Running VDR on Mac OS X

Introduction

Video Disk Recorder (VDR) by Klaus Schmidinger is a digital video recorder for Linux (www.tvdr.de) This page offers patches for it and its plugins which makes it possible to run VDR also on Mac OS X. As there are no DVB device drivers for OS X with Linux headers, you cannot use DVB devices on Mac. Instead VDR-on-Mac needs a Linux VDR-server which uses streamdev (maybe also xineliboutput plugin) for streaming.

System was tested on Mac OS X 10.5.6 running on 15" MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD. I've also tested the VDR on 12" iBook G4 800MHz, 640MB RAM, 60GB HDD running OS X 1.4.10. CPU load is quite high with iBook, but without any other software running the performance is just enough to run the VDR.

As I've now upgraded to OS X 10.6, I cannot test anymore on OS X 10.4 or 10.5, but patches should work on both platforms. Also I mainly use vdr 1.6.0-2 so there might some merge problems while patching the vdr version 1.4.7

Here are patches and brief instructions for compiling VDR.

XBMC

Seems that next version of XBMC is going to have VDR addon included which seems to work pretty nicely and also looks very nice based on some test versions. Check it out especially if you are using Snow Leopard 10.6.x.

VDR Remote X

VDR Remote X is ready OS X application bundle which includes VDR, the plugins mentioned and necessary libraries from Macports. VDR Remote X download. Current version runs on Intel with OS X 10.5.x, and might also run on 10.4.x, but unfortunately not yet on 10.6.x.

Requirements

To get VDR compiled, following components needs to installed. X11, X11 SDK, MacPorts (or Fink), jpeg (libjpeg), gettext (gettext-tools) and ffmpeg for softdevice. If you want to use xineliboutput you need also install Xine. Other libraries might also be needed for different plugins.

Problems

• With current patch set you can compile the vdr on 10.6.x, but it doesn't run at least with ffmpeg from MacPorts, because of 32-bit/64-bit architecture problems.
• You can't use DVB devices. Idea for developers: MultiMedia Input device drivers for Mac

News

• 20-Apr-2010 - Updated the patches for Snow Leopard, compiles but doesn't run yet. Added mcli plugin for Netceiver.
• 26-Jan-2010 - Updated the patches. I'm now using Macports as default provider for libraries.
• 30-Mar-2009 - You can now download a OS X application bundle called VDR Remote X, which includes VDR, the plugins mentioned here and necessary libraries. VDR Remote X download page.
• 11-Feb-2009 - CPU load is now much lower with the latest patches as it adds couple of usleep() commands to vdr's while loops. Thanks for Deti Fliegl pointing this out.
• 12-Oct-2008 - I noticed that 1.6.0-2 patched were generated totally wrong, fixed them. In addition I modified all the needed patches so that they will work out-of-the-box with MacPorts also. Added patches for EnigmaNG.

Instructions for VDR (1.4.7/1.6.0-2)

Note: With VDR 1.6.0 you don't need subtitles plugin anymore. Instead you should set channel updating in DVB settings section at least to 'PIDs only' and set streamdev-client's setting 'Filter streaming' to Yes.

1. Install X11 and X11 SDK, these you can install from OS X installation medias.
2. Install MacPorts or Fink
3. (Fink only) Configure Fink to use unstable packages (run 'fink configure', see Fink F.A.Q.) and cvs or rsync deployment method
4. Install jpeg with MacPorts (libjpeg with Fink)
5. Install gettext with MacPorts (or gettext-tools with Fink)
6. Get linuxtv-dvb-drivers (1.1.1) from: http://www.linuxtv.org/downloads/
7. Unpack Linux-dvb drivers
8. Copy linux/include/linux subdirectory to /opt/local/include (if you installed MacPorts there)
9. Apply DVB-headers patch
10. Unpack VDR
11. Apply VDR patch
12. Compile VDR
13. Follow the instructions from VDR's INSTALLATION file

code: (headers)
tar xfvj ~/Desktop/linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1.tar.bz2
cd linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1/linux/include
sudo cp -R linux /opt/local/include/
cd /opt/local/include
sudo chmod -R 775 linux
cd linux
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1-includes-darwinpatch-0.3.diff

code: (vdr)
tar xfvj ~/Desktop/vdr-1.6.0.tar.bz2
cd vdr-1.6.0
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/vdr-1.6.0-2-darwinpatch-0.4.diff
make
make plugins

Patch for DVB headers (1.1.1)

Updated 29-Jan-2008
linuxtv-dvb-1.1.1-includes-darwinpatch-0.3.diff

Patch for VDR (1.6.0-2)

Updated 20-Apr-2010
vdr-1.6.0-2-darwinpatch-0.4.diff

Patch for VDR (1.4.7)

Updated 11-Feb-2009
vdr-1.4.7-darwinpatch-0.9.diff

Apple Remote Patch for VDR (1.4.7 and 1.6.0-2)

This is a modification for VDR to allow volume changing with Left/Right buttons. Reason for this is my use of Mira software and Apple Remote which has only 6 buttons mapped in my case to left, right, up, down, menu and enter. Note: After this modification channel groups cannot be browsed anymore with remote.

For VDR 1.6.0-2, Updated 12-Oct-2008
vdr-1.6.0-2-appleremotepatch-0.2.diff

For VDR 1.4.7, Updated 19-Sep-2007
vdr-1.4.7-appleremotepatch.diff

For VDR 1.4.7 with subtitle patches, Updated 19-Sep-2007
vdr-1.4.7-withsubs-appleremotepatch.diff





Plugins

My "Full set" includes following plugins: Streamdev, Softdevice, Subtitles (only for VDR 1.4.7), Ttxtsubs, SVDRPService, Remotetimers, skinenigmang and Text2Skin. I'm still keeping EPGSync and Xineliboutput on this page, but those are not necessary needed anymore. (EPG sync included in streamdev and Softdevice kind of replaces xineliboutput)

Streamdev 0.3.4

Streamdev works as DVB device, receiving stream from VDR-server.

1. Get Streamdev from http://streamdev.vdr-developer.org
2. Patch the streamdev
3. Compile plugins
4. In order to get streamdev-client working, copy channels.conf from server to OS X's video dir (as configured with VDR options, default being /video)
5. Configure VDR-server's streamdev-server
6. Run VDR with option -Pstreamdev-client

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xvfz ~/Desktop/vdr-streamdev-0.3.4.tgz
ln -s streamdev-0.3.4 streamdev
cd streamdev
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/streamdev-0.3.4-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
streamdev-0.3.4-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




Softdevice (CVS 2010-01-18)

Softdevice plugin works as an output device for vdr. Current CVS version has fix to subtitle showing problem that stable version 0.5.0 has.

Softdevice needs ffmpeg to work. If you have problems with the current svn-version you can try this old snapshot of ffmpeg.

1. Install ffmpeg with MacPorts
2. Fink only: Install pkgconfig
3. Fink only: Get latest ffmpeg with the instructions from: http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/download.html
4. Fink only: Unpack ffmpeg
5. Fink only: Run './configure --disable-mmx --enable-shared --disable-encoders --prefix=/sw '
6. Fink only: Run 'make'
7. Fink only: Run 'sudo make install'
8. Fink only: Run 'pkg-config ffmpeg'
9. Get the softdevice plugin from CVS

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.softdevice.berlios.de:/cvsroot/softdevice login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.softdevice.berlios.de:/cvsroot/softdevice co softdevice

10. Apply softdevice patch
11. Run 'make clean'
12. Run './configure --disable-mmx --disable-subplugins
13. Compile plugins
14. Run VDR with option -P'softdevice -vo shm:'
15. Start McVdrClient from softdevice directory './McVdrClient.app/Contents/MacOS/McVdrClient'

code: (ffmpeg for Fink)
svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg
./configure --disable-mmx --enable-shared --disable-encoders --prefix=/sw
make
sudo make install
pkg-config ffmpeg

code: (softdevice)
cd PLUGINS/src
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.softdevice.berlios.de:/cvsroot/softdevice login
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.softdevice.berlios.de:/cvsroot/softdevice co softdevice
cd softdevice
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/softdevice-cvs20100118-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
make clean
./configure --disable-mmx --disable-subplugins
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
softdevice-cvs20100118-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




Subtitles (0.5.0)

Subtitles allows you to see and record DVB-subtitles. Not needed for VDR versions newer than 1.5.10.

1. Get plugin from: http://virtanen.org/vdr/subtitles/
2. Apply subtitles&ttxtsubs patch for VDR
3. Compile VDR
4. Unpack Subtitles
5. Apply subtitles patch
6. Compile plugins
7. Run VDR with option -Psubtitles

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xvfz ~/Desktop/vdr-subtitles-0.5.0.tgz
ln -s subtitles-0.5.0 subtitles
cd subtitles
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/subtitles-0.5.0-darwinpatch-0.1.diff
cd ../../..
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/vdr-1.4.7-subtitles-0.5.0-and-ttxtsubs-0.0.5-darwinpatch-0.1.diff
make
make plugins

Updated 26-Mar-2007 (for VDR 1.4.7)
subtitles-0.5.0-darwinpatch-0.1.diff




Updated 13-Jun-2007 (for VDR 1.4.7)
vdr-1.4.7-subtitles-0.5.0-and-ttxtsubs-0.0.5-darwinpatch-0.1.diff




Ttxtsubs (0.0.9)

Ttxtsubs allows you to see and record teletext-subtitles. The patch includes all needed patches for ttxtsubs. In addition you need to patch VDR also.

1. Get plugin from: http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/list_files/plg-ttxtsubs
2. Apply ttxtsubs patch for VDR (1.6.0-2)
3. or apply subtitles&ttxtsubs patch for VDR (1.4.7)
4. Compile VDR
5. Unpack Ttxtsubs
6. Apply ttxtsubs patch
7. Compile plugins
8. Run VDR with option -Pttxtsubs

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xvfz ~/Desktop/vdr-ttxtsubs-0.0.9.tgz
ln -s ttxtsubs-0.0.9 ttxtsubs
cd ttxtsubs
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/ttxtsubs-0.0.9-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/vdr-1.6.0-2-ttxtsubs-0.0.9-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
make
make plugins

Updated 3-Mar-2008 (for VDR 1.4.7)
vdr-1.4.7-subtitles-0.5.0-and-ttxtsubs-0.0.5-darwinpatch-0.1.diff

Updated 20-Apr-2010 (for VDR 1.6.0-2)
vdr-1.6.0-2-ttxtsubs-0.0.9-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




Updated 20-Apr-2010
ttxtsubs-0.0.9-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




SVDRPService (0.0.4)

SVDRPService is needed when using remotetimers or EPGsync plugins.

1. Get plugin from: http://vdr.schmirler.de/
2. Unpack plugin
3. Apply patch
4. Compile plugins
5. Run VDR with options -Psvdrpservice

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-svdrpservice-0.0.4.tgz
ln -s svdrpservice-0.0.4 svdrpservice
cd svdrpservice
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/svdrpservice-0.0.4-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
svdrpservice-0.0.4-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




Remotetimers (0.0.2)

Remotetimers is used with streamdev to create/modify/delete timers on the streamdev-server. Needs svdrpservice plugin.

1. Get plugin from: http://vdr.schmirler.de/
2. Unpack plugin
3. Apply patch
4. Compile plugins
5. Run VDR with options -Psvdrpservice -Premotetimers

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-remotetimers-0.0.2.tgz
ln -s remotetimers-0.0.2 remotetimers
cd remotetimers
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/remotetimers-0.0.2-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
remotetimers-0.0.2-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




EnigmaNG (0.1.1)

EnigmaNG is skin which is based on text2skin.

1. Install ImageMagick with MacPorts(imagemagick and imagemagick-dev with Fink)
2. Get plugin from: http://andreas.vdr-developer.org/enigmang/download.html
3. Unpack plugin
4. Apply patch
5. Compile plugins
6. Run VDR with options -Pskinenigmang

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-skinenigmang-0.1.1.tgz
ln -s skinenigmang-0.1.0 skinenigmang
cd skinenigmang
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/skinenigmang-0.1.1-darwinpatch-0.1.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
skinenigmang-0.1.1-darwinpatch-0.1.diff




Text2Skin (1.3)

Text2Skin allows easy skin creation with xml. For some yet unknown reason, text2skin crashes if bitmap cache is enabled, therefore it is commented out in this patch.

1. Install ImageMagick with MacPorts(imagemagick and imagemagick-dev with Fink)
2. Get the text2skin plugin from
3. Apply patch
4. (enable truetype fonts if you want from Makefile (1.4.7))
5. Compile plugins
6. Run VDR with options -Ptext2skin

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-text2skin-1.3.tgz
ln -s text2skin-1.3 text2skin
cd text2skin
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/text2skin-1.3-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
text2skin-1.3-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




MCLI (Netceiver plugin) (svn_rev 145)

Mcli plugin is for Netceiver usage.

1. Get plugin from svn: https://svn.baycom.de/repos/vdr-mcli-plugin
2. Apply patch
3. Compile plugins
4. Run VDR with options -Pmcli

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
svn co https://svn.baycom.de/repos/vdr-mcli-plugin
ln -s vdr-mcli-plugin mcli
cd epgsync
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/mcli-plugin-svn_rev145-darwinpatch-0.1
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
mcli-plugin-svn_rev145-darwinpatch-0.1.diff

EPGSync (0.0.3)

EPGSync is used with streamdev to get EPG data from the streamdev-server. Needs svdrpservice plugin. NOTE: Not needed anymore with latest streamdev versions.

1. Get plugin from: http://vdr.schmirler.de/
2. Unpack plugin
3. Apply patch
4. Compile plugins
5. Run VDR with options -Psvdrpservice -Pepgsync

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-epgsync-0.0.3.tgz
ln -s epgsync-0.0.3 epgsync
cd epgsync
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/epgsync-0.0.3-darwinpatch-0.2.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins

Updated 20-Apr-2010
epgsync-0.0.3-darwinpatch-0.2.diff




Xineliboutput (1.0.4)

With xineliboutput you can get audio and video out from VDR, but load is high due to non-accelerated video and emulated audio. Softdevice is currently recommended instead of Xineliboutput.

1. Install libextractor with MacPorts
2. Install xine-lib with MacPorts
3. Get plugin from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xineliboutput/files/
4. Unpack plugin
5. Apply patch (only needed with MacPorts)
6. Compile plugins
7. Run sudo make install in plugin's directory
8. Run VDR with options -P'xineliboutput --video=xshm --audio=esd'

code:
cd PLUGINS/src
tar xfvz ~/Desktop/vdr-xineliboutput-1.0.4.tgz
ln -s xineliboutput-1.0.4 xineliboutput
cd xineliboutput
patch -p1 < ~/Desktop/xineliboutput-1.0.4-darwinpatch-0.1.diff
cd ../../..
make plugins
cd PLUGINS/src/xineliboutput/sudo make install
cd ../../../..

Updated 12-Feb-2009
xineliboutput-1.0.4-darwinpatch-0.1.diff








You can send questions and comments by e-mail to izero79 (at) gmail.com

Updated 20-Apr-2010, Tero Siironen