Recording OK but not able to find simple client/frontend that will work.

Phil Mordecai

I set up TVHE server up a couple of weeks ago and with Prof Yaffle's expert assistance was able to get my muxes configured properly (thank you again). A couple of recording exercises proved that it was indeed receiving a TV signal from my roof aerial.

After some time dealing with other things I thought I'd pay this little project another visit to see how much further I could get on with it. In the longer term I plan to use a Raspberry Pi (running RaspBMC and a suitable plugin, if native support isn't possible), but I'd also like to be able (if possible) just to fire it up on my PC as and when I want to watch something.

From the TVHE web interface, where the channels are listed I can see a "Watch TV" button in the upper right hand corner. When I click on this my copy of VLC fires-up and I can see various controls and a drop-down list box containing all of my channels, but aside from that I'm just looking at a black window with no content. I can switch between channels and am left looking at more black.

Are there any other compatible client/frontend apps available on Windows (but I don't facy having to install XBMC, just for a bit of ad-hoc watching) I can try, or any reasons why the VLC client is behaving in the way it is?

Many thanks in anticipation.
Phil.

ProfYaffle

Ah, Mr Mordecai, we meet again... :)

Try a different browser. It works for me in Firefox; it doesn't in Chrome (although I've heard that's fixed in the current code); IE always gives problems with far too many things IMHO; I've no idea about anything else (Opera, for example).

You can, however, also open the stream directly in VLC:

Media -> Open network stream -> http://<address of your tvheadend system>:9981/stream/<channel number>

You can get channel numbers from the TVH web interface: Configuration -> Channels

I believe there are ways to get playlists into VLC as well, but I've never looked at them.

Phil Mordecai

Thanks again for a prompt and informative reply.

I'm kind of pressed for time this evening, but I thought it only appropriate to give it a quick try.

Opened VLC (which promptly upgraded to 2.0.5) and did what you said:-

Media -> Open network stream -> http://my-tvhe-ip:9981/stream/1 (BBC One seemed to be as good a play to start as any and this is occupying channel number one in the Configuration -> Channels section of the TVHE web interface).

I then clicked on Play and I was immediately presented with a login request, so I entered the same username/password combination used to log into the web interface (Firefox is my go-to browser, by the way).

However this resulted in the following error from VLC:-

"Your input couldn't be opened.

VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://my-tv-he-ip:9981/stream/1'. Check the log for details."

No obvious link to a log file from the VLC menus (a Messages option, which does open up a window containing the same details as above), and nothing obvious in the Program Files\VideoLAN folder on my machine.

-Phil.

ProfYaffle

Check your tvheadend access settings (Configuration -> Access Control) and make sure that user has streaming permission.

Or, if you're on a trusted network (e.g. your home LAN), define a blank entry for streaming only; look on the help page for the Access Control screen, and look for the entry "unverified streaming to local network". Create an entry like that (blank user name and password; IP address of your.class.C.0/24, tick "streaming") and see if that helps.

Phil Mordecai

I logged in during my lunch hour to see what was what, only to discover that my last response to you yesterday evening doesn't seem to have made it across.

So this will be a little 2nd-hand (I've been to sleep since then!).

At present I have a single entry in my Access Control screen:-

Username - *
Password - Hidden
Prefix 0.0.0.0/0

All services selected

In my line of work, I've always worked on the premise that 0.0.0.0/0 is IP address-language for 'everything'. I can also see in the help that the "unverified streaming to local network" example using this same value. So, essentially, my entry is the same - except for the authentication.

What I did notice was that the "Enabled" check box wasn't selected. This is a bit of an oddity as one of the services is "Admin" and I'd naturally assume that with this entry effectively disabled I wouldn't be able to log into the web interface, but it's clear that I can.

The only other thing which is now making me doubt the configuration as a whole is when I try and add or amend anything and I click on Save, there's a pause of about 30 seconds and then the message "Transaction aborted" pops-up in the middle of the web interface.

ProfYaffle

I'm no expert in IP addressing, especially as TVH seems to use what's known as "CIDR notation" [["Wikipedia link" From what I can gather, the number after the slash represents how much of the previous IP address is network, and how much is address - in effect, it describes the subnet mask.

I can only suggest adding a specific line that represents your home network specifically for streaming. Maybe it won't allow streaming from "anyone, anywhere" - if you've got a network of, say, 192.168.1.x and a mask of 255.255.255.0 then the correct entry would be 192.168.1.0/24 (24 = first three bytes of the address are the subnet = 255.255.255.0).

If it's not sticking for some reason, have a look at the rules by hand. They're in /home/hts/.hts/tvheadend/accesscontrol, one numbered file for each access rule. The rule for the address above should look like this:

{ "enabled": 1, "username": "*", "password": "*", "comment": "VLC Streaming users on Phil's network", "prefix": "192.168.1.0/24", "streaming": 1, "dvr": 0, "dvrallcfg": 0, "webui": 0, "admin": 0, "id": "2" }

... where most fields are self-explanatory: "enabled" is boolean (true/false), as are "streaming" and similar (so the rule here only allows streaming but gives it explicitly to all local clients - separate from any rule that allows admin). The oddity is "id" which represents which rule number this is (in this case, rule number 2 - because rule 1 would normally be the admin rule).

At least you can look at these files to see whether the config is being saved, though the error you're getting doesn't sound good. Try refreshing the page (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=103532), or check the access rights for the tvheadend directory (https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boards/5/topics/4295).

Phil Mordecai

Its OK - I'm a Firewall engineer by trade, so am familiar with CIDR notation.

Thanks for the hint in working directly with the accesscontrol file. I can use your example to add a new entry by hand and will also take a look at the two links you have included when I'm off duty.

-Phil.