VDR Block Plugin

I forgot to set up a news for 0.1.1 so here we go:

0.1.2
Important bug fixes (see #928). Age rating from the dvb stream may now be used if running in vdr >=1.7.11

0.1.1
Hotfix for seldom misbehaviour on blacklist events. Completed Italian translation.

Hotfix for Parental Guidance mode added (release 0.1.0a)

Release of Version 0.1.0

New features / Bugfixes:
-Feature: block.conf format and path changed
-Feature: Whitelist function
-Feature: New Setup Option 'Fuzzy Fallback' (see whitelist section above)
-Feature: Duplicate entries are not allowed anymore!
-Feature: New key handling in the plugins setup
-Feature: 'New' jumps to an existing 'New entry'
-Feature: Parental Guidance and main menu entry
-Feature: In Parental Guidance mode replay may be blocked
-Feature: Consideration of empty or no EPG data
-Feature: Italian translation added (thanks to Diego Pierotto)
-Feature: Added list sorting.
-Feature: Changes are applied immediately.
-Bugfix: In rare cases shows were not blocked. Fixed.
-Bugfix: Zap direction
-Bugfix: Changing the zap direction on block events to 'down' should now work (again).
-Bugfix: Unwanted behaviour if OSD is open
-Bugfix: Syslog spams on channels with no or empty EPG

please see HISTORY and README for more details

New Features:
-The main menu entry now not only adds the title of the current
show to the blacklist, but also permanentely removes the title
if it is already found in the blacklist.

Bugfixes:
-with detection method set to 'Channel EPG' and replay of recorded
shows was terminated on block event on the underlying channel.
Fixed now.

-Channel Up and Channel Down keys were not working at all! Different
from VDRs key handling of Up and Down the Channel variants were eaten
by VDR itself and made it ignore the plugin code (however the plugin
correctly detected the keys...). Fixed now by kind of a workaround.
Thanks to igel for reporting this bug.

Based on the new 'Channel EPG' scan method (as of 0.0.2) an optional parental guidance feature was added. The plugin permanentely checks the current EPG title and blocks if there is a matching blacklist entry. On top of that the parental guidance mode automatically configures the plugin automatically against changes in the plugin setup, disables deblocking by 'Ok' etc. To activate the parental guidance mode just add block.ParentalGuidance = 1 to setup.conf (vdr). See README for further details.

Furthermore there is a wiki page now: http://www.vdr-wiki.de/wiki/index.php/Block-plugin
(though only German by now)

HISTORY excerpt:

Added a new detection method: Channel EPG
This method scans the running program and not only blocks on zapping but
also makes the plugin switch to another channel on a changeover to a
blacklisted show. In some rare cases several stations do not update
the current EPG signal in sync so unfortunately there might be false
detections. It is possible to change the detection method in the plugins
setup, where 'On Switch' is the old method and 'Channel EPG' the new.

Furthermore it is now possible to change switching directions on a block
event by pressing the (channel) up/down keys on your remote.

Several other minor code changes.

hf,

Midas

On certain situations 0.0.1b may not build because a translation file is missing.
Changes:
-missing file added
-some changes in strings and translations
-related fixes to Makefile and block.c

hf,

Midas

If you already have a well-suited blacklist for the taste plugin, you do need not to add all the entries again manually. Just copy or move the file taste.conf in the VDR config directory to block.conf and you are done.

For example on my system the command

cp /var/lib/vdr/plugins/taste.conf /var/lib/vdr/plugins/block.conf

would copy the blacklist to the file used by the block plugin.

hf,

Midas

Trivia¶

As soon i discovered the taste plugin i loved the idea of wiping out all the rubbish from my tv programme and the phrase 'not acceptable' and especially the German translation 'unzumutbar' really made me smile. Unfortunately the taste plugin afaik requires a full featured DVB card and does not work in budget, softdevice or mixed configurations. So i tried to create a patch and in fact i could fix that issue. e-tobi offered me to continue my work on this page and i decided to publish my work as a fork called block plugin, which is based on a CVS checkout of the taste plugin 0.0.2d on 2010/01/13. This way LordJaxoms work (the taste plugin) remains untouched and i am free to continue my work on the plugin.

Thanks to LordJaxom for the taste plugin, to tomg and mapovi for the kind permission to use their patches, e-tobi for the webspace and the people on the IRC, especially OppTupacShakur and igel for testing and support.

Differences in the block plugin (initial release 0.0.1b)¶

• New features:

Compatibility with non-ff output including budget and state-of-the-art softdevice configurations added
-Implementation of syslog functions (BLOCK_LOGGING in the Makefile set to 1 or 0 respectively will switch logging on/off)
ATTENTION: This will add lots of entries to your syslog!
‚Ok’ should work reliably now to unlock a blocked show

• Patches:

Several patches for the taste plugin by tomg and mapovi are built into the code of the block plugin permanently.
Note that these patches are also included in the debian package vdr-plugin-taste.

Locale patch:
- fixed clean target of Makefile
- adapted Makefile to current newplugin template
- use translations of main vdr
- exclude old i18n parts by ifdefs
Version compatibility:
Changes for VDR >= 1.5.0 (applicable to VDR >= 1.4.5)
Makefile fix:
added -fPIC to compiler options to prevent FTBFS

Some additional information about these patches can be found here:
http://www.vdr-portal.de/board/thread.php?threadid=90293

hf,

Midas