XBMC Script

[Coolwave]

<UPDATE: 3/1/2006>

March 1st I posted a new thread because the release was a huge upgrade in functionality and performance. This script is really starting to come together. Check out the thread here.

</UPDATE>

Hey guys, I've been working on this script for Xbox Media Center the past few days. I am starting to get excited about it and want to share my excitement and get some feedback.

I have been basing this script on SageMC as you can see (I use the same BlueTwo skin in XBMC), but it would work with any STV installed as long as it's running nielm's webserver 2.6. So far I've gotten it to display what you see in these screen shots and also when Record is selected it will record the show selected. The Record function is pretty much the only thing I've gotten to work and there's no EPG yet, but the search does work and shows can be selected that way.

I'm not going to post this script to download yet as it's nowhere near being ready to be useful, but I wanted to show off what I've done so far and get a reaction to how popular this could be.

I would love XML feeds on nielm's webserver to make this easier, but it's pretty easy to scrape the info from the pages and that's how I'm doing it so far. I'm sure there are better ways, but I have no experience with Python and very little with Java and Studio.

I don't know how I'm going to tackle the EPG, any suggestions!?!?

Let me hear some excitement for this!
Coolwave

[aperry]

Looks pretty good to me... From a coding perspective, you'll probably do better if/when you can work towards having Python interface with Sage's Java API, something I want to look into, but probably won't have much opportunity to do till the summer.

[Coolwave]

I completely agree with you that interfacing with Sage's Java API would be the best way to do this, but I've had experience scraping webpages before using regular expressions and it's something I've managed to do with Python. I don't know how to go about doing this some other way yet. This is literally the first three days I've ever touched Python in my life, ha ha. I know I can get this to work through interfacing with nielm's webserver, and if I (or someone else) can create a way for the script to get the data another way then yay! Even better! Ha ha.

I've waited and waited for a SageTV XBMC script, so I figure if I get something out that's functional then hopefully someone can tweak it and make it better. So far though, the script performs wonderfully and is starting to not look to bad either. Helps that the web server is fast. Who knows what I'll learn along the way and change myself too.

Things that I must have as functional before beta/alpha/whatever release (goal of within one week):
- Select watch to begin playback on recorded items (recording items too if easy enough) **Done
- The Record button works, so Cancel Recording needs to work **Done
- Display other showings of selected item **Done
- Set/Clear Watched **Done
- A simple Record Series function w/ advanced coming later**Done
- Title and keyword search **Done
- Better formatting on Program Info w/ display of scheduled, favorite, watched **Done (close enough)

Displaying descriptions of the selected item below search results or any list of shows is last on this list, and I will release the script before I get this to work because I know that's going to give me some troubles.

After this I'm going to have to ask for help with the EPG, even if there's some way to interface with a current XBMC EPG script and somehow selecting shows to record through another script. I'm just not sure how capable I am of creating something this complex and making it look good. I can search and display results though! Ha ha... we'll see what happens.

[Coolwave]

Oh yea, I'm not currently a SageTV user. Sorry guys, it's true. I currently use MCE for my DVR needs, but I see SageTV as such a powerful machine that just needs to be taken advantage of by some of the crazy developers that are on these forums. I think we'll see more of these guys working together to support each others addons so we all can pick and choose exactly what we want our Sage system to do depending on our needs and system in use. (I know this is happening already, but I think it'll get even better)

It seems like more and more talented people are getting the hang of Studio and the future is lookin good.

I'm looking to get this script working better than my Xbox Media Center Extender (bleh!). If this happens, I'll be back to Sage. Haven't been a user since V2, but so glad I still have my license so I can play with it and hopefully add to it's functionality.

[robgfaulkner]

I am working on similar interface for Meedio. Will be posting screenshots, shortly.

-Rob

[Alfiegerner]

This is looking good.

For the epg I would take a look at bigbellybilly's mytv script. Excellent sage / sky style horizontal scrolling epg.

[kricker]

I can't wait to get a hold of this I have been waiting for this for a looong time. Count me in on any testing you need done.

For XML data, doesn't the Germ.stv create XML data? Maybe that is useable.

[bhyman1]

That looks really sweet.

I'd finally have a permanent use for my modded Xbox!

[bcjenkins]

I would think running the jar would be the easiest thing to do. From what I understsand the video is streamed using mplayer..

thoughts?

B

[Alfiegerner]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I would think running the jar would be the easiest thing to do. From what I understsand the video is streamed using mplayer..

thoughts?

B

There is no JRE available for the xbox. Java programs will not run on it.

[Coolwave]

Update! Download

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

There is no JRE available for the xbox. Java programs will not run on it.

No JRE for the XBOX os, but IIRC there is JRE for xbox-linux. It would be cool to be able to run the complete placeshifter on a linuxed xbox, but right now, the way I read it is that the complete placeshifter is available only for windows. Running just the JAR only gives the UI, not video or audio.

[Coolwave]

If anyone has downloaded this and gotten it to work, I would love to know! I've only tested it on my own setup, and I'm not even a full time SageTV user (yet!) so all my recordings and data are very limited.

This is just me blabbing... but I know this is true for me, to make skipping through the commercials better I use Time Based Seeking in XBMC, and I changed the default seek values. I really like MCE's default of 30 seconds forward and 7 seconds backward. I can find what I'm looking for pretty fast.

If you're interested in using these values, for SageTV the settings are in Sage.properties:
videoframe/ff_time=30000
videoframe/rew_time=-7000

For XBMC the settings are in E:\TDATA\0face008\settings.xml:
<timeseekforward>30</timeseekforward>
<timeseekbackward>-7</timeseekbackward>

Use Time Based Seeking must also be selected on the Video settings screen.

I know there are some issues with changing these values while XBMC is running, but I just connected via FTP, downloaded settings.xml, changed the values, deleted E:\TDATA\0face008\settings.xml, uploaded the new settings.xml, and turned off the Xbox using the power button. Powered up the Xbox and XBMC and the new settings were working.

Would love to hear anyone's experiences of XBMC crashing over and over while trying to get this to work.
- Coolwave

[kricker]

I just checked your PM, then came to the thread. I have just downloaded the script and will be testing it later tonight. I will report back ASAP.

[kricker]

1st of all great start! This already works pretty darn well.
Coolwave, some of these we talked about already, but here we go.

Suggestions:
1 add the delete function
2 add the archive function
3 pressing play starts playback without having to view info 1st
4 group series into folders like sageMC does (ie all CSI grouped together so it only shows one item in the list, then going into that shows all the episodes)
5 sort by things other than just date

Bugs:
1 Program info is truncated at end of 1st line
2 Archived recordings do not playback or give info
3 Recent Recordings shows the wrong things

[Coolwave]

I did update the download zip file. There were a few images missing and a few bugs that really stood out were fixed. Thanks kricker for helping me work out the first bugs! I'm pretty sure this script is going to get better and better, so check back for updates. A delete function was added and "skin support" was added. The images from any of the SageMC themes should work perfectly. Just copy the required image files to a folder folder and change the PathToImages variable to point to the new folder.

[cryptoboy]

Originally Posted by robgfaulkner

I am working on similar interface for Meedio. Will be posting screenshots, shortly.

-Rob

robfaulkner, Meedio interface would be great! I'm eager to see what you've got or at least willing to do some testing for you?

[Jakebucky]

Coolwave---this looks pretty cool. I'm adding a new hard drive to my xbox tonight and then I'll be loading XBMC up and giving this a try.

[kricker]

-coolwave
Interesting that you have the file dated from the year 2003

-Jakebucky
Just wait till you see the new version he has just about ready.

EDIT
After extensive testing, I believe this is a very stable script. The only thing to look out for is that your XBMC build is not too new. At some point there were major skinning engine changes. The only thing this will effect is the look though, the functionality is still rock solid.