Posts by joeuser

    I have only streamed recordings through the web interface to my PCs (windows and linux) using vlc. I noticed vu+ player did not work, but I never looked into why. Basically since my recordings are on an nfs server, I just mount the server directly rather than sending the files over the net to the alien and then back out again. I did notice awhile ago when looking at the source code for openwebif that there is some setting for XBMC, but not sure what it does. https://github.com/E2OpenPlugi…b/master/plugin/plugin.py

    The SAB is essentially an Alien 2 triple, or Golden Media triple. I don't have direct experience with them, so not sure about quality or manufacture support.


    While Spark is closed source, it still runs on linux and you have root access to the box, so it not like a completely locked system.


    Another downside to the sh4 boxes is the lack of plugin support. Most plugins are written for mips and many do not work on sh4 boxes. So you may want to think about which plugins (if any...) you want and see if they are sh4 compatible. Of course most plugins are python, so sometimes it just takes getting the right python modules installed to get them working...

    While Spark is closed source, enigma2 for the Amiko Alien has a development environment which is quite easy to set up - especially if you have 25 years of experience. I recently setup a build environment for my Alien 2 triple tuner. While it is not nearly as well supported as mips based receivers, there is a lot of support out there if you want to "tinker" with the box. The dual sat tuner comes in handy when wanting to watch/record/stream multiple things at a time. And the third tuner is for cable/terrestrial reception. The other thing I like about the box is I can boot from an NFS server so I can quickly and easily switch between different images, and makes it easy when doing development on a linux server. This is also helpful for the "wife-friendly" aspect - the default boot is setup to be easy to use and I can switch to a testing environment in a few minutes...


    Look for sh4 duckbox development...

    I tried to run the command on windows and it does not work. VLC on windows does not recognize the playlist correctly when you try to transcode. If you just open a playlist from the command line, it recognizes it correctly and expands it to a list of the streams. Once you add the transcoding options, it no longer views the playlist as a playlist, it tries to open it like it is a media file. I tried a few different options, but could not get it to work. Probably need to file a bug report to videolan.org...


    You might be able to start the normal gui, then open the playlist, then add the extra http interface, then setup the stream, but it would not be convenient to do each time. There is some scripting that can be done with VLC, but I never played with it.

    On my Nokia n900 I use VLC, android phones usually mxplayer. Also on android you can install the Vu+ Player, it works fine with most enigma2 boxes. I think it was pulled from playstore recently, but there may be a new version. If you can't find it, I can try to find the apk I used to install it.


    For transcoding, first create a playlist for VLC. The easiest way is to use OpenWebif and click on the TV icon next to a bouquet and it will download an m3u file with all the channels in the bouquet. On linux I used the following command to start VLC:

    Code
    cvlc -vvv bouquet.m3u --network-caching=4000 --extraintf="http"  --http-port 8080 --sout-transcode-threads=4 --sout '#transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=500,scale=0.4,acodec=mp4a,ab=64,channels=2,samplerate=48000}:http{mux=ts,dst=:8002/}'


    I used it with VLC 2.02 on Linux, but the command should work on other versions. I think on windows you would use something like vlc -Idummy or vlc -Ihttp and remove the extrainf setting...


    Port 8080 will need to be opened on your router to give you access to VLC's web interface.
    Port 8002 will need to be opened on your router to give access to the transcoded stream.


    Of course you can use any ports you like...


    You can play with the vb=500 (video bit rate) setting to try higher/lower rates.


    You can play with the scale=0.4 setting which resizes the stream.


    You may also want to adjust how many threads depending on your cpu...


    Use your browser to connect to the VLC web interface (http://address:8080) and from there you can choose which channel and press the play button to start. Then use your player and point it at http://address:8002

    On the Alien, there is no transcoding so the stream is sent as is - full quality. The quality of the stream is dependent on the network connection and the player used. I stream to tablets, PCs, and phones without problem even with HD channels over wireless. I never tried an iPad, so I can't help you on which player to use for best results.
    To stream on the internet, you need a fairly fast upload speed from your internet provider, or you need to transcode the stream on-the-fly with something like VLC on a PC and re-stream. I used to do this when I had a slower internet connection. I will look later to see if I can find the settings I used with VLC...

    There is a problem with youtube changes. I never had patience for any of the youtube plugins, so I just use youtube-dl on linux, or keepvid on windows to download and save the videos to a shared drive. Make a folder for the kids and you can set it to loop through the list....

    Here are the pti.ko modules I hacked from GOS (for kernel stm24_0214 )
    pti.ko.215.zip for stm24_0215 - works with current HDMU
    pti.ko.216.zip for stm24_0216 - not tested with any image yet - just in case...
    pti.ko.217.zip for stm24_0217 - works with OpenSpa4


    But, I am not sure it will solve your problem. It mostly helps AFTER recordings when the tuner fails to tune. It seems your problem is more oscam related. But it may be worth a try...

    Should be ok with authorization set, but you might still get attempts to guess username/password so use something good. :)


    It is quite easy to scan a range of ip addresses looking for certain ports to be open. For instance 8001, 12000, 8888, 8080 and of course 80.


    Another thing you can do is to use non-standard ports. Makes things a little more difficult for you to setup, but a lot harder for someone to find your box...


    Also be careful of some card sharing, sat key, etc type sites. Owners of the sites can see your address and assume you have a box...

    Did you set it to require authorization for streams.... If not, they can just guess what channels you have and connect to your streaming port.

    HDMU image has been quite stable for me. Kinda depends on what you prefer - all images have there pluses and minuses. I just loaded the new OpenSpa image tonight and it looks promising, but I have not loaded any plugins besides oscam.

    I haven't tried any openatv images on my alien2, but many other images for sh4 do not have the cron daemon setup to start by default. Did you make sure it was running?

    Code
    ps |grep cron