On Demand capture

[mvallevand]

Would any STB users be interested in having on demand recording in NextPVR?  I roughed in the code today and it works but it is a bit tedious because of two factors

- typical cable lag on keystrokes (this STB is older and is always slow even manually but for $15 I can't complain)
- annoying Kodi buffer time, it's fine at startup but you see the buffer OSD come on which means you need to wait for keystrokes.  I need about 8 seconds between keystrokes so end up doing a lot of counting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98P_XJ4...e=youtu.be

If no one wants this, this code works well enough for my purposes and I don't need to formalize it. 

The advantages for me with this approach are

- the on demand channel sometimes only has a couple of weeks older shows so I need to record shows while I catch up. 
- navigation is disabled in on demand and there are still some commercials
- I can only pause on the STB for 24 hours, afterward I lose the resume point.  Combined with the no navigation that is quite annoying
- recording PPV

For the technical side this Kodi addon is shown running on my Windows PC, it starts the On Demand Channel in NextPVR  on linux (my tuning script is set to ignore the blasting command for this channel) and everything is done by controlling the STB remotely by LIRC in my closet with my backend .  The recording is just a manual recording.  The lircd file needs to control more than just numbers.

Martin

[gdogg371]

Hi there again. If this is doing what I think it is doing then I am interested in piggy backing onto what you have done so far. Just to be sure, my required set up is this:

1) I build an XMLTV scraper or similar that generates a list of all the VOD content from my STB provider, including program descriptions, ratings, artwork etc.
2) My NPVR client (running on Windows 10 for now, but will eventually be moving to Linux also) reads in this list of VOD content to populate the lists you showed in your video.
3) I select in Kodi what I want to watch via NPVR and a blaster script I have written for my STB box is triggered via NPVR to download and begin playback of the content.
4) I am free/able to customise all the Kodi XML files that render the On Demand menu to suit my own formatting etc.
5) I can record the playback content to hard disk if I require.

I'm keen to move forward on VOD as quickly as possible with my setup, so please let me know your thoughts on the above and timescales in terms of my having something I can use myself.

Thanks

[mvallevand]

No those lists are coming directly from the STB and captured by HDMI, the skin and XML is absolute mininum. Instead of sending just channel numbers my Kodi keyboard/remote is controlling the STB instead of traditional FF/RW etc.

The plugin creates the dialog for recording and then a manual recording is created in NextPVR for the time specified. A users can leave the plugin but NextPVR continues recording on the VOD channel in the background.

I have used this with Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime but that was just for testing, since I don't see the point in capturing most of their permanent content which will always be available On Demand. The main goal for me was TV because many times shows are only held for few episodes.

Martin

[gdogg371]

No those lists are coming directly from the STB and captured by HDMI, the skin and XML is absolute mininum.  Instead of sending just channel numbers my Kodi keyboard/remote is controlling the STB instead of traditional FF/RW etc. 

The plugin creates the dialog for recording and then a manual recording is created in NextPVR for the time specified.  A users can leave the plugin but NextPVR continues recording on the VOD channel in the background.

I have used this with Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime but that was just for testing, since I don't see the point in capturing most of their permanent content which will always be available On Demand.  The main goal for me was TV because many times shows are only held for few episodes.

Martin

Hmmmm...I think what I actually need then is to write a Kodi plug in that does the following:

1) Creates a list of content.
2) Issues the correct commands to do a manual recording via NPVR.
3) Issues additional commands to controk my STB.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

[mvallevand]

With the vagaries of IR blasting, I don't think scripting will work. Certainly my VOD content is not static enough to waste anytime trying to manually create XML files so our projects don't seem at all related.

Martin

[gdogg371]

With the vagaries of IR blasting, I don't think scripting will work.  Certainly my VOD content is not static enough to waste anytime trying to manually create XML files so our projects don't seem at all related.

Martin

No, I don't think so. However, you have still given me some valuable insight on both this and my own thread, so thanks once again...

[gdogg371]

To tidy up some cross posting on my own thread and having discussed with Martin further, it sounds like the best option for me is to have two extras devices. One for Live TV with it's own blaster scripts and one for VOD likewise. I've only just started looking at what Martin has been working on so far, but so far I think I am ok with the NPVR extras bit and writing a Kodi plugin bit. The bit I am unsure of is how NPVR is being made available to a part of Kodi other than the PVR section. Martin has sent me this GitHub link for his project to look at, so I'll reappear with some questions later today no doubt!

https://github.com/emveepee/X-NEWA

[ciccio]

Hey Martin, this this ever go anywhere

 

Would any STB users be interested in having on demand recording in NextPVR?  I roughed in the code today and it works but it is a bit tedious because of two factors

- typical cable lag on keystrokes (this STB is older and is always slow even manually but for $15 I can't complain)
- annoying Kodi buffer time, it's fine at startup but you see the buffer OSD come on which means you need to wait for keystrokes.  I need about 8 seconds between keystrokes so end up doing a lot of counting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B98P_XJ4...e=youtu.be

If no one wants this, this code works well enough for my purposes and I don't need to formalize it. 

The advantages for me with this approach are

- the on demand channel sometimes only has a couple of weeks older shows so I need to record shows while I catch up. 
- navigation is disabled in on demand and there are still some commercials
- I can only pause on the STB for 24 hours, afterward I lose the resume point.  Combined with the no navigation that is quite annoying
- recording PPV

For the technical side this Kodi addon is shown running on my Windows PC, it starts the On Demand Channel in NextPVR  on linux (my tuning script is set to ignore the blasting command for this channel) and everything is done by controlling the STB remotely by LIRC in my closet with my backend .  The recording is just a manual recording.  The lircd file needs to control more than just numbers.

Martin

[mvallevand]

No like many of my experiments I dropped it since no one was interested. It really needs lag free remote control to make it worth implementing.

Martin