MythSvtPlay is a plugin for the Linux DVR software MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org) that can be used to watch the streams published by the swedish national television SVT on SVT Play (http://svtplay.se).

MythSvtPlay is available for MythTV versions 0.22, 0.23 and 0.24. Any new development will only take place on the '0.24-compatible' branch.

The Linux distribution used during development is Ubuntu 10.10 and Mythbuntu 10.10. Other distributions might have other names for the different packages as well as alternate installation paths. Again, please report any issues you might have.

Dependencies:

• libmyth-dev
• libqt4-dev
• libqt4 (4.5)
• libqt4-xml
• libqt4-xmlpatterns
• libqt4-network

Other programs:

• mplayer
• (optional) flvstreamer (supports rtmp streams)
• (optional) rtmpdump (for rtmps and rtmpe streams)

The plugin uses mplayer to play the streams available on SVT Play. Unfortunately, mplayer doesn't natively support streams in the rtmp, rtmpe and rtmps formats. If the plugin cannot find either flvstreamer or rtmpdump in the users path, it will fall back to using the wmv streams. The wmv streams are however much slower and prone to buffering and installing at least flvstreamer is highly recommended.

Compiling:

For convenience, the plugin is packaged in the same build structure as the official plugins. Building is therefore as easy as navigating to the mythplugins folder and executing the following commands:

$ ./configure
$ qmake mythplugins.pro
$ make

Installing:

When it has finished compiling, it is necessary to install the binaries and the theme files in the correct place. This is done by executing the following:

$ (sudo) make install

Now all that remains is to alter the mythtv menu files to allow you to start the plugin. If you're using the default menu theme (not to be confused with regular mythtv themes) the files are usually available in /usr/share/mythtv/themes/defaultmenu/. Change the appropriate menu file (I suggest library.xml or mainmenu.xml) by adding the following:

<button>
    <type>MENU_SVTPLAY</type>
    <text>Watch SVT Play</text>
    <text lang="SV">Titta på SVT Play</text>
    <description>Watch programs and clips published at svtplay.se</description>
    <action>PLUGIN mythsvtplay</action>
    <depends>mythsvtplay</depends>
</button>

Refreshing the program cache:

The first time the plugin loads, it will download basic information on all programs available on SVT Play. This information is cached and used whenever the plugin is started later. If you wish to refresh this cache (for example when SVT introduces new shows) simply press MENU (m) on the main menu. A dialog will popup and ask you to confirm the refresh.

Marking favorites:

It is possible to mark programs as favorites in the main program menu. Simply go to a program of your choice and press RECORD (r) and it will be added to the favorites menu item. Press RECORD (r) again to unmark it.

Unfortunately this marking is not reflected on the program menu items yet. This issue is purely visual however, the functionality is there and I will fix it when I rework the UI.

Setting the max bitrate:

Create the file ~/.mythtv/mythsvtplay/config and add the following line:

MaxBitrate: $bitrate_here

Any integer value is allowed. The plugin will choose highest quality stream equal to or lower that this value. If either the config file or the MaxBitrate line doesn't exist, the plugin will automatically use the highest quality stream available.

• When using the streams downloaded by flvstreamer or rtmpdump, mplayer won't prevent you from seeking beyond what's currently downloaded. This will result in mplayer quitting early, before the stream has been played through completely.

• The favorite marking issue mentioned above.

• Redo the main menu ui
• Allow searching