Zoom Player can now play TV (streaming DVB-T)

[Chazotta]

Ok guys, not sure if you are aware about the ability of Zoom Player to play a DVB-T stream. This means that ZP can now play TV for all of us who are on the DVB-T format. It means one less application like SageTV for integration into Xlobby. It also means that you could have as many picture in picture's as you want (whilst wathcing a movie in a separate ZP screen), as ZP supports multiple instances.

DCoder has developed the DC-DVBSource filter to enable ZP to do this. See here: http://www.dsp-worx.de/ and here: http://forum.inmatrix.com/index.php?showtopic=2172

Essentially how this works is that the DCDVBSource.ax filter allows it to play a .dvb file in ZP. This .dvb file is the streaming DVB-T file. The file is generated by a scan channel application where you select your relevant DVB-T card, select whatever video filter you want to use to decode the stream and select whatever audio filter you want for the audio stream. When playing, the .dvb file will override whatever video and audio filters you have setup in ZP. You change TV channels by using the next/previous chapter buttons.

So there are a few ways in which this could be implemented with Xlobby and some issues.

One issue is that an event would have to be created in Xlobby, which when assigned to a button, would open ZP and also open the relevant .dvb file. I have had a look at the command line options in ZP and can't seem to figure it out. I would have thought it was very simple (but then again I am a bit thick on this stuff). Can someone give me some guideance as to how you can tell ZP to open and also open a particular file ?

A second issue is having separate instances of ZP open. Given that ZP allows multiple instances to be open, this could work really well, particulary if you wanted to have picture in picture, either with multiple DVB-T cards or with simultaneous TV and movie watching. I have played around abit with this also. It works fine except that when there is more than one instance of ZP open, if I execute a command using sendmessage, it will affect both instances of ZP (or at least it can screw certain things up) . How do you tell Xlobby to send the sendmessage in respect of the relevant instance of ZP that you want to control ? Surely, this can be done also, since this would be similar to having multiple instances of Winamp.

Has anybody got some thoughts on this ?

cheers

[badubo]

for dvb-T integration you can use progdvb with xltv plugin :

http://france.xlobby.com/plugins/xltv.zip
and you have directly an integration with the xlobby EPG and a scheduler.

See the doc and the example skin for more information

[Chazotta]

This sounds like exactly what I have been looking for. Why didn't you guys tell me about this before !!?? I think we need something on the main Xlobby site about this DVB-T integration into Xlobby, as there are people from say Australia and other non-French speaking parts of the world who need Xlobby to control TV DVB-T (ie: not SageTV). Can this be added somewhere in the Xlobby features or in some documentation somewhere ?

badubo, I can't speak a word of French so can you help me out with getting the xltv plugin to work ? For starters, where do I put the two k_ktvSocket.dll files ? I have got the skin up and runninng. Now how do I configure the plugin ? How do I select my DVB-T card ? Do I need another program such as progdvb to make this work ? many thanks

[badubo]

For starters, where do I put the two k_ktvSocket.dll files ?

these files aren't of interest for you, they are used for controlling K!TV, a software for analogic based tuners.

You must have a fully working version of progdvb and configure it in such a way that you can change channels throught the keyboard (used for the control of progdvb from xlobby). For the next version, I work on a native progdvb plugin for avoiding this constraint.

Now how do I configure the plugin ?

start xltvconfig (in the plugins/xltv directory).

How do I select my DVB-T card ?

the plugin doesn't control directly a card but controls applications (progdvb in the case of a DVB-X)

Take a look at the embedded documentation, it is rudimentary but in english.

[Chazotta]

Badubo, thanks again for your reply.

I have donwloaded and installed the ProgDVB program.. I don't think it supports my DVB-T card (not from the drop-down list). I have placed a post on the forum. My card is the DNTV Live card (http://www.digitalnow.com.au) which uses the Thompson Tuner, Connexant CX2388x chipset and has full BDA drivers. It is similar to the Fusion HDTV Plus card. Do you know whether ProgDVB would work with this card ?

Assuming that I can get ProgDVB to work, I think I can configure XLTV in Xlobby.

[badubo]

Do you know whether ProgDVB would work with this card

I don't know, I use progdvb with a nexus dvb-s

[Chazotta]

I have been doing some further thinking about all of this and after playing around with Zoom Player and the DC-DVBSource filter, I like the way Zoom plays TV.

I should also add to my initial post that the DC-DVBSource filter -

1. Will work with any media player that can handle DirectShow filters (ie: pretty much any media payer); and

2. Allows you to schedule recordings (ie: has a built in scheduler and recorder). You select filter properties in Zoom for insatnce; and

3. Allows network streaming of the DVB-T stream.

Whilst I can see advantages with ProgDVB and XLTV, I can also see other advantages with using Zoom plus DC-DVBSource. The best reason I can think of to use Zoom (or TheaterTek etc) as a TV application, is because it is the main application everyone uses for movies and thus it means having one less application to talk and interface with Xlobby. Most of all, using Zoom or Theatertek etc, means you have all of the usual controls for TV, screen adjustments (zoom functioning, positioning), colour, brightness adjustments etc etc.

There would surely be huge flexibility in using Zoom as a TV player, when you consider the features and flexilibty of Zoom as a media player.

I think it would be worth it if people took a closer look at this filter with Zoom Player. Given that Xlobby already talks to Zoom in a fairly seamless way, I am guessing that it would be quite easy to tweak Xlobby and/or to write a plugin for full integration of DVB-T streaming in Xlobby via Zoom (or any other media player for that matter).