BeyondTV

hirozed · #1 December 19th, 2008, 03:28 PM

I don't know if this is possible. but it would make this an excellent media center app if you could access Snapstream BeyondTV content through boxee. BeyondTV allows for ASX streaming from their web interface. I'm not sure how intensive it would be to integrate that into boxee.

atanguay · #2 December 23rd, 2008, 12:29 AM

You can see your BeyondTV content on Boxee, just map it as an source under 'videos'...works great. Especially if you're watching SD content on a HD TV and it's showing up in a big black frame, Boxee can zoom that up for you, and deinterlace it. Just wonderful. I dumped Front Row the day I installed the alpha of Boxee.

What would REALLY be cool is getting the extra stuff from BeyondTV, like commercial skipping. I would guess there's got to be some way to read the commercial skips as well as parse the names properly.

Here's an example of the commercial skip XML format. For every MPG of a particular episode of a show, BeyondTV creates an XML file during off hours by scanning the MPG for the commercials... those files are formatted like this:

<cutlist>
<Region>
<start comment="00:07:10.2929068">4302929068</start>
<end comment="00:09:50.4530668">5904530668</end>
</Region>
<Region>
<start comment="00:14:22.4250385">8624250385</start>
<end comment="00:17:25.7750550">10457750550</end>
</Region>
<Region>
<start comment="00:23:51.6609405">14316609405</start>
<end comment="00:25:06.7693822">15067693822</end>
</Region>
</cutlist>

Pretty simple really. And the filenames are like this....
"Futurama-(A Taste of Freedom)-2008-12-22-0.mpg"

{SHOW}-{(EPISODE TITLE)}-{DATE}.MPG

Not sure how many people use Beyond though. I've been using it for years and have been very happy. I like the expandability and commercial skipping.

If anyone is up for this, I would be more than happy to assist any way I can...even if it's just pointing to the resources to try to make the module myself. Not really a programmer, but sometimes I can bash things together.

Thanks...Boxee is amazing.
A

paf78 · #3 December 23rd, 2008, 10:52 AM

Second that. I have been a happy BeyondTV user for many years and I depend on that product as my main PVR. Any tight integration of BeyondTV and Boxee would be a huge plus for me.

Glad to help anyone with the resources and ability to pull this off...

agentlame · #4 December 23rd, 2008, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paf78

Glad to help anyone with the resources and ability to pull this off...

http://forum.boxee.tv/showpost.php?p=569&postcount=2

atanguay · #5 December 23rd, 2008, 01:19 PM

Are you referencing the post about making your own front end...

http://www.xbmc.org/wiki/?title=GSoC...d_PVR_Frontend

Because yeah, that's a good start. Me personally, I would just be happy to have Boxee use the commercial skipping data and clean up the filenames. File deleting would be great but I guess that's not happening.

agentlame · #6 December 23rd, 2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atanguay

Are you referencing the post about making your own front end...

not sure about 'making your own' but yes, i was talking about the gsoc project.

i doubt boxee will add support for a single pvr app that runs on only one platform. it would be a waist of tight resources, imo.

but, the gsoc stuff would work great.

atanguay · #7 December 23rd, 2008, 01:28 PM

Well, I just found out BeyondTV does have an SDK available, so that's a good thing...

http://www.snapstream.com/Partners/BeyondTVSDK.asp

They give it up just with an email address.
Looks like someone can get at all kinds of goodies inside the BeyondTV server.

atanguay · #8 January 2nd, 2009, 09:28 PM

I'm wondering if looking up episode names and getting the media into the library can be accomplished with a 'scraper'.

I was poking around inside the Windows version tonight and I noticed these XML files called scrapers that seem to match up names and get content based on media types.

Once again, just shooting in the dark...but I would really like this. I'm seeing that getting the commercial skipping and everything is a bit much to ask for, but is there a way just to get Boxee to recognize the files and get them in the library when scanning happens?

anomaly07 · #9 January 4th, 2009, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by atanguay

I'm wondering if looking up episode names and getting the media into the library can be accomplished with a 'scraper'.

I was poking around inside the Windows version tonight and I noticed these XML files called scrapers that seem to match up names and get content based on media types.

Once again, just shooting in the dark...but I would really like this. I'm seeing that getting the commercial skipping and everything is a bit much to ask for, but is there a way just to get Boxee to recognize the files and get them in the library when scanning happens?

I've been writing a php script that addresses the problem of beyond tv's lack of organizational skills. My script will rename your beyond tv files by utilizing a command line tool (I didn't want to learn BTV's sdk and learn to parse XML with CS when I already know how to parse XML really easily in PHP) that exports and imports beyondtv data for episodes and by utilizing information on tvrage.com. The script renames your files with the format "Showname (ShowYear)\Showname.S##E## (Episode Title).ext". You tell it in the config file where the dir (the folder for scanning) and the newdir (the new directory where the files should go). If you have beyond tv to watch the newdir the metadata will be transferred with the rename it as well. I went this approach for people who want to "Showsqueeze" their recordings into XBMC or Boxee. If a show cannot be found (maybe it's a movie or a special) it will put it in the folder Movies-Other in the NewDir. Did I also mention that showskip information is also copied? You could setup dir and newdir to the same directory to monitor beyond tv's main recording folder and just organize it if you want as well. I'm going to do some more testing to make sure everything is working down pat and test it on the main BeyondTV folder -having dir and newdir have the same value - (after burning some shows that I want to keep for sure -- just in case). After just a little more testing I'll post the final product here. Now, if someone will write a plugin for boxee that will take advantage of smartskip data we will have these problems fixed!

Keep an eye out in the next couple of days for my script.

atanguay · #10 January 4th, 2009, 11:03 PM

Well Baaaad Ass! That is too cool anomaly.

If you can't beat em, join em, eh. 8-) I hadn't even thought about it from that angle.

Does BeyondTV flip out when the files get renamed? I think it may just roll with it, because I've accidentally thrown things in Beyond's path and it wanted to play it...if I remember correctly.

I'll be happy to be the next guinea pig test site.