockerfile and readme:
--name nextpvr
--publish 16891:16891/udp
--restart unless-stopped

Ok, I've made these changes.

[sub]

What is needed is super simple... please let us choose a default player!  In my case, I would chose VLC for her on Android, and then she'll get the Chromecast icon right there even if the stream needs converting - VLC will do it seamlessly.

I'm not sure that's practical. I'd have no control over VLC or other player, so channel channels would not be possible with closing that application and going back into NextPVR and selecting a new channel.

[ctrlbrk]

What is needed is super simple... please let us choose a default player!  In my case, I would chose VLC for her on Android, and then she'll get the Chromecast icon right there even if the stream needs converting - VLC will do it seamlessly.

I'm not sure that's practical. I'd have no control over VLC or other player, so channel channels would not be possible with closing that application and going back into NextPVR and selecting a new channel.

Yes, that's fine.  Other IPTV players for tvheadend and etc all do that as well.  But the thing is, your player doesn't support Chromecast which is a requirement in my house.  I can't even get family members to look at your app until it has Chromecast.

So, fastest way to have Chromecast is just to let people pick their own external player.  VLC can transcode on-the-fly and cast to Chromecast, without your app needing to do anything.

Just pass the stream to the external player and let the user select what player.  Don't worry about channel switching.

Then ultimately, if you added Chromecast internally that would be great.  Since you already can transcode internally with your server, it's not that hard actually.  Take a look at this app as an example of built-in Chromecast for tvheadend on client side, he lets you select the transcode profile and you can also see it uses the internal or external player depending on your option.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tvheadend.tvhclient&hl=en

Thanks @sub.  I honestly hope I can convince you to please add external open-with support as quickly as possible.  I'm all excited to start using NPVR but simply cannot go any further until this is done.  Being limited to watching on-device just doesn't work for my family.

[sub]

Unfortunately the reality is that this is a one man development project, and I have to spread myself across the backend and the various client (but thankfully with help from others in the community for Kodi client and for support). Ultimately my time is pretty limited, and Android development is the area I'm least comfortable, so things move pretty slowly on that front. I do have a bit of a wish list for changes I want to make in this area, and I've added your request to the list. I couldn't tell you when I'll find time for it though.

[ctrlbrk]

Unfortunately the reality is that this is a one man development project, and I have to spread myself across the backend and the various client (but thankfully with help from others in the community for Kodi client and for support). Ultimately my time is pretty limited, and Android development is the area I'm least comfortable, so things move pretty slowly on that front. I do have a bit of a wish list for changes I want to make in this area, and I've added your request to the list. I couldn't tell you when I'll find time for it though.

I understand.  If it's any motivation for ROI on your time, I could offer up a decent paypal donation to support the entire nextpvr cause.  I honestly am so tired of tvheadend, and nextpvr seems to be the solution I'm looking for --- except I've got to get my clients working with Chromecast.  Right now, the server side looks good from what I can tell.

So for me, once nextpvr works, it's worth $$$ to me.  I'm not trying to buy you but to instead say what it's worth to me personally, perhaps $100 donation for external player link support in Android, and to fix the magenta glowing background on dark theme as a bonus 

Thanks for all you do.  I'm sure over the years you've weighed the pros/cons of putting up a github repo of the project and turning it open source?  I think there is a lot of people wanting an alternative to what's out there...