[CommanderROR]

Hi,


this has been posted before, but I'd like to refresh it here. SAT>IP is starting to pop up more and more and it's a pretty neat system. I'm currently using it myself, and its the cheapest and easierst way to get your Satellite signal streamed over your LAN and/or internet.
Sadly, the support in XBMC is still not implemented. This would be a big step forwards for both SAT>IP and XBMC anc could really make the LiveTV part of XBMC ready for primetime.

I know there was an IPTV Plugin being developed for XBMC, maybe this could be adapted to work with SAT>IP? I'm unfortunately not a programmer, but there are many great devs here, and I'm sure one of them could whip up SAT>IP support in no time at all...
Possibly the easiest way would be to modify one of the existing plugins...


So, all I can do is say "pretty please" and hope somebody is interested in picking this up.


Thanks in advance!

[FernetMenta]

SAT->IP does not fit into the layer we use in the context of XBMC PVR. This layer provides much more functionality SAT->IP provides, i.e. recording, timeshift, etc. It needs to be implemented as a kind of plugin at the backends. Then a backend can choose from different sources like DVB-S, DVB-T, or SAT>IP.

[CommanderROR]

Thanks for your reply FernetMenta!

I agree that SAT>Ip does not directly fit into the PVR branch of XBMC. I guess the problem is, that SAT>IP leaves many things to the Cleint/Frontend.


I do believe however, that SAT>IP fits very well into the LiveTV features of XBMC. It's main advantage is, that you don't need an additional backend to just watch TV. Recordings is a different matter, but just LiveTV would be much easier and also faster with direct SAT>IP support. I'd say it's like a lightweight PVR implementation, just EPG view and TV watching, recording would then be handled by a seperate box (I do this with DVBLink on a Synology NAS).

DVBLink addon works with SAT>IP, but it needs the NAS to be active for TV Watching (so I've got the SAT>IP box, the NAS and the TV running) and it's also pretty slow with channel switches. SAT>IP app on Android or DVBViewer on Windows change channels lightning-quick while XBMC with DVBLink takes almost half a minute...

Recordings could also be handeled directly in XBMC I guess, but that would really require a different type of approach from what is currently done in the PVR addons, so I think that's not possible.


What do you think about my idea for a "Just LiveTV" addon?

Thanks.

[FernetMenta]

I consider LiveTV == PVR. Writing an extra addon just for SAT>IP is too much work with regard on the benefit. It's much easier to write a plugin for a backend like vdr.

Slow channel switches are not caused by the backed architecture of PVR, tvheadend and vdr use their own demuxer and have quick channel switches.

It is not a big deal running the backend on the same machine as XBMC. This eliminates the need for an additional box.

[Berniejonnie]

@CommanderROR

I fully agree, I would also like to use very much XBMC with SAT>IP source. Would be so nice to have a mini PC for XBMC and could access the TV everywhere in the house over one network....

In other threads here that idea came up often, but as long as there is not PVR app for that, which can serve as a backend to XBMC with corresponding plug-in, we have no luck.

My hope was that TVHeadend could integrate that, it has the option for IP TV already and may be it would not be too difficult to add that, all other necessary functions like EPG, Timer Management, Wakeup .... is present already.

For pure Live-TV : did you test the DEMO PVR already ?

Regards,
/BJ

[wsnipex]

did you try iptv-simple?

[negge]

How does the actual streaming from a SAT>IP box work? What protocol is used, do you get a list of URLs for each individual channel or is it more complicated than that? tvheadend supports UDP multicast streams (although I've had no success getting such streams to play in XBMC, YMMV) and like wsnipex just said the IPTVSimple addon supports any kind of stream that XBMC can handle along with EPG data in XMLTV format.

[omnium]

How does the actual streaming from a SAT>IP box work? What protocol is used..

http://www.satip.info/technology-0

Protocol
SAT>IP is a remote tuner protocol based as far as possible on existing internet protocols: IP, UPnP, RTSP, HTTP. These protocols have been complemented with satellite specific extensions only where necessary.

XBMC understand even RTSP (subset of SAT>IP) and I see no advantages (exept support for these upcoming external SAT>IP Devices) using SAT>IP and prefer Tvheadend with HTSP.

Here http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=8556 is another SAT>IP request/discussion for the MOI DVB-S2 Streaming Box and I agree with 'linuxstb'..

No, SAT>IP couldn't be more different from tvheadend's HTSP protocol. I've briefly read that specificication, and all it seems to do is to provide remote access to DVB tuners. i.e. it is extremely low-level, meaning all channel scanning, configuration etc needs to be done on every client (if I understand correctly).

On the other hand, HTSP deals with high-level concepts such as demuxed audio and video streams, EPG data, channel lists etc. All these are configured once on the tvheadend server and then made available to clients.

There's nothing to stop anyone implementing SAT>IP for the MOI, but I think I can safely say that this is not something that is very likely to be added into tvheadend. At least, none of the existing developers would be interested in doing it.

..and hope for official/head Tvheadend Windows XBMC builds/Tvheadend as a Windows Service.

[LastCoder]

seems that the best way would be to support it on driver layer, so tv backends could use a "dvb-s2" source ..

[LastCoder]

... this

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/dvbhdhomerun/

could be a good entry for getting sat>ip protocol as DVB-S source ..

[Portisch]

Implementing the SAT>IP protocol will lead to shorter channel switching time.

Now XBMC is it doing this way:
-DESCRIPE
-SETUP
-PLAY
-TEARDOWN
(channel change)
-DESCRIPE
-SETUP
-PLAY
-TEARDOWN
[..]

SAT>IP do it this way:
-SETUP (format is TS)
-PLAY
-PLAY with different parameter (channel change)
[..]
-TEARDOWN

This will shorten the channel change time to the hardware limits. Most like less than one second.
Now it is around 5 seconds by the handling of XBMC.

Is this a reason??

Also in spec 1.2 DVB-T/T2 is now supported.

http://www.satip.info/sites/satip/files/...on_1_2.pdf

[Cassiel]

+1 for Sat>IP PVR

[XBMCManni]

Also +1 from me for SAT>IP PVR - for me this would be really great.

[negge]

Implementing the SAT>IP protocol will lead to shorter channel switching time.

Now XBMC is it doing this way:
-DESCRIPE
-SETUP
-PLAY
-TEARDOWN
(channel change)
-DESCRIPE
-SETUP
-PLAY
-TEARDOWN
[..]

SAT>IP do it this way:
-SETUP (format is TS)
-PLAY
-PLAY with different parameter (channel change)
[..]
-TEARDOWN

This will shorten the channel change time to the hardware limits. Most like less than one second.
Now it is around 5 seconds by the handling of XBMC.

Is this a reason??

Also in spec 1.2 DVB-T/T2 is now supported.

http://www.satip.info/sites/satip/files/...on_1_2.pdf

I think the reason is that the whole PVR functionality in XBMC is built on opening a new video stream whenever you change channel. I guess the bulk of the channel change time stems from this fact.

[Portisch]

I also think so!

But can XBMC smart enough to handle the SAT>IP protocol!?
As the server IP + port isn't changing on a channel change it isn't necessary to teardown the stream.
XBMC only have to send the new paramter for the new channel (PLAY command)

Also the stream format is known and fixed for SAT>IP == transport stream.