Live stream of TV using VLC (Pinnacle PCTV110i)

[nader]

Hello everyone,

I've installed a Pinnacle PC 110i pci card so I could stream live tv at home to different pc using my wifi network and it's working very well.

But there is one little problem. I would like to be able to change channel using vlc. Because at the moment, every time I want to change channel I close vlc and I use K!TV (http://www.kastortv.org) to change the channel and the close it and open K!TV again.

Please help me !

thanks in advance

[Anurag]

Hi,

I had created a program to solve exactly the same issue. The program can be used to start/stop streaming of TV using VLC or change channels. Have a look at http://anuragworld.googlepages.com/remotetv. I have been using it successfully at my home.

Let me know if it is useful.

Thanks,
Anurag[/url]

[nader]

Hello Anurag,

Thank again for replying so fast to my post on the VLC forum. Well, I've install your software but I have a little problem.

Is there a program that once I have scanned all the channel I could export the channel so I want have to do it everytime that I install the remotetv client on a pc.

Thanks again.

PS : YOU HAVE A DONE A GREAT JOB ! THANKS A LOT !!!

[nader]

Hello Anurag,

I've found all the channels and I made a backup of the file "tvsettings.xml". But there's only one thing left. I can't run the program on two different pcs at the same time.

Is that normal or is it possible to change it ?

Thanks again.

[Anurag]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for trying out the program. It feels great to know that the program is working for you.

The default configuration of the program allows streaming of TV to one client machine only. The "Force" checkbox, below the "On" button in RemoteTV client, was put specifically to take over control of the TV tuner card from another client that was already connected to the server.

However, I think that it should be possible to broadcast the stream to multiple client machines by tinkering with the VLC command line parameters in server configuration. The command line arguments would have to be changed to enable multicasting.

You can view the existing command line parameters for VLC in the RemoteTV Server's Configuration dialog box. The default argument for VLC is as follows:
dshow:// --dshow-vdev "$videoDevice" --dshow-adev "$audioDevice" --dshow-size "" --no-dshow-config --no-dshow-tuner --dshow-tuner-channel $channel :sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=1024,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=display,dst=std{access=rtp,mux=ts,url=$remoteHost:1234}}

The "$" variables are substituted at run time. For example, $channel variable is substituted by the channel that was requested by the client and the $remoteHost variable is substituted with the client's IP address. You can change the command line arguments to multicast to a network instead of a specific client IP address. However, I have not done that exercise yet. It may require some R&D. Can someone in the group shed light on the multicasting using VLC?

You may also have to make changes to the default command line arguments to VLC on client machines. This may be required to make it compatible with the settings for VLC on the server machine. You can view the current command line arguments using the Configuration dialog box in RemoteTV client.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Anurag

[streetfox_]

Works very well on my machine too!

would appreciate if the sourcecode was made public! Think this is a beautiful starting point for a .NET Interface and think it is wothful for the community

[Anurag]

Thanks for the encouraging feedback.

I would definitely consider making the source code public after some clean up

-Anurag

[nader]

Hi Anrug,

thanks again this great program !

for the server I put this :

dshow:// --dshow-vdev "$videoDevice" :dshow-adev="" --dshow-size "" --no-dshow-config --no-dshow-tuner --dshow-tuner-channel $channel :sout=#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=3072,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=128,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=display,dst=std{access=udp,mux=ts,dst=239.255.255.254:1234}} :sout-all

and for the client this :

udp://@239.255.255.254

Now I can use the remotetv program on different computers but when a user exit the application it stop the streaming on the other users ...

Do you have an idea why this is happening ???

thanks in advance ...

PS : you put this for the client "--intf wx udp://@" what does "intf" and "wx" mean ?

[Anurag]

Hi Nader,

RemoteTV Server can be controlled by only one client application at a time. If you start TV on another client machine with the "Force" option, then that client machine can only successfully issue commands to the server (e.g. changing channels, starting/stopping TV etc.). Requests by other client machines would be ignored.

If you close the client program that is in control of the server, then it would stop the streaming of TV. This is because the client program sends a request to the server to stop streaming on application exit. Exiting RemoteTV client on machines that are not controlling the server should not stop TV streaming.

Let me know if the observed behaviour falls in line with the above explanation.

Thanks,
Anurag

[nader]

Yes, the observed behaviour falls in line with your explanation but what if I run the client on the server so that way when the other users run the client and then exit the app. the streaming won't stop.

Would that work ?

Thanks again.

[nader]

I've just tried that and I get an error saying "IP address incompatible" ...

[Anurag]

Hi Nader,

If you are ok with the TV server to be controlled only by one client application, then one way out is to use RemoteTV Client application on one client machine to start/stop TV or change channels. Other machines can directly use VLC to attach to the broadcast, i.e. you start the VLC application and explicitly specify the streaming address on other machines.

-Anurag

[nader]

Hi Anurag,

I want everyone to be able to change channels (knowing that it will change the channels on every pcs) but if someone exit the app I don't want the streaming to stop until the last pc exit the program.

[Anurag]

Hi Nader,

I have released a new version of the server software that will help solve your problem. Set the "Allow multiple clients to control RemoteTV Server" check box in the configuration dialog for the server after installation.

Let me know whether this meets your requirements.

-Anurag

[guest0653224]

hi there

which HDTV cards are compatible with RemoteTV?

thanks

[Anurag]

Hi,

RemoteTV is only a wrapper over VLC. It controls streaming using VLC's command line arguments. Thus, it should handle everything that is supported by VLC.

hope this helps.
-Anurag

[nader]

Hi Anurag,

It works great. Thanks again for your help.

Nader

[Mos]

Hey everyone, wow VLC rocks... I'm just having one small minor problem that I hope someone can help me with.

I'm using my nvidia video card to catpure video with VLC, but for some reason I can't set the channel to SVIDEO, it seems to be defaulting to composite and then locking my machine. But if I tell another program to capture and set it to SVIDEO and then run VLC, it'll start working.

So my question is, what would the command line or MRL be that tells VLC which channel to use? Any help greatly appreciated guys!

[missingxtension]

guest0653224
as long as it is compatible with vlc it will work with remote tv

[Kaarthik]

Hi Anurag,

Could please let me know how to join the multicast and play the streaming video on windows?

Thanks in advance,
Kaarthik.

[Anurag]

Hi Kaarthik,

The first few posts on this thread discuss multicasting with VLC. Let me know if you need further information.

-Anurag

[qriouz]

Hi there.

Great program. Been looking for something to do this. I can't get it tow work properly though. Probably just me being stupid.

I client tells me it connects just fine and can change channels. I can see in VLC statistics that it recieves a lot. I just don't get video or audio from it.

Any ideas on what to do, or what I can provide you with (log or similiar) that'll help you tell me ? (assuming that you have time to help ;-) )

Kind regards,
Malte

[JimDog]

Anurag, just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU as your program works great.

I do have two requests for you if you have some time someday it would be great if:

1. You could add a http proxy setting so that people who sit behind a proxy server (i.e. perhaps at work) could also use your program.

2. Release the code so others can port it to other platforms (I for one would love to try and recompile it under Mono for Linux).

Again, thanks.

[JimDog]

Hi there.

Great program. Been looking for something to do this. I can't get it tow work properly though. Probably just me being stupid.

I client tells me it connects just fine and can change channels. I can see in VLC statistics that it recieves a lot. I just don't get video or audio from it.

Any ideas on what to do, or what I can provide you with (log or similiar) that'll help you tell me ? (assuming that you have time to help )

Kind regards,
Malte

qriouz: This may not be what you're running into but I had something happen to me that sounds very similar. From my Linux box I was able to stream VLC video to a Windows machine and not vice versa. Turned out that not all of the "codecs" worked on each machine. It appears (at least for me) that the "asf" wrapper works when streaming TO Windows, but Mpeg1 works when streaming TO Linux.

In other words, play around with the types of codecs you are using in VLC....it took me 3 or 4 tries but I eventually found one that worked. Also as always make sure you have the newest VLC on both machines.

[Anurag]

qriouz,

I think that you may be facing problems due to firewall on both the client and server machines. Try disabling the firewall on both machines temporarily and check if the streaming works properly. If it does work then you would have to adjust the firewall settings to allow both remotetv server and client to send and receive network packets.

(Note that windows xp comes with a default firewall even if you had not installed it explicitly. You can configure the properties of the firewall through the control panel. Click on "Windows Firewall" icon to change the settings).

HTH,
Anurag