XBMC - MediaPortal TV support

Last update: 29-08-2010, Marcel Groothuis (margro @ XBMC forum)

This page explains the MediaPortal PVR client that uses XBMC's new PVR front-end capabilities to connect to the MediaPortal v1.1.0 TV server as back-end.

XMBC - MediaPortal PVR client addons

This is the XBMC front-end that uses the MediaPortal TV Server as its back-end.

Two versions of this PVR client exist:

• MediaPortal: This is the PVR client for the MediaPortal v1.1.0 TVServer.
  Supported OS: Windows, Linux, OSX?
  Uses XBMC's ffmpeg libraries for RTSP stream playback.
• MediaPortal TSReader: This is also a PVR client for the MediaPortal v1.1.0 TVServer.
  Supported OS: Windows only
  Playback code based on MediaPortal's TSReader code. Allows direct playback from the TVServers timeshift buffer files (faster than RTSP) on a single seat setup (local running TV Server). It uses the Live555 library for RTSP stream playback (for a remote running TV server).

Changelog

• 31-08-2010: v1.1.0.96
• 29-08-2010: v1.1.0.95 Send genre strings to XBMC; Fix wrong time-offset (GMT/local) for Timers
• 17-08-2010: Fixed: teletext
• 15-08-2010: Added new MediaPortal TSReader PVR client: faster channel switching; channel up/down working; different RTSP library; allows direct playback from timeshift buffer.

Current status

• Watching TV channels: Working: Transfer channel list, start/stop timeshift, play and stop the rtsp stream. See screenshots: 1, 2, 3, 4.
  Known issues:
  - Channel switching is slow (TV server itself takes some time to start the stream; ffmpeg has slow stream detection)
  - Teletext from Mediaportal is not working in XBMC. FFMpeg does not yet properly recognize the teletext stream as teletext.17-08-2010: Fixed
  - Channel up/down: Up/down buttons + choose by number are work in progress... Channel switch from channel list is working fine. It requires more internal changes in XBMC.
  TODO: find a way to stop & restart playback of the rtsp stream on a channel switch 15-08-2010: Fixed in the MePo TSReader pvr client
  - Genre tranfer from MediaPortal to XBMC is only working for English genre strings. - 22-08-2010: MePo TSReader version: Channel switching (up/down/nr) between channels with different aspect ratios (e.g. 16:9 and 4:3) fails: no video output after switch. XBMC reads the EPG genres as numbers, while MediaPortal stores them as strings. It turns out that the language of these genre strings is dependent on the EPG source. My DVB-C EPG grabber gives me English genre strings, while XMLTV returns Dutch strings. Currently, the PVR addon only translates (some of) the English strings into XBMC compatible genre numbers.
  
• Listening to radio channels:Working: Transfer channel list, start/stop timeshift DVB-S/C/T radio steams, play web radio streams (added to MediaPortal TVServer)
  See screenshot: 1,
• EPG: Working for TV and radio channels. See screenshots: 1, 2, 3.
  Known issues:
  - Gaps in the MediaPortal EPG show the surrounding EPG items in XBMC at wrong time in Timeline view.
  
• Recordings: Fetch/edit/rename/watch (via rtsp stream or direct playback) for recordings is working. See screenshots: 1.
• Timers: Working: Transfer timer list, set new timer, delete timer.
  Work in progress: Enable/disable timer
  See screenshots: 1, 2,

More screenshots (Dutch): here

Documentation

See the documentation

Downloads

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