EyeTV Lounge • View topic - Working Front Row 2 (Leopard version) EyeTV plugin

by **j-christ** » January 20th, 2008, 10:00 am

For everyone who's been begging to integrate EyeTV with Front Row, it's here.

It's still a little rough around the edges, but it's a good start and it at least lets you browse your EyeTV recordings from Front Row, delete them from Front Row, access the Program Guide from Front Row, and of course, play a recording from Front Row.

This only works with Front Row 2 (the Leopard version), but it should work with EyeTV 2 or EyeTV 3.

RealSoonNow, I'll integrate this with my comskip port and I'll finally have a Front Row-based media center solution which is better than what I has with Microsoft's Media Center.

Check out: http://code.google.com/p/pyetv/

Download, untar, and follow the instructions in the README file. It's python-based, so developers, please help make it better!

by **rjlawson** » January 20th, 2008, 9:03 pm

Tried 0.1 earlier, didn't work - tried copying via the Finder, did a sudo chown -R root:wheel as well. But 0.2 is great, thanks :-)

by **mac.gebruiker** » January 20th, 2008, 9:56 pm

j-christ wrote:F
Check out: http://code.google.com/p/pyetv/

Downloaded it and installed the "eyetv.frapliances" but it does not work. Can that be caused by the fact that my EyeTV folder is not in the default location.

Also noticed that all other .frappliances are folders and this one is a package.

by **j-christ** » January 20th, 2008, 11:22 pm

The binary build in release 0.1 was broken; if you built 0.1 from source, it should work.

I've posted 0.2 with a fixed binary build, and an install.sh installer script. This one should work.

Jon

by **mac.gebruiker** » January 21st, 2008, 12:08 am

j-christ wrote:The binary build in release 0.1 was broken; if you built 0.1 from source, it should work.
I've posted 0.2 with a fixed binary build, and an install.sh installer script. This one should work.
Jon

Downloaded again todat and this time it worked. Thanks!

by **steele** » January 21st, 2008, 11:01 am

Installed successfully, works very well. Shame about the 'dirty' transition to epg, but very happy and grateful. Will you develop/ clean up this any further?

Steele

by **marc** » January 22nd, 2008, 5:24 am

Nice!

Any chance of some screenshots? Btw, if you need a hand with graphics then please let me know (for some examples of other things I've designed, please visit islayer.com).

by **mac.gebruiker** » January 22nd, 2008, 9:55 am

What is exactly the difference with Sapphire?

by **peterjcat** » January 22nd, 2008, 12:45 pm

iStat is a great piece of design, good to see such quality down under!

by **rachaelnex** » January 22nd, 2008, 4:34 pm

Bravo, this is a very neat idea.
I have been trying to persuade Elgato to make the eyetv software VoiceOver compatible but they don't seem to be too interested in implementing this (or so I imagine from the lack of response I've been getting lately in the forums). However, with your plugin, I now can get a workaround as FrontRow 2 works with VoiceOver. So my eyetv recordings are accessible to me from more than two feet away.

Would you plan to integrate a live tv channel list into this plugin, if it were possible ? I know of other accessible media hub solutions which do this (xhub in particular, which is very good) but I particularly like the fact that Front Row pulls the info for the recordings via your plugin and will read them. Plus, with eyetv 3 (which I am running) smart playlists are supported, with episodes, as opposed to having the list of recordings in one big lump (if you've seen xhub you'll know what I mean - and I think you have because I recognise your name from the xhub forums ?) I crave integration, you see - I like all my media needs to be satisfied in one place and I want them to talk to me too !
Thanks for working on this - it has provided me with one part of an accessible (to the visually impaired, this is) solution for a centralised media hub that I am searching for.
If you were interested to know why I am looking for such a thing to include tv - the only accessible (i.e. talking menus, talking epg, that sort of thing) digital freeview receiver and recorder set top box that is available on the market in the UK at the moment costs £625. You can see why I am so mad to do this through a mac, which I (and my fiance, who is completely blind) already have ! One could buy a mac mini and an eyetv stick for that money and have alot of spare change for popcorn.

by **j-christ** » January 24th, 2008, 9:12 am

steele wrote:Installed successfully, works very well. Shame about the 'dirty' transition to epg, but very happy and grateful. Will you develop/ clean up this any further?

Steele

Yes. We've just had a breakthrough which vastly speeds up the transition between Front Row and EyeTV, so things are improving.

by **j-christ** » January 24th, 2008, 9:27 am

marc wrote:Nice!

Any chance of some screenshots? Btw, if you need a hand with graphics then please let me know (for some examples of other things I've designed, please visit islayer.com).

If you mean screenshots of the application/plugin, then I'm afraid I don't know how to get a screenshot of Front Row. If you mean screenshots/thumbnails of the videos, then yes, I'd like to get those working.

If you feel like designing an icon for the EyeTV plugin, that'd be awesome; I'm not an artist at all. Something which goes along with the other main menu icons in /System/Library/CoreServices/Front\ Row.app/Contents/Resources/ (like VideosIcon.png PhotosIcon.png, etc) would be great. Something which evokes ideas of EyeTV w/o being mistakable for Elgato's copyrighted/trademarked icons. Or maybe just a pie in a TV window, since the application is called PyeTV. Who knows...I'm sure you'll have better ideas than I on that.

by **j-christ** » January 24th, 2008, 9:31 am

mac.gebruiker wrote:What is exactly the difference with Sapphire?

Last I checked, Sapphire doesn't play EyeTV recordings unless they've been exported to a format QuickTime understands. None of my EyeTV recordings showed up under Sapphire, at least.

Sapphire doesn't interface with EyeTV's player. Sapphire doesn't have a delete recording option.

In my opinion, Sapphire is for archived media that you want to keep around, and EyeTV is for things you want to watch and delete.

by **j-christ** » January 24th, 2008, 9:41 am

rachaelnex wrote:Bravo, this is a very neat idea.
I have been trying to persuade Elgato to make the eyetv software VoiceOver compatible but they don't seem to be too interested in implementing this (or so I imagine from the lack of response I've been getting lately in the forums). However, with your plugin, I now can get a workaround as FrontRow 2 works with VoiceOver. So my eyetv recordings are accessible to me from more than two feet away.

Wow, it's good to know I helped. I never imagined this use case at all.

Would you plan to integrate a live tv channel list into this plugin, if it were possible ? I know of other accessible media hub solutions which do this (xhub in particular, which is very good) but I particularly like the fact that Front Row pulls the info for the recordings via your plugin and will read them.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you just mean a menu which has the list of stations, the yes, that's easily doable. If you want the station and what's currently on like you get in EyeTV3's full screen menu; well...that's a bit more work, and not something I'm personally too interested in, since I don't watch live TV (I run comskip on everything to take out the commercials, first).

Plus, with eyetv 3 (which I am running) smart playlists are supported, with episodes, as opposed to having the list of recordings in one big lump (if you've seen xhub you'll know what I mean - and I think you have because I recognise your name from the xhub forums ?) I crave integration, you see - I like all my media needs to be satisfied in one place and I want them to talk to me too !

I'd live to have a "Playlists" menu to go along with the "Recordings" menu I have now, but it doesn't seem like there's a scripting interface to get all the recordings in a playlist. Elgato? Anyone?

by **mac.gebruiker** » January 24th, 2008, 9:51 am

j-christ wrote:
mac.gebruiker wrote:What is exactly the difference with Sapphire?

Last I checked, Sapphire doesn't play EyeTV recordings unless they've been exported to a format QuickTime understands. None of my EyeTV recordings showed up under Sapphire, at least.
Sapphire doesn't interface with EyeTV's player. Sapphire doesn't have a delete recording option.
In my opinion, Sapphire is for archived media that you want to keep around, and EyeTV is for things you want to watch and delete.

Thanks for clarification.

by **rachaelnex** » January 24th, 2008, 12:43 pm

j-christ wrote:
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you just mean a menu which has the list of stations, the yes, that's easily doable. If you want the station and what's currently on like you get in EyeTV3's full screen menu; well...that's a bit more work, and not something I'm personally too interested in, since I don't watch live TV (I run comskip on everything to take out the commercials, first).

Yeah, sorry - I wasn't very clear on what I meant. I was slightly giddy as I really have been looking for accessible tv solutions for a long time - finding one sent me all stupid for a bit.

Anything at all that links eyetv to frontrow would be good to be honest - even just a list of channels a la xhub if that is doable. Then at least the would be an accesible gateway to live tv via frontrow to compliment the recordings. I'd love a "what's on next" feature like eyetv3 as you say, but I will however take whatever I can get ! You wouldn't believe how impossible it is to get any tv interfacing software for the mac that will talk. Or maybe you would.

As for the playlists - I find on closer inspection that what I assumed were smart playlists being displayed by your plugin actually aren't (lol, though the format they do appear in seems to match my smart playlists quite closely), but whatever way it is displaying them is a good start !
The added bonus is - which again I didn't explain very well - voiceover reads the part (only part though, not sure why) of the description that appears down in the bottom left corner in frontrow, which means in this case, using your plugin, the episode description is also read out. Which means that you get to know which episode of something you're about to play, rather than having to guess which "Grey's Anatomy" you're about to watch a la xhub (which can get old very quickly !)

by **Otmooron** » January 27th, 2008, 10:15 pm

Hi Jon

I've downloaded your plugin and read the README file but it's a bit over my head in terms of technical understanding. I have double-clicked on the .sh file to try to run it from a saved directory but nothing seems to happen. Can you spell it out a bit more for the rest of us?

by **steele** » January 30th, 2008, 5:31 pm

Yes. We've just had a breakthrough which vastly speeds up the transition between Front Row and EyeTV, so things are improving.

So does that mean a new version (0.3) is going to be released?

Steele

by **newfD90** » January 30th, 2008, 6:10 pm

Installed .2, but no EyeTV menu selection shows up in Front Row. The EyeTV Appliance is installed in the Front Row Plugin directory. Sapphire is also installed and working. My EyeTV Archive directory is on an external firewire drive. Could that be the issue? Killed and restarted Front Row and EyeTV is running. Anything else to look for?

Thanks!

by **SpaceTrucker** » January 30th, 2008, 6:31 pm

Great News, Great News, something I've been waiting for, for a while now. Your looking for an icon for PyeTV? What about a Pie with a slice taken out and a Monitor screen coming from that space? I can even put an Eyeball in the monitor screen so people know it's for EyeTV. If this is approved, I'll start work on it. For the smaller icons for it, I can use the monitor to put a pie in it that has an eye inside the pie, or I can also do that in a larger icon too. I just wish Elgato did this on their own with EyeTV3, maybe a future version will get it, since they did do a lot of work getting version 3 ready already, with all the cover flow work that went into it.

Are there any screen shots of how this looks yet? Now if we can only get Elgato to control a Motorolla STB via firewire, I'd be set!

by **friar** » February 1st, 2008, 11:38 am

Great stuff! Kudos! +1 for comskip integration. Any doco on how to do that?

by **xshad0w** » February 5th, 2008, 12:05 am

Hey guys, i downloaded/installed this but it didnt have an icon and wasn't packaged correctly, so i fixed that up and posted it in a zip, this has the official eyeTV icon and a blurred icon, its of the latest pubic version, heres the link, hope u guys enjoy!

http://xShad0w.com/files/EyeTV.frappliance.zip

by **j-christ** » February 5th, 2008, 12:25 am

Thanks.

However, the EyeTV icon is copyrighted, and we don't have permission to use it in this manner.

I'm swamped with RealLife(tm) at the moment, so I haven't had time to deal with this. What did you do for the "packaging" beyond zipping up the .frappliance? Was there something else? If so, I'd like to make use of your work even thought we can't use the icons.

Thanks,
Jon

by **j-christ** » February 5th, 2008, 12:29 am

SpaceTrucker wrote:Great News, Great News, something I've been waiting for, for a while now. Your looking for an icon for PyeTV? What about a Pie with a slice taken out and a Monitor screen coming from that space? I can even put an Eyeball in the monitor screen so people know it's for EyeTV. If this is approved, I'll start work on it. For the smaller icons for it, I can use the monitor to put a pie in it that has an eye inside the pie, or I can also do that in a larger icon too. I just wish Elgato did this on their own with EyeTV3, maybe a future version will get it, since they did do a lot of work getting version 3 ready already, with all the cover flow work that went into it.

Are there any screen shots of how this looks yet? Now if we can only get Elgato to control a Motorolla STB via firewire, I'd be set!

Sounds great. As long as they are the same resolution as the other icons in /System/Library/CoreServices/FrontRow.app/Contents/Resources, and they blend well with the other FR icons I think it'd be fine.

-Jon