Welcome to my new Web-Presence

On this page, I will publish PlugIns and Scripts for the Video Disk Recorder

This excellent software package was originally indended to use all the functions of a so-called "full-featured" DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) Card with Linux. Together with a driver package from Convergence (which covers most available DVB-Boards), the VDR made it possible to watch, record, even cut movies and series. Together with a second (so-called "budget") DVB Card, it was even possible to get full timeshifting capabilities, such as recording a show on TV and watching it at another time-index.

Soon many developers croached through VDR's source code and extended it's possibilities by writing patches and add-ons, such as a Teletext Viewer, a VideoCD-Player and many more. But the fact that everyone just patched the original software made it impossible to have all patches available for all versions. Whenever Klaus did a release, all patches had to be adopted, and, worst of all, all of them had to be brought together again, because if a patch applies to a clean source, it doesn't necessarily apply to an already-patched source.

With the (current) last stable release, version 1.0.4, which was the base for the developer sources, Klaus developed a PlugIn-Interface, so everyone could extend VDR's functionality without having to patch the main source. With this PlugIn-Interface, he created the possibility to dynamically expand the Video Disk Recorder to a multi-functional interface "between" the components Video-Input, Video-Output and On-Screen-Display.

This milestone in VDR's history followed a (still) growing number of PlugIn-Developers, and the list of available PlugIns already increased to 20+. We have Image Viewers, DVD and VideoCD-Players, an MP3-Player, we can watch Teletext transparently, Timers can be set via Web-Interfaces (even commercial ones like tvtv.de has), Games can be played on the On-Screen-Display, Weather-Data can be watched, even a File-Manager like Midnight Commander is available. And finally, the input- and output-possibilities are beging extended, so that watching (and recording, cutting, ...) Analog-TV should be possible in the near future, too. The output can already be rendered using a DXR3 (Hollywood+/Creative Encore) Card, which can be bought for around 20€ at eBay.

All the stuff found on these pages need a current VDR Developer Version with PlugIn-Capabilities. Due to recent changes in the internal API, all current versions of my PlugIns need VDR 1.1.x with x >= 20.

The Video Disk Recorder and fitting Driver Packages, as well as a list of currently available PlugIns, can be found at Klaus' Page.

Since Klaus didn't release recently, I would strongly suggest using the 1.0.0pre2 driver from www.linuxtv.org, because it incorporates an important bugfix that has not been available when VDR 1.1.25 has been released, and is therefore missing in Klaus' driver packages (I guess).