vdr-vodcatcher - a video podcast plug-in for the Video Disk Recorder (VDR)
==========================================================================

Written by:
    Tobias Grimm <tg@e-tobi.net>

Project's homepage:
    http://www.e-tobi.net/blog/pages/vdr-vodcatcher

Copyright:
    (C) 2007 - 2008 Tobias Grimm

License:
    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
    Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
    option) any later version.
   
    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
    WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
    or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for
    more details.
   
    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
    this program (see file `COPYING`); if not, write to the
    Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
    MA 02110-1301 USA
    
Translations:
    it: Diego Pierotto <vdr-italian@tiscali.it>


Description:
-----------

The Vodcatcher plug-in allows to parse RSS feeds containing video streams as
enclosures. The plug-in will play such streams by passing them to the 
MPlayer plug-in [1] or the Xineliboutput plug-in [2].

Besides the standard RSS feeds with video enclosures, the RSS services of
videocast.srtwist.net are supported too.


Requirements:
------------

The plugin requires libcurl, vdr 1.6.0 or above and the Mplayer or Xineliboutput
plug-in.


Building:
--------

The following make variables can be overriden:

    DEFAULT_CACHE_DIR    Specifies the default cache dir, where the xml feeds
                         get cached. If not specified, this defaults to
                         /var/cache/vdr-plugin-vodcatcher. The cache dir
                         can also be changed at runtime using the 
                         --cache option. 


Command line arguments:
-----------------------

The following parameters are available:

    --cache=<DIR>    Specify the cache dir, where the xml feeds get cached.
                     This defaults to /var/cache/vdr-plugin-vodcatcher.


Configuration
-------------

In order to allow the MPlayer plug-in to play back the streams passed in by the
Vodcatcher, you must add the following entry to the mplayersources.conf file:

    /tmp;Vodcatcher;0

An external configuration file named "vodcatchersources.conf" must exist in the
subdirectory "plugins/" in  VDR's configuration directory.

In vodcatchersources.conf the URL's of the RSS feeds can be configured in the
following way:

    #
    # videocast.srtwist.net
    #
    FEED_URL=http://videocast.srtwist.net
    
Multiple FEED_URL-entries can be specified. A '#' indicates a comment just like
in shell scripts.


Setup parameters:
-----------------

    Max. download cache age (days)    The number of days, files should be kept
                                      in the local cache.
                                      default: 30 days

    Media Player                      The media player used for playback. Can
                                      be "MPlayer" or "Xineliboutput".


Usage:
------

By opening the plug-in's main menu entry in VDR's OSD, you enter the feed menu.
This menu lists all the feeds you have configured in the file
"vodcatchersources.conf". If the feed could not be downloaded or is not yet
downloaded, it will be listed as "unknown". In this case, just try again later
or check the URL in the config file.

By selecting a feed from the menu and pressing OK, a menu listing all the feed
items will open. If a feed item is linked to another RSS feed, you you press 
OK again to open this feed. If the selected feed item contains a video stream,
you can start playback with the GREEN key. If the stream is available in
different qualities (only possible with videocast.srtwist.net), you can toggle
the quality with the YELLOW key, before playing it.

The play back plug-in might need a while to cache the video stream, before
playback starts. This can be several seconds depending on your plugin
settings and the download speed.


Known problems and todo's:
--------------------------

- Recording of streams is not yet implemented

---

[1]: http://www.muempf.de
[2]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xineliboutput
