sorry for so many posts just having realization after realization. Why dont you right i scheduler or an interface into plex for the program Firerecord its what i use to record off my cable box and about 10 seconds ago i figured out how to make it change channels. It already has a simple and easy to use interface and all that is needed is a schedualler/ program guide or integration in ical.
Just food for thought, great job with clover though
This all sounds awesome. What about modifying the firerecord utility to stream a MPEG2 transport stream to a network socket? That would fit in very nicely with what I’m thinking for EyeTV integration.
I was about to put in a request to connect a motorola (RCN cable) box to Plex… I don’t even care about recording right now… I would like to just be able to switch from a movie in Plex to a TV show without having to change inputs on the TV, etc, etc… that would make it UBER wife friendly… the only other way would be to get the HDHomerun… which I really want to do, but that will have to be on the sly for me I guess… if she doesn’t see the box, she won’t know I bought something… it will be like magic.
Can this app do this, though? How does it work? Can I just add it as an App to the applications and then launch it to view shows while watching plex? can the channel change be controlled via the harmony remote? I guess it could… I could customize it to change channels on the motorola while in “Plex” mode, no?
I’m wondering if you can use the plugin architecture for this… I’ve not played with it, nor do I have any of the hardware, but, if you can dump your video to a fifo, then build a simple web page that streams video straight from the fifo (I realize it is a bit of a long way round) and can pass that straight to Plex’s ffmpeg, you should be golden. Do plugins allow passing straight to the video processing component of plex, or do they need to be flash players?
Extra controls (change channels) should also be doable easily enough by having ‘buttons’ on your page…
I’ve got a Motorola DVR, and I’m very interested in the progress of this functionality, as well.
I’m a newbie on this. Does this program allow you to watch your cable on plex instead of the ugly Comcast guide?
Not currently no.
I have to say, I would be extremely interested in seeing an addition to Plex that would allow the control and playback of a device (such as a cable box) connected directly via Firewire. Apple’s “FireWire SDK” contains a bunch of demo applications including AVCBrowser, which opens a local UDP socket to pass through the data coming through Firewire. Pull in that code, add a simple UI like EyeTV’s for changing channels and a buffer to pause/resume live TV, and you’ve just added an awesome new feature to an already killer app. 
Any progress on this? Would be awesome to have PLEX work with firewire on SA 4250 HD
Seeing as the person who was origionally doing this has dropped off the face of the earth…
I was considering taking a crack at this. I have never done any Plex development, but I’m definitely not a stranger to OSX dev ( http://openemu.sf.net ). I have a new mac-mini coming in about a week with the cables and such I would need to tackle this. Dumping the raw framesto a UDP port should be fairly easy to accomplish, the part I’m worried about is getting the data into Plex. From looking at the Plex plugin API it expects everything to be in a flash/silverlight stream? Or am I mistaken.
Edit: I just took a look at how the TiVo plugin works, looks like this will be really easy, at least for the basic initial go at it. I’ll keep ya’ll updated once I get my new machine and cables.
- Josh Weinberg
So, I got a plugin written up, got it streaming properly over a UDP port and all. But of course… I can’t figure out how to get Plex to accept the UDP stream. I can open the stream perfectly in VLC, just need to know how to get plex to listen to it, and then I can really get this plugin underway…
Anyone have any ideas?
Edit: So I found udppxy, which is a piece of software that can take a UDP multicast stream and dump it to an HTTP stream. Yet of course, Plex still can’t open this stream…
Edit 2:Decided to go try my luck with XBMC proper, and it can read my raw UDP stream perfectly. So something in plex is stopping this from happening…as soon as we can get raw streams…Firewire hooksup to cable boxes can live
Edit 3: Apparently there is a way to get the UDP streams working, just need to dump them straight into the DVD player. I’ll get around to setting up a full plex dev environment soon and see if I can do this myself, one of the devs said they had a working solution, still waiting to hear back.
Ok, getting a dev environment set up did not go so well...macports has all kinds of issues on SL right now.
If you want a MacPorts that can build Plex, you can download http://bluemandrill.com/plex/macports-snowleopard.tar.bz2
The key is using gcc 4.0, which defaults to i386 instead of x86_64. I edited /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf to set some of this stuff up, but many ports still need manual tweaking.
A pain in the royal ass.
I have a dev environment now, and I managed to compile a version that would show the video from the box in the media player. But its kinda weird right now, and there isn’t much of a gui
I can’t believe more people aren’t interested in DVR capabilities! I would love to be rid of the ugly interface on my SA4250HD
If you are still working on this I would be interested. I have just gotten a cable box and a Mac Mini and want to set it up as my everything box. I'd love to be able to get the cable video working over firewire.
This seems like an AWESOME added functionality! I eagerly await developments on this.
Looks like some people actually found this thread now 
I’ve been buried by other work, but I havn’t forgotten about this. I have a proof of concept working, but it needs a lot of work to become anything real. I’ll keep ya’ll updated once I have some itme.
Has anyone been working on this? I have been using Plex for almost a year now, and this would be some great added functionality as a plug-in. I am not much of a coder but am willing to learn or help out with this in some way.
-Patrick
I wanted to get rid of all my cable companies DVRs and went Plex - Works great but without LIVE TV - That is what I am looking for to run on my system:
HTPC Setup
Plex Server (PMS) 0.9.5.3
Ceton InfiniTV 4 Quad CableCARD (ComCast Atlanta MultiStream) Tuner (All 900 Stations Show Up!)
Windows Ultimate 64bit SP1 (MS Media Center is my interface to the InfiniTV and works great!)
MSI 870U-G55 Motherboard (MS-7599)
AMD Athlon II Quad Core 645 Processor (OC to 3.51GHz)
8GB RAM Corsair XMS3 (2x4) 1600 MHZ
ATI Radeon HD 5450 (512MB Video Memory)
Storage 500GB 7200 Boot - x3 2TB 5400 Baracuda in Raid 0 Storage
Netgear WNDR 3700 Wireless Router (Updated with WRT)
x4 Roku XS (AB Version) - x1 iPad APP - x2 Android App - x5 Plex Windows Clients
