Now what!

[Hoochster]

Now that you have accomplished fixing the recording playback etc.  What are you working on next?  How hard would it be to implement OSD or a Timeline for when you Pause etc.  And what would be involved in some sort of Guide implementation to sync with the VDR EPG.  I know you put the OSD in there for a reason.  Just didn't know what was involved in getting the sync to take place. 

Thanks again for all you have done and all your efforts to make it work for everyone.  It works great with VDR 1.3.30 and playback on recordings is now flawless.

[Chris]

I am currently working on getting the next 24 hours of EPG for the current channel displayed in the on screen box that appears over Live TV. I have most of this working now, I just need to sort the data and it's pretty much done. That's only one part of the EPG display though, a now/next page would be nice but is not a priority, and a full guide page would be nice, but I think the GUI code might need some attention first, before I could do that. At the moment I am mainly working on the caveats list on the vomp web page so that all types of TV/signal etc can actually work. After that there are the bug lists and feature request lists on the SourceForge page. And after that, who knows... I still want to stick to the clean set top box for VDR approach, so things outside that scope are very low priority for me.

[Hoochster]

I understand completely, I don't see the need for a now/next but seeing what is on right now would be nice.  I never have been real fond of the built in EPG for VDR, I of course like YAEPG!   I wouldn't think more than 24 hours would be needed due to the fact you aren't recording on the device.  Even 8 hours would be plenty.  Cuz really why would you need to see what is on all day, it isn't something you can do anything about!   Or even 12 hours max if it uses less memory etc.  Didn't know how things worked, like with Streamdev-Client when it syncs the EPG if it is constantly pulling from the Server or if it pulls down a certain amount.  Just doing a simple well I say simple!   but display on the channel gui like most of the skins do showing a current and next there would be all that I would see beneficial on that when you press OK or whatnot. 

Well if there is anything I can help test or whatnot let me know.  Since I am NTSC!  Obviously I am sure a 16:9 feature would be nice for those that have it.

Thanks for the response.

[Chris]

I don't have a fully featured receiver card so I've never seen the VDR frontend. What is YAEPG?
I am trying to get a fairly decent EPG system working because I would like to interact with the VDR timers one day in the dim and distant future. I would like to be able to duplicate all the functionality of the web LinVDR admin system into vomp. As yet I can decide how to do EPG best for the MVP. I was pleased to find that 24 hours of a single channel including descriptions is just a few KB which is nicely manageable for the MVP. I am going to get the current on screen box working, and then go back to widescreen. Which is a PITA. I would have done it already, but the video chip just seems to make up its own rules about when to do widescreen and not. I actually moved onto this EPG system which I had been dreading for ages.. that's how bad it was

[Hoochster]

YAEPG is just a GUI that accesses the VDR EPG.  Obviously you wouldn't be able to use it on the MVP but something of sorts on looks would be nice, but I completely understand.  And I use the VDRAdmin all the time so that sounds slick.  Here is a Screenshot of YAEPG.

http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Image:Yaepg-plugin.jpg

Would be nice to be able to setup recordings through the MVP obviously storing them on the VDR System I could see that feasibility.  I don't have widescreen, my parents do and I will be ordering an MVP for them soon, which is why I put that comment in there!   But I personally think OSD and GUIDE functionality is more important.  And you don't have to have a FF card for the VDR GUI, how do you use VDR?  Through TVTime or XAW or something?  You can still run YAEPG etc using all that on your VDR System.  If you need help let me know.  But at best just getting what you have implemented already working with what is on currently would be slick in itself.  Like I said at best would be to go with how most of the VDR Skins work which shows what is on now, and what is on next in that little box. 

http://www.vdrskins.org/vdrskins/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=1

I will work more on getting one of my buddies that does a lot of patching etc for VDR and understands this way more than I ever could to get a MVP hehe, he is drooling over mine now.  And I can get him to help us out on this.  He would understand it a lot more and understands GUI etc on the stuff.

[Chris]

Yes, YAEPG looks good. I think that is what I will work towards when I get onto the main EPG page. I know that the MVP can do quarter screen video and have the OSD on the rest of the screen so yes, that should be very possible.

And wow, that VDR skin looks nice. It could be a long time before vomp looks that nice!

I only use VDR as a backend recorder, actually it runs on a headless big noisy server box in another room. I have always used only the MVP to watch its recordings. But just out of interest, how is it possible to use the generic tv applications and still see the VDR gui? Or am I just missing something here...

[Hoochster]

Do you run any sort of GUI on your system that runs VDR?  Like Xwindows or Xorg?  You use Debian!   You are using the better of the systems hehe, ok well just my opinion but anyways!   If running gui, just apt-get install tvtime, and ideally you should be able to see your VDR Gui.  Another option that is similar to how you do MVP is setup a VDR Client system.  I use my laptop and install VDR on it with Streamdev-Client and the Xine Plugin.  You get full VDR GUI that way too.  Check out my site, I need to update my Xine Howto but should be straight forward.  My site is designed around Debian and also a lot of my stuff is for NTSC but it shouldn't be anything special for your intentions.  Especially if running on a laptop or whatnot. 

http://www.hoochvdr.info

I try and focus on a ENGLISH Wiki for VDR basically.  Trying to keep info current as possible so that it isn't confusing.  VDRPortal.de is great but there is so much stuff on there it can get confusing.  But be happy to help ya through it.  But that is the Enigma Skin for VDR.  And in my opinion one of the best skins!  Doesn't have to be exactly that way yours is pretty similar just need to incorporate the text!   But it is a very slick skin, but if you have never seen the VDR Frontend you don't know what it is all about anyways!   so get ya a client setup!   Of course you have to run Streamdev-server on the VDR server, but I assume you are anyways!

Let me know your thoughts.

[Hoochster]

BTW here are more pics from the Enigma Skin for the rest of the VDR Frontend:

http://www.vdrskins.org/vdrskins/thumbnails.php?album=41

I don't actually use the theme they use, I use the Dark-Blue theme which makes the window more transparent.  Maybe I will take some screen shots of mine sometime.  But it is a slick skin I think. 

And NOW do you understand why I asked about some sort of GUI when you pause and a timeline etc?  I am spoiled!

[torsten]

Hi,

at first, thank you for your really great work. 

Personally I would be glad to watch JPEGs and listen to MP3 via the MVP, possibly via NFS or a stream. I would also like to take part in developing it. But first I've to finish my move to a new flat.

Another suggestion is implement the vompserver as fully functional output-device for the vdr, which means that the vdr states what do display on the OSD directly. This would have the advantage that one can use all the beautifull plug-ins of the vdr, e.g. playing back dvds or (s)vcds, directly.

A more theoretical question is whether it is possible to connect more then one server at the same time. E.g. recording a on server A and recordings b and c on server B.

Can anybody guess how difficult it would be to change the handling on the server's side to UTF-8 if and only if the utf8-patch to the vdr is used, which keeps the names of the recordings under linux itself readable. Probably one can change the encoding of strings in the vompserver-plugin to the iso8859-1 enconding if the patch has been found.

BTW.: We've got a WLAN router working which offers/has to offer DHCP. I've noticed that the MVP connects mostly if and only if it's got its ip from the router and the dongle.bin from - obviously - the pc. Otherwise it tries to connect the vdr until the judgement day.
Has anybody noticed the same or even better has a solution to this problem?

[torsten]

Hi again,

I've just forgotten. Even if the box tries to connect infinitely I can connect the box via telnet and can e.g. restart the vomplient with debugging enabled. Btw. it states it tries to reach a server.

Torsten

[Schnurps]

Personally I would be glad to watch JPEGs and listen to MP3 via the MVP, possibly via NFS or a stream.

I would lke to have these both features, too. But I also think Chris is right when he wants to finish all the tv/recordings-stuff first.

Another suggestion is implement the vompserver as fully functional output-device for the vdr, which means that the vdr states what do display on the OSD directly. This would have the advantage that one can use all the beautifull plug-ins of the vdr, e.g. playing back dvds or (s)vcds, directly.

This suggestion already exists: Take a look at the old "mvp"-plugin by Dominic Morris. [NOT the "mediamvp"-plugin]. He discontinued the development of the output-device-plugin because of the big disadvantage: you can only use one MediaMVP. With the mediamvp-plugin here actually work 4 MediaMVPs simultaneous.

[Hoochster]

Can anybody guess how difficult it would be to change the handling on the server's side to UTF-8 if and only if the utf8-patch to the vdr is used, which keeps the names of the recordings under linux itself readable. Probably one can change the encoding of strings in the vompserver-plugin to the iso8859-1 enconding if the patch has been found.

Not quite sure what you mean bout not being readable.  If you are referring to being able to access the Files via Windows or something, due to the default naming scheme by VDR you can start VDR with the option VFAT = 1 or add it to your Make.config and it will name the directories etc as such with supported characters. 

Jpegs, Gifs etc would be nice, considering the MVP originally was designed to do such and play AVI's etc I think the capability will be there someday.  I am sure Chris is just trying to do each option in steps to make sure there aren't too many problems to diagnose at once continuing in a never ending loop!   I am not sure how much memory the MVP actually has in its capability to run some sort of Xine Client etc to connect to VDR for full VDR functionality, but that is what I am hoping for to in the end game.  I currently use either a Laptop or an XBOX to act as a VDR Client and have full functionality with VDR OSD etc.  The Xine over Network might be the answer to this.  I honsestly have only played with it in the early stages, and haven't had time to get back to it since.  I use full VDR in Client mode with Streamdev and XINE currently.  As where the Xine over Network doesn't need VDR on the client side at all.  So being as such it might be possible to someday have it be part of the MVP OS being as I understand it being a mini linux afterall! 

I only have the one MVP currently since I ordered it for testing, but now plan on ordering a couple of more, but definately want multiple MVP capability without having to run multiple VDR threads.  Being as you can already do this with multiple clients via Streamdev-Client I would think this is attainable but again I am not the programmer!  

I do look forward to somehow letting the MVP attain its IP from a regular router and be able to get the Dongle.bin via multicast or whatever as the MVPServer does, for my testing only so far I had to setup a regular DHCP server and add the MVP to it.  I would like to get away from that so that I can let the router handle that.  But it was easy enuf to do so I am not complaining!  

[AronSira]

First I want to say, that I'm impressed by the work done here. Vomp is actually my favorite - I tried all others, and none satisfied me more than vomp 
Very very very good work - faster boot than any other MVP client, fast connect to server. Stable for me with some minor faults (picture disruptions by using forward and backward buttons).
Some things that may be improved if there is time for it: a) time to load channel list is very long (for me: 25 seconds [1245 channels, because I'm too lazy to work on my channel list - just copying]) - b) vomp dies if channel is not available - c) initial volume is always max on starting (startup parameter ?) - d) channel switching while showing OSD
But I agree with Chris, there are things much more important than these to work on (EPG..).
Again - great server - keep on.

@Hoochster: there is a way to make it work without a full dhcp-server. I use the standard dhcp-server of my router and then I use mvploader to provide the dongle for the MVP. Works like a charm. Here the link for this piece of software: http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Mvploader

My config: gen2vdr-RC3, vdr-1.3.27, dongle 0.0.8, FF-DVB-S 1.5 & 1.6

[torsten]

Personally I would be glad to watch JPEGs and listen to MP3 via the MVP, possibly via NFS or a stream.

I would lke to have these both features, too. But I also think Chris is right when he wants to finish all the tv/recordings-stuff first.

That's right. Just a kind of looking in to the future

Another suggestion is implement the vompserver as fully functional output-device for the vdr, which means that the vdr states what do display on the OSD directly. This would have the advantage that one can use all the beautifull plug-ins of the vdr, e.g. playing back dvds or (s)vcds, directly.

This suggestion already exists: Take a look at the old "mvp"-plugin by Dominic Morris. [NOT the "mediamvp"-plugin]. He discontinued the development of the output-device-plugin because of the big disadvantage: you can only use one MediaMVP. With the mediamvp-plugin here actually work 4 MediaMVPs simultaneous.

Haven't heared about it. I will have a look and come surely back to vomp

Can anybody guess how difficult it would be to change the handling on the server's side to UTF-8 if and only if the utf8-patch to the vdr is used, which keeps the names of the recordings under linux itself readable. Probably one can change the encoding of strings in the vompserver-plugin to the iso8859-1 enconding if the patch has been found.

Not quite sure what you mean bout not being readable.  If you are referring to being able to access the Files via Windows or something, due to the default naming scheme by VDR you can start VDR with the option VFAT = 1 or add it to your Make.config and it will name the directories etc as such with supported characters. 

My linux-box uses utf-8 as encoding for its filesystems. So i used the so called utf8 patch to vdr to keep my recordings in the filesystem readable. In fact german character in iso8859-1 aren't really readable for humans if they are interpreted by the system as utf8. With the patch vdr itself and the filenames in the ext3-partition are fully human-readable.

In a couple of days I will have a closer look to the utf8-patch myself and try to make CVS-version of the vompserver compatible to it. We'll see whether it'll work.

Jpegs, Gifs etc would be nice, considering the MVP originally was designed to do such and play AVI's etc I think the capability will be there someday.  I am sure Chris is just trying to do each option in steps to make sure there aren't too many problems to diagnose at once continuing in a never ending loop!   I am not sure how much memory the MVP actually has in its capability to run some sort of Xine Client etc to connect to VDR for full VDR functionality, but that is what I am hoping for to in the end game.  I currently use either a Laptop or an XBOX to act as a VDR Client and have full functionality with VDR OSD etc.  The Xine over Network might be the answer to this.  I honsestly have only played with it in the early stages, and haven't had time to get back to it since.  I use full VDR in Client mode with Streamdev and XINE currently.  As where the Xine over Network doesn't need VDR on the client side at all.  So being as such it might be possible to someday have it be part of the MVP OS being as I understand it being a mini linux afterall! 

First the box has only 16MB for the linux system. Second I do not think that it will be fast enough to make the recoding itself. I think it must be done on the server.

[Hoochster]

Thanks AronSira, will look into it!