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General => Developers => Topic started by: niz23 on July 08, 2008, 03:33:47 pm

Title: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: niz23 on July 08, 2008, 03:33:47 pm
Hi all.

I believe a lot of people including me is waiting for the fully functional VDR that there have been a lot of talk about.
About a month ago there was some discussion and it was said that it was in testing stage and would soon be released.

When can we expect it to be released?
As it is in testing stages isn´t it better to let a more people test/evaluate to find bugs so that we can have better quality in the released version.
I think it will gain all parts involved.


/niz23
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: colinjones on July 08, 2008, 10:59:45 pm
Here,here! I agree. Would at least like to know what is being worked on. Moving more stuff to the LMCE UI and away from the OSD? Keymappings? Can we test?
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 09, 2008, 11:41:05 am
Here,here! I agree. Would at least like to know what is being worked on. Moving more stuff to the LMCE UI and away from the OSD? Keymappings? Can we test?

We're working on increased stability of the 'plumbing' between vdr and DCErouter/Appserver, better integration with UI2 (but complete integration is still some way off), implementing analog in and control of analog video sources and streaming live and recorded TV.

The process we go through to get these enhancements into the public release needs to be improved and streamlined I agree. I for one cant wait to see the day when fixes/enhancements flow in from the community and not just from us and I realise we still have some work to do to make that happen - but we will.

We're still a a few weeks away from the next update to vdr which I hope will be available as a pushed update that all existing installations will automatically receive.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: niz23 on July 09, 2008, 12:01:29 pm
totallymaxed.

We're working on increased stability of the 'plumbing' between vdr and DCErouter/Appserver, better integration with UI2 (but complete integration is still some way off), implementing analog in and control of analog video sources and streaming live and recorded TV.

The process we go through to get these enhancements into the public release needs to be improved and streamlined I agree. I for one cant wait to see the day when fixes/enhancements flow in from the community and not just from us and I realise we still have some work to do to make that happen - but we will.

We're still a a few weeks away from the next update to vdr which I hope will be available as a pushed update that all existing installations will automatically receive.

All the best

Andrew

This sound great!

I can help you to test/verify before the public release, even if it is contain bugs and stability issues. Please PM me if it is possible.
I´m in sweden if that make any difference.

/niz23
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: Marie.O on July 10, 2008, 11:36:41 am
Hello Andrew,

if I understand you correct, the main problem right now is not the distribution of the DVB received live data, but more the analog side of things. Is that correct?

If that is true, it would be great if you could release a version that just does the distribution part of things, and leave the rest for a later release.

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: nite_man on July 10, 2008, 12:00:09 pm
I agree with Oliver. In my case the most waited feature of LinuxMCE is possibility to distribute DVB stream by media directors with VDR. If it's possible let's do pre-release only DVB part and leave analog side for the future updates.
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 10, 2008, 05:49:09 pm
Hello Andrew,

if I understand you correct, the main problem right now is not the distribution of the DVB received live data, but more the analog side of things. Is that correct?

If that is true, it would be great if you could release a version that just does the distribution part of things, and leave the rest for a later release.

rgds
Oliver

As I said in my earlier post in this thread there are a range of fixes & improvements that are in development/testing some or all of those may be in the update. When the vdr update is ready then it will almost certainly be combined with several other fixes/improvements to other parts of the current base release and these together will form a single update.

When all of these have been combined and then tested they will then be posted to the update server and will trigger an update alert on LinuxMCE-0710 installations.

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: Marie.O on July 10, 2008, 07:28:23 pm
Andrew,

and I do hear you. There is currently a HUGE number of people, that would LOVE having a basic VDR integration. From your first message in this thread, it looks to me, as if you are trying to get a lot of things going in the system, where most people want BASIC functionality, only.

I hope, once the vacation season is over, we do get to see at least a basic integration of VDR in LinuxMCE. And maybe even have access to the source via the regular Subversion repository.

rgds
Oliver
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: niz23 on July 10, 2008, 11:23:01 pm
I totally agree with above. There is no real need for fancy stuff like analog switching etc. Even though it is a nice feature.
Basic integration if fine in an initial release.

As I said before I´ll be happy to help track bugs down and probably a lot of others in the community is equally interested.

/niz23
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: colinjones on July 11, 2008, 03:07:01 am
Guys - don't forget, Andrew isn't only doing it for us! His paying customers are almost as important :)
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: nite_man on July 11, 2008, 09:00:01 am
I agree with Andrew. The massive update should be released only for good tested parts. But for community can be done some beta update of just a sources :) I think all VDR users here will be happy to help with testing and bug-fixing. But, of course, Andrew knows better what he should do :) In any case we should say him and his team a big-big thanks for VDR integration in LMCE!
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: Marie.O on July 12, 2008, 04:25:03 pm
Michael,

of course. Thanks to Andrew and his team, the VDR integration is getting along. And they probably have good reasons for their course of action. It still bugs me a bit though :) as the VDR implementation as it is there right now, is much more stable than the MythTV implementation, when it comes to DVB-S signal problems.

rgds
Oliver

PS: Michael, the ATI RemoteWonder works in LinuxMCE as well ;)
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: tityann on July 13, 2008, 01:19:00 am
hello
sorry for my english , i am french (a french VDR user  :-X     )
which version of vdr is planned to be installed in linuxmce ??? 1.6.x stable branch ot the 1.7.x devellopper branch ????
thanks
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: niz23 on July 13, 2008, 10:05:43 am
tityann.
hello
sorry for my english , i am french (a french VDR user  :-X     )
which version of vdr is planned to be installed in linuxmce ??? 1.6.x stable branch ot the 1.7.x devellopper branch ????
thanks

Pretty sure it will be 1.6.x since development trees are not stable it is not what we want in a stable lmce release.

/niz23
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: niz23 on July 13, 2008, 10:39:17 am
Big thanks to Andrew and his team for creating the VDR integration.
Keep up the great work on VDR Andrew and team.

We are looking forward for a release even if it is only a community preview/beta.

/niz23

Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 13, 2008, 11:50:33 am
hello
sorry for my english , i am french (a french VDR user  :-X     )
which version of vdr is planned to be installed in linuxmce ??? 1.6.x stable branch ot the 1.7.x devellopper branch ????
thanks

Hi Tityann,

Welcome!

The current LinuxMCE-0710 vdr integration uses vdr-1.6.0. When we talk about an 'update' to vdr in LinuxMCE we are really referring to the 'wrapper code' around vdr as we always use 100% standard stable vdr versions. So the next update will contain some or all of the changes/fixes mentioned by me earlier in this thread and will be based on the vdr-1.6.0 codebase (and plugins).

It is very likely that there could be a 'vdr-1.7.x' version for testing some of the new HD capabilities... but that is not imminent.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 13, 2008, 12:12:25 pm
Guys - don't forget, Andrew isn't only doing it for us! His paying customers are almost as important :)

Hi Colin,

Your right we do have customers and we have a planned set of updates/improvements in the pipeline... and as i said earlier we are still trying to this whole process working smoothly for everyone... the LinuxMCE community, Dianemo customers and our software guys too! Yes we have paying customers but we also have deep roots here in this community too and none of our paying customers would have a system if it was not for this community... so the relationship is pretty symbiotic in my view. 

Our primary goal is to get the update out the door so that ordinary LinuxMCE-0710 users can get it on their systems. But we are also aware that there is a need to get the sources into the svn and we are trying to get that process right too. So please bare with us and we'll get it to you as soon as its possible to do so. As I said earlier in this thread I live for the day when one of you guys comes up with some incredible new feature by extending our vdr code.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: colinjones on July 13, 2008, 02:44:48 pm
Andrew - understood and agreed, the irony was directed elsewhere :)  btw I just started teaching myself C++, next is the Linux kernel generally then the LMCE codebase. Gotta get away from dependency and start contributing, but it is a steep learning curve so don't expect anything too soon :)
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 13, 2008, 04:19:16 pm
Andrew - understood and agreed, the irony was directed elsewhere :)  btw I just started teaching myself C++, next is the Linux kernel generally then the LMCE codebase. Gotta get away from dependency and start contributing, but it is a steep learning curve so don't expect anything too soon :)

No problem Colin no offense taken in anyway at all by the way.

Enjoy the journey on the C++ front ;-)

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: mami on July 24, 2008, 06:55:34 am
It was nice reading this posts.
When you release the VDR updates, can you also release ttxtsubs-plugin for VDR? Many channels (nordic) need this to show there subtitles. It need to have VDR patched as well to work...

Waiting for the VDR releases...

Thnx
/Mami
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 24, 2008, 10:58:57 am
It was nice reading this posts.
When you release the VDR updates, can you also release ttxtsubs-plugin for VDR? Many channels (nordic) need this to show there subtitles. It need to have VDR patched as well to work...

Waiting for the VDR releases...

Thnx
/Mami

We'll look at that for sure. We do hope to make the sources available to so you could patch it yourself if needed.

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: scubidoo on July 30, 2008, 12:06:16 am
hello

i have a skystar hd2 dvb-s2 card , i acheive to compile vdr and mythtv whith mantis drivers and coreavc for mythtv on ubuntu 8.04

my question is there any way to compile on linux 7.10 ???

because i want to use to see olimpics games on hd but whith linuxmce

i am new on linux mce and what i read i need to compile on source and i want to know what is the folder of configs for the mythtv and vdr and what else is relevant do exchange

thanks already for your help
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: jayzee on July 31, 2008, 01:26:02 pm
Hi Andrew and other VDR hopefulls.

I too am keen to see the vdr integration to allow watching tv on media directors.

I currently have mythtv setup and although it is a lot better in 7.10 it still crashes occasionally and could do with running a bit smoother/quicker when changing channel and inputs before it could be relied on as an alternative to sky + or similar.

from everything I have seen and read, VDR should be a lot better and I believe getting decent tv running is one of the major functions that is going to attract people to the lmce project so getting it running nicely it probably key to the success of the project as a whole.

Andrew,

it was mentioned that you already have customers who use your implementation of the lmce system - what do they currently do for tv on MDs if that is part of the service that you offer them?

also you mentioned at the begining of July that and update for VDR would hopefully be available in a few weeks - is there an update on this updates time frame:)  and what added functionality it will allow

keep up the good work
J
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on July 31, 2008, 04:02:33 pm
Hi Andrew and other VDR hopefulls.

I too am keen to see the vdr integration to allow watching tv on media directors.

I currently have mythtv setup and although it is a lot better in 7.10 it still crashes occasionally and could do with running a bit smoother/quicker when changing channel and inputs before it could be relied on as an alternative to sky + or similar.

from everything I have seen and read, VDR should be a lot better and I believe getting decent tv running is one of the major functions that is going to attract people to the lmce project so getting it running nicely it probably key to the success of the project as a whole.

Andrew,

it was mentioned that you already have customers who use your implementation of the lmce system - what do they currently do for tv on MDs if that is part of the service that you offer them?

also you mentioned at the begining of July that and update for VDR would hopefully be available in a few weeks - is there an update on this updates time frame:)  and what added functionality it will allow

keep up the good work
J


Hi J,

For Dianemo we have a newer more complete vdr integration now. Our LinuxMCE version is a variant of this with with Dianemo specific functionality removed and repackaged to work with LinuxMCE-0710.

For the most part the delay is down to this LinuxMCE repackaging and also to the integration into the push update mechanism and sheduling for LinuxMCE. Below is a list of the currently supported MCE remote buttons and VDR functions;

Code: [Select]

TV Off
Currently Unsupported

PC Off
Turn Off Dianemo or Stop Live TV

Record
Instant Record of current TV Channel

Stop
Stop playback recording

Pause
Pause Live TV or Recording

Rew
Rewind a recording

Play
Play a recording

Fwd
Fast Forward a recording

Replay
Press to jump back 1 min in recording. Hold down to repeatedly jump back in recording.

Skip
Press to Skip forward 1 min in recording. Hold down to repeatedly Skip forward in recording.

Back
Takes you back to last on-screen TV menu if watching Live TV or Recording and back to Previous on-screen menu if an on-screen menu is already displayed.

More Info
Press once to display Info screen for a Live Channel or a Recording. Press again to cancel Info screen.

Up Arrow
While watching Live TV does a Channel Up. In on-screen menu moves to menu option above.

Left Arrow
When watching a recording is equivalent to pressing Rewind. In on-screen Schedule menu moves backwards in time.

OK
In Live TV displays the mini on-screen guide for 5 secs. When playing a recording displays the progress panel. Press again to hide the recording progress panel.

Right Arrow
When watching a recording is equivalent to pressing Fwd. In on-screen Schedule menu moves forwards in time.

Down Arrow
While watching Live TV does a Channel Down. In on-screen menu moves to menu option below. When watching a recording is equivalent to pressing 'Pause'.

Vol - (+) (-)
Increase or Decrease volume

Green Start Button
Displays LinuxMCE Menu Bar.

Channel - (+) (-)
Increase or Decrease Channel number.

Mute
Toggles between Muted sound, on-screen subtitles and un-muted sound.

Recorded TV
Displays the on-screen TV Recordings list. Use Back repeatedly to back out of on-screen menus.

Guide
Displays the on-screen EPG Guide for the currently tuned channel. Use Colour buttons to Record, View Progs Now & Next, Schedule & Next.

Live TV
Turns on Live TV or if already watching Live TV displays the on-screen EPG.

DVD Menu
When watching Live TV displays Channel List.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,*,0,#
Use to choose channel number directly in Live TV or to jump ot on-screen menu items directly when an on-screen menu is displayed.

Clear
Currently Unsupported

Enter
Equivalent to pressing 'OK'

Text
Unsupported Currently

Red
In Live TV displays Recording on-screen menu. In on-screen menus does the 'Red' labeled function.

Green
In Live TV displays Channels on-screen menu. In on-screen menus does the 'Green' labeled function.

Yellow
In Live TV displays Info on-screen menu. In on-screen menus does the 'Yellow' labeled function.

Blue
In Live TV displays Timers on-screen menu. In on-screen menus does the 'Yellow' labeled function

Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: nite_man on August 04, 2008, 04:20:33 pm
It's possible to watch TV on MD using VDR and this simple hack - http://tinyurl.com/68wt96 (http://tinyurl.com/68wt96) (thanks to Rafik). It allows to watch only one channel on the all MD and hybrid core. But it's possible to switch channels from MD. So, this is only one solution for multiroom TV distribution till Andrew and his team release an updated integration functionality.
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: Viking on August 21, 2008, 11:58:29 am
Hi Andrew and the other VDR users,

I am looking into using LinuxMCE as my new Videosystem and offcourse all the other goodies that comes with it ;) and have got a couple of quistions that I think is ok placed here in this thread.

A little about my background : I am already using VDR at the moment , on my system it is compiled from the sources including a lots of plugins + patches. I have been using VDR for around 6 years and I am very pleased with what it does - it runs very stable and has loads of nice plugins :) 

I have a couple of questions
A. If I read your description of the buttons correctly, then the OSD menu of VDR is used while in TV mode - is this correctly ?
B. So the VDR menu is also used to start playback the recordings ?
C. And Recordings are done using VDR Timers ?
D. Where is the EPG stored ? In the mysql database or in the epg.data of VDR (or both)
E. Does this mean that one could use Epgsearch for programming timers (veeeery nice plugin for that) ?
F. And VDR plugins could be used ? (I did not find anything for writing/creating a DVD yet - but maybe I just did not find it ;))
G. How about recording and playback of H.264 (DVB-S2) is that possible at the moment/with the next update ?
H. what are the channel switching times (zapping ;)) with local DVB-S cards in MD and when only the server has some ?
I. What patches are included in the VDR version ?

The rest of my questions I will ask in a new thread later as it is more general questions ;)

Greetings
Christian
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on September 12, 2008, 01:35:41 pm
A quick VDR update;

Our lead vdr developer 'burgiman' has posted the updated stable-LMCE0710-10 vdr code to the charonmedia svn;

Briefly;

- Supports LiveTV & Recorded TV streaming to MD's independently of the Core
- better IR remote handling with 'colour' buttons implemented
- Many bug fixes to improve stability

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: colinjones on September 12, 2008, 01:39:05 pm
FANTASTIC!!! Thanks Andrew (et al), can't wait to get home from my holidays now.... (I know, sad isn't it :) )
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: nite_man on September 12, 2008, 02:08:38 pm
Excellent work, Andrew, burgiman and team! This is what I waited long time :)
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: coley on September 12, 2008, 03:26:08 pm
Great news! thanks for that.
Does this mean it will automatically be pushed out? or it a case of getting it from svn and compiling ourselves?

thx
-Coley.
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: totallymaxed on September 12, 2008, 04:27:01 pm
Great news! thanks for that.
Does this mean it will automatically be pushed out? or it a case of getting it from svn and compiling ourselves?

thx
-Coley.

Well for the time being you'll have to get it from the svn and build it yourself I'm afraid.

Andrew
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: coley on September 12, 2008, 05:12:55 pm
grand - no worries.
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: maybeoneday on September 12, 2008, 05:28:32 pm
great news and  many thanks  to  all involved,

can anyone point to a step by step  to implement ?  (preferably suitable for a brain dead noob  ! ) ,
thanks in advance,
Ian
Title: Re: VDR - What´s the development status of the upcoming features
Post by: nite_man on September 22, 2008, 08:42:53 pm
Does somebody test new VDR functionality?