vdr-plugin-streamdev/README

This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR).

Written by:                  Sascha Volkenandt <sascha@akv-soft.de>
Current maintainer:          Frank Schmirler <vdrdev@schmirler.de>

Project's homepage:          http://streamdev.vdr-developer.org/
Former project homepage:     http://linux.kompiliert.net/

Latest version available at: http://streamdev.vdr-developer.org/

See the file COPYING for license information.

Contents:
---------

1.   Description
2.   Installation
2.1  VDR 1.4.x and older
2.2  VDR 1.6.0 and above
2.3  Updating from streamdev 0.3.x
3.   Usage
3.1  Usage HTTP server
3.2  Usage VDR-to-VDR server
3.3  Usage VDR-to-VDR client
4.   Other useful Plugins
4.1  Plugins for VDR-to-VDR clients
4.2  Plugins for Server
4.3  Alternatives
5.   Known Problems


1. Description:
---------------

This PlugIn is a VDR implementation of the VTP (Video Transfer Protocol) 
Version 0.0.3 (see file PROTOCOL) and a basic HTTP Streaming Protocol.

It consists of a server and a client part, but both parts are compiled together
with the PlugIn source, but appear as separate PlugIns to VDR. 

The client part acts as a full Input Device, so it can be used in conjunction 
with a DXR3-Card, XINE, SoftDevice or others to act as a working VDR 
installation without any DVB-Hardware including EPG-Handling.

The server part acts as a Receiver-Device and works transparently in the 
background within your running VDR. It can serve multiple clients and it can
distribute multiple input streams (i.e. from multiple DVB-cards) to multiple 
clients using the native VTP protocol (for VDR-clients), or using the HTTP 
protocol supporting clients such as XINE, MPlayer and so on. With XMMS or
WinAMP, you can also listen to radio channels over a HTTP connection.

It is possible to attach as many clients as the bus and network can handle, as
long as there is a device which can receive a specific channel. Multiple
channels homed on the same transponder (which is determined by it's frequency)
can be broadcasted with a single device.

Additional clients can be programmed using the Protocol Instructions inside
the PROTOCOL file.


2. Installation:
----------------

Let's say streamdev's version is 0.4.0 and vdr's version is 1.X.X. If you 
use anything else please exchange the version numbers appropriately (this
way I don't have to update this section all the times;) ).

After compiling the PlugIn as stated below, start either (or both) parts of it
by specifying "-P streamdev-client" and/or "-P streamdev-server" on the VDR
command line.

What's important is that the client requests a channel using its Unique Channel
ID. So, in order to find the channel at the server, it must have the same ID
that is used on the client. You can achieve this by putting the server's 
channels.conf on the client, preferably after scanning.

If you want to drive additional Input-Devices (with different sources) on the 
client, you can merge the channels.conf files. VDR will detect if the local 
device or the network device can receive the channels.

Last, but not least you have to copy the streamdev folder into the
"plugins/streamdev" subfolder of VDR's config-directory (which is equal to your
video-directory if not specified otherwise). For example, if you didn't specify
a separate config-directory, and specified your video directory as "/video0",
the directory has to be copied to /video0/plugins/streamdev.

The directory contains a file named streamdevhosts.conf which you must adjust
to your needs. The syntax is the same as for svdrphosts.conf, so please consult
VDR's documentation on how to fill that file, if you can't do it on-the-fly.

There's also a sample externremux.sh script in this directory. It is used by
streamdev's external remux feature. The sample script uses mencoder. Please
check the script for further information. You can specify a different script
location with the -r parameter. The VDR commandline would then include a
"-P 'streamdev-server -r /usr/local/bin/remux.sh'". Note the additional quotes,
as otherwise -r will be passed to VDR and not to streamdev.


2.1 VDR 1.4.x and older:
------------------------

This version is not compatible to VDR releases older than 1.5.9. Take one of
the streamdev-0.4.x releases if you are running at least VDR 1.4.x. For older
VDRs you will probably need one of the streamdev-0.3.x releases.

2.2 VDR 1.6.0 and above:
------------------------

cd vdr-1.X.X/PLUGINS/src
tar xvfz vdr-streamdev-0.4.0.tgz
ln -s streamdev-0.4.0 streamdev
cp -r streamdev/streamdev VDRCONFDIR/plugins/
cd ../..
make [options, if necessary] vdr
make [options, if necessary] plugins

2.3  Updating from streamdev 0.3.x
----------------------------------

Starting with streamdev 0.4.0, all additional files are kept in a directory
called "streamdev" inside VDR's plugin config directory. This affects in
particular the file "streamdevhosts.conf". You will have to move it to its
new location:

mv VDRCONFDIR/plugins/streamdevhosts.conf VDRCONFDIR/plugins/streamdev/

(Directory VDRCONFDIR/plugins/streamdev already exists, as you copied the
whole folder from the sources directory as suggested above, right?)

The new default location for externremux.sh is also in this directory.


3. Usage:
---------

Start the server core itself by specifying -Pstreamdev-server on your VDR 
commandline. To use the client core, specify -Pstreamdev-client. Both parts
can run in one VDR instance, if necessary.

The parameter "Suspend behaviour" allows you to specify how the server should 
react in case the client requests a channel that would require switching the
primary device (i.e. disrupt live-tv). If set to "Offer suspend mode", you will
have a new entry in the main menu. Activating that will put the server into
"Suspend Mode" (a picture is displayed on TV). Then, a client may switch the
primary card to wherever it likes to. While watching TV (Suspend deactivated),
the client may not switch the transponder on the primary device.  If you set
the behaviour to "Always suspended" (the default), there will be normal live-tv
on the server, but whenever a client decides to switch the transponder, the 
server will lose it's live-tv. Set to "Never suspended", the server always 
prevents the client from switching transponders. If you set "Client may 
suspend" to yes, the client can suspend the server remotely (this only applies
if "Offer suspend mode" is selected).

NOTE: This mainly applies to One-Card-Systems, since with multiple cards there
is no need to switch transponders on the primary interface, if the secondary
can stream a given channel (i.e. if it is not blocked by a recording). If both
cards are in use (i.e. when something is recorded, or by multiple clients), 
this applies to Multiple-Card-Systems as well.

3.1 Usage HTTP server:
----------------------

You can use the HTTP part by accessing the server with a HTTP-capable media
player (such as XINE, MPlayer, and so on, if you have appropriate MPEG2-codecs
installed). In the PlugIn's Setup, you can specify the port the server will
listen to with the parameter "HTTP Server Port". The parameter "HTTP Streamtype"
allows you to specify a default stream type, which is used if no specific type
has been requested in the URL (see below). The supported stream types are:

TS     Transport Stream (i.e. a dump from the device)
PES    Packetized Elemetary Stream (VDR's native recording format)
PS     Program Stream (SVCD, DVD like stream)
ES     Elementary Stream (only Video, if available, otherwise only Audio)
EXTERN Pass stream through external script (e.g. for converting with mencoder)

Assuming that you leave the default port (3000), point your web browser to

http://hostname:3000/

You will be presented a menu with links to various channel lists, including M3U
playlist formats.

If you don't want to use the HTML menu or the M3U playlists, you can access the
streams directly like this:

http://hostname:3000/3
http://hostname:3000/S19.2E-0-12480-898

The first one will deliver a channel by number on the server, the second one
will request the channel by unique channel id. In addition, you can specify 
the desired stream type as a path to the channel.

http://hostname:3000/TS/3
http://hostname:3000/PES/S19.2E-0-12480-898

The first one would deliver the stream in TS, the second one in PES format. 
Possible values are 'PES', 'TS', 'PS', 'ES' and 'EXTERN'. You need to specify
the ES format explicitly if you want to listen to radio channels. Play them
back i.e. with mpg123.

mpg123 http://hostname:3000/ES/200

With 'EXTERN' you can also add a parameter which is passed as argument to the
externremux script.

http://hostname:3000/EXTERN;some_parameter/3

3.2 Usage VDR-to-VDR server:
----------------------------

You can activate the VDR-to-VDR server part in the PlugIn's Setup Menu. It is
deactivated by default. The Parameter "VDR-to-VDR Server Port" specifies the 
port where you want the server to listen for incoming connections. The server
will be activated when you push the OK button inside the setup menu, so there's
no need to restart VDR.

3.3 Usage VDR-to-VDR client:
----------------------------

Streamdev-client adds a "Suspend Server" item to VDR's mainmenu. With the
setup parameter "Hide Mainmenu Entry" you can hide this menu item if you don't
need it. "Suspend Server" is only useful if the server runs in "Offer suspend
mode" with "Client may suspend" enabled.

The parameter "Remote IP" uses an IP-Adress-Editor, where you can just enter
the IP number with the number keys on your remote. After three digits (or if 
the next digit would result in an invalid IP adress, or if the first digit is
0), the current position jumps to the next one. You can change positions with 
the left and right buttons, and you can cycle the current position using up 
and down. To confirm the entered address, press OK. So, if you want to enter 
the IP address "127.0.0.1", just mark the corresponding entry as active and 
type "127001<OK>" on your remote. If you want to enter "192.168.1.12", type 
"1921681<Right>12<OK>". 

The parameters "Remote IP" and "Remote Port" in the client's setup specify the 
address of the remote VDR-to-VDR server to connect to. Activate the client by
setting "Start Client" to yes. It is disabled by default, because it wouldn't
make much sense to start the client without specifying a server anyway. The 
client is activated after you push the OK button, so there's no need to restart
VDR. Deactivation on-the-fly is not possible, so in order to deactivate the 
client, you will have to restart VDR. However requests to switch channels will
be refused by streamdev-client once it has been deactivated. All other settings
can be changed without restarting VDR.

The client will try to connect to the server (in case it isn't yet) whenever 
a remote channel is requested. Just activate the client and switch to a 
channel that's not available by local devices. If anything goes wrong with the 
connection between the two, you will see it in the logfile instantly. If you 
now switch the client to a channel which isn't covered by it's own local
devices, it will ask the server for it. If the server can (currently) receive
that channel, the client will show it until you switch again, or until the 
server needs that card (if no other is free) for a recording on a different 
transponder.

Only the needed PIDs are transferred, and additional PIDs can be turned on
during an active transfer. This makes it possible to switch languages, receive
additional channels (for recording on the client) and use plugins that use
receivers themselves (like osdteletext).

With "Filter Streaming" enabled, the client will receive meta information like
EPG data and service information, just as if the client had its own DVB card.
Link channels and even a client-side EPG scan have been reported to work.

The last parameter, "Synchronize EPG", will have the client synchronize it's 
program table with the server every now and then, but not regularly. This 
happens when starting the client, and everytime VDR does its housekeeping 
tasks. The only thing that's guaranteed is, that there will be a minimum 
interval of ten seconds between each EPG synchronization. With "Filter
Streaming" this option has been obsoleted. If you still need to synchronize
EPG as additional information is available from the server, you should use the
epgsync-plugin instead (http://vdr.schmirler.de).

4. Other useful Plugins:
------------------------

4.1 Plugins for VDR-to-VDR clients:
-----------------------------------

The following plugins are useful for VDR-to-VDR clients (i.e. VDRs running the
streamdev-client):

* remotetimers (http://vdr.schmirler.de/)
Add, edit, delete timers on client and server

* timersync (http://phivdr.dyndns.org/vdr/vdr-timersync/)
Automatically syncronizes timer lists of client and server. All recordings will
be made on the server

* remoteosd (http://vdr.schmirler.de/)
Provides access to the server's OSD menu
  
* epgsync (http://vdr.schmirler.de/)
Import EPG from server VDR

* femon (http://www.saunalahti.fi/~rahrenbe/vdr/femon/)
Display signal information from server's DVB card. SVDRP support must be enabled
in femon's setup

4.2 Plugins for Server:
-----------------------

* dummydevice (http://phivdr.dyndns.org/vdr/vdr-dummydevice/)
Recommended on a headless server (i.e. a server with no real output device).
Without this plugin, a budget DVB card could become VDR's primary device. This
causes unwanted sideeffects in certain situations.

4.3 Alternatives:
-----------------

* xineliboutput (http://phivdr.dyndns.org/vdr/vdr-xineliboutput/)
With its networking option, xineliboutput provides an alternative to streamdev.
You will get the picture of the server VDR, including its OSD. However you
won't get independent clients, as they all share the same output.

5. Known Problems:
------------------

* In VDR-to-VDR setup, the availability of a channel is checked with a different
priority than the actual channel switch. The later always uses priority 0.
Usually a channel switch for live TV has priority 0 anyway, so it is not a
problem here. However timers usually have a higher priority. Either avoid
client side recordings or set the priority of client side timers to 0.

* There have been reports that channel switching with VDR 1.5.x/1.6.x clients
sometimes fails. Current version includes a workaround which seems to work, but
YMMV ;)

* Viewing encrypted channels became an issue with VDR's new CAM handling code.
Streamdev doesn't provide a (dummy) CAM, so out of the box, VDR won't ever try
to receive encrypted channels from streamdev. Pick one of the following
solutions to work around the problem:

1. Force VDR to use streamdev. Open the channels menu on the client (or edit its
channels.conf if you know how to do this) and set the CA field of all channels
that only the server can decrypt to streamdev's device index. Usually streamdev
will get number 9 or 10. Streamdev logs the actual device number when starting
up. So please consider the logs for the correct value. Remember to fill in
hexadecimal values if you are using an editor to modify your channels.conf
(number 10 becomes an "a", number 11 a "b", ...).

2. Turn encrypted channels into Free-to-Air channels on the client. Again,
either enter the channels menu or edit the client's channels.conf. You will
also have to disable automatic channel updates on the client or (if streamdev
is the only DVB source) disable streamdev's filter streaming feature. Otherwise
VDR will revert the channel into an encrypted one.

3. Apply either patch "patches/vdr-1.6.0-intcamdevices.patch" or patch
"patches/vdr-1.6.0-ignore_missing_cam.diff" to your client VDR. Intcamdevices
is the clean solution. But as it modifies the VDR API, so you will need to
recompile all of your plugins. The ignore_missing_cam patch is trivial, no need
to recompile other plugins. However it is not suitable for clients with a DVB
card of their own.