Denver Local News Channel

My first plugin... and I decided to share...

 

https://github.com/jgenender/DenverNews.bundle

 

From the Readme:

 

Plex Media Center Plugin offering Denver news channels for live streaming. 2 of the channels (2 and 31) even loop their most recent news broadcast continuously when they are not broadcasting live.

 

All Denver channels are offered except for KCNC (CBS) Channel 4 since they do not offer live news video. This includes:

  • KWGN Channel 2 (WB2)
  • KMGH Channel 7 (ABC)
  • KUSA Channel 9 (NBC)
  • KDVR Channel 31 (FOX)

This quite hoestly is my first Plex Plugin because I cut the cable and missed my local news. This satisfies obtaining my news and makes getting local news pretty easy. This by no means is a clean implementation of a Plex Plugin, but it works. Pull requests are most certainly welcome.

 

The plugin uses the MP4/IOS M3U8 streams and hence works great on those devices as well as the Safari web browser. Other web browsers do not appear to work very well at this time since they do not appear to support the HLS streaming (Google this issue on the Plex forums for more info). It also works well with the Apple TV using PlexConnect, Plex desktop client, Roku, and XBMC. It may work on other clients, but I have not tried. Also, at this stage, the plugin reads the M3U8 and pulls the one with the highest bitrate. It would be nice to have code that can dynamically select it based upon your bandwidth or other algorithm.

 

This plugin (after getting cleaned up) could potentially be the basis for a Local Live News plugin for many other cities. As I said, this can use a lot of work and being a Java developer, my Python skillz can use a lot of work. ;-)

 

Enjoy!

Congrats on your first plugin. Looks like good code to me. After an initial read-through, I only have a couple comments.

  1. You shouldn't need to import StringIO or re. The framework's built-in string handling should be able to accomplish what you're doing with StringIO, unless you really _need_ the buffering. I wrote some similar code (then commented it out) for the TouTV url service, which you can see on Github, here.  The framework also has regex.compile() built-in as Regex() which you can see in action in the same URL Service
  2. In theory, most of the clients that handle HLS streams should handle the stream/bandwidth selection on their own so that you don't have to do it programmatically. If you find a case where a client is not doing that, it's good to bring it to the attention of the developers (a post in this forum will usually suffice) so that tweaks can be made to the clients if necessary.

Generally, I would suggest implementing URL Services for the streams but since in your case they are "live" streams, I think your choice to skip the URL Service and handle them directly in the channel code is a good one.

I'm very new to this (this is probably my first visit to the developer forums), so excuse the noob question, but this sounds really great and I'd love to give it a try.  How do I add the channel to Plex?  Thanks!

Congrats on your first plugin. Looks like good code to me. After an initial read-through, I only have a couple comments.

  1. You shouldn't need to import StringIO or re. The framework's built-in string handling should be able to accomplish what you're doing with StringIO, unless you really _need_ the buffering. I wrote some similar code (then commented it out) for the TouTV url service, which you can see on Github, here.  The framework also has regex.compile() built-in as Regex() which you can see in action in the same URL Service
  2. In theory, most of the clients that handle HLS streams should handle the stream/bandwidth selection on their own so that you don't have to do it programmatically. If you find a case where a client is not doing that, it's good to bring it to the attention of the developers (a post in this forum will usually suffice) so that tweaks can be made to the clients if necessary.

Generally, I would suggest implementing URL Services for the streams but since in your case they are "live" streams, I think your choice to skip the URL Service and handle them directly in the channel code is a good one.

Thanks for the awesome feedback.  I'll jump on this stuff.  I saw your code earlier (before your reply) and I had that "Thats cool... I need to do that" moment.

Yeah...I will certainly do URLServices.  I wanted to get this working in a minimalistic setup and it actually is one of the next things on my list.

I'm very new to this (this is probably my first visit to the developer forums), so excuse the noob question, but this sounds really great and I'd love to give it a try.  How do I add the channel to Plex?  Thanks!

What platform are you on?

What platform are you on?

My primary use is with the Roku app, but I also use Android and the web interface (in Chrome).

Great plugin!  I wish I would have discovered it sooner.  I haven't had any problems in the short time I have been watching.  I was watching channel 9 thru another plugin but it had many skips, stutters and pixels.  Yours works beautifully.  Many thanks for this!

Great plugin!  I wish I would have discovered it sooner.  I haven't had any problems in the short time I have been watching.  I was watching channel 9 thru another plugin but it had many skips, stutters and pixels.  Yours works beautifully.  Many thanks for this!

tripman1, could you point me in the right direction to get this installed on my Roku?  I searched around the forums, but couldn't find a walkthrough of how to do so.  Thanks!

It actually is installed in the Plex plugin folder.  Right click the plex icon in the lower right corner and open plugin folder.  Install the plugin in that folder and it will show up in Plex.  Been using this for a month now and is still works beautifully!

It actually is installed in the Plex plugin folder.  Right click the plex icon in the lower right corner and open plugin folder.  Install the plugin in that folder and it will show up in Plex.  Been using this for a month now and is still works beautifully!

Thanks for your response!  I downloaded the zip file, unzipped it, and copied it to the plugins folder.  I also removed the "-master" after the ".bundle" in the folder name.  Is there something else that needs to be done to install it?  It is not showing up in the Plex Media Center.  Will it not show up in Media Server at all?  I don't see Channels listed anywhere; I only see them on my PC via the Media Center and on my TV via the Roku app.  Thanks for the help!

Thanks for your response!  I downloaded the zip file, unzipped it, and copied it to the plugins folder.  I also removed the "-master" after the ".bundle" in the folder name.  Is there something else that needs to be done to install it?  It is not showing up in the Plex Media Center.  Will it not show up in Media Server at all?  I don't see Channels listed anywhere; I only see them on my PC via the Media Center and on my TV via the Roku app.  Thanks for the help!

I just gave it a little more time, and all my channels are showing up in Media Server.  Thanks again!

Ok...for some reason, I can't get this working.  I have tried multiple times and it still shows that the channel is 'not responding'.  Also, it only shows the KUSA 9news and not the others.  Does this need to be updated?  I have the free service and not the PlexPass.  Does that matter?  Is there another plugin that I have to install to get this to work?

Using the Chromecast app

Through the Chrome web browser

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