TUTORIAL: Using the VLC HTSP Plugin

Kev S

VLC HTSP Plugin

The VLC plugin has been written to allow VLC to act as a standalone Tvheadend client, rather than relying on manually providing it with HTTP URLs (or use via the web interface as a browser plugin).

It was authored by Tvheadend user Timo Rothenpieler and details can be found "here"

(From the TVheadend Wiki)

Windows Installation Instructions

* Go to http://ci.btbn.de/job/vlc-htsp-plugin/
* Click "win32"
* Click "Last Build"
* Underneath "Build Artifacts" click "libhtsp_plugin.dll"
* Save this to your desktop or downloads folder..
* Open Windows Explorer / My Computer and navigate to "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins"
* Copy the file you downloaded to this folder - When UAC asks for permission to write to this directory - say yes.
* Open VLC and click "Tools", "Preferences"
* At the bottom left under "Show Settings" click "All"
* In the search box at the top left type "HTSP"
* Next to "HTSP Server Address" enter the IP address of your TVheadend install
* Click "Save" then close VLC.

Using the Plugin

* Open VLC, and click "View", "Playlist"
* Double Click "Local Network"
* Double Click "TVHeadend HTSP"
* Double Click "All Channels" (or an appropriate group name)
* Double Click the channel you wish to view
!>VLC Plugin.png!

Michael Neurohr

Hi!

Thanks a lot for the tutorial! But I cannot get the plugin detected from VLC. I'm running Linux 64.

Michael

Tomas Kaluza

I had the same problem. Finally I solved it by copying the file to /usr/lib/vlc/plugins

I dont think it is a optimal way though. I believe that a user should be able to install it in its home directory. Nontheless i tried to copy the plugin to .config/vlc/plugins directory, to .local/lib/vlc/plugins directory, but it did not get picked up..

Does anybody know if it is really impossible to install the plugin to the home directory?

Thanks for answers..

Tomas

P.S.
running 32 bit ubuntu 12.04, vlc 2.08

Anonymous

I have a problem, I can't use VLC with TvHeadend I would deed that plugin but I am on a Macintosh.. what can I do?!

ccube ccube

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=115575&sid=1fa0ee06163bdc40e524ba81e447f442&p=391585#p391585

J U

The builds 74 and 76 did not work for me. I have Ubuntu 12.04 with VLC 2.0.8.

If someone has the same problem, try using build 68, it worked for me here: https://ci.btbn.de/job/vlc-htsp-plugin/PLATFORM=linux_x64/68/

btw: Thanks for the amazing project, I prefer it much to the crappy vdr!

George Vrinchev

J U wrote:
> The builds 74 and 76 did not work for me. I have Ubuntu 12.04 with VLC 2.0.8.
>
> If someone has the same problem, try using build 68, it worked for me here: https://ci.btbn.de/job/vlc-htsp-plugin/PLATFORM=linux_x64/68/ >

> btw: Thanks for the amazing project, I prefer it much to the crappy vdr!

I use Ubuntu 13.10 upgraded from 13.04, and the same VLC 2.0.8 (it seems to be the latest build for Ubuntu because on vlc site it sais latest version 2.1.2.
Pluging build #76-#79 doeson't work for me too, but build #68 works great. Thanks J U.
Finally I solved it too by copying the file to /usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access/
sudo chmod 644 /usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access/libhtps_plugin.so
and after open the vlc in plugin menu it appears.
p.s. I forget to say big 10x to Timo Rothenpieler for its great work.

Kay R.

I'm having issue with this plugin. I'm using TVH 3.9.957~g2aaf9a4~trusty as server and VLC 2.1.3 win8 as client.

I can playback normal http streaming in VLC just fine, but with this plugin the audio and video drops out regular, dropping packets all the time. XBMC playback just fine with HTSP protocol.

mpmc

Kay R. wrote:
> I'm having issue with this plugin. I'm using TVH 3.9.957~g2aaf9a4~trusty as server and VLC 2.1.3 win8 as client.
>

> I can playback normal http streaming in VLC just fine, but with this plugin the audio and video drops out regular, dropping packets all the time. XBMC playback just fine with HTSP protocol.

I can confirm I have the same issue, it mainly affects DVB-S, DVB-T is fine though.

Peter Ormrod

Using the plugin successfully on windows VLC, thank you. Can I use it on Raspbmc (Pi) if so how?

Peter

Saen Acro

Latest version of TVH some-kind drop support for VLC plugin
HTS Tvheadend 3.9.135x version even can't be used in PLEX as before

Latty Jordan

Kernel 3.16 seems to have some file transfer problems which stopped this working for me. I downgraded to 3.15 and it's all fine again.

Saen Acro

my kernel is 3.2 ubuntu server 12.04LTS
but there is bug in authentication by IP
https://tvheadend.org/issues/2256

red nose

HTSP-Plugin isn't working with newest VLC (2.1.5). Mac- and Windows-versions both don't recognize the plugin. Linux-version is working.

Could somebody try to fix that?

Also: channel switching with + and - (or some other keys) would be nice. Atm xbmc (kodi) is the only tvheadend-frontend being able to do that. Very annoying with iphone-frontend tvhclient. Every channel needs to be chosen from a menu.

Really would like to use tvheadend as streaming backend for several devices in the house. VLC and kodi are the only windows-programs being able to connect with tvheadend. Kodi is too fat for occasional usage.

Thanks in advance.

Lorbas H

red nose wrote:

> HTSP-Plugin isn't working with newest VLC (2.1.5). Mac- and Windows-versions both don't recognize the plugin. Linux-version is working.

In Debian Wheezy (64-Bit) it is not working, libatomic.so.1 is missing. And i don't know where i can find that file.

But in WinXP (32-Bit) is it working.

Congratulation, great work!

john wolfley

does ur point above apply to me? (y plugin wont register)

need instuction on how to install the plugin:

https://tvheadend.org/d/1169-tutorial-using-the-vlc-htsp-plugin

running win7 64, and installed 2.2.0 vlc 64bit. where/what do i put the plugin?

i have tried everything, but wen i restart vlc this plugin does not register:

https://ci.btbn.de/job/vlc-htsp-plugin/ ... bel=linux/

Saen Acro

https://github.com/BtbN/vlc-htsp-plugin/issues write to author

red nose

Sorry, too complicated. Don't have a github-account and don't know the difference between issue, pull-request and ticket. Really, I don't wanna figure-out nerd-world just because the developer doesn't visit the tvheadend-page. This is the main-source to get his plugin.

Tobias L

I just got the plugin running on my Linux MINT 17 Qiana, which wasn't that easy. I'm happy to share my experiences because I think some of you will run into similar issues:

First I dropped the libhtsp_plugin.so in /usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access. But the plugin was not detected when starting VLC.

To get details what went wrong, I called vlc from the command line with

vlc -vv

Among lots of clutter it told me that there is a missing shared library the plugin is depending on:


[0x1484118] main libvlc warning: cannot load module 
`/usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access/libhtsp_plugin.so' (libvlccore.so.8: 
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)

Too bad, the latest Mint only provides libvlccore.so.7 so I decided to rebuild the plugin to make sure the compiler picks the libs as they are on my system. Here are the steps:

# Download the complete source Workspace as libhtps_plugin_workspace.zip from http://ci.btbn.de/job/vlc-htsp-plugin/PLATFORM=linux_x64,label=linux/ws/ # Extract the zip and enter the folder.


  unzip libhtps_plugin_workspace.zip
  cd linux

# There is an old build in it, so first clean everything


make clean

# If your're getting this, then you're missing the VLC development libraries


Package vlc-plugin was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `vlc-plugin.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'vlc-plugin' found

# Install the missing libs:


sudo apt-get install libvlccore-dev
sudo apt-get install libvlc-dev

# Now, run make again


make clean
make

# If successful, copy the new .so to the plugin folder


sudo cp libhtsp_plugin.so /usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access/

# Now restart VLC an see if the error message has disappeared.


vlc -vv

# Setup the the plugin in VLC as described above and have fun!

Lance Gilbert

Thanks Tobias, I had the exact same issue with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty, and your steps worked beautifully. Well written! And thanks to Kev S for developing the plugin and usage instructions.

Respectfully,