Internet TV - sopcast

[DC]

Hi all,
For anybody who wants to test Internet TV. Here is how I did it
SopCast (tuner?)
http://www.sopcast.com/
Download
command line version:
http://download.sopcast.com/download/sp-sc.tgz
GUI front end:
http://apt.magiclinux.org/magic/2.1/uns ... c.i686.rpm

First problem I could not unpack the rpm. So I found a deb pack instead
http://linuxtoy.org/files/deb/gtk-sopca ... 1_i386.deb
(undeb pup helped here)

Second problem I could not figure out the command line version, but the GUI works great.

install steps
unpack GUI files which are "gsopcast" and "sp-sc"
and copy to /usr/bin and link "gsopcast" to desktop.

These files will work but I figured out that in the command line pack there is a file called "sp-sc-auth" which is a newer version of "sp-sc" just needs renaming from "sp-sc-auth" to "sp-sc".

clicking on "gsopcast" opens up the GUI
The default player is mplayer
If you don't have mplayer installed then click on the config tab at the top of the GUI
and change the Player: to gxine (and save). gxine works fine I'm testing videolan (vlc) at the moment and that also works very well.
You can also fill in the Record directory: to a existing folder on your system if you want to record any streams. I've tried this once and it seems to work OK.

Back to sopcast tab
clicking on the search text with channel blank will search for all channels. This might take 30-40 seconds.
The most popular and the best to test with are the "Sports test channel group"
double clicking on a channel ( ESPN is ok ) will start downloading
you should see at the bottom of the GUI the status line changing.
% is the buffer
somewhere between 30-60% your video player should open
then 60-100% you should get a picture and then sound.
the first minute or so the picture is not so good but then it seems to settle down.
If nothing happens that channel is probably not on. Select another channel and try again.
If the buffer gets low again your picture will freeze and sound may stop. You just have to wait till it comes back again. If the web is busy this can get annoying.

I tested this with puppy 2.17 live CD and hard drive install.
with a broadband connection
on a P4 2.4ghz 1gig ram, but hardly used in both cases.

enjoy
DC

thanks to SopCast.com
Liu Di and Wei Lian for the GUI version
and the unknown deb packager

[weffy]

I'm not having much luck with this. I've got the GUI and I'm getting connected, but I never get over 50% on the buffer and rarely to 40%. I've tried various test channels on the GUI and I've linked to college football and soccer on MyP2P.eu. Maybe my internet connection at 256k is too slow. Also, I could not get the sopcast GUI front end download - 404 - page not found.

Any ideas much appreciated.

Running Puppy 2.14. Maybe it will work better on NFL football.

[DC]

Hi weffy,
I think 256k could be a bit slow. I've 3 to 4mb broadband and still it gets very flakey.
I've also had the other problem that too many people are trying to connect. Should not happen with P2P but it does.
I can send you the sopcast GUI front end if you want. But since I wrote this post I've found it works better if you get the stream from the command line and view in mplayer or vlc. The trouble with the GUI is all the channels seem to be fixed. So I get the channel number from myp2p and use it in the command line.

DC

[weffy]

Thanks for the reply and the command line suggestion, DC. I gave it a try and it looked promising with all the lines rolling by, but it didn't work either. I think it is safe to assume that I just don't have the bandwidth to do it. Or maybe that I'm such a Linux newb and I didn't have the commands just right, but it sure looked like it was trying, I'm kind of surprised there isn't more interest in this.

[DC]

command line which works for me.
open a terminal where the sp-sc is located
bold is the channel number I get from myp2p

# ./sp-sc sop://broker.sopcast.com:3912/22508 3908 8908 > /dev/null &
# [1] 3235

the return value 3235 (will always be different) I think is the process id which you can ignore for now
The only indication that you are receiving is the blinky network icon

I use VLC. So when blinky is flashing away open a stream (http) with

http://127.0.0.1:8908
or
http://localhost:8908/tv.asf

I found VLC to be the best for decoding as it seems to do it faster than mplayer.

DC

[weffy]

DC, Hey, I got it to work! Thanks a lot for your help and persistence. Streaming quality is, however, poor. But I was using gxine. I will download VLC and see if that improves it. I'll let you know if it does.

One other question - What is the command to kill the stream?

Thanks again, Weffy

[Béèm]

Would it be possible to play SopCast stations directly in VLC without installing the SopCast software.

[DC]

One other question - What is the command to kill the stream?

This is where your process ID comes in. If you open up "KP manage running process" and look for ./sp-sc sop: //broker.sopcast.com:3912/xxxxx 3908 8908 you will notice that the three PID's on show are just before the number you get returned in the terminal when you start sopcast. I just kill the first PID for sopcast
# kill xxxxx
I think this is a quick and dirty way of doing it but I've not got around to looking up how to do it correctly.

Would it be possible to play SopCast stations directly in VLC without installing the SopCast software.

I'm sure it would be possible. Shoutcast for example works fine with VLC. I think the programme sp-sc handles the handshaking with sop://broker.sopcast.com for the stream. Maybe it would be possible to make a plugin or pass the parameters to VLC etc . but thats out of my league.

DC

[Béèm]

@DC
Thank you for the sop:// link.
Unfortunately VLC doen't know this protocol, so indeed a plugin would be needed, or support for sop:// to be build in.

Southcast is indeed supported.

[DC]

Running Sopcast from a URL in Seamonkey ( or firefox ) playing in gxine
(modified from a reply in ubuntu forum - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=273321 )

make a script sopcast.sh with the following three lines and save it in /root

sp-sc $1 3908 8908 &
sleep 30
gxine http://localhost:8908/tv.asf &

open seamonkey
type about:config in the address line

right click to add
network.protocol-handler.warn-external.sop boolean set to false
network.protocol-handler.external.sop boolean set to true
network.protocol-handler.app.sop string with /root/sopcast.sh

close and restart Seamonkey
www.myp2p.eu pick something you fancy and test
There will be a thirty second delay before gxine starts to allow the stream to get going

you have to have sp-sc installed !
I've tried it with cricket and football.

DC

[DC]

Changed my script to play in VLC also works fine

sopcast.sh
#!/bin/sh
# Script to start VLC using sopcast streams from Seamonkey URL

sp-sc $1 3908 8908 &
sleep 30
vlc http://localhost:8908/tv.asf &

DC

[weffy]

Using VLC is a big improvement. Pro football is now nearly watchable. So now, I need to explore ways of getting a better internet connection.

Thanks again, DC

[DC]

And finally a bit of code to stop the sopcast stream and close the vlc(or gxine) player
This code is very basic and possible a bit crude, but I'm still learning

make a script killsopcast.sh with the following lines and save it in /root
(copy to desktop after testing)

#!/bin/sh
# Put process id's for sp-sc into variable var1 (back tics important)
var1=`ps -A | grep sp-sc`
# extract process id (sub string) into varible var2
var2=${var1:1:5}
# kill the process id thats in the varaible var2
kill -9 $var2
# Put process id for vlc into variable var3
var3=`ps -A | grep vlc`
# extract process id as a sub string into varible var4
var4=${var3:1:5}
# kill the process id thats in the varaible var4
kill -9 $var4

DC