nebulousprime / node-ez-tv

A TV station for your home, using node.js and vlc/omxplayer

Node-EZ-TV

This project allows you to set up a simple television station for your home (or school, etc.). It works with VLC or OMXPlayer.

Features

• Plays shows based on a schedule you create.
• Plays random "commercials" (files you specify) in-between scheduled shows.
• Serves up a web interface for viewing the schedule and controlling playback.

Setup

Raspbian

• sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy omxplayer npm
• sudo npm install -g node-ez-tv
• run node-ez-tv [your schedule file], or node-tv [your schedule file]

Linux Protip: use nohup node-tv [your schedule file] & to keep it running when the terminal closes

Other OSes (tested on Windows 10)

• install node/npm
• install vlc (and put it in your PATH)
• (sudo) npm install -g node-ez-tv
• run node-ez-tv [your schedule file], or node-tv [your schedule file]

NOTE: VLC needs to be 2.1+ for the play/pause/seek controls to work. The language/subtitle controls do not work with VLC... sorry.

Creating a Schedule File

See schedule.json as an example for a quick start. Paths are absolute.

Root elements:

• jobs:(Array)
• commercials:(Array)

"jobs" format:

Only the name and pathspec are strictly required.

• name:name displayed in the guide (String)
• pathspec:the path spec used to find the video file(s) for this show (String) (ex: "/home/pi/videos/*.mkv").
• look at the glob module docs for more info on formatting
• cron: (reccomended) The cron-style scheduling string. Can be a String or an Array of Strings (ex: "0 20 * * *") for more complex schedules.
• check out the cron module docs for more info on cron format
• runtime:(recommended) the length of the show in minutes (used for the guide but not required)
• mediaType: (optional) either "movie" or "show". Used to improve accuracy of OMDB API calls for the guide.
• repeat:(optional) if true, repeat episodes end-to-end instead of playing commercials.
• order:(optional) set to "random" to shuffle order, A-z otherwise
• episodeStartIndex: (optional) The index from which to start playing episodes (int >= 0 or 'random')

"commercials" format:

• pathspec: the path spec used to find the file(s) (String)

Future Developments

These are ideas. PRs welcome, have at it!

• Store the last episode played in a series, so if the server restarts, the episode index isn't reset
• Job priority levels for special schedules
• Play web video streams
• Schedule creation tool

Free TV Content

Public Domain TV Commercials

Public Domain Movies

Why?

Netflix and other streaming services eat up your data and have a limited selection. There's also nothing good on real TV.

So I created this for my living room to run on a Raspberry Pi and play what I want, all day long.

License

MIT