Revision as of 21:44, 21 January 2009

How to configure VLC to supply channels to your backend on demand. (VLC won't be doing much until you request a channel. All I could find on the web deals with setting up VLC as a streaming/transcoding server for live broadcasts/multicasts)

Prerequisites

• Videolan Player
• Some radio station that broadcasts mp3 (like all the shout/ice/somecast stations)
• a webserver to host the playlist (you have that for MythWeb anyway)
• a source for the epg (optional)

Setting up VLM

Prepare the VLM configuration file like this

#clear configuration
del all

#channel Deutschlandfunk as on demand stream
new dlf vod
#URL of the elementary stream
setup dlf input "http://dradio-mp3.t-bn.de/dlf_live"
#wrap the stream into a SPTS
setup dlf mux mp2t
#activate it
setup dlf enabled

Start VLC in stream server mode (aka VLM):

vlc -vvv --intf telnet --extraintf http --rtsp-host 0.0.0.0:5554 --vlm-conf vlm.conf

Prepare the Playlist and put it on some webserver:

#EXTM3U
#
# edit your /etc/hosts or dns and let vod point to your vod server
# notice that port 5554 matches the vlc command line while dlf matches
# the channel id from the vlm configuration
#
#EXTINF:0,1 - Deutschlandfunk
#EXTMYTHTV:xmltvid=dlf.dradio.de
rtsp://vod:5554/dlf

You can update the stream locations in that playlist as it does not get stored in the database but it read when needed.

Add it to your backend

Now move on to FreeBox to hook your new source up to the backend. Configure your XMLTV grabber to supply data for your new channels.

What does not work

Muxing AAC streams seems buggy. I just don't know for sure if it's on VLC's or MythTV's end. This station streams both so it's been my test case.

• MP3: http://dsl.tb-stream.net/
• AAC: http://aacplus.tb-stream.net/

based on [1]