BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED June 15

General discussion relating to the O2 Joggler, from the default O2 setup, to alternative operating systems and applications.
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED June 15

Post by spoyser »

My New Year’s resolution? I’m giving up alcohol for the whole of January 2013. For Cancer Research UK. I’m becoming a Dryathlete.
Please help me raise £100, remember every little help!
http://www.justgiving.com/dryathlete-sean-poyser

http://files.exotica.org.uk/?file=joggl ... Player.tgz

!! Audio Crackling Fix !!
If you experience audio crackling when playing on demand programs see this post:
http://www.jogglerwiki.com/forum/viewto ... 1191#p1191

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!! Close Button !!
If you don't get a "Close" button at the top-right when viewing streams, try extending the sleep 3 parameter to sleep 5 in the iPlayer.cgi file (near the end of the file)
If this doesn't work try sleep 10

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Version (15 June 2011) now allows browsing of the 19 program categories as shown on the BBC iPlayer website:

Most Popular
Highlights (aka Featured)
Children's
Comedy
Dramas & Soaps
Entertainment
Factual
Films
Learning
Lifestyle & Leisure
Music
News
Religion
Sport
Audio Described
Signed
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales

The Featured and Most Popular are actually the feeds used to populate the main displays of the BBC iPlayer page.

Results from these are not sorted but are displayed in the same order they appear in the feeds themselves.

This is useful if you want to watch something but not sure what, or want to see all those programs with sign language!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have started a new thread as I considered this a fairly major update and I didn't want current users of the iPlayer to not notice it.

So whats new?
- BBC PODCAST functionality - browse and listen to all currently available BBC podcasts
- Removed live BBC HD icon (I believe this stream is inactive - if I'm wrong let me know and I'll put it back)
- All live BBC radio stations available on front screen - including Radio Norfolk, sorry but my app, my choice :-)
- Programme synopsis now shown in on demand search results, so now you can pick out the right episode of Eastenders!!
- Programme titles and synopsis wrap if necessary
- Improved mechanism for loading of RSS feeds
- Uses Black skin for iPlayer (rather than the original silver)
- New "Close" button matches iPlayer Black skin
- Informative Message displayed when a search doesn't return any programs
- Only 1 script file now necessary
- All iPlayer config_settings are now in the script file so can be edited if desired

iPlayer is an improved version of the BBC Live app (the one shipped with PNP).

The original BBC Live app was written by Darren Lee, so as always credit where credit is due.

iPlayer adds the ability to search via an on-screen keyboard through the current iPlayer programme database and play any TV or Radio Program found.

The iPlayer uses the following 20 RSS feeds to supply the searchable data:
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_1/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_2/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_3/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_4/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbeebies/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbbc/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_parliament/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_news24/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_alba/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/hd/list/

http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio1/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_1xtra/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio2/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio3/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio4/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio_four_extra/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_5live/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_5liv ... xtra/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_6music/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_7/list/

iPlayer adds the ability to browse through 19 BBC TV and Radio categorized program RSS feeds:
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/mostpopular/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/highlights/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/childrens/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/comedy/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/soaps/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/entertainment/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/factual/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/films/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/learning/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/lifestyl ... sure/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/music/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/news/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/religion ... hics/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/sport/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/audiodescribed/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/signed/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/northern_ireland/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/scotland/list/
http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/wales/list/


iPlayer now also adds the ability to browse and listen to any BBC podcast currently online.

Initial Podcast data comes from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts.opml

TV, Radio and Podcasts feeds are requested on startup of the application and normally take only a few seconds to all load (program may appear slightly unresponsive as they are loaded in), as a feed is loaded the corresponding channel icon on the iPlayer screen will light up to indicate this channel is now in the database and fully searchable, the database is recreated each time the application is restarted.

Channels to search can be switched on/off simply by clicking their icon in the iPlayer screen.

To Use:
1) To watch live TV or listen to live radio just click the appropriate icon in the main screen.

2) To search iPlayer click the iPlayer icon from the main screen (this appears as soon as one feed has loaded)
Click the input-box to bring up the keyboard, enter search term (currently it uses a simple text match), hit "Done", followed by "Find".
Click a thumbnail to play/listen to a programme.

3) To browse categories click the Categories icon from the main screen (this appears as soon as one category has loaded).
Click the category to view the programs available in that category (the number of programs in the category is shown after the name)
The first page of programs in that category will then appear, this list can then be scrolled through.
To change the page use the navigation buttons/arrows at the top of the screen
Click a thumbnail to play/listen to a programme.

4) To play podcast, click Podcast icon when it appears on the main screen, choose radio station, choose topic, finally choose podcast that you want to listen to. Currently Podcasts are played via the Google online player; if you wish this can be modified by editing the iPlayer.cgi file to use any other flash (.swf) mp3 player available online or locally installed on your joggler (this requires a webserver installed, if you have gforums PNP then you will have one, see below)

When playing a stream or podcast click the close icon in the top-right corner to return to the iPlayer interface.

To install iPlayer
If you are upgrading from a previous version, follow the installation instructions up to and including the chmod command (obviously you won't need to do the mkdir command either)

telnet into joggler, then

cd media
mkdir iPlayer
cd iPlayer
wget ftp://aero.exotica.org.uk/pub/mirrors/exotica/joggler/files/iPlayer.tgz
tar xvf iPlayer.tgz
rm iPlayer.tgz
chmod +x iPlayer.cgi (VERY IMPORTANT, this makes the file executable, without this it will NOT work)
cd
cd media/appshop
cp applications.xml applications.original (creates a backup of file, just in case...)
vi applications.xml

i (enters insert mode)
Add the following immediately before the final </applications>

<app id="iPlayer" title="iPlayer" loc="/media/iPlayer/" icon="icon.swf" app="main.swf"/>

i.e. so the end of the file looks like this:
<app id="iPlayer" title="iPlayer" loc="/media/iPlayer/" icon="icon.swf" app="main.swf"/>
</applications>



Then hit ESC followed by :x return (save and exit)

Restart joggler

NOTE the final slash at the end of the app tag, if you miss this you will get no icons on the main joggler screen!!

All media (except podcasts) are launched from the script in iPlayer.cgi using the command:

./tango "http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/10player.swf?config_settings_bitrateFloor=0&config_settings_bitrateCeiling=10000&config_settings_guidance=passed&config_settings_skin=black&
config_settings_autoPlay=true&config_settings_transportHeight=65&playlist=http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlist/"$app &

where $app is passed in from the iPlayer application and is the identifier for the live TV stream, live radio stream, or on demand stream, the config_settings_ can be edited by editing the iPlayer.cgi file (if you know what you are doing)!



Podcast are launched from the script in iPlayer.cgi using the command:

./tango "http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf?autoPlay&audioUrl="$app &

where $app is the full URL for the MP3 podcast file.

If you would rather use a different online player then edit this line accordingly, eg

./tango "http://www.123mp3download.com/audio/includes/player.swf?playerID=1&autostart=yes&soundFile="$app &



If you would rather use a local swf player then put the swf file in the webserver directory and change the line to something along the lines of:

./tango "http://localhost:80/playerMP3.swf?mp3="$app &

For the webserver that gforums PNP installs the directory is:

/media/gforums/webserver/

So put your swf player in that directory (or a subdirectory, eg /media/gforums/webserver/starter/)

I personally use FMP3 available here http://www.enricolai.com/FMP3/

And launch it with the line:

./tango "http://localhost:80/starter/FMP3.swf?action=stop&vol=10&title="$param"&color=2f85c2&loop=no&lma=yes&textcolor=000000&mp3="$app &

Note the FMP3 player can also show the name of the Podcast, which in the script is stored in $param, hence the title="$param" bit

Hope that all makes sense!
Enjoy!
Last edited by spoyser on Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:59 am, edited 16 times in total.
Infinite Element
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:54 am

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by Infinite Element »

Edit: Sorted. Nice one.

I've noticed the audio crackles a lot. Any advice?
Last edited by Infinite Element on Thu May 19, 2011 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by spoyser »

@Infinite Element
Yep it is the chmod bit!
Last edited by spoyser on Thu May 19, 2011 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by spoyser »

@Infinite Element

I'm afraid the audio crackling seems to be down to individual Jogglers (hardware at a guess), I have 2 Jogglers and neither crackle, my friend has one which does :-(

From feedback on the application it seems that most Jogglers do not crackle.

I have looked into setting the max_cstate to see if that helps but I can't figure out how to do it under the stock OS - Anyone know?
gegs
Posts: 1146
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: Edinburgh

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by gegs »

Just wanted to say... WOW!

I just installed the updated version and was blown away. This and Squeezeplay are the jewels in the crown of Joggler ownership, at least as far as the stock OS is concerned. I can't believe how great this is and very slick - it doesn't feel like a hack but something that should have shipped with the Joggler in the first place.

One thing that bugged me beyond all reason was the glaringly bright menu bar, so I'm ecstatic to see it replaced with the sexy new dark look. Congratulations on a job very well done.
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roobarb!
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Location: Salford, UK
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Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by roobarb! »

Fantastic work!

How would you feel about me packaging this up for use with the Little App Launcher? It's a generic app launcher so people don't have to mess about with applications.xml file and I use it to provide the icon for SqueezePlay on the native OS. I've not looked at how your app is put together (at least not recently!), but it shouldn't take too long to do.

I'm hoping that the launcher might make the basis of a unified way of installing additional apps on the native OS, just so we don't end up with them scattered all over the place and duplicating functionality.
BirdsLikeWires - Get fresh builds of Debian Bullseye and Bookworm for OpenFrame with the latest 5.10 and 6.1 kernels! 8-)
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roobarb!
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Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by roobarb! »

spoyser wrote:I have looked into setting the max_cstate to see if that helps but I can't figure out how to do it under the stock OS - Anyone know?
It would be in the boot files on /dev/mmcblk0p1. Not knowing the available kernel options, it's not guaranteed to work though. However, my knowledge so far as that goes is a bit limited, as I've never tried it!
BirdsLikeWires - Get fresh builds of Debian Bullseye and Bookworm for OpenFrame with the latest 5.10 and 6.1 kernels! 8-)
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offbeatdave
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Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by offbeatdave »

Oh my word! This app gets better and better! The addition of the podcasts is brilliant! Thank you!
"EVERY DAY I'M JOGGLERING!"
Jogglering since Dec '09;
Tinkering with Jogglers since Feb '10 thanks to PMJ, Jogtools, PnP & sqpOS;
Gave something back Feb '12 to Apr '14 with PnP Mk II & PnP III;
Finally 'completed' PnP III Apr '15!
Infinite Element
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Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2011 10:54 am

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by Infinite Element »

Just a quick update:

The audio crackling only happens on iplayer, not the live video. So, this app works well for the most part, but of anyone has any suggestions as to why iplayer is struggling please do tell!
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by spoyser »

!! Audio Crackling Fix !!

For those of you experiencing audio cracking when playing ondemand streams you need to ensure that the pcm.default! section of your /etc/asound.conf files reads like this:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
}

or if using an external USB card:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

If it does not look like this then it can be be edited using vi, or choosing the "Internal Sound" soundcard switch (the 1st one) on the Control Joggler page of gforums P'nP (or USB Soundcard if you have a USB sound card)

Once changed you will need to do a full reboot (not just a Tango restart)

The problem appears to be with the upscaling/mixing of the audio by the ASLA mixer, therefore the audio needs to be sent directly to the sound card, this is actually the same fix as the Squeezeplay fix for preventing the audio vanish after a few hours (which is probably why most people haven't come across the audio crackling problem)
chelseagirl
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2011 12:51 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast Player for stock OS

Post by chelseagirl »

OMG this is an amazing app! Thanks so much for this! I had installed the earlier version but couldn't get it to work, the icons did nothing despite me doing the chmod command ... but this one works perfectly. Wow!
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player for stock OS

Post by spoyser »

New Version (15 June 2011) now allows browsing of the 19 program categories as shown on the BBC iPlayer website:

Most Popular
Highlights (aka Featured)
Children's
Comedy
Dramas & Soaps
Entertainment
Factual
Films
Learning
Lifestyle & Leisure
Music
News
Religion
Sport
Audio Described
Signed
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales

The Featured and Most Popular are actually the feeds used to populate the main displays of the BBC iPlayer page.

Currently results from these are not sorted but are displayed in the same order they appear in the feeds themselves.

This is useful if you want to watch something but not sure what!

************** See original post for more details **************
http://www.jogglerwiki.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=129
Last edited by spoyser on Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
Utakos
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 2:03 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by Utakos »

What do I need to do to update from the earlier version please?
nigelh
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:05 am

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by nigelh »

Excellent work. The only problem i have is exiting when i have loaded a video. I do not see a back out option and have to power the joggler off.
stephen m
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 6:47 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by stephen m »

Hi, I followed this (or what I thought) to the letter including the last forward slash at the end to ensure I didn't lose the icons on the home screen - but guess what what no icons. How can I recover this please.
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by spoyser »

@Utakos
To update simply install over the top of the previous version.

@nigelh
The icon in the top right (looks like a power off button), should go back.

@stephen m
Sounds like you entered the tag contents incorrectly, can you post the output of this command:
cat media/appshop/applications.xml
gegs
Posts: 1146
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: Edinburgh

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by gegs »

Wow! Truly brilliant!
gegs
Posts: 1146
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:22 pm
Location: Edinburgh

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by gegs »

I had a little trouble scrolling through the whole list on each category; when I scrolled through a screen full of items and touched the bottom of the screen again, it jumped back to the top of the list. I discovered that it was accidentally moving my finger off the top or bottom of the list items that caused it to happen (e.g. straying onto the menu above them).

Not a problem or glitch, an operator error really, but worth mentioning if somebody else experiences it.
spoyser
Posts: 134
Joined: Mon Mar 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by spoyser »

@gegs

Thanks for finding that, turned out to be a bug in the JogTools scroll panel libray, if you notice all the scroll panels show the same behaviour.

I have now fixed the bug and there is a new version available to download (in fact the main.swf is the only file changed)
Utakos
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue May 17, 2011 2:03 pm

Re: BBC iPlayer/Live/Podcast/Categories Player - UPDATED Jun

Post by Utakos »

Hi
Do you have to do the whole install to upgrade or part of?
"cd media
mkdir iPlayer
cd iPlayer
wget ftp://aero.exotica.org.uk/pub/mirrors/e ... Player.tgz
tar xvf iPlayer.tgz
rm iPlayer.tgz
chmod +x iPlayer.cgi (VERY IMPORTANT, this makes the file executable, without this it will NOT work)
cd
cd media/appshop
vi applications.xml

i (enters insert mode)
Add the following immediately before the final </applications>

<app id="iPlayer" title="iPlayer" loc="/media/iPlayer/" icon="icon.swf" app="main.swf"/>

Then hit ESC followed by :x return (save and exit)

Restart joggler"
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