VDR Plugin 'openmhp' Revision History ------------------------------------- 2005-07-20: Version 0.0.1b - Initial revision.
Latest patch: vdr-openmhp-0.0.1b_to_050801.diff To apply, change to OpenMHP plugin's directory, issue $ patch -p1 < [location of the patch]/vdr-openmhp-0.0.1b_to_050801.diff and make the plugins. Screenshots RSS feed of updates
This is a "plugin" for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR). Written by: Mikko Novaro <miknov (at) gmail (dot) com> Project's homepage: http://users.utu.fi/miknov/vdr-openmhp/ Latest version available at: http://users.utu.fi/miknov/vdr-openmhp/ This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. Description: This is an OpenMHP adaptation for VDR. OpenMHP is a free open source MHP implementation. The purpose of the plugin is to enable MHP applications, called xlets, to be run in VDR. Please note, that this is not a finished product. FEATURES (or the lack thereof): The plugin is currently based on a specific version of OpenMHP, namely 1.04, and it may not work with a given later version. OpenMHP is not a complete MHP implementation, so even in theory, all the xlets will not work. The number of working xlets is also limited by the restricted features of this plugin. Basically a candidate for a working xlet should 1) work in plain OpenMHP and 2) require only key command input This said, the plugin has already been succesfully used to run several xlets. Xlet graphics are displayed on VDR's on screen display (OSD), and as such the maximum number of colors is restricted to 256, and may be lower depending on the display device in use. The color reduction is done by the plugin, and a dithering option is provided. MHP's background layer is also displayed on the OSD. Scaling video window by the xlets is supported using the method used by the YAEPG plugin. This method is supported apparently only by full featured cards and the Xine plugin (with which I have tested it). Using the method requires applying yaepg's patches to VDR and DVB driver's "osd.h" include file. Installing the yaepg itself is not required. The feature disabled by default. An X environment is requirement, but a virtual X server can be used. Options for using Xvfb or Xvnc are provided. Choosing to use either one even while running X (e.g. when using Xine) is usefull to avoid the "flashing" of xlet's window while starting an xlet. The flashing can, in addition of causing an undesired visual effect, lead to loss of focus on other GUI applications. OpenMHP printouts are discarded by default. They can be turned on or directed to log files (at /tmp/openmhp-log) from the plugin's options. Receiving xlets from dvb transmission is beyond the scope of this plugin. To this end, vdr-mhp plugin (0.0.3) can be used. REQUIREMENTS: In addition to the libraries listed in the installing section below, you'll need Sun Java JRE. The plugin has been tested with version 1.4.2, but at least newer versions should work too. Perl and ImageMagick are also required, but with any luck, they'll be supplied with your Linux distribution. ImageMagick uses a program called mpeg2decode, which can be obtained from http://www.mpeg.org/MSSG/ , or directly from ftp://ftp.mpegtv.com/pub/mpeg/mssg/mpeg2vidcodec_v12.tar.gz . Build it, and place mpeg2decode from src/mpeg2dec on your path. (I'd be interested in hearing of a more readily awailable way of converting an "i-frame" mpeg to an image format, such as jpeg.) Opting to use Xvfb or Xvnc (RealVNC has been tested), the respective software is of course needed. The plugin has been tested with recent versions of VDR (1.3.27 at the time of writing), and I don't know whether it works with older versions. Also, the plugin has in effect been tested only with VDR's xine plugin. For reasonable performance, hardware mpeg decoding or a fast (over 1 GHz) computer should be used. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INSTALLING: For generic guide on installing VDR plugins, see http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Plugin_installation 1) INSTALL THE LIBRARIES Get the following libraries and install them as a directory tree as shown below. The version numbers are of tested releases; others may or may not work. - OpenMHP binary distribution (1.04) http://www.openmhp.org/ *download requires registration* - JMF, Java Media Framework (2.1.1e; jmf-2_1_1e-alljava.zip) http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jmf/2.1.1/download.html - JavaTV (1.0) http://www.sun.com/software/communitysource/javatv/download.xml *download requires registration* - Apache Xerces2 Java (2.7.0; Xerces-J-bin.2.7.0.tar.gz) http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/ Choose a location for the base directory [1] of the libraries. It can of course be in the plugin directory, but this is not required. Unpack the libraries and create symbolic links as shown in the tree (->'s). . `-- openmhp_lib [1] |-- JMF -> JMF-2.1.1e/ |-- JMF-2.1.1e | |-- bin | |-- doc | `-- lib | `-- jmf.jar |-- javatv_fcs | `-- javatv.jar |-- openmhp -> openmhp104_bin/ |-- openmhp104_bin | |-- documentation | |-- examples | |-- org | |-- policy | |-- projects | `-- static |-- xerces -> xerces-2_7_0/ `-- xerces-2_7_0 |-- xercesImpl.jar `-- xml-apis.jar To create the symlinks go to the library base directory [1], and give the following commands (if you have different version of any library, change them as needed): ln -s openmhp104_bin openmhp ln -s xerces-2_7_0 xerces ln -s JMF-2.1.1e JMF 2) MODIFY SETUP VARIABLES TO SUIT YOUR SYSTEM Open file "exec_java.sh" from the plugin directory for editing. Locate variable "OPENMHP_DIR" and change it to point to the location of your library base directory [1]. Also, make sure that the path variables in the Makefile match your system. 3) BUILD AND TEST THE PLUGIN Create a symlink for the plugin in the vdr plugin directory and make the plugins. If all goes well, the plugin should now be ready for use. You can use the plugin by running VDR with "-Popenmhp" argument. Of course, you're still missing MHP applications. To test the plugin properly, create a directory to store the xlets in (default is "/video/plugins/mhp-cache", which can be changed from the plugin's setting through vdr's menus): mkdir /video/plugins/mhp-cache Copy the example xlets from the OpenMHP directory. "cd" into the openmhp104_bin directory, and do cp -r examples /video/plugins/mhp-cache/001 Go to this plugin's directory, and do cp misc/examples.ait /video/plugins/mhp-cache/001.ait The "001" refers to the first channel in VDR. You're free to replace it with any other you might prefer. Start VDR (with "-Popenmhp") and change to channel 1. OpenMHP menu should now have two entries, "Hello world" and "Color demo". To add your own xlets, use the examples.ait as a template. 4) ENABLING VIDEO SCALING To enable video scaling, you'll need to apply the patches required by the yaepg plugin. You won't need to install the plugin itself. First you'll need the patch for VDR, named vdr-X.X.XX-core-yaepg.diff, the X's signifying your VDR version. To apply the patch, copy the patch into your VDR directory, cd into it and do patch -p1 < vdr-X.X.XX-core-yaepg.diff Next you'll need to patch the DVB driver includes your VDR installation uses. To do this, change into the driver include directory (/home/vdr/DVB/include/linux/dvb in my case). Copy the patch (osd.h.diff, supplied with the yaepg plugin) there, and (with appropriate rights) do patch -p0 < osd.h.diff You'll also need to un-comment variable ENABLE_VIDEO_SCALING in the OpenMHP plugin's Makefile to enable the scaling. If you are using Xine plugin, enable VDR_XINE_SET_VIDEO_WINDOW in the plugin's Makefile. Also make sure, that when you run Xine itself, use "--post vdr" command line parameter, as in xine --post vdr Now, recompile VDR and the OpenMHP (and Xine) plugin ("make plugins-clean", "make plugins"). The patches are supplied with the yaepg plugin, but the VDR patches included are rather old. Newer patches can be found from http://www.hoochvdr.info/ . 5) THE VDR-MHP PLUGIN This plugin relies on vdr-mhp plugin (v.0.0.3) to receive xlets from the dvb transmission. There are, however, a few things to note. If you are using a recent version of VDR (somewhere around 1.3.20 or later; you can check if you need it by trying to make the plugin first), you'll need to patch the mhp plugin. To do that, change to mhp plugin's directory, and do patch -p1 < ../openmhp/patches/mhp-0.0.3.diff If you are using xine plugin, issue also the following command (still in the mhp plugin's directory): patch -p1 < ../openmhp/patches/mhp-0.0.3-xine.diff To use mhp plugin with OpenMHP plugin, use the following settings for mhp plugin (accessible through VDR's menus, when mhp is in use, or by editing the /video/setup.conf file): Carousel files save path: /video/plugins/mhp-cache One subdirectory per carousel: no If you haven't previously installed the mhp plugin, it may be more convenient, while you're at it, to give yet another command in the mhp plugin's directory to change the setup defaults to those above: patch -p1 < ../openmhp/patches/mhp-0.0.3-setup.diff Now "make" the plugins as usual. The mhp plugin can be downloaded from http://www.powarman.de/vdr_plugins.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TROUBLESHOOTING: If an xlet doesn't work, try to run it with just plain OpenMHP first. DEVELOPER NOTES: I have tried to fashion the VDR independent part of this plugin as a separate OpenMHP library, so that it might be used to enable OpenMHP functionality in other software than VDR also. It is located in the libopenmhp directory. The interface isn't set in stone, though. The plugin's and the libopenmhp's debug printout can be turned on from their corresponding Makefiles. The java part of the plugin is compiled with the scripts located in the libopenmhp/java subdirectory. They are to be run in the same directory they are located in. Some source files modified from the original OpenMHP are included in the java subdirectory. The modifications are made against OpenMHP version 1.04, and may need to be updated or remodified when switching to newer version of OpenMHP. The modifications are marked with "miknov". WISHLIST FOR VDR/DVB FEATURES ;) - Support for greater color depth OSD - Generic interface for video scaling - Support for layers (e.g. background layer)