[mythtv] BBC iPlayer Plugin release / MythStreams

Richard Ablewhite richard.ablewhite at gmail.com
Fri Mar 14 12:57:06 UTC 2008


On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 11:13 PM,  <mythtv at longhome.co.uk> wrote:
> >
>  > fix found, need to unruby it :)
>  >
>
>  Seriously guys. Did anyone read Stuart's post?
>
>  Clearly, nobody is going to stop you from hacking a plugin, although it
>  probably means you be chasing patches as the BBC closes the holes. But,
>  please, don't jeopardise the relationship that some people here have with
>  the BBC, which could ultimately lead to an official iPlayer plugin, by
>  posting about it here. Set up a wiki, do it elsewhere. We know that a lot of
>  the devs want to keep the project squeaky clean, as it needs to be if open
>  source software is to retain any level of respect.
>
>  While I'm in a bad mood, please try to remember not to top-post.
>
>

Right this is getting a bit crazy and im not looking for a flame war
or arguments. My aim is to have a (one day official) plugin for MythTV
that plays streaming content on the internal player. It would be great
to include the beebs content but thats no longer on the cards for now.

The protection the beeb are adding to the feeds from my perspective is
purely symbolic, it isnt going to stop anyone grabbing the feeds, just
like Microsoft stamping "DO NOT COPY" onto their CDs isnt an answer to
piracy.

That said clearly Myth wants to (and should) be free from any
challenges and so officially this plugin will no longer have the beeb
content. This weekend I hope to have the next version done which will
at the very least include content  from Revision 3 (so diggnation fans
should rejoice...) and hopefully other sources if I find any worth
adding. The program listing feed will come off my own server and not
be embedded in Myth so feeds can be added / removed by me quickly, so
if anyone asks for content to be removed it will be a quick and simple
process. All connections will have a useragent of the plugin name
(prob MythVOD) and maybe a website with details of the plugin.

The locking down to my server for content feeds is something which im
guessing people wont like, but I think keeping this in a central place
means the plugin will be more reliable, provide a larger selection of
feeds and make less changes to the plugin itself required, as well as
providing a degree of separation from the main Myth crew. People will
always have the option of creating their own XML feeds if they like
and pointing the plugin at them through the preferences page.

For the record, this plugin was finished 5 days before I announced it.
In that time I contacted someone at the beeb who gave positive
feedback and asked if I might be interested demoing it to them. Ill
try and ask further questions regarding getting the content into Myth
and if I get anything back then ill post it to this list.


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