Messages

Thanks for your remarks, I updated the Howto accordingly.

Carsten

Hi,

I've recently made some experience in compiling the VOMP Windows client and would like to share it here. Maybe someone finds it helpful.

Carsten

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How to compile the VOMP Windows Client
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Howto
Version 0.1    19.02.2008
Version 0.1.1 20.02.2008 Added MartenRs remarks


1 Motivation

The goal of the installation was a development environment for the vomp server and client, especially the windows client, because I wanted to look at the code in a working development environment. Maybe one day I'd even contribute something :-).


2 General thoughts about the development environment

I tried building a pure virtual development environment using vmware server. Forget it. While the build environment for the vomp server and the vdr are very well suited to run in a vmware virtual machine (I'm using a c't vdr 5 as base system, which is essentially a vdr based on Debian Etch), the windows client will never run there because vmware doesn't support DirectX. There is only an emulated SVGA graphics card in the virtual machine, and even with software rendering the DirectX subsystem won't initialize at all. As far as I've read, even the not too cheap vmware workstation only brings basic and unstable support for DirectX.

Nevertheless the building environment (compiler, libraries) can be put in a virtual Windows machine. I gave up on this also because I didn't bother finding out which runtime libraries I'd have to deploy to the machine where I'd be using the windows client.

I thought the windows client would be easier to compile and faster to run for development purposes, but maybe I should try Chris' development environment where the MVP simply loads the VOMP client from an NFS export. Maybe I'll give this a try later.


3 Getting the basics

The easiest way to get all the parts needed to build VOMP is Chris' makedevenv-5-script from the Loggytronic website (http://www.loggytronic.com/vomp-devenv.php). I used it to build a development environment inside a vmware virtual machine running Debian Etch.

As Windows compiler I use Visual C++ Express 2008. Download the ISO-Image from Microsoft, burn it to DVD and there you go.

Additionally you have to install a DirectX SDK. I used the November 2007 SDK which can be downloaded from Microsoft.

The formerly needed streamlib.dll which is mentioned in some loggytronic board posts is no longer needed.


4 Building the jpeg library

To build the client, you'll need the jpeg library which is put in the "jpeg" subdirectory of your development tree by the makedevenv-script.
I built it for Windows by strictly following the instructions in the file "install.doc" in the "jpeg-6b" subdirectory. In short for Visual C++ 2008 (nmake comes with it):
- Copy the jconfig.vc-file to jconfig.h
- run "nmake -f makefile.vc"
and you should be done. This produces a "libjpeg.lib" file which can be statically linked to the Windows VOMP client.

In my installation, the jpeg-library's source resides in "z:\jpeg\jpeg-6b".

5 Check out the client from CVS

If you want bleeding edge, or a specific version, I recommend checking it out from cvs, so that you can use cvs to monitor current changes and merge changes in the cvs in your version, or create your own branch. It pays to read the cvs documentation for some more than the basic commands.

To checkout the source which comes nearest to the 0.2.7 Windows client, change the cvs command from the loggytronic website (http://www.loggytronic.com/vomp.php) to

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@vomp.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/vomp co -D "2007-11-14" -P client

After this, add the two patched files MartenR provided in the board in

http://www.loggytronic.com/forum/index.php?topic=322.msg1990#msg1990

Unfortunately the cvs does not seem to contain a properly tagged version of the 0.2.7-3 Windows client, so all you will get is the source for a Windows client which is stable in most areas, excluding the mediaplayer. Maybe you can find out which files in which versions to use, else we shall be waiting for the next release and hope that all necessary files find their way to the cvs and get properly tagged.

In my installation, the client's source resides in "z:\vomp-cvs\client".


6 Compile using the provided Makefile.nmake

Add all relevant paths of your installation to the makefile (examples, depends on installation):
- Add the binary path (where eg. nmake and cl are located) of Visual C++ to your PATH environment variable.
- JPEG_LIB=z:\jpeg\jpeg-6b
- DXSDK_DIR=F:\Programme\Microsoft DirectX SDK (November 2007)\
- CXXFLAGS_REL = [...] /I"C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include" [...]
- RCFLAGS = /i"C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\include"
- Change the resource compiler's call to "$(RC) $(RCFLAGS) /fo"vompwin.res" "vompwin.rc" to honour the RCFLAGS.

Run using the nmake-command "nmake -f Makefile.nmake" and you should be done. The resulting Windows client should need the VC 9 runtime libraries, so be careful to put them somewhere in the path.


7 Build a Visual C++ project file

A Visual C++ project has the major advantage that you can use the VC++-debugger (with some quirks, see below).

First fire up Visual C++ 2008 Express and create a new project with the following attributes:
- Win32 Project
- Windows Application
- Empty project

Then "Add existing items" to the project: All .cc and .h files and the .rc file of the client.

Now cut it back: For several files, there is an "*mvp"-Version, and a "*win"-Version. For the Windows client, remove all those "*mvp"-files, eg. "videomvp.cc" and "audiomvp.cc" from the project, because they won't compile under Windows, and they're only needed for the native MVP-dongle.
Also remove the main.cc and the threadp.cc files from the project. Hope I didn't forget any.

In the project's properties, set some helpful options. I found them out by try & error, so some of them may be reasonable, some not, but this way it works for me. I'll only mention the options which are different from the default values of any Visual C++ 2008 project. I tried to get as near as possible to the options in the Makefile:

Add additional include directories:
- The path to the jpeg library header file (for me: "z:\jpeg\jpeg-6b").

Add preprocessor definitions:
- WIN32, _DEBUG, _WINDOWS, NDEBUG, NEW_DEMUXER
- Do not inherit the standard UNICODE definitions - IIRC unicode gives trouble compiling.
- To better see the errors maybe you want to switch off warnings (/W0).

Set compiler options:
- Do not use unicode response files
- Don't use precompiled headers
- Debug information format: /ZI
- Disable optimization (/Od)
- Enable minimal rebuild (/Gm)
- Basic Runtime Checks: Default
- Runtime-Library: Multi-threaded Debug DLL (/MDd), and for a Release Multi-threaded DLL (currently don't remember the switch syntax)

Set linker options:
- Enable incremental linking (/INCREMENTAL)
- Add jpeg- and DirectX-Library paths as additional library paths: z:\vomp-cvs\jpeg\jpeg-6b; F:\Programme\Microsoft DirectX SDK (November 2007)\Lib\x86
- Here you should keep the inherited defaults
- Don't use UNICODE response files
- Use Library dependend inputs
- Add additional dependencies: d3dx9.lib WS2_32.lib libjpeg.lib d3d9.lib shlwapi.lib iphlpapi.lib strmiids.lib winmm.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib uuid.lib and don't inherit the standard dependencies
- Ignore the standard library libcmtd.lib. It already comes from somewhere else.

Patch the source code:

- Change i18n.cc, line 74 from
   char *p = strchr(s, '$');
  to
   char *p = (char*) strchr(s, '$');

- Change vchannelselect.cc, line 116 from
     m->parameter += input * (ULONG)pow(10, i);
  to
     m->parameter += input * (ULONG)pow(10.0F, i);


Now you should be ready to run the build process.


8 Runnig & debugging the Windows VOMP client

Concerning the necessary runtime dlls, your are on your own. I simply installed VC++ 2008 and the DirectX SDK to the machine where I wanted to run the Windows client.

To run the client, you need a VMR-9-compatible video renderer. Such a renderer comes eg. with PowerDVD 7 or WinDVD 8.
When you run the Exe in the debugger from the Visual Studio IDE, you will maybe get some strange error messages telling you that "you are running a debugger. Exit program and restart without the debugger active" or something similar. This goes back to some broken intellectual property scheme in some video decoders, especially the Nero 6 Video/DVD decoder and the PowerDVD 6/7 decoders. WinDVD doesn't seem to have this annoying restriction, but I don't get video playback in debug mode either - maybe it simply doesn't complain while not producing any video output. At least you can watch the internals of the client running.

Here two additional tricks from MartenR for debugging and circumventing the annoying anti-debug techniques:
* Place a MessageBox at the beginning of the code you want to debug and place a breakpoint after the MessageBox. Then run the programm (not in debug), when the MessageBox appears attach the debugger to the process and you can debug for a while, until the decoder annoys you again. So you can debug with video playback for some time.
* In videowin is a switch DO_VIDEO, which disables video playback, so that playback can be debugged audio only.

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Please put additions and remarks to this howto in the forum and I'll see if I can release a better one with them included.

Ah, and sorry, I'm not too much used to write in english, but I thought this should be shared.

Regards,
   Carsten

Hi Marten,

thanks for your support. There still seems to be a subtle difference in the released binary version of Vomp Client for Windows 0.2.7-3 and the CVS from 13.11.2007, even with the file versions you provided in the previous post: I get a version of the client which does live TV & playback of recordings quite well, but crashes when I select the mediaplayer menu entry.

Anyway, I've got what I came for - a working development environment to play around with the code, and I don't think it's sensible to put any more effort in getting a complete official source base for the build of the 0.2.7-3-client. I don't think the community will appreciate it if I distract you any more from the further work on the next release 

Thanks for the help, and maybe you & Chris could take care of tagging the complete release build code in the cvs when the next release is due. Thanks for this great piece of software, expecially the enhancements in live tv will even more enhance the WAF  .

Carsten

Hi Marten,

thanks for the answer, but that's not the point I'm interested in. Well, surely I'm interested in the current development , but that's not the primary focus.

What I want to do is:

Checkout a tagged revision from CVS, or a bunch of source files defined by some other mechanism (eg. date), run the compiler and get an executable that's functionally equivalent to the Windows Client 0.2.7-3 from the loggytronic website.

Currentiy, I can check out the r0-2-7, compile it, and get a Windows Client that crashes on several occasions where the binary version from the website works fine. So I'm doing something wrong, presumably I'm using some wrong source files (at least that's my suspicion).

So the question is: Which source files have I got to check out in which version to get the codebase for the 0.2.7-3-Windows Client?

Hope, I expressed myself clearer,
   Carsten

OK, here a small update:

I now simply checked out all files which were modified at or before 13.11.2007. This includes the last files whose comments show that they were modified for the win-2-client, but leaves out everything that mentions "new live tv".

Additionally, I managed to drill down some of the problems (crashing client when playing back) to a too-old-version of PowerDVD. With PowerDVD 6 Trial & my compilation I can get at least video playback and access to tv channels, but the client still crashes when I choose the Mediaplayer menu entry, also when I try to select a video filter.

Meanwhile, Marten's original client 0.2.7-3 from the loggytronic website doesn't crash, it shows the file system structure of the vdr when Mediaplayer is selected, so my compilation does not yet mirror his correct compilation.

I still suspect that I don't have the correct source file versions in my compilation. that they differ from the source versions Marten used to compile the 0.2.7-3-Client - could this be possible, and could anybody hint me for the correct source files, or have any other ideas?

Regards,
   Carsten

Hi,

I'm currently trying to set up a working development environment for vomp, using a vdr in vmware, an MVP and the windows client.
I've managed to compile both the client & server parts of version 0.2.6 (CVS tag r0-2-6), server & WinClient work perfectly good together.

Now I'm experiencing problems with the Windows Client 2.7, which resemble the ones described by Betux in http://www.loggytronic.com/forum/index.php?topic=291.0. The Windows client source is checked out from CVS using the tag r0-2-7.

I suspect that the subsequent changes to the WinClient described by Marten in the abovementioned thread have not been tagged correctly, at least it looks like this in the version history of eg. audiowin.cc: Here Chris remarks a change for the WinClient 0.2.7-2, but this version is only tagged as HEAD, so it evades checkout of the r0-2-7.

Would it be possible for the CVS masters to either tag the changed files as r0-2-7 (in the case of audiowin.cc, this should mean moving the tag r0-2-7 from rev. 1.1.3 to rev. 1.1.4), or to introduce new tags like r0-2-7-1, r0-2-7-2, etc., corresponding to Marten's WinClient releases, so that it is possible to checkout a stable Windows client source?

I hope it's understandable what I mean, and that it won't cause too much trouble :-)

Regards,
   Carsten