Necessity being the mother of invention I now have a new program to aid me with my streaming needs while still supplying all the multi media features previously available in MPprogs. At present the program is called MPTV.exe and is included in the MPprogs download.

MPprogs Download 500mb

Streaming Update: 2018.11.01

Well I have cut the cable months ago and I can say for sure I like streaming better than cable. Initially I used the standard MPprogs programs for this but I soon decided I wanted software which was more streaming friendly. While retaining the HDMI friendly interface. I initiated work on the program MPTV.exe 2018.05 and made it my default program several months ago. I always have the minimal interface displayed on my TV as it is the porthole to everywhere.

Minimal interface MPTV.exe

Expanded interface

Dir Interface:

I have decided I'm cutting the cable! - A work in progress!

I have recently connected to our local cable service and I am not really very happy with their offering. The internet service is not spectacular but passable with very slow upload speeds. But this I can live with. But the TV is just horrible, expensive, does not offer local channels, hardware that is unusable. The remote has so many buttons crowded together so closely they are difficult to use. Many of these buttons could easily be programmed into the screen software much more conveniently. I have designed software to do similar tasks with remotes using only UP arrow, RIGHT arrow, DOWN arrow, LEFT arrow and ENTER and then all functions were in the on screen menus. Recently however we have adopted the RC mouse as the control device with all choices in the on screen menus. I will use this approach as I develop programming for my new streaming programming. I have now also created a facility for text input using the mouse eliminating the need for a keyboard.

I can say for sure I prefer both Directv and Dish to MTC for TV. Anyhow I have decided its time to cut the cable.

I have done some preliminary investigation of some of the services offered. Sling I have rejected as it does not include the networks. Being a prodigious user of Youtube I was real curious about their offering. Initially there was a bug in the signup procedure that misidentified the user machine making sign in impossible. This is a new release for Youtube and I was encouraged when the problem was resolve in about a day. This makes it obvious they are working on it presently.

An investigation into Directv.Now was a dismal failure and after many hours with tech help I gave up never able to view live programming.

I started working on was C# code for \MPprogs17\MPdir.exe so that a list of streams can be presented, channel chosen, and then displayed full screen. It works but has a lot of rough edges to be resolved. After due consideration I have decided to write a dedicated program and have initiated work on MPTV.exe 2018.05.20.

Important:

One major advantage of streaming TV is that a full 1920x1080 capture of programming is possible. It should be noted that hires capture from cable boxes is impossible as the HDMI output is encoded. The Y/C output of a cable box is NTSC 720x480 of course. I use "Movavi".

//Youtube $40/mo - Seems pretty good.

https://tv.youtube.com/

https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr-3c3aKv2wIVgVqGCh2Uuwf0EAAYASAAEgIQSfD_BwE&dclid=CM--jN-ir9sCFQiRswod148I3g

// Fixed: 06.01 // This service is very new and a bug in the sign up prevents trial offer as it mis identifies my ZIP.

// I want to try this as my next investigation.

// This service has a good channel selection NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN etc.

// I have written some preliminary C# programming for test purposes with the output displayed in this link:

https://tv.youtube.com/watch/a9WkNOmJTjc

This seems to me to be a workable solution. MPdir.exe already has ability to display HTTP links and what I did was to search the links URL for the string "tv.youtube" and if exists adjust the Chrome display for streaming TV.

Note 06.03 I have now been doing all my TV viewing via Youtube stream for several days now and have turned off the cable TV boxes. To be honest I like watching TV from stream better than cable. Getting rid of the remote control which was an ergonomic nightmare is alone a major advantage. The quality of the picture seems good. Choosing channels and navigating menus is easily done using the mouse exclusively (Required some configuration to exit prog). I have all my machines running "Mohave" in the background and simply pressing the F10 key does a 1920x1080 screen capture to a .mkv video file. This is the first time I have had the capability to capture HDTV video to a 1920x1080 video file (as cable boxes are encoded). I have yet to find a need to turn on the cable for any reason. I am using a high quality Bluetooth mouse as the only control device.

// These services offer free trial as of now untried

//DirectTV $40/mo

https://www.directvnow.com/tv-packages?source=EaYEPS00GHEBRD0EP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIy6yohKKv2wIVEAeGCh0HXwyVEAAYASABEgIcH_D_BwE

// This service has a good channel selection

//Hulu $40/mo

https://www.hulu.com/start?cmp=7957&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=BM%20Search%20BrandTerms&utm_term=hulu&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzNKW8KKv2wIVkFuGCh2PbA7EEAAYASAAEgJeLPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

// Good Channel selection also "no advertising" feature offered

OK - where does this go to

Prerequisites: Win7+, DirectX9.0, Chrome,

MPprogs was developed to present media to a HDMI screen. With what investigation I have made to date I believe Streaming TV would be a valuable addition to MPprogs and not that hard to implement. After all MPdir.exe already displays http files. I have done some testing of this possibility. Here a few lines of C# code I was able to launch Youtube TV to CNN in full screen. This basic code should be the basis for further development to take MPdir.exe to a full screen broadcast TV display. Since I now plan on cutting the cable I have incentive to work on this further.

Here is the basic C# display function:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe", TVstream + " --start-fullscreen");