Segers,Jan J.K.T. wrote:

thanks! i just re-read the instructions on your website but i still dont get how to use the EXT format... whats the content of the iptvstream.sh? something like "vlc -vvv mms://livemedia.omroep.nl/vprohollanddoc-bb" ?

Our README says that "The external script is responsible for supplying IPTV plugin with MPEG2 TS data in UDP/RTP format to the listening port."

So the external script must use VLC to:

1) Receive the stream

2) Transcode it to format understood by vdr (for example mpeg2 ts)

3) Feed the data to the port which iptv plugin is listening

To achieve these tasks you could use for example this script:

#!/bin/sh

exec vlc "mms://livemedia.omroep.nl/vprohollanddoc-bb" --sout "#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,acodec=mpga,vb=2400,ab=320}:standard{access=udp,mux=ts{pid-video=1,pid-audio=2,pid-spu=3},dst=127.0.0.1:4321}" --intf dummy

Store it to iptv plugin configuration directory with name vlcstream.sh and give it execute permissions.

Here's the corresponding channels.conf entry: VLC-channel;IPTV:1:IPTV|EXT|vlcstream.sh|1:P:0:1:2:0:0:1:0:0:0

Hope this helps. =) If you need further assistance, please contact me privately.

Segers,Jan J.K.T. kirjoitti:

have a look here: http://www.global-itv.com/

thanks. I found a couple of channels.

It seems that vlc is able to play the stream correctly, with both audio and video by itself. But when I try to use it together with iptv plugin, it seems that for some reason audio is lost.

I use vdr-xine for output.

Xine output seems like it gets the audio, but it does not get any synchronization info correctly, as it just reports skipping audio:

excerpt from the xine logging:

plugin mad will be used for audio streamtype 01. audio_alsa_out:open pause_resume=1 output sample rate 48000 audio jump, diff=-2160 set_speed 1000000 ao_flush (loop running: 1) video discontinuity #25, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for audio discontinuity #25 ao_close audio_out: no streams left, closing driver audio discontinuity #25, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for in_discontinuity update #25 vpts adjusted with prebuffer to 3418578 ao_flush (loop running: 1) video discontinuity #26, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for audio discontinuity #26 audio discontinuity #26, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for in_discontinuity update #26 vpts adjusted with prebuffer to 3418610

This is the corresponding stream entry for channels.conf:

Bahn TV;IPTV:3:IPTV|EXT|iptvstream.sh|3:P:0:4+3:5:0:0:1:0:0:0

What should I try?

yours, Jouni

Jouni Karvo wrote:

Segers,Jan J.K.T. kirjoitti:

...

have a look here: http://www.global-itv.com/

thanks. I found a couple of channels.

It seems that vlc is able to play the stream correctly, with both audio and video by itself. But when I try to use it together with iptv plugin, it seems that for some reason audio is lost.

I use vdr-xine for output.

Xine output seems like it gets the audio, but it does not get any synchronization info correctly, as it just reports skipping audio:

excerpt from the xine logging:

plugin mad will be used for audio streamtype 01. audio_alsa_out:open pause_resume=1 output sample rate 48000 audio jump, diff=-2160 set_speed 1000000 ao_flush (loop running: 1) video discontinuity #25, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for audio discontinuity #25 ao_close audio_out: no streams left, closing driver audio discontinuity #25, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for in_discontinuity update #25 vpts adjusted with prebuffer to 3418578 ao_flush (loop running: 1) video discontinuity #26, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for audio discontinuity #26 audio discontinuity #26, type is 0, disc_off 0 waiting for in_discontinuity update #26 vpts adjusted with prebuffer to 3418610

This is the corresponding stream entry for channels.conf:

Bahn TV;IPTV:3:IPTV|EXT|iptvstream.sh|3:P:0:4+3:5:0:0:1:0:0:0

What should I try?

Hi Jouni

I decided to give Bahn TV a try and could also reproduce symptoms of missing audio.

It seems that the transcoding engine of vlc gets confused by the audio bitrate setting iptv plugin uses by default. So far I haven't found other channels than Bahn TV that are affected by this.

Try lowering the value of ABITRATE found in iptvstream.sh from 320 to e.g. 192. After such a modification the stream worked fine for me.

Jouni Karvo wrote:

Antti Seppälä kirjoitti:

...

Try lowering the value of ABITRATE found in iptvstream.sh from 320 to e.g. 192. After such a modification the stream worked fine for me.

Hi,

this does not seem to help.

I have three test channels now, all of which give the video:

• The Albanian Rrokum TV - which gives also audio.
• Bahn TV - only video. Even with ab=192
• BBC One premier (via http://www.global-itv.com/). Only video

My xine has w32 (from xine's output: load_plugins: plugin /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins/1.1.9/xineplug_decode_w32dll.so found )

Since you have at least one channel which works it leads me to believe that iptv plugin is working and the problem could still be in the transcoding or playback process.

Here's how you can try to investigate a bit more:

Set up a vlc for transcoding in a similar fashion as to how iptv plugin uses it. For example the following command will do just that for Bahn TV:

vlc mms://atkon-atkbtvolive-wmv-high.wm.llnwd.net/atkon_atkbtvolive_wmv_high --sout "#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,acodec=mpga,vb=2400,ab=192}:standard{access=udp,mux=ts{pid-video=1,pid-audio=2,tsid=3},dst=127.0.0.1:4321}" --intf dummy

Now open another instance of vlc to play back the transcoded stream:

vlc udp://@:4321

If the stream works perfectly, you can close the playback vlc and try to play with xine:

xine udp://127.0.0.1:4321

Notice how my examples hardcode the udp port to 4321. If you want to change it, remember to do so to every command.

If there's no audio on either of the players you are likely to have something wrong with your vlc installation. If vlc works but xine doesn't then xine cannot for some reason decode the audio stream.

The script sets VPID=parameter+1, APID=parameter+2, SPID=parameter+3 (I wonder why, since if you want to receive simultaneously two consecutive parameter things, they overlap anyway).

We try to use pids to make the channels separable from each other. Overlapping should not be a problem because multiple streams are sent to different udp ports (and different iptv devices as well). You can of course modify the script and use different pids if you like.

When looking at the stream info, they show PIDs like 3,4,66. 4,5,66. I wonder what this 66 is and why...

I think it is the default PMT pid of vlc.

Jouni Karvo wrote:

I really have no idea of which settings to try next. Configuring xine-ui is not really an easy thing.

Few people have reported audio problems in xine-lib version 1.1.9.

The setting audio.synchronization.slow_fast_audio (discussed here http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/vdr/2008-January/015210.html) might help.

Also changing audio.synchronization.av_sync_method and/or audio.synchronization.resample_mode may have an effect on your audio problems.

Other than that I have no idea.

I demand that Jouni Karvo may or may not have written...

Ville Skyttä kirjoitti:

...

On Tuesday 22 January 2008, Darren Salt wrote:

...

This patch should fix it. If you find that it works, report back and I'll make sure that it gets committed.

I'm not using any xine related functionality with VDR, but I tried the patch below. Unfortunately it makes things even worse for me with Amarok than vanilla 1.1.9.1 - with vanilla 1.1.9.1 audio was ok until I tried to play a radio

With this patch, all error messages are gone (except for this)

video_out: thread created audio_out: thread created xine_interface: unknown or deprecated stream param 10 set xine_stream_new

[etc.]

...but so is audio. With the patch, all normal TV channels also are dead quiet.

Current hg should be fine. Anybody who wants to test it doesn't have very long to do so ;-)