18 replies to this topic

[Phat Phreddy]

Perhaps someone involved with PLI would see the value in the following project.

Have you heard of DVBSbridge (now DVBSLogic) ?? Its a piece of software that links ProgDVB and MyTheater DVB applications, using a PC sat grab card, and the windows media center TV streams.

This means of course that media center then has live TV via DVB-S (unsupported by MS for god knows why ??) which is then pausable, recordable, PVR, etc all via the MCE interface and one remote.. Plus you can stream out through a home to media center nodes / extenders.

One of the big problems with the DVBLogic app is it relies on a pretty buggy combo of multiple apps for the decode, capture, and then input to MCE of the MPEG stream. I have introduced to them the dreambox and tried to explain how the dreambox could do all this with best in class external hardware and network the stream in.

They are very interested in the project, but dont know much about the dreambox and want to partner with people with dreambox experience. I think they fear the dreambox is more complex than it is (for this form of streaming) despite me explaining how readily available a network stream is and the lack of a need to program the dreambox side merely use the available network stream and TCP control interface.

Combining the dreambox and MCE would be the holy grail of integration for smarthome setups. It would put best in class hardware and software together to create a full interface and stream control. Plus this is a very simple thing to engineer compared to the approach they have already done, its the simple TCP commands they need to pass over the network, or so it seems to me as a non programmer.

The DVBLogic site is here

http://dvblogic.com/

My discussion about the dreambox hardware option on thier forum is here

http://dvblogic.com/...c.php?f=2&t=791

If anyone at the PLI team was interested they are very open to working together and have a full SDK available.

I hope you dont see this as any pressure but this would be an absolute killer feature and seems fairly minimal work to achieve.

[jonc]

Also see - http://www.pli-image...4246#post_64246 for the playback of Dm recorded files in Vista Media Center, that part is available now along with writing a cd/dvd from the recorded content.

[Phat Phreddy]

Thanks, but its not the playback of recorded streams that I am talking about..

MCE has a 'TV' system that does PVR, pause live TV, EPG etc all within MCE. I am trying to get the dreambox stream into MCE for the live TV button.

This is being done by a different approach by DVBLogic.. But it is not currently able to use the dreambox as a networked capture device despite all the elements for this being there.

Its all just so close !!

[jonc]

see this that I just put in the wiki, it is very close indeed - http://www.pli-image...?wakka=restream

[Phat Phreddy]

Thats another interesting link..

Is there any documentation for the dreambox steam API ??

Like info on the TCP control of channels / volume / getting channel and EPG data / Etc etc etc..

With that documentation and the DVBLogic SDK it falls into place a bit more..

[jonc]

Ah but it is html based, and your friends do not like this they said

[Phat Phreddy]

But is there a TCP control API.. When they say they dont like web based they mean pulling the stream from the webtv page..

I dont think network control is a problem, obviously it would have to be a TCP control solution.

[jonc]

I know what you are after (and this is not it) but here is a quick hack to put PLi Web-X-TV into media center (a few minutes work - just need time to clean it up) but this does it for me as I do not use Vista Media Center all over the house (I use the DM boxes as extenders for their own Media Center network)

[Phat Phreddy]

Nice work anyway..

I will stay subscribed to this and the jsat threads.. If you make any progress or have anything to test..

[jonc]

works well, moves the dish, changes the channel, changes the bouquets but in its own section, not integrated into the TV section, watching the golf channel with it right now as I type this.

Attached Files

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[Phat Phreddy]

Yeah nice progress for sure.. One more thing to tinker around with !!

You would experience some additional limitations when trying to use it without a mouse tho I think.. The media center system working with a MCE remote all falls into one remote one interface.. Thats when MCE stops looking like a computer and looks like a media device, the big appeal to many of its users.

My main room HTPC connected to the projector boots straight into MCE and is used from startup to shutdown with a MC remote. When its so simple the GF can use it all, thats when its working well (and I dont get complained at !!)

[jonc]

Yes with the way I did this you are 100% correct, as I said it was only a hack to get it into the Vista Media center here, as we use the DM boxes as extenders of their own Media Center.

For me as this works I will leave it to others who much more than me to do it properly.

Come on people get involved and help him out here

[Phat Phreddy]

Could anyone help point me towards the documentation that covers the TCP control interface ??

The commands passed over the network for channel changes ?? Volume etc.. How the channel data is handled back ??

[bartender]

It's just done via http posts, easiest way is to go into Box Control -> Remote to bring up the remote control interface, then mouse over the keys you want to do, then it's done via a http post http://dreamboxip/cgi-bin/rc?#### replacing #### with the RC code you want to do.

[Phat Phreddy]

Yeah I had kinda looked at that way of reverse engineering the codes.. But I also need to find out how the channel title info is passed ?? how bouqet listings are handled ?? etc.

Those kind of things need to be handled in a 2 way passing of information.

Is there any documentation for enigma / PLI on this subject ??

[migube]

Mediaportal has a plugin for dreambox, have to try it though

[bowman]

There is the source code for the enigma web bits, thats probably all there is in terms of documentation.
Every util/frontend I've seen has scraped html from the webui to get bouquet/service lists and status, but there might be better ways.
I made a quick hack myself once which seems to work regardless of what layout mods the images make in the enigma1 web:

win32 tray util - http://bowman.rtfm.se/DreamTray.exe
partial source - http://bowman.rtfm.se/DreamTray.dpr

[Captain Jack]

Bowman, great little program! Has anyone made any progress with developing a plugin for MCE?

[bowman]

I still use it... it defines some global hotkeys that are perhaps not obvious:

ctrl+alt M (or altgr M) - toggle mute
ctrl+alt I (or altgr I) - show balloon tip for current epg item
ctrl+alt N (or altgr N) - same for next epg item