[mythtvnz] VLC, DVB and Freebox

[Steven Ellis]

Ok the aim is to be able to record from all of the freeview channels at
the same time via the mythtv freebox plugin. This is an interim solution
until we get working multirec support in the stable tree.

I'm working off 0.20.1 + fixes so the freebox support only allows for rtsp
streams hence the slightly more complicated solution. Hopefully someone on
list can work out a way to do this a bit better.

Part 1 - Extract DVB streams using VLC and pass as UDP Unicast streams to
localhost.

Tried multicast here but it hosed my wireless connection big time. The
following provided me with three UDP streams over UDP.

vlc -v --color --ttl 12  --ts-es-id-pid --programs=1025,1035,1036,1904 dvb: \
--dvb-frequency=12483000 --dvb-srate=22500000 --dvb-voltage=18  \
--sout-standard-access=udp --sout-standard-mux=ts --sout \
'#duplicate{dst=std{access=udp,dst=127.0.0.1:5556,sap,name="MaoriTV"},select="program=1025",dst=std{access=udp,dst=127.0.0.1:5557,sap,name="TVNZ6"},select="program=1904",dst=std{access=udp,dst=127.0.0.1:5558,sap,name="TVONE"},select="program=1035"}'

These can be tested with VLC by typing

vlc udp://@:5556

Part 2 - Provide the UDP streams as rtsp streams via a second instance of VLC

This is the annoying bit. Can't work out how to get a single VLC instance
to control both sets of streams. First I create a file called vlm.udp.conf
containing

new maori vod enabled
setup maori mux mp2t
setup maori input udp://@:5556

new tvnz6 vod enabled
setup tvnz6 mux mp2t
setup tvnz6 input udp://@:5557

new tvone vod enabled
setup tvone mux mp2t
setup tvone input udp://@:5558

And then start vlc as follows

vlc --ttl 12 -v --vlm-conf vlm.udp.conf --rtsp-host 0.0.0.0:5555

Now I can connect to this host from anywhere on the network using VLC to
grap an RTSP stream

vlc rtsp://mythtest:5555/maori
vlc rtsp://mythtest:5555/tvone

>From this I can now setup a freebox channel list.

So first up - has anyone else tried this, and how well does it work for you?

Secondly anyone played with VLC enought to find a way to just use a single
instance.

Thirdly - An ideal VLC solution would be to use the duplicate stream
features within a VLM config, but that doesn't appear to be possible.

Steve

--------------------------------------------
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited - The Home of myPVR
email   - steven at openmedia.co.nz
sales   - sales at openmedia.co.nz
support - support at openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz