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https://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi

VDR dvbapi plugin for use with OSCam
https://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi

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VDR dvbapi plugin for use with OSCam

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README 

        
TOC

1. Introduction

2. Getting the source code

3. Basic Installation

4. VDR and OScam compatibility

5. Plugin and OSCam setup

6. Commandline options

7. Note for a plugin developers

8. Fast ECM



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1. Introduction

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



DVBAPI plugin for VDR



  The plugin allows connect VDR to OScam. It creates a software CAM in VDR,

and communicates with OSCam over camd.socket (using 'dvbapi' module).

This way it pass decryption requests to OSCam and obtains back keys which

are needed for CSA stream decryption. Decryption of the stream is done using

DeCSA libraries (FFdecsa or libdvbcsa).



Refer to INSTALL/README for installation and usage procedure

Refer to FAQ for frequently asked questions



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.

See the file COPYING for more information.



Latest version available at: https://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi



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2. Getting the source code

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You will have to grab the source code of course. First install the git

package provided by your distribution. Then from a terminal, type:



   $ cd /usr/local/src/vdr/PLUGINS/src

   $ git clone git://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi.git

   $ ln -s vdr-plugin-dvbapi dvbapi



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3. Basic Installation

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For sample installation instructions refer to INSTALL file.



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4. VDR and OScam compatibility

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Recommended VDR version for recent plugin versions is the stable VDR 2.2.0 or

further Developer versions.

You also need OScam svn rev >= 11534.



*** NOTE FOR OLDER VDR VERSIONS:

    If you are using older VDR stable versions or developer version older

    then 2.1.4 then you also need an older plugin version:

    - version 1.0.6 is the last plugin revision that will work for you;

    you also need OScam svn rev >= 7314 and <= 9854 in this case.



*** NOTE FOR OLDER OSCAM VERSIONS:

    If you are using older OScam svn versions older then 11534 then you

    also need an older plugin version:

    - version 2.2.5 is the last plugin revision that will work for you.



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5. Plugin and OSCam setup

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Current version of the plugin has a feature which allows connect to OSCam

via TCP socket. This way OSCam instead of doing filering on demux device,

is doing the requests over the network and the plugin is doing filering on

data provided by VDR. All communication with OSCam is done over one single

TCP socket. This allows directly connect to remote OSCam host with card

readers if it is on different host then VDR is running at.

This is currently the default (and recommended) plugin mode.

It will also help to using the plugin in cases where there is no physical

hardware the OSCam could use, eg the SAT>IP devices running on VDR.



To enable this mode it is needed to set listening port on OSCam server and

also host and port in this plugin options. Required minimal OSCam version

for this mode to work is svn rev 9580.

Let's assume that you want to use the port 2000 for communication on host

192.168.0.1 in your LAN.



On the VDR plugin side you need set the host and the same port of the machine

where the OSCam is listening for input connections.

You can set it in the plugin menu or manually adding the following lines

in the VDR's setup.conf file:

dvbapi.OSCamHost = 192.168.0.1

dvbapi.OSCamPort = 2000



NOTE: If you want to use VDR and OSCam on the same host, then just use

127.0.0.1 as the OSCamHost setting.



The OSCam has to be configured accordingly (oscam.conf file):

[dvbapi]

enabled                       = 1

au                            = 1

pmt_mode                      = 4

listen_port                   = 2000

user                          = vdr

boxtype                       = pc



You also need to properly add the above "vdr" user in OSCam, please refer

the OSCam documentation for details.



The log level parameter of the plugin can be configured either from VDR

menu or manually editing the VDR's setup.conf file (remember to change

the file when VDR is not running).



The parameter line for the plugin is:

dvbapi.LogLevel = 2



The values for the log level are:

  0 - totally disable debug

  1 - only error messages

  2 - information and error messages (default)

  3 - all information including debug



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6. Commandline options

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Adapter index offset:

---------------------

When you are using the plugin in network mode, single OSCam server is able to

handle more then one VDR dvbapi clients. The problem is the adapter indexes.



Let's assume the following scenario:

  VDR client 1: two DVB adapters (0, 1)

  VDR client 2: two DVB adapters (0, 1)



As every VDR host will number devices from zero, then both requests will come

to OSCam with conflicting adapter indexes, resulting in broken decrypting.



To be able to prevent this conflict (and if you want to connect more then one

dvbapi client to the same OSCam server) you need to add a constant value to

all adapter indexes on one of the above host.



There is a command line option "-o" to set this offset by the plugin when

communicating with the OSCam.



If you want to add eg. value 2 as the adapter index offset, then you need to

run vdr like this:

  vdr -P"dvbapi -o2"



If you do this on "VDR client 2" from the above scenario it will add value 2

to adapter indexes resulting in:

  VDR client 1: two DVB adapters (0, 1)

  VDR client 2: two DVB adapters (2, 3) - added offset 2 to indexes



This way all adapters/clients will be handled correctly by single OSCam.



NOTE: you can set this option permanently in setup.conf, like eg:

dvbapi.AdapterIndexOffset = 2

It is not exposed to the plugin setup as it is an advanced option.



Disable CW expiration check:

----------------------------

The plugin is automatically checking if the key obtained from OSCam is still

valid and doesn't expired before using it for decrypting. This way if OSCam

cannot provide a key for a channel, VDR have a chance to switch to other CAM

which is able to do so. In some circumstances (eg. when you're using Constant

CW in OSCam) you may need to disable this check, starting VDR like this:

  vdr -P"dvbapi -d"



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7. Note for a plugin developers

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If you want your device to use a full performance of this dvbapi plugin,

then I strongly recommend that your plugin's device ring buffer to be set

to 5MB of size or more.



You can find the explanation in the following pull requests:

https://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi/pull/104

https://github.com/manio/vdr-plugin-dvbapi/pull/105



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8. Fast ECM

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Description:

CW Changes usually come 5 seconds before they are needed (enough time to

decrypt). Some Providers (Sky Germany) are sending CW changes only 600 ms

before it should be used in Data Stream.



When decryption is delayed the new CW arrives to late and the decryption

fails. Fast ECM can hold the data stream up to 2500ms until the CW is

available (odd/even check).

While this works very good for recordings, live video/audio will stop

for a brief moment (but usually only for the first time fastecm kicks in).



VDR compatibility:

Fast ECM needs 16 Megabyte Buffer to work perfect.

you should patch this in vdr code in file dvbdevice.c, Function cDvbDevice::OpenDvr

tsBuffer = new cTSBuffer(fd_dvr, MEGABYTE(5), CardIndex() + 1); should be

tsBuffer = new cTSBuffer(fd_dvr, MEGABYTE(16), CardIndex() + 1);

Maybe this will get default in later vdr releases (>2.4.4).