Loggytronic

Description

VOMP brings Video Disk Recorder (VDR) functionality to other devices. There is a plugin for VDR and client software for the Hauppauge MVP and now also Windows - the clients talk to VDR over a network. The original idea was to make a clean set-top-box out of the MVP with an easy user interface much like a normal digital TV consumer set-top-box.

VOMP can stream live TV or radio, or play back TV and radio recordings. In live TV mode a full screen EPG is available with the ability to set recording timers, it is also possible to view a list of timers and their details. Aspect ratio switching is supported, and on the MVP: PAL and NTSC, RGB / composite / S-Video and both remote control types are supported.

See some of the client menus: Screenshots

Read about the roots, direction and future of VOMP.

Latest News

19 July: Version 0.3.0 released for MVP and Windows, bringing much improved live TV. See the forum for the full change list.
15 November: Vomp For Windows 0.2.7-3 released, fixing a couple of problems found since 0.2.7 was released.
13 November: Vomp For Windows 0.2.7-2 released, fixing a couple of problems found since 0.2.7 was released.
7 November: Version 0.2.7 released. Remember, if you use Vomp For Windows, wait until the Windows client has been released before upgrading. (Or don't use VFW for a while...)
21 March: Minor fixes to build script. See below
12 February: New development environment build scripts released. See below
4 February 2007: Version 0.2.6 released.
6 December: Vomp Client for Windows released! See below

Old news

Downloading and Using VOMP

Note to wireless MVP users: ~~The files available here do not contain support for wireless MVPs, the next version will. However, there are people in the forum who have got it working and have posted information on how to do it.~~
Wireless MVPs are now supported, though only when wired.

To run vomp you need the server plugin and the client binary software. You can download stable versions from SourceForge or the latest more-likely-to-be-buggy versions here. Download, compile and install the vomp server plugin as you normally would for your VDR setup. Then download a client dongle file - this is all the binary program for the MVP. Make that available with your TFTP server and have the MVP load it.

How to set up the Bootp/TFTP system to load the dongle to the MVP at boot up: Once you have installed the VDR server plugin, copy vomp.conf.sample from the vompserver directory to vomp.conf in your VDR config/plugins directory. Then edit the file and do the following: Enable the Bootp and TFTP servers by uncommenting the correct lines and then insert a name of a directory to use as a share directory for the TFTP server. (You will see how to do that in the file). Make sure that directory exists and download the vomp-dongle-0.2.0 (or later version?) file to it. Then copy vomp-00-00-00-00-00-00.conf.sample to vomp-00-00-00-00-00-00.conf in the plugins/config directory. Change the zeros in the name to the MAC address of your MVP (with hex A-F in capital letters). Edit the file and enter just the name of the dongle file (e.g. vomp-dongle-0.2.0). Restart VDR and see if it works...

Latest - v0.3.0

Server plugin:
http://www.loggytronic.com/dl/vdr-vompserver-0.3.0.tgz
Client binary dongle:
http://www.loggytronic.com/dl/vomp-dongle-0.3.0

Bleeding edge - CVS

This stuff might work, it might not. It might also be the same as the "latest" stuff above if I havn't done anything to it since I last packaged it. Also, you will need have a cross compiler set up to compile the client for the MVP, and you will need to be able to make a dongle (or use NFS root file system) for the MVP. See the guides below for how to make the cross compiler and dongle maker.

Server plugin:
This command will download the server plugin source code from the SourceForge anonymous CVS service:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@vomp.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/vomp co -P vompserver
Client:
This command will download the client source code from the SourceForge anonymous CVS service:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@vomp.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/vomp co -P client

Once you get VOMP running, you might be interested to read these new usage notes.

VOMP For Windows

The Vomp client has been ported to Windows by Marten Richter (MartenR in the forum).

Requirements:

Windows 2000, XP or above with DirectX 9 installed
A VDR server running the vompserver plugin version 0.3.0
An MPEG2 DirectShow filter supporting VMR9 installed. Don't panic though, these come with software DVD players, TV card software, and probably other things such as video editing programs. You may already have one.

Current version: 0.3.0-1. Should work with Windows 2000, XP and up (we hope!)

http://www.loggytronic.com/dl/VompForWindows-0.3.0-1.zip

Read the "readme.win" file in the zip file for keyboard control help.

Please report everything - success, failure, ideas to the forum for open discussion. In particular, Vomp for Windows may have different results based on your available MPEG2 DirectShow filters installed on your computer.

Development

The source code for the client is also available on SourceForge CVS, the module name is "client". If you fancy debugging anything please feel free! ;) There is a list of bugs and wanted features in the bug and feature trackers on the SourceForge web site.

SourceForge project site

Building A Development Environment for the MVP

How to build a development environment for vomp on the MVP

Contact

To ask anything about vomp please consider using my forum. I would like to make all questions and answers public to make it easier for all to see where I want to take the project. Plus the obvious time saver reason that questions might already have been asked and answered.

Annoucements about new versions etc are also made on the forum first, and it's even possible to get the forum system to email you on new posts to the annoucements board.

Go to forum

Inspiration

This project would not exist without the following projects:

Obviously the VDR project... and:

The SourceForge project vdr-mediamvp - inspired me to do this, and I use some of the server code/ideas that I think are actually from the streamdev plugin code..... http://vdr-mediamvp.sourceforge.net/.

The SourceForge project mvpmc - I use a lot of code from this project that controls the hardware of the MVP. This is the most important stuff that enables this project. When I came to MVP programming, 99% of the work of controlling the MVP had been done by people associated with the mvpmc project. If you have a MythTV backend and want to use an MVP as the frontend for it, MVPMC is the project for you. http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/.