Here's the very first public alpha release. The plugin itself should run pretty flawlessly. However ffmpeg (even 0.5) still has various bugs preventing it from reading some recordings/playing back live tv in some circumstances. I've tried to circumvent these as much as possible, but need you guys to help me there.
Installation- I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.2, I'm not sure if it will run on earlier releases of SL. It will definitely not run on Leopard or earlier.
- You must be running Plex 0.8.5 or later. I haven't tested earlier releases.
- I'm running EyeTV 3.3, any later version should work - earlier won't.
- If you want thumbnail overlays for new recordings/currently recording items you need to install MacPorts and the ImageMagick package. Open Terminal and type /opt/local/bin/composite, you should have ImageMagick 6.5.8 or later.
- You must install the ffmpeg package using MacPorts, this will help me/you identify any issues this plugin has playing back your recordings/live tv. To check the version, type /opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -version. The installed version should be ffmpeg 0.5, which is the version used by Plex.
- Enable iPhone Streaming support in EyeTV (Preferences->iPhone, you don't need to use My EyeTV)
- If you're running any version of CyTV, please uninstall its EyeTV plugin and quit CyTV/EyeTV.
- Download
EyeTV-Plugin-0.1.plexapp.zip 1.42MB
889 downloads, install and start Plex. - The bundled copy of CyTV will start. Allow it to install its plugin into EyeTV.
- Adjust the preferences of the EyeTV plugin in Plex (see below.)
Copyrights- Parts of the code taken from the XBMCEyeTvScraper
- The plugin in its 0.1 version distributes artwork, images and thumbnails copyrighted by Elgato. If someone is skilled with Photoshop (I'm not) please provide me some images to use for the plugin.
- The plugin distributes a modified CyTV-0.7 alpha 8, kudos to Andreas Junghans, without him this plugin wouldn't be possible.
- The plugin contains ffmpeg newer than ffmpeg-0.5, which has lots of issues decoding various TV-signals or badly formatted EyeTV recordings. The newer version is able to read these without issues.
- The plugin (except the artwork from Elgato) is released under GPL.
Bug reportsIf you find a bug (and you will
) please report it here. Try to isolate the bug as much as possible (e.g. don't do anything not necessary to trigger the bug) and attach the following log files from your system:
- Plex.log
- com.plexapp.plugins.eyetv.log
It may be necessary that you provide a small recording (approx. 5 seconds) for me to figure out some issues, I'll PM you if I need that.
PreferencesThe EyeTV plugin provides various preferences:
EyeTV host nameThis is the DNS name of the computer EyeTV runs on. This plugin should work, if EyeTV runs on a different mac than Plex. For most of us, localhost (e.g. the computer Plex runs on) is sufficient.
EyeTV portThis holds the port number EyeTV listens on for requests by the iPhone. Don't change unless you know what you're doing.
CyTV portThis holds the port number of the CyTV web interface. Don't change unless you know what you're doing.
Run CyTV upon startEnabling this will start the bundled CyTV every time Plex starts. Note that this is a slightly modified CyTV, which is not available elsewhere. You should use this version of CyTV unless you've got good reasons to use a different one. If EyeTV runs on a different Mac, disable this option. You should extract CyTV from the EyeTV plugin bundle and install it on the Mac running EyeTV manually.
Show EyeTV recordingsEnables or disables the Recordings option in the EyeTV plugin menu. If you disable it, you won't have access to the EyeTV recordings.
Always stream recordingsNo matter if the EyeTV archive is placed on a mounted drive, always use CyTV to stream and transcode recordings to plex. Note that this disables seeking and skipping.
Stream incompatible recordings onlySniffs a local recording if it can be played back by Plex 0.8.5 and streams it if Plex' version of ffmpeg is not capable of handling it. Should enable you to watch those recordings, but without skipping and seeking. You should set this until Plex upgrades its ffmpeg libraries, but it slows down the Recordings menu.
EyeTV ArchiveThe path to the EyeTV archive if it is accessible by a mounted drive. You should set this, if EyeTV is running on the same Mac as Plex.
Plex WishlistI'm not sure where to put this because I've just started using Plex about a week ago, but here's my wishlist from a developer point-of-view:
- Provide notifications to the plugin, if the user stops playback of a file. (I'd like to update the played status of a file.)
- Provide an easier way to determine the path a plugin is installed to.
- Allow resources to be structured in multiple subfolders, right now subfolders don't seem to work.
- Allow more metadata (TV-view?)
- Allow a plugin to respond to keyboard events (channel change) and more control over the entire playback experience
- Is there a possibility to skip/remove/prevent this open stream dialog?
- Upgrade ffmpeg to the latest version, it has far less problems and would not cause me as much headache as it did. ffmpeg-0.5 has huge problems recognizing recordings and sometimes mistakenly figures something out, which is not there. In the worst case this causes Plex to lock-up/crash. In any case it seems it can't play anything after this happens. Newer releases don't seem to have these detection bugs anymore. This particularly fails with analogue recordings or live playback in Germany (PAL) using EyeTV Hybrid.
- Provide a notification, when Plex terminates.
Known bugs- Plex locks up/crashes with some analogue recordings due to bugs in the ffmpeg libraries used by Plex 0.8.5.
Help needed- I need some help with artwork used in the plugin
- The live tv channel menu shows preview images of the tv station logos. Right now the plugin only contains images for the major german channels, please provide me with additional logos for your region/country according to the name detected by EyeTV.
I hope I didn't forget anything - oh and yeah - Merry Christmas everyone.
