Guide: Streama från Dreambox till iPhone

Jag har äntligen hittat ett smidig och snyggt sätt att kunna titta på TV från min Dreambox direkt i min iPhone. Det var lite småtrixigt innan man fick igång det men nu funkar otroligt bra. Detta innebär dessutom att du enkelt kan byta kanal också. Så nu kan jag se på 1000-tals kanaler direkt i min iPhone vart jag än är.  Se bilderna nedan på hur snyggt det är:

Här nedan är en guide på hur detta går till:  (på engelska)

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and also use a Dreambox, Dbox2 or any other receiver running Enigma or Neutrino then ”Air Video” is a must have.

What is it?

Air Video can stream videos to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Besides the app you must run the free of charge server for Windows or Mac. That is very nice for playing your recorded videos. But I’m sure you will like my Air Video server mod even more. I’ve modified latest Air Video server so that it enables you to select and play live video streams from your set top boxes (e.g. Dreambox or Dbox). A TV channel can be selected from a channel list (a list with channel logo thumbnails). Air Video server then sends a zap (channel change) command to the set top box and the stream can be played on the iPhone using live conversion. This works perfect and you can view your favorite TV channels live and in good quality wherever I am via wifi and 3G. Years ago I developed the PMP VLC player for the Sony PSP which is quite similar to Air Video and when I found Air Video I knew it is the killer app for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Installation

First install Air Video on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then install the latest server on your Windows PC or on your Mac. Details can be found on the official Air Video site http://www.inmethod.com
Links to older versions can be found in the support forum here:
http://www.inmethod.com/forum/posts/list/454.page

To install my mod perform following steps:
- download and unpack my Air Video modpack from the attachment (10MB)
- replace the ffmpeg program by the one in my modpack. On your PC replace ffmpeg.exe in the directory where you installed the Air Video server (e.g. C:Program FilesAirVideoServer). On a Mac replace ffmpeg in directory ”/Applications/Air Video Server Beta9.app/Contents/Resources/” and make sure ffmpeg has execute permissions
- copy channels.ini to your PC in the directory where you installed the Air Video server (e.g. C:Program FilesAirVideoServer) and if you use a Mac copy it to the root directory (in ”/”)
- copy the LiveTV directory to your PC and add it to the shared folders in Air Video server. This directory contains the channel logo thumbnails (these are in fact 1 second duration mpeg4 files). Included are about 50 German Astra 19.2 channels
- edit channels.ini and replace the IP address 192.168.1.96 by the IP of your Dreambox or Dbox2
- (for client versions before v2.1.3): add a preset ”LiveTV” in the Air Video client on the iPhone: width 480, height 272, quality e.g 70% (the quality heavily determines the average bitrate and for Internet access (3G or wifi) it should not be more than your upload speed! Via 3G I have good results when quality is set to 50%. Experiment with it and look up in the server log what actual bitrates you achieve
- (for client v2.1.3 and later): click conversion settings and then click Global Conversion Settings. The live TV stream quality depends only on the Max. Resolution settings and Quality for Offline Conversion slider. I recommend to keep the Max. Resolution settings on Automatic and only use the Quality for Offline Conversion slider to set stream quality.
- if you installed everything correctly and the server is running you can start Air Video on your iPhone, add the server and open the LiveTV – German TV folder. Select a channel from the thumnail list and press ”Play with Live Conversion” and then press play from ”The Beginning”. If after 6-7 seconds you see a warning message press ”Continue”. In total after pressing ”Play with Live Conversion” it takes about 25 sec before you see the picture.
- streaming sd channels works perfect for most of the sd (standard definition) channels. Some channels do not correctly multiplex the elementary streams into a ts stream and won’t play, CNBC Europe is an example. Unfortunately the Ffmpeg encoder can not correctly demux hd channels and therefore hd channels only play a few seconds.
- if you stream from a Dbox2 you must first switch off ”Playback” and ”Sectionsd”. You can do that in the Control menu via the dbox yWeb interface.
- you can get a near perfect picture quality if you select the highest quality preset in Conversion Settings.
- IMPORTANT: to ensure uninterrupted streaming make sure your set top box and the PC running Air Video Server are connected to your wlan router by ethernet cable. If you connect them by wifi or powerlink there is a high probability the stream stops playing after a few seconds.

Customisation

On the server the file called channels.ini must be added with 3 lines for each channel: thumbnail movie filename, zap url, stream url. The zap url is sent to the set top box once the user starts live playback and the stream url is the stream which is being transcoded by Air Video server.

Here is a snippet:

code:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:

049-BBC-World.mp4
http://192.168.1.96/web/zap?sRef=1:0:1:2…1:c00000:0:0:0:
http://192.168.1.96:8001/1:0:1:2742:402:1:c00000:0:0:0:

050-CNN-Int.mp4
http://192.168.1.96/web/zap?sRef=1:0:1:6…1:c00000:0:0:0:
http://192.168.1.96:8001/1:0:1:6f6a:42c:1:c00000:0:0:0:

On a Dreambox you can easily find the number part (e.g. 1:0:1:6f6a:42c:1:c00000:0:0:0: ) in the User Bouquet files, e.g. userbouquet.dbe02.tv

For use with a Dbox2 with yWeb web interface the lines look like:

code: 1:
2:
3:
4:
5:

db2-RTL.mp4
http://192.168.1.92/control/zapto?44100012ee3
http://192.168.1.92:31339/0,0x002c,0x00a3,0×0068

The zap link can directly be found on the yWeb web interface. The stream link of the channel currently playing can be found by opening http://192.168.1.92/control/exec?Y_Live&url in your browser, the result is http://192.168.1.92:31339/0,0x002c,0x00a3,0×0068 if RTL is currently played.

You also need the thumbnail mpeg4 which must be created with an aspect ratio corresponding to the stream. The channel logos can be found here:
http://www.lyngsat-logo.com/

Windows users can use two batch files logo.bat and logowide.bat which can create the thumbnail videos in 4:3 and 16:9 respectively.
Download a channel logo from lyngsat and resize the canvas to 176 x 99 (from 133 x 99) if you want to produce a 16:9 thumbnail.
Rename it to z1.jpg and then run logo or logowide with the channelname as parameter (e.g. logowide 048-CNBC-Europe.mp4). Note: Make sure there are no blanks or tabs in the filename !!!

The same scheme can easily be applied to live streams from capture boards, webcams, surveillance cams and many other set top boxes.
Your mileage may vary. Please post your results and tips in this thread.

Thanks to InMethod, makers of Air Video, for the greatest app for iPhone.

Enjoy,
JockyW (jockyw2001)
10.01.2010

PS:

I have a couple of ideas for a new version of my Air Video modpack,
- add selection of audio track (easy)
- support streaming of HD channels (hard, requires use of VLC instead of ffmpeg)
- support streaming of DVDs (hard, requires use of VLC instead of ffmpeg)
- support dvb subtitles (hard)

Attachment: Air Video Modpack.zip (10 MB, 145 downloads)

Här nedan är ett exempel på hur min channels.ini ser ut för tex SVT1 på min DM800 (kan nog se annorlunda ut på tex enigma1)

084-Svt1.mp4

http://192.168.0.3/web/zap?sRef=1:0:1:BDA:2C:46:E080000:0:0:0:

http://192.168.0.3:8001/1:0:1:BDA:2C:46:E080000:0:0:0:

Har ni frågor och funderingar så ställ en fråga på forumet så ska jag försöka hjälpa till.

Filed Under: Apps • iPhone

Tags: dreambox, iPhone, stream