I think I can fix macrotube and make a full ITV Plugin

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jachin99

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I think I can fix macrotube and make a full ITV Plugin

#1

Post by jachin99 » Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:55 am

I was looking around the internet again, and somehow I stumbled on macrotube, and how in 2012 there was a fix for it. What is interesting about macrotube is that it doesn't use Flash like most of the other WMC plugins out there so as long you can update API calls, the video should work for a long time to come. What is even more interesting about macrotube is that it stores its video providers in an XML file that is fairly easy to update. This was enough for me to throw it on my PC, do a lot of googling and try things out. I actually have this partially working (TWIT TV hasn't updated their API in a while) and I was able to easily play recent videos from twit TV. The playing video is treated like any other video as in it shows up in the NPV, my remote works with it, and it plays fullscreen in the background. Now for more good news...

The youtube api calls are also stored in a xml format, and I found a question on stack exchange after googling a copied and pasted actual youtube api call from the macrotube xml file. My next step is to get whatever dev account I need on youtube, and try to update a few api calls in the xml and see if it works. This is something that I can easily understand, and most others can replicate so I think this has a lot of potential. here is a screenshot
Capture.PNG

jachin99

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#2

Post by jachin99 » Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:02 am

Some info about not needing youtube hd http://web.archive.org/web/201212261535 ... ube-lives/

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#3

Post by KevinRush » Sat Oct 14, 2017 8:31 pm

Hi, This sounds very interesting. Do I understand correctly that you may be able to add internet video streams into Windows Media Center so we can select from a variety of choices and then watch them full screen in Windows Media Center? This would be great. I hope you have success.
Or do you mean ITV as in a commercial TV network in the United Kingdom?
Best Wishes
Kevin Rush

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#4

Post by jachin99 » Sun Oct 15, 2017 12:44 am

I mean as long as there is at least a video rss feed and the codecs for the sites videos are compatible with wmc then I can add video feeds from around the internet. I think what killed a lot of plugins like these was the overall direction of flash video. This plugin looks to use html which is a current video standard

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#5

Post by jachin99 » Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:31 pm

I've updated Revision3 by taking out all of the links with old content. Even though revision3 closed shop I think a few years ago it looks like some of their content providers are still posting new material. I can't be sure but I would guess these feeds still work through a redirect. Either way I've hosted a new xml and png file with only the feeds that are still producing new content. Here is a link https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvAoSdNdORVlgu0bPj5nYRWTU27NKg Drag and drop this under C:\ProgramData\Jasmio\MacroTube\Providers and you should be good, assuming you have macrotube installed. I don't know how to create "plugins" for macrotube but I'm sure I can learn

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#6

Post by jachin99 » Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:00 pm

This is tested and working in win 10

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DavidinCT

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#7

Post by DavidinCT » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:00 pm

This was a epic app in it's day. YouTube is no longer needed in any form buy installing Chrome and using YoutubeTV ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9736 ), it does work epic, I use it almost 2-3 times a week (for 2 hours +)...Yea, I have a youtube problem...

If we were able to get a bunch of updated sources, it might be useful again for some streaming sources. I know the "provider files are just XML files.

It should not be that hard to do, as long as you can match up the data it's looking for. I remember when it was active, I did update a few of them but, it's been years..
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#8

Post by jachin99 » Tue Oct 24, 2017 3:30 pm

I have two of them working, and I'm looking all over at how to figure out how to build more. If its possible, maybe you could explain to me how these works, and give me a rough idea about any kind of templates I can use to build new ones. I was talking about this on the emby forums a day or two ago, and macrotube is still the most reliable program I have found for streaming services. I'm not too concerned about youtube for this because as you have said there is a better way to go about that.

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#9

Post by Space » Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:59 pm

DavidinCT wrote:This was a epic app in it's day. YouTube is no longer needed in any form buy installing Chrome and using YoutubeTV ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9736 ), it does work epic, I use it almost 2-3 times a week (for 2 hours +)...Yea, I have a youtube problem...
...
Is it still necessary to use Chrome? It seems to work fine in Firefox.

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#10

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Oct 25, 2017 1:03 pm

Space wrote:
DavidinCT wrote:This was a epic app in it's day. YouTube is no longer needed in any form buy installing Chrome and using YoutubeTV ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9736 ), it does work epic, I use it almost 2-3 times a week (for 2 hours +)...Yea, I have a youtube problem...
...
Is it still necessary to use Chrome? It seems to work fine in Firefox.
I tried it in IE, firefox and Chrome (view the thread I linked), It ONLY works in Chrome (at least me for). This is on Windows 7. There is a few ways to lock it down and it's not my default. I ONLY use Chrome for YoutubeTV... So it's a browser just used for TV.
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#11

Post by jachin99 » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:20 pm

David, do you have any providers xml files that you could share with me, or any information you could give me about how to make my own?

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#12

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:04 pm

jachin99 wrote:David, do you have any providers xml files that you could share with me, or any information you could give me about how to make my own?
There are still some up on google code... I think these are the big ones but, if I get some time I'll take a look through my WMC file archive. I think I still have some SOMEPLACE !

https://code.google.com/archive/p/macro ... /downloads
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#13

Post by Space » Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:06 am

DavidinCT wrote:
Space wrote:
DavidinCT wrote:This was a epic app in it's day. YouTube is no longer needed in any form buy installing Chrome and using YoutubeTV ( viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9736 ), it does work epic, I use it almost 2-3 times a week (for 2 hours +)...Yea, I have a youtube problem...
...
Is it still necessary to use Chrome? It seems to work fine in Firefox.
I tried it in IE, firefox and Chrome (view the thread I linked), It ONLY works in Chrome (at least me for). This is on Windows 7. There is a few ways to lock it down and it's not my default. I ONLY use Chrome for YoutubeTV... So it's a browser just used for TV.
It seems to work for me in Firefox. One issue is that it does not go full screen unless you press F11, but I can probably get around that (and the hide pointer issue) with AutoHotkey (since I use it for a bunch of things already).

I've never used Relaunch, so would need to figure out how to use this to start it up and get back to WMC afterwards...

I probably will never do this though, since I rarely have a need to watch YouTube on the TV and I'm busy with other stuff... I'll just add it to the list of things that will probably never get done... :-)

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#14

Post by DavidinCT » Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:47 pm

It seems to work for me in Firefox. One issue is that it does not go full screen unless you press F11, but I can probably get around that (and the hide pointer issue) with AutoHotkey (since I use it for a bunch of things already).

I've never used Relaunch, so would need to figure out how to use this to start it up and get back to WMC afterwards...

I probably will never do this though, since I rarely have a need to watch YouTube on the TV and I'm busy with other stuff... I'll just add it to the list of things that will probably never get done... :-)[/quote]

Firefox should be changeable via command line (to start full screen), I did find with Chrome it was easier to setup with ReLaunch. I mean install Chrome, setup logons for the sites I use, lock it down (the permission on the conifig file), open relaunch and it's even got a template for youtube TV... It was easy. I even deleted the shortcuts to Chrome, I don't even use it for ANYTHING ELSE besides youtube.

If you rarely watch youtube, then it might not be worthy to you. Setting it up like this is EXACTLY like if you have a Smart TV with YouTube built in. Personally I watch a LOT of youtube. A lot of Animation shows just on youtube tons of other stuff. I can spend hours on YouTube and this app setup works AWESOME (a few 5 hour sessions shows it's solid too)

This is off topic here, if you have more questions on this subject, reply on the other thread and I will respond there.
-Dave
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Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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#15

Post by jachin99 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:55 pm

I'm leaving this here because It might be a good starting point in creating new xml files for Macrotube. http://btk.tillnagel.com/tutorials/rss- ... ssing.html

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#16

Post by jachin99 » Mon Jan 22, 2018 7:56 pm

I'm leaving this here because It might be a good starting point in creating new xml files for Macrotube. http://btk.tillnagel.com/tutorials/rss- ... ssing.html

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