View Full Version : VideoLAN VLC with CA support - alpha1 release
I've released first version of my implementation of VideoLAN VLC 0.7.2 with Commercial Advance support. This is a client to play ReplayTV mpegs or stream them directly from your RTV(s) to your PC via DVArchive with Automatic Commercial Advance capability.
For lack of a better place to put it you can find a zip file at:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/vlc/
This zip file contains the entire win32 distribution, the README-replaytv.txt file reproduced below, and a patch tar file containing all source code modifications.
NOTE: I also placed the patch tar file by itself at the above location for those just looking for source code.
If you try this out please give me some feedback - good or bad.
The README-replaytv.txt file reads as follows:
VideoLAN vlc-0.7.2 ReplayTV custom version
=======================
ReplayTV customizations
=======================
1. Automatic Commercial Advance (CA) support added when playing ReplayTV files
or when streaming directly from ReplayTV (both 4K and 5K series supported).
Hotkey F9 is setup to toggle CA on and off as desired. Note that by
default CA is automatically enabled on startup, so if you want to turn
if off you can press the F9 key to toggle it off. Press F9 to re-enable.
Hotkey F10 is setup to display any CA time points that were computed
and will be used during playback. The list of points will be displayed
for about 10 seconds before dissapearing. NOTE: There is a limitation
of 9 lines of display text over video in VLC, so if there are more
than 18 commercials (not likely) the remaining ones won't show up. Also,
showing so much text slows down video rendering... I probably need to
come up with a better way of showing commercial points via the GUI.
2. AVS Forum FlipFlop's changes as outlined in thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=410394
- Improved the time position indicator so it doesn't jump all over the place.
- Changed the -10 second skip to -7 seconds
- Changed the +10 second skip to +30 seconds
- Made the short skips respond quickly (i.e. now they actually work)
- Made the stream playback begin immediately, instead of reading 4MB,
discarding and starting over
- I also changed +/- 5 minute skips to +/- 3 minute skips since
most commercials are in 3-4 minute range.
AUTHORS
Kevin Moye (moyekj) - CA implementation
Philip Van Baren (FlipFlop) - All other customizations
THANKS TO
Lee Thompson, Agent X and others (for replaypc & evtdump code)
Gerry Duprey (for DVArchive interface)
AVS Forum j.m. (for pointing me in the right direction)
Countless others at AVS Forum
CA Implementation Notes
------------------------
- Note that computation of commercial points relies on
the presence of .ndx file (and .evt file for 5K series) in the
same directory as the .mpg file you are playing. If those
files are not present in same directory, CA will not work.
- CA support for files streamed directly from RTV only works
using DVArchive 3.1. The implementation currently relies on
DVArchive for obtaining the .evt/.ndx files from the RTV
in order to compute commercial points.
- The commercial points are marked in terms of their file
positions instead of time points so will work properly even though
VLC may display the wrong elapsed/remaining time of the stream.
- When a commercial skip happens a ">>> mm:ss" swish is displayed
so that you know how long (in minutes and seconds) the skip was.
- My testing shows the CA skip points match the RTV ones very
closely. However as most RTV users can attest for certain
shows CA does not work reliably and so this implementation
is subject to the same problems.
==========
OS SUPPORT
==========
This customized version of VideoLAN VLC was developed using
Windows XP and was also tested on Linux RedHat. I did not
test any other OS, so it may be possible some OS-specific
source code tweaks are needed to support other platforms,
however it should be possible to get this compiled on any
platform supported by VLC.
==================
WIN32 INSTALLATION
==================
No self-installing executable is provided, but the installation
is very simple:
1. Unzip the vlc-0.7.2-replaytv-alpha1.zip file in a fresh folder.
The main executable resides in <path>\vlc\vlc.exe.
2. Setup your DVArchive 3.1 installation to point at the
the above vlc.exe:
- File -> DVArchive Properties...
- Under General tab use the above vlc.exe for
both "MPEG Video Player" and "Streaming MPEG Video Player"
settings.
======================
NON WIN32 INSTALLATION
======================
For all other platforms you will have to build vlc from source.
I am providing a source code tar file containing all the files I
modified in the code tree to implement the replayTV specific
enhancements.
1. The main VideoLAN 0.7.2 VLC source code can be obtained here:
http://download.videolan.org/pub/vlc/0.7.2/vlc-0.7.2.tar.gz
NOTE: This does NOT include many 3rd party software that
is used by VideoLAN VLC in conjunction with it's own code.
2. Uncompress and untar the source into a fresh directory.
3. Untar my source code path file (vlc-0.7.2-replaytv.patch.tar)
in directory: <install-dir>/vlc-0.2
4. Follow the OS-specific instructions for compiling VLC at:
http://developers.videolan.org/vlc/
plyons10
08-10-04, 01:04 PM
Thanks Moyekj... I'll try to check it out when I'm home tonight or tomorrow.
octavian
08-10-04, 02:47 PM
Very cool Moyekj!
I can hardly wait to get home and try it :D
octavian
A couple of suggestions:
1) Is it possible to only retrieve the .evt and .ndx file once? Currently, any time you manually skip around in a stream, it re-retrieves/parses the .evt and .ndx files. This slows things down a bit. Since the .evt and .ndx presumably won't change, you should be able to do this only one time and then use the stored markers on future skips.
2) If the VLC API allows it, I suggest adding Bookmarks (see the Settings | Bookmarks menu) for the CA markers. This would a) allow one to easily skip around segments (similar to Show|Nav) and b) would solve some of the problems with the F10 display of detected markers (the text of which overlaps on my PC).
Great job so far!
Originally posted by j.m.
A couple of suggestions:
1) Is it possible to only retrieve the .evt and .ndx file once? Currently, any time you manually skip around in a stream, it re-retrieves/parses the .evt and .ndx files. This slows things down a bit. Since the .evt and .ndx presumably won't change, you should be able to do this only one time and then use the stored markers on future skips.
2) If the VLC API allows it, I suggest adding Bookmarks (see the Settings | Bookmarks menu) for the CA markers. This would a) allow one to easily skip around segments (similar to Show|Nav) and b) would solve some of the problems with the F10 display of detected markers (the text of which overlaps on my PC).
Great job so far! Thanks for the feedback.
Yeah on 1) this happens only when streaming directly from RTV via DVA. A skip actually forces DVA to stop current stream and start another at given offset. I've already got a fix for this problem which should speed things up as you mentioned. I'll make it available in next release.
2) sounds like a great suggestion. It would be nice to be able to easily skip around similar to Show|Nav. A downside to that approach is the length of the commercial skips would be unknown up front (which serves as good sanity checking). i.e. It would be logical to only include the commercial end markers as bookmarks since it wouldn't be very useful to include commercial start points as bookmarks. I'll look into this and leave the F10 hotkey there for now too. Also, in the bookmark menu it shows time as well as position, so not sure (without having looked at that code) if the time indication actually needs to jive with what VLC calculates as elapsed time - hopefully only the file position really matters in which case this should be easy to add.
Originally posted by j.m.
2) If the VLC API allows it, I suggest adding Bookmarks (see the Settings | Bookmarks menu) for the CA markers. This would a) allow one to easily skip around segments (similar to Show|Nav) and b) would solve some of the problems with the F10 display of detected markers (the text of which overlaps on my PC).
Turns out this is pretty trivial to add and the good thing is the name of the bookmark can be anything you want, so I can include the details of each commercial block in each bookmark description. I think this obsoletes the poor F10 hotkey implementation so I'm just going to pull that out completely. Thanks again for the suggestion and keep them coming.
When I run it on a show that's already downloaded, VLC dies with an error almost immediately. The same thing happens when I run ReVue, but that program has an error trap that allows me to continue anyway.
I just posted alpha2 release to the same location:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/vlc/
(alpha1 release is in alpha1 directory)
Updated readme file is here:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/vlc/README-replaytv.txt
Essentially this fixes the problem j.m. described of multiple downloads of .evt/.ndx files when skipping around a stream directly from DVA. As a result the skips in stream mode are much faster now.
Also replaced the F10 hotkey with j.m. idea of bookmarks. Great idea j.m, thanks!
Originally posted by Wrecks
When I run it on a show that's already downloaded, VLC dies with an error almost immediately. The same thing happens when I run ReVue, but that program has an error trap that allows me to continue anyway. Please provide a few more details on your environment. Also, with regular version of VideoLAN VLC 0.7.2 does it play that show without crashing? If so, please put your .ndx & .evt & .xml files for that show in a zip file and email to: moyekj@yahoo.com
Clay Schneider
08-11-04, 11:57 AM
I installed, and pointed dvarchive [3.1] at it, but it didn't seem to do anything regarding CA beyond just playing the vid. If I looked at preferences, F9 and F10 were mapped to CA functions, but they didn't seem to do anything 'ca-wise' -- for either previously downloaded files or files still on my 5040. Is there some other magic I'm missing? Thanks.
Originally posted by Clay Schneider
I installed, and pointed dvarchive [3.1] at it, but it didn't seem to do anything regarding CA beyond just playing the vid. If I looked at preferences, F9 and F10 were mapped to CA functions, but they didn't seem to do anything 'ca-wise' -- for either previously downloaded files or files still on my 5040. Is there some other magic I'm missing? Thanks. Hmm that is a mystery. If you are using alpha1 and the F10 key does indeed show something then it should be skipping through the range of commercials identified. Note that there is an alpha2 release now where identified commercials show up as bookmarks. Try using that release and see if you can at least get the bookmarks to work. i.e. select a bookmark and see if it jumps to that spot in the stream. If that also doesn't work then there is something really fundamental going wrong.
So far I only have confirmation this is working for one person other than myself (j.m.). Anyone else tried this and got it working at all? I'm curious because it is working quite well in my environment now.
I want to work on correcting the elapsed and total time displayed when streaming 4K streams which are always about 1.5x too high - i.e. a 30 minute show is always shown as 45min by VLC. For my 5K streams the displayed elapsed/total times are pretty close to correct.
Please provide a few more details on your environment. Also, with regular version of VideoLAN VLC 0.7.2 does it play that show without crashing? I did some checking, and figured out that this only happens when I play the show from the DVArchive interface. If I drag a show over to VLC to play it this does not happen.
I presume this to mean that there is some weird interaction between VLC and Java on my system that has nothing to do with your programming.
It doesn't bother me anyway, because I can use ReVue to watch already downloaded shows. As I mentioned before, it does the same thing, but it has some kind of error trap that allows me to continue and watch the show.
Something else: On my Windows XP system, sometimes when I would press F10 it would display the commercial times, sometimes it would highlight the "File" item on the menu bar. I could never find a pattern to it.
Since you are taking that out of the software I guess it doesn't matter anyway.
octavian
08-11-04, 05:53 PM
Originally posted by moyekj
So far I only have confirmation this is working for one person other than myself (j.m.). Anyone else tried this and got it working at all? I'm curious because it is working quite well in my environment now.
Alpha 1 worked great for me. I am going to try alpha 2 when I get home and I'm betting it works even better.;)
octavian
plyons10
08-11-04, 06:17 PM
Alpha 2 rocking along for me great!!
Nice baby!!!!!
bslayton
08-11-04, 06:27 PM
Worked great for me!
thank you!
B.
waynethedvrguy
08-11-04, 07:13 PM
Thanks Kevin and Phillip (et al)! Nice job right out of the box. Alpha 2 is running like a champ.
Regards,
Wayne
twisted
08-11-04, 10:34 PM
Alpha2 worked out of the box for me (Win2000 Pro). This is the same setup that crashes ReVue every time. Thanks.
noppers1
08-11-04, 11:15 PM
I tried alpha1 last night and it was working pretty well for me (WinXP Pro). This addition to VLC is great, thanks for the effort you put into it. I'll be trying alpha2 now!
Clay Schneider
08-11-04, 11:36 PM
Originally posted by moyekj
Hmm that is a mystery. If you are using alpha1 and the F10 key does indeed show something then it should be skipping through the range of commercials identified. Note that there is an alpha2 release now where identified commercials show up as bookmarks. Try using that release and see if you can at least get the bookmarks to work. i.e. select a bookmark and see if it jumps to that spot in the stream. If that also doesn't work then there is something really fundamental going wrong.
Alpha2 works like a champ. Not sure why I was having a problem with the first [though I am running xp sp2].
Thanks! Clay
Great, thanks for the feedback all... will try and work on the 4K series wrong elapsed/total time display next.
Also need to find a proper location to put the release and perhaps get some help to generate some pre-compiled binaries for different OSs. I did a Linux RedHat 8.0 install from scratch - it was pretty painful getting all the 3rd party software compiled and installed in order to be able to compile VLC, but it does work - in fact the Linux version is much more responsive compared to the win32 version for me, even on a machine with half the CPU speed of my windows box.
madSkeelz
08-12-04, 08:31 AM
I'm planning on building this for OSX this weekend. Doesn't look like it'll be too bad. Are you using one of vlc's available code snapshots, or are you just sucking down from svn as-needed?
Grab all 3rd party and VLC source code from the following page:
http://videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html
Download and compile each 3rd party tar ball in order given. Make sure when using "configure" scripts to specify --prefix=<path> and use the same install path for all the libraries. So that's:
1. configure --prefix=<path> (path without the angle brackets)
2. make
3. make install
NOTE: Make sure you set the CC and CXX environment variables to use -I and -L options pointing to where you are installing all the libraries:
CC=gcc -I <path> -L <path> (without angle brackets of course)
Similaraly CXX=g++ -I <path> -L <path>
A couple of them don't have a configure script so need to be handled differently. ffmeg installation I found particularly hard to deal with and learned that several configure options need to be used so that all the options needed by VLC are installed. I'll see if I can dig up the options I ended up using.
When all 3rd party software is installed now you can attack the VLC code.
Untar the VLC source code
Then apply my tar file patch to the VLC tree. (You may want to skip this step for now and try building the raw VLC tree first and then applying my patch later).
configure --prefix=<path>; make; make install
I'll probably go through the whole exercise again for building on Linux and take some good notes and then document them since it's not very trivial to get everything right.
This software could be the answer to those who have been wanting a "thin client" to play ReplayTV shows in other rooms. Take your old computer, put DVArchive and this version of VLC on it and you've got a streaming client you can watch in your bedroom. With automatic commercial advance and everything!
I'm even thinking of creating a large font interface that my RF wireless mouse remote can use to select and play shows for me.
JenEric
08-13-04, 03:53 AM
Dude! Nice job! I think I went from watching no shows on my PC to watching most of them from it. I was thinking similar things to Wrecks about the "thin client." How long before this mod shows up for the XBox?
Originally posted by Wrecks
This software could be the answer to those who have been wanting a "thin client" to play ReplayTV shows in other rooms. Take your old computer, put DVArchive and this version of VLC on it and you've got a streaming client you can watch in your bedroom. With automatic commercial advance and everything!
I'm even thinking of creating a large font interface that my RF wireless mouse remote can use to select and play shows for me. Yeah, this was my motivation to get CA working in a streaming thin client - since I have a mixed 4K/5K series environment that all can't stream to each other and sometimes I am relegated to a room without a replayTV I do stream many RTV shows to my wireless 17' widescreen laptop and was tired of manually skipping through commercials. This solution takes care of the 4K/5K incompatiblity.
An aside humorous side effect is this also adds CA capability to 5.5K series owners who haven't hacked the box to support it.
... I do stream many RTV shows to my wireless 17' widescreen laptop...
Wow :D
-Jason
madSkeelz
08-13-04, 09:13 PM
Ok, I'm in over my head. :) I'm going to see if fink can help get most of the dependency packages built and installed, then I can muck about with vlc itself.
I just released alpha3. This one fixes the elapsed/total times displayed by VLC for 4K series streams, which were totally wrong (by a factor of about 1.5x). I just applied a simple scale factor to make the correction and while it's not perfect it's much closer to the right times than before.
I'm working on fixing a strange crash for a 6 hour olympics recording (downconverted HDTV recording) which refuses to start streaming - VLC crashes before the stream starts. Don't know yet if it's related to my changes in any way.
Turns out the crash above was due to debugging printf statements (nothing wrong with them and they only crash in windows). I included some changes to the debug statements which appear to have fixed the problem. I updated alpha3 release with the changes.
beta1 release is out. Only change from alpha3 is to ignore commercial blocks < 20 secs long (by suggestion from FlipFlop) to avoid "fake" commercials due to fades within a program. Looks like number of changes are reducing and stability is better which seemed to warrant alpha->beta status change.
Bixit219
08-16-04, 12:15 AM
First off THANK YOU moyekj for this mod to VLC!! excellent work..
(I haven't tried beta1 yet, but with alpha3 I found the following glitches)
While testing it out a noticed a couple things, the start of the show should be in the Navigation/Bookmark e.g. 00:00.0 , I think adding the start to the bookmarks would make life a little easier..
I also noticed a bug with shows that are 30 mins long, vlc alpha3 seems to gets confused by any terminating commercial blocks at or near the end of a show, what was happening was I noticed was the final segment of a show was being accidentally skipped by vlc alpha3, here is an example of what I mean,
using ReVue, I got the commercial/content time markers for the show in question.
00:00.0 commercials
00:01.3 Content
08:58.3 commercials
11:09.1 Content
18:02.4 commercials
21:06.3 Content
24:55.3 commercials
28:10.6 Content
29:56.7 commercials
29:58.5 commercials
what vlc alpha3 calculated from that was this:
CA1 08:58 - 11:08
CA2 18:02 - 21:05
CA3 24:55 - 29:58
As you can see, CA3 is mis calculated, it should be, 24:55 - 28:09
I just though I would post my findings with the hopes it helps you to flush out the bugs in your VLC mods..
again, great job!
Bixit219
08-16-04, 12:32 AM
** I just tried beta1 and it still makes the same mis calculation skipping over the final content segment.
fyi, revue calculates the final content block correct..
Bixit219, if you could download the show in question to DVA and then zip up the .ndx/.evt/.xml files (leave out .mpg as it's too big and not really needed) for the show and send to me that would be helpful:
moyekj@yahoo.com
If you prefer you can PM me and tell me where to get hold of the files (unfortunately PM doesn't allow attachments AFAIK).
One other option is to IVS me the show if you prefer. PM me for my IVS # if you want to go that route.
Thanks.
Bixit219
08-16-04, 10:41 AM
moyekj I sent you a PM..
Bixit219
08-16-04, 11:03 AM
I know you have probably thought about this, but what about just adding all the content markers to the Navigation/Bookmarks, both content blocks and commercial advance blocks? I think it would make it allot nicer if I could use the bookmarks to jump around in a show rather than trying to fudge it with the slider or using the +1 min jumping.. just a thought.. you could still keep the CA moniker, for the commercial blocks, e.g. CA1, CA2, CA3, just come up with something else to indicate show content blocks,.. e.g. SH (for show), or something.. e.g SH1, SH2, SH3 .. and SHOW START, SHOW END markers too...
just a thought..
Looks like CA marks at the end of a show may not be calculated correctly in some cases when streaming directly from an RTV via DVArchive. If the show is first downloaded to DVA and played then the CA marks are correct. This is the case for Bixit219 problem described above. This means that somehow obtaining the .ndx/.evt files over the network must be not working quite right in all cases. I'll be working on this issue when time permits.
beta2 release: 08/17/2004
=========================
o Fixed potential problem distinguishing between 4K & 5K series.
o Checking added for last .evt point for 5K series which in many
cases turns out to be a bogus point. This fixes a problem with
last commercial block extending too far when streaming from DVA.
Originally posted by Bixit219
I know you have probably thought about this, but what about just adding all the content markers to the Navigation/Bookmarks, both content blocks and commercial advance blocks? I think it would make it allot nicer if I could use the bookmarks to jump around in a show rather than trying to fudge it with the slider or using the +1 min jumping.. just a thought.. you could still keep the CA moniker, for the commercial blocks, e.g. CA1, CA2, CA3, just come up with something else to indicate show content blocks,.. e.g. SH (for show), or something.. e.g SH1, SH2, SH3 .. and SHOW START, SHOW END markers too...
just a thought.. I considered this, but the biggest problem was that for long recordings with many commercials (3+ hours of programming such as NFL games) you quickly end up with MANY bookmarks if you keep them separated as you suggest above and you run out of real estate to display them all with the popup bookmarks menu when in FullScreen mode. Note that with current implementation you can still jump around the show but there is just no way to jump to a commercial, which I would never want to do anyway.
It may be possible to add a command-line switch to control this behavior to tailor it to your preference.
plyons10
08-17-04, 01:02 PM
Thanks again for quick re-releases and bug fixes!
Bixit219
08-17-04, 01:14 PM
Originally posted by plyons10
Thanks again for quick re-releases and bug fixes!
Yes, moyekj should be commended for the work on VLC!!
Thanks moyekj!!
Thank you guys for the bug reports and testcases - hopefully most of the glaring bugs can be cleared up in short order and this won't need many more releases.
I could post a RedHat Linux binary release for this if there's any interest in that... as for other OSs (i.e. not win32 or RH Linux) somebody else would have to go through the pain of compiling from source... I've been avoiding re-doing the whole exercise on Linux again and taking detailed notes on what was needed to get everything compiled and probably won't do it unless someone really could benefit from it. It's possible for me to cross-compile from source for other platforms, but I really don't want to deal with that plus I'd have no way of testing it out.
Bixit219
08-17-04, 05:21 PM
Beta 2 seems to have resolved any bugs I can spot.. so far so good.. I've watched a few shows with it so far.. though I will test it more.
Is there a VLC keyboard shortcut to skip to the next navigation bookmark?
Originally posted by Wrecks
Is there a VLC keyboard shortcut to skip to the next navigation bookmark?
Supposedly F1->F8 should work to get to the first 8 bookmarks. There's no binding to jump to next/previous bookmark AFAIK. You can see the hotkey bindings at:
Settings -> Preferences...
General Settings->Hotkeys...
Enable Advanced Options
However, I recall trying and finding those keys generally don't work for some reason. Similarly the F9 hotkey I added for toggling CA sometimes just doesn't take for some reason. Perhaps if you bind them to other keys they would work more reliably, but I haven't tried.
May be useful to add hotkeys to jump to next & previous bookmark to act like Show|Nav. I'll put it on TODO list.
May be useful to add hotkeys to jump to next & previous bookmark to act like Show|Nav. I'll put it on TODO list. That is what I was wanting to do. It would be easier than having to figure out which bookmark to jump to.
I regularly hit the right arrow on the remote when the shows theme song and credits start. This usually takes me to the beginning of the next scene in the show which is almost always right after the first set of commercials.
Beta3 is released with next/previous scene jumping hotkeys:
beta3 release: 08/18/2004
=========================
o Added 2 new replaytv-specific hotkeys to jump to next/previous CA
bookmark:
- Hotkey <Ctrl>. (control-period) is setup to jump forward to the next
bookmark, which is the end of the next commercial block or the start
of the show after next commercial.
- Hotkey <Ctrl>, (control-comma) is setup to jump backwards to the previous
bookmark, which is the end of the previous commercial block or the start
of the show after last commercial.
NOTE: You can jump back multiple bookmarks in succession by activating the
bindkey again within a second or so of the previous press.
o Some cleanup of network parsing of .evt/.ndx files to work more reliably
with DVArchive.
Beta3 looks good, except the default Ctrl+, and Ctrl+. shortcuts didn't work for me. I changed them to ; and ' and all is well. There may be a conflict on my system with the defaults.
I do have another suggestion. I think someone else mentioned this earlier, but I think it would be nice to have time 0 added to the beginning of the bookmarks list so that one could jump back to the start with the above hotkeys as well.
I had problems with those keys as well. So I decided to change them to n and p (which I did) and all of a sudden the comma and period keys started working!
Hotkeys seem to be hit or miss at times. Sometimes they work, sometimes not, sometimes only certain hotkeys work while others don't. The fullscreen hotkey 'f' never seems to work for me, but pause (space bar) always does. I searched the VideoLAN VLC forum for hotkeys related issues but though I found others complaining about the problem I didn't see a definitive solution to the issue. The only one that stuck in my mind is someone claims that if they switch to one of the skins interface instead of the default GUI that the hotkeys work much more reliably. If anyone has more patience for more detailed searching I'd like to get a workaround/fix for the problem.
I've used this application a few times and it seems like it might replace my current application for playing back ReplayTV files on my computer.
One question, can it save save the location I was in when I last watched a program so the next time I start watching it will start where I left off?
Originally posted by jrusch
One question, can it save save the location I was in when I last watched a program so the next time I start watching it will start where I left off? As far as I know, no.
One question, can it save save the location I was in when I last watched a program so the next time I start watching it will start where I left off? Sure there is... But not the way you wanted.
"Save" the location by writing the time down on a piece of paper. The next time you watch the show, drag the pointer until it is near that time.
Some times "low tech" is the way...
drosenth
08-18-04, 11:33 PM
Moyekj,
First, GREAT JOB! I have been using the enhanced VLC with DVA 3.1 for some time now, but the CA feature is PERFECT. I have noticed one thing that might help regarding the F9 dilemma displaying and that is I noticed that first time I run VLC, F9 works great. Once I close VLC and open it again (with streaming video from DVA), it NEVER appears again. I did this same test on a second machine at home and it worked the same way as well (worked the first time, then stops once I close VLC and re-open it). I believe that after I reboot my machine, CA begins to "appear" again, until I close VLC at which time it doesn't appear again. I am running XP SP1 on both machines. Regardless, GREAT WORK!!!!
Thanks!
DaveR
Clay Schneider
08-18-04, 11:57 PM
For what it's worth, hotkeys don't seem to work for me either.
On hotkeys issue I found a way that seems to pretty much fix most of the issues (at least it has so far):
When VLC comes up get out of fullscreen mode (Right Mouse and deselect Fullscreen option)
Then choose Settings -> Switch Interface -> wxWindows
Switch back to Fullscreen mode if you wish
This will split up the player into 2 windows, one the control window and the other the video window. Once in this mode and as long as the focus is in the video window the hotkeys seem to work very reliably for me in both fullscreen and non-fullscreen modes.
NOTE: You can make split window setup be your default setup as follows:
Settings -> Preferences...
Expand Modules
Expand interface
Choose wxwindows
Disable "Embed video in interface"
Click on "Save" button
From now on VLC should start with split windows and hopefully the hotkeys issue won't be a problem anymore.
beta4 release: 08/19/2004
=========================
o Added time 0 bookmark to enable jumping back to start of show. Jump to
time 0 is also supported by the next/previous bookmark hotkeys also.
o Added a little more margin in jumps to previous bookmark to make it easier
to use the hotkeys to jump back multiple bookmarks. Previously one had
to time the hotkey presses just right to get it to work.
For those looking to build entire VLC source + 3rd party code from source for a non-win32 OS, here's some detailed notes how to do it (based on what I had to do to get it built on linux):
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/vlc/COMPILE_FROM_SOURCE.txt
It would be GREAT if someone could merge this code into the Xbox Media Center replaytv playback code base. Having CA on XBMC would be awesome!
Thanks,
Mike
Mandingo
08-21-04, 10:37 AM
I am getting no video - just a blank screen using VLC version 0.7.2 on XP with Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra.
I have audio.
Same problem for local and streamed files.
Just me?
Edit: If I exit VLC and restart it I get video now. Weird.
famewolf
08-21-04, 10:44 AM
I can't thank the author enough. I've just started downloading shows to my laptop to view when the right times show up. Worked great while traveling in the car yesterday (I wasn't driving).
This thing streams video from my replay great. Unfortunately Im deaf so Im not able to get a whole lot of use from it but its still pretty awesome. Thought I'd ask if you could maybe add closed captions support to it. Im not sure what all is involved. I have a program another guy wrote that strips the captions out and can convert them to a subtitles file like .srt or .smi but not quite the same thing.
wk530, I'd love to help you on the CC front but I think that's out of my league. My understanding is CC support through RTV was pretty much broken until perhaps this latest software update. But even getting beyond that issue, this VLC summary page makes it pretty clear that CC is not implemented at all in this software as of release 0.7.2:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html
I recall some discussion in this forum about CC so the interest is out there - perhaps someone else could step up to tackle this one, again assuming that the RTV stream contains the CC information to begin with.
Oddly enough I ripped the closed captions from a test file to a .smi file and also tried .srt format but was unable to figure out how to get it to show them. The files are in the same directory as the .mpg and the names differ only in extension. I looked in the .smi and .srt files with a text editor and the subtitles are there.
Looks like smi files should be supported by VLC. You may want to try playing with the following preferences:
Settings -> Preferences...
Enable Advanced Options
General settings -> Input
Subtitle autodetection paths (set to .\subtitles by default)
Use subtitle file
You may want to first try and make a directory called subtitles in the directory where the mpg file is, and then move your caption files to that directory. Based on what I could tell from above settings this may work.
Also, if you start VLC, then select File->Open File...
The Open... dialog box has a Subtitle options boolean you can enable and clicking on Settings button once you enable this allows you to specify the subtitle file name along with other options.
Thanks moyekj!
I've been streaming to my wireless notebook for the last 6 months or so using VLC, but I've been so occupied for the last couple months that I didn't even know you put this out.
I've often gravitated to using PowerDVD when streaming because I want to use its rewind capability. As great as VLC is, it's often annoyed me that there is no rewind or instant replay like I my Replays have spoiled me to rely upon. When I drag the VLC pointer back to review something that just went by, I invariably end up a minute too far back or not back far enough. The bookmarking feature in your program should be awesome, but do you think there is any way to implement a 7 second instant replay or rewind capability for those times when we wish to hear or see something that just slipped by?
Also, if you've done any digging into VLC's user preferences, is there any way you can bring toggling the aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9 a little closer to the surface?
Cheers!
Tim
tluxon,
If you check the preferences, mainly hotkeys, you'll see that this is built into VLC already. For the 7 second jump back press Alt-Left arrow. They have quite a few more built in.
NoProb
JenEric
08-24-04, 07:56 PM
Originally posted by tluxon
...but do you think there is any way to implement a 7 second instant replay or rewind capability for those times when we wish to hear or see something that just slipped by?
2. AVS Forum FlipFlop's changes:
- Improved the time position indicator so it doesn't jump all over the place.
- Changed the -10 second skip to -7 seconds
- Changed the +10 second skip to +30 seconds
- Made the short skips respond quickly (i.e. now they actually work)
- Made the stream playback begin immediately, instead of reading 4MB,
discarding and starting over
- I also changed +/- 5 minute skips to +/- 3 minute skips since
most commercials are in 3-4 minute range.
Originally posted by tluxon
Thanks moyekj!
I've been streaming to my wireless notebook for the last 6 months or so using VLC, but I've been so occupied for the last couple months that I didn't even know you put this out.
I've often gravitated to using PowerDVD when streaming because I want to use its rewind capability. As great as VLC is, it's often annoyed me that there is no rewind or instant replay like I my Replays have spoiled me to rely upon. When I drag the VLC pointer back to review something that just went by, I invariably end up a minute too far back or not back far enough. The bookmarking feature in your program should be awesome, but do you think there is any way to implement a 7 second instant replay or rewind capability for those times when we wish to hear or see something that just slipped by?
Also, if you've done any digging into VLC's user preferences, is there any way you can bring toggling the aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9 a little closer to the surface?
Cheers!
Tim As others have pointed out and in the README-replaytv.txt file you will find other RTV-like features (besides CA) are already built in such as 7 second instant replay courtesy of Flip Flop's changes to VLC. The aspect ratio toggle from 4:3 to 16:9 I didn't even know was there, but probably a hotkey can easily be made for it. You may want to save me some time looking and tell me how to access that from the GUI just in case I can't find it when I look?
Thanks for the tips. Now that I've got some egg to wipe off my face, I have to admit I never even looked at the hot keys. That'll come in real handy.
moyekj, I'm sure you already spotted it, but the aspect ratio field is in General settings -> Video -> select Advanced options -> scroll to bottom.
Tim
Originally posted by Wrecks
Sure there is... But not the way you wanted.
"Save" the location by writing the time down on a piece of paper. The next time you watch the show, drag the pointer until it is near that time.
Some times "low tech" is the way...
That's kind of what I used to do, but instead of writing it down on a piece of paper I would close the file and then rename the file adding the minute location to the beginning of the file.
Lately I've been using Beyond TV for watching my downloaded RTV files. It works good and most of the time remembers the last location I was at.
Originally posted by tluxon
Thanks for the tips. Now that I've got some egg to wipe off my face, I have to admit I never even looked at the hot keys. That'll come in real handy.
moyekj, I'm sure you already spotted it, but the aspect ratio field is in General settings -> Video -> select Advanced options -> scroll to bottom.
Tim
Tim, you can get to the Aspect Ratio setting a little more directly by using extended GUI (when not in fullscreen mode):
Settings->Extended GUI
Choose Aspect Ratio
Click on Enable under Adjust Image
I found toggling aspect ratio back a little quirky in that I had to turn off Enable and then turn it back on to actually apply the change, but it works.
I toyed with adding hotkeys for toggling aspect ratio a little, but resulted in seg faults I wasn't able to track down... I suspect using Extended GUI is good enough though.
dougrobinson2024
09-08-04, 04:21 PM
Outstanding improvement! Works like a charm on my XP Pro machine with DVA 3.1! Thanks!
I have a simple question: I don't understand how one can build a playlist for VLC. I see the option for the playlist in the toolbar, but how do you add files to create one? I'd like to drag and drop from DVA, is that possible?
Thanks again for such a great program!
Doug
If you play several shows in a row without exiting the VLC program, you will create a play list. That's the easiest way I know of to do it. Just play a few seconds of each show.
I believe that there is a setting in VLC that will allow you to watch all shows in the play list in rotating order or shuffle order.
Originally posted by dougrobinson2024
I have a simple question: I don't understand how one can build a playlist for VLC. I see the option for the playlist in the toolbar, but how do you add files to create one? I'd like to drag and drop from DVA, is that possible?
Doug When invoking vlc from command line if you give it more than one file for playing it automatically adds them to playlist. There's command-line options for playing them in random order, looping, etc. vlc -help will give you a quick summary of command-line options. Also, if you bring up the playlist window (View->Playlist...) you can add files to the playlist manually (Manual->Simple Add...). There's no way of selecting more than 1 file or stream at a time to play via DVArchive as far as I know. I doubt drag and drop from DVA would work (haven't tried it though) seeing as it's a Java application. Plus, I don't think windows version of VLC supports drag and drop from anywhere though again I haven't tried it.
AndrewF
12-07-04, 07:47 PM
The downloads are soooooooooooooooo slow. Can someone post it as an attachment or something? I'm getting 250 BYTES/sec
AndrewF
12-07-04, 09:09 PM
Also, it downloads only like 364k and then stops (corrupt zip file). It's supposed to be 7.1 MB. Please, somebody, upload the latest version (or whatever version if you have it) :-)
Thanks!
SourceForge servers are having problems lately. I've resorted to sending email attachments for now to several people having trouble. If someone is willing to volunteer a real server to put this stuff on that may be a better long term solution. If you want a copy via email send email to: moyekj@yahoo.com
has anyone built an OSX binary based on VLC 0.8 with this CA skip funtionality?
Originally posted by vasu
has anyone built an OSX binary based on VLC 0.8 with this CA skip funtionality?
Yes!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=495978
I must say this works flawlessly (well, assuming CA markers on shows work accurately...but this isn't vlc's fault). Version 0.8.1 is out :)
Has anybody attempted to hack VLC into recognizing and displaying ReplayTV closed captions? I know that there is a WMP based program that does this, but I'd like to have commercial skip too.
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