Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:56:40 +0100 From: Juergen Lock <nox@jelal.kn-bremen.de> To: freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.org Cc: lme@FreeBSD.org, Alexander Leidinger <Alexander@Leidinger.net>, mickael.maillot@gmail.com, Joerg.Pulz@frm2.tum.de, freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.org Subject: CFT: vdr ports (watch/record/stream tv, works with xbmc too :) Message-ID: <20101114215640.GA55650@triton8.kn-bremen.de>
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[Updated Nov 14 2010 - I thought merging in the updates makes the text easier to read for new testers rather than adding updates as followups at the end. Main news: - Updated osdteletext plugin to latest release. - Updated jpulz' patches for the vdrdevel port (no functional change.) - Removed MD5 hashes from distinfo.s - Updated intro text with some CFT and `what is vdr' notes. For details see below.] Hi! So what is vdr? It's something like a luxury settop box/pvr on a pc to receive/watch/record/stream digital tv channels with epg (electronic program guide), timers, client/server networking, webinterface etc pp. So if you have a FreeBSD (or Linux, but that's not covered here :) server you can add one or more dvb/atsc tuner(s) connected to a satellite dish, cable tv or just a dvb-t antenna (or receive iptv streams without a tuner if your isp provides those tho I don't know if anyone tested `real' iptv on FreeBSD yet), browse/search epg, set timers, and watch the streams/recordings elsewhere on your lan. Or if you have a FreeBSD desktop you can also connect a tuner there and do it all on one box - or just run a vdr client like vdr-sxfe (installed by the multimedia/vdr-plugin-xineliboutput port) or a client vdr instance using the streamdev-client plugin connected to a (possibly Linux) vdr server elsewhere on your lan. So if your isp doesn't provide iptv, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/IPTV (german info page: http://www.iptv-anbieter.info/ ) then you'll need a dvb tuner (or atsc, tho I have no idea if anyone tested that on FreeBSD yet) with corresponding v4l/dvb (`v4b') drivers, in most cases that means an usb tuner supported by the webcamd port: http://www.freshports.org/multimedia/webcamd And: While the ports still could use quite some cleanup work (like adding back locales) the installed bits are very much functional - or at least they are for me - so I think it's time for doing a first `formal' CFT so this gets tested by a wider audience. And finally, if you want to compare vdr to other existing ports, it's a bit like mythtv - only most Linux users _I_ know prefer vdr over mythtv. :) (and vdr also doesn't use a rdbms so you don't have to worry about mysql etc.) ----snip---previous-notes-with-minor-updates:------- I started with jpulz' vdr 1.7.14 patches: (now updated to 1.7.16) ftp://ftp.frm2.tum.de/pub/jpulz/VDR/ ftp://ftp.frm2.tum.de/pub/jpulz/pictures/ and made q&d ports of those and of a few more plugins and two webinterfaces so I can now use FreeBSD as a pc dvb-s2 dvr: http://people.freebsd.org/~nox/dvb/vdrdevel-preliminary-20101114a.shar I still don't know if/when I'll be able finish these to make them commit-ready (or even port all of the other plugins that people might want to use), if anyone wants to take over from here or at least help they are most welcome... Note: vdr 1.7.16 is the development branch so expect bugs! (I mostly used it because the stable branch (1.6) doesn't support dvb-s2...) FreeBSD notes: 0. See my earlier threads on the freebsd-multimedia list about webcamd and the usb dvb-s2 tuner I use; the relevant webcamd ports and frieds have been updated now so you _should_ be able to just use those. (dvb-t or dvb-c tuners should also work as long as webcamd supports them, tho the one dual dvb-t tuner I tested for some reason seems to receive better when used with kaffeine than with mplayer or vdr, reasons still to be investigated...) Some links are here: http://people.freebsd.org/~nox/dvb/ 1. Before you start installing these ports add the vdr user and group to /usr/ports/UIDs: vdr:*:988:988::0:0:vdr user:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin and to /usr/ports/GIDs: vdr:*:988: (you don't have to use 988, I just didn't want the id to conflict with new ports being committed too quickly...), and then either mount an extra fs with enough space for the recordings on /video or create a video dir elsewhere where there is space, symlink it to /video and make it writable for vdr. (or if you do have one big / then you can create the dir on there too ofc, I just disabled the mkdir in the port to avoid inadvertently filling up ppl's small / fs.) 2. I now have rc.d scripts for vdr and vdradmin-am but even if you use those you still need to add plugins and their options similar to this to your /etc/rc.conf: ---snip---- # vdr vdr_flags="'-Pxineliboutput --local=none --remote=127.1:37890' \ -Pskinenigmang -Pfemon -Posdpip \ '-Posdteletext --directory=/var/cache/vdr-osdteletext --cache-system=packed --max-cache=128' \ -Pstreamdev-server '-Plive -i127.1' -Pepgsearch -Pcontrol \ '-Pinfosatepg -d /var/cache/vdr-infosatepg' '-Piptv'" ---snip---- look in the README.s of the individual plugin ports for any needed options. (should get installed below /usr/local/share/doc/vdr*) And if you want vdr to start at boot (instead of just manually by doing: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/vdr onestart ) you need to set: vdr_enable="YES" too of course. And for vdradmin_am its: vdradmind_enable="YES" If you want to start vdr manually in the foreground instead you need to be root (or the vdr user but vdr also drops to the vdr uid itself if started as root), and then run it like: vdr '-Pxineliboutput --local=none --remote=127.1:37890' -Pskinenigmang -Pfemon -Posdpip '-Posdteletext --directory=/var/cache/vdr-osdteletext --cache-system=packed --max-cache=128' -Pstreamdev-server '-Plive -i127.1' -Pepgsearch -Pcontrol '-Pinfosatepg -d /var/cache/vdr-infosatepg' '-Piptv' 2a.I now also have a multimedia/vdr-plugins metaport that allows you to select and install the plugins you want (and vdr itself as a dependency), so you don't have to install numeours vdr/plugin ports individually. 3. Of all the video output methods only xineliboutput and streamdev seem to work (and the vdr-live webinterface browser streaming which also uses streamdev), jpulz also has patches for softdevice so I made a port for that too but it only gave me a black screen... streamdev doesn't have an osd so you probably want xineliboutput at least for the first setup. I was unable to test xineliboutput's vdpau support since I no longer have nvidia (and miwi's issues with the nvidia blob on amd64 don't exactly encourage me to try it again soon...) - on the radeon here using xorg 7.4's video-ati driver with xv xineliboutput via vdr-sxfe, vdr-sxfe --video=xv --hotkeys --audio=oss xvdr://127.0.0.1:37890 (vdr-sxfe gets installed by the xineliboutput plugin port) as well as all other players I tested that knew the xvdr protocol (xineliboutput with osd) can now indeed play h264 hd channels on this PhenomII box after the ffmpeg updates a few months ago, with the only exception of kaffeine that still has issues with h264 1080i streams when deinterlacing is enabled: xine "xvdr://127.0.0.1#nocache" kaffeine "xvdr+tcp://127.0.0.1:37890" /usr/local/kde4/bin/kaffeine "xvdr+tcp://127.0.0.1:37890" (kaffeine also has no provision for vdr keyboard control...) You can now also run vdr-sxfe with --hud tho that didn't really work for me (probably needs compositing which I yet have to test.) --video opengl support is now also in the code but I disabled that for now since it was much slower than xv for me and I didn't want to add the dependency to the port just yet. Btw I use software volume control with xineliboutput (Setup -> Plugins -> xineliboutput -> Volume control in the osd) because selecting `hardware' there doesn't work so well with snd(4)'s volume-per-channel feature (hint.pcm.X.vpc, which also in fact is software) that I want to keep enabled for other apps... And in case you didn't know about this snd(4) feature you can read more here: http://people.freebsd.org/~ariff/SOUND_4.TXT.html You can also use other players like mplayer or totem/gstreamer (incluing the totem browser plugin invoked by the vdr-live webinterface), only those don't know the xvdr protocol and thus wont display an osd: mplayer -mc 10 -cache 8192 -demuxer lavf http://127.0.0.1:37890/ totem http://127.0.0.1:37890/ (or using streamdev: mplayer -mc 10 -cache 8192 -demuxer lavf http://127.0.0.1:3000/302 totem http://127.0.0.1:3000/302 - channel 302 is arte hd in my channels.conf.) 3a.And if you want to try out the xbmc port with vdr that was posted on -ports for testing recently, http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-multimedia/2010-October/011309.html you can do that too even tho it is not the pvr-testing2 branch, you just won't get the fast channel switching etc you'd get via the vnsi protocol (that I also ported the plugin for but couldn't test it) - watching live channels and recordings done by vdr (possibly scheduled via webinterface) is still possible. Just make sure you run vdr with the streamdev-server plugin enabled and that it is listening on the vdr-to-vdr server port (thats 2004 and is disabled by default, see in the osd under Setup -> Plugins -> streamdev-server.) Then in xbmc you can add vdr streamdev as a video source either via the gui or manually by putting something like this in ~/.xbmc/userdata/mediasources.xml: <mediasources> <network> <location id="0">vtp://127.0.0.1:2004/</location> </network> </mediasources> 4. I have no idea if the lirc support works on FreeBSD, and the uhid(4) remote plugin support (see that port's pkg-descr) is highly experimental - as well as webcamd not yet supporting dvb tuner remotes unless they already appear as uhid(4)/ukbd(4) without webcamd's help - so you probably will at least initially want to use keyboard control. I have included an example remote.conf for vdr-sxfe and the multimedia/vdr-plugin-control plugin that you can access by telnet (default port is 2002), I have put the menu button on the tab and insert keys and OK on the return key, see /usr/local/etc/vdr/remote.conf for the full keybindings list. (If you start vdr in the foreground and keep that shell open you should be able to use that for keyboard control also, the control plugin just gives you an osd too over telnet.) And if you use xine xine "xvdr://127.0.0.1#nocache" instead of vdr-sxfe vdr-sxfe --video=xv --hotkeys --audio=oss xvdr://127.0.0.1:37890 you probably want to use a ~/.xine/keymap that includes vdr controls, I've put mine here: http://people.freebsd.org/~nox/dvb/xine/keymap Oh and the webinterfaces have point-and-click remotes too but those are pretty clunky to use... 5. The example channels.conf is the one that comes with the vdr sources, its for Astra 19.2E and a little outdated (also doesn't have hd channels yet), if you receive something else and don't want to go hunting for a suitable channels.conf on the web you can use the multimedia/w_scan port. Remember to use -o7 for vdr 1.7.x, see the w_scan homepage and w_scan's -h and -H usage messages for options and examples: http://wirbel.htpc-forum.de/w_scan/index_en.html (the w_scan start script hasn't been ported to FreeBSD yet.) Also note you probably will only need to use w_scan once initially, this vdr version by default should look for new transponders itself when it does its epg scan during idle times unles you disable that feature. And if you install the iptv plugin and want to test it with some internet streams if your isp dosn't provide `real' iptv (or you just want to be able to press `r'ecord while watching web streams like nasatv), you can merge example /usr/local/etc/vdr/channels.conf entries from here: /usr/local/share/examples/vdr_plugin_iptv/channels.conf.iptv (I don't have `real' iptv here so that's all I can test. Also don't expect 100% performance with these examples, live transcoding streams to mpeg-ts that vdr expects still is kinda fragile and sometimes needs to be manually restarted by e.g. hitting OK (return) in the channel list (c) before it works, and startup is usually slow too... Transcoding uses vlc with those examples, you can see vlc's messages if you start vdr in the foreground instead of via the rc.d script as explained above. Also see /usr/local/etc/vdr/plugins/iptv and /usr/local/etc/vdr/plugins/iptv/vlcinput for configurations. And there seems to be a `feature' that sometimes causes vdr to start receiving streams without anyone watching/recording just because the iptv plugin is enabled...) 5. I ported two webinterfaces because I only learned about vdr-live later which seems to be faster and uses fewer resources meaning you could probably turn a pretty wimpy box into a vdr server as long as you keep the actual watching (especially of h264 hd) to a faster box connected over the network. The vdr-plugin-live webinterface by default listens on port 8008: http://127.1:8008/ Default login/pw is admin/live as also mentioned in: /usr/local/share/doc/vdr_plugin_live/README vdradmin_am listens on 8001: http://127.1:8001/ Default login/pw for that is vdr/vdr. And the streamdev plugin has a (simple) webinterface too if you point a browser at it: (instead of a player) http://127.1:3000/ 6. I may have forgot some other manual installation steps, if you notice something just post a followup... Most of vdr's own configuration including plugins should be available in the osd under `Setup', some things like allowed hosts/subnets for network plugins need to be manually configured under /usr/local/etc/vdr/plugins tho. And here are some links about vdr and the plugins and webinterfaces I made ports for: 0. vdr 1.7.16: http://www.tvdr.de/ http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Main_Page 1. xineliboutput-1.0.5 cvs snapshot from 20101019: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xineliboutput/ http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Xineliboutput-plugin 2. streamdev-0.5.0 cvs snapshot from 20100426: http://streamdev.vdr-developer.org/ http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Streamdev-plugin 3. live-0.2.0: http://live.vdr-developer.org/ 4. live also depends on cxxtools and tntnet which I also had to port: http://www.tntnet.org/cxxtools.html http://www.tntnet.org/index.html 5. epgsearch-0.9.25.beta17: http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/index_eng.html http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Epgsearch-plugin 6. femon-1.7.7: http://www.saunalahti.fi/~rahrenbe/vdr/femon/ http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Femon-plugin 7. osdpip-0.1.0: http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/show/plg-osdpip http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Osdpip-plugin 8. osdteletext-0.9.0: http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/show/plg-osdteletext http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Osdteletext-plugin 9. skinenigmang-0.1.1: http://andreas.vdr-developer.org/enigmang/index.html http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Skinenigmang-plugin (sorry for de in the second link but at least there are pics...) 10. softdevice 0.5.0 cvs snapshot from 20100414: http://softdevice.berlios.de/ http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Softdevice-plugin 11. control-0.0.2a-45yavdr1 with ubuntu yavdr patches: (and a patch by me to fix a segfault on vdr exit) http://ricomp.de/vdr/down_en.html http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Control-plugin 12. vdradmin_am-3.6.7: http://andreas.vdr-developer.org/vdradmin-am/ 13. infosatepg-0.0.11: http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/show/plg-infosatepg http://vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Infosatepg-plugin My post including notes about how I got it receiving and using the infosat epg data quickly: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-multimedia/2010-July/011158.html 14. remote-0.4.0: (with experimental FreeBSD uhid(4) support, some notes are in the port's pkg-descr) http://escape-edv.de/endriss/vdr http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Remote-plugin 15. iptv-0.4.2: http://www.saunalahti.fi/~rahrenbe/vdr/iptv/ 16. vnsiserver-0.0.2s20100808.0952: http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Vnsi-server-plugin http://www.vdr-portal.de/board/thread.php?threadid=95292 (sorry about the german but as I said this is only useful with the xbmc pvr-testing2 branch anyway and its untested too.) TODO: - I skipped install of a lot of locales for now, add back those. - The ports still need quite some cleanup work, also to make upgrading them or adding new plugins easier. - Submit the rest of the non-hacky FreeBSD patches back to the individual upstream maintainers (that should be pretty much all of the patches for *.[ch] source files, only Makefile/configure scripts patches less so.) - Someone(tm) may want to write a `real' step-by-step guide how to get a FreeBSD vdr going... (preferably someone who has never used vdr before to make sure important stuff I never think about isn't left out.) Enjoy, :) Juergen
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