Scenario
In this page I will take you through getting iPlayer working in XBMC through the chromium web browser in full screen mode with audio.
BBC have decided that the public funding doesn't warrant them providing their services to those who use other types of computer systems to access the public service that they should be providing (shame on you BBC. I don't know why we have to pay you so much money, it's disgusting). These include XBMC, and many other 3rd party applications.
The good news is that web browsers are still valid.
Another problem is that Adobe (most likely being paid by the beeb) are stopping support of flash played for Linux. Don't they realise there is a growing trend of people using linux and it's only getting bigger?
This page is mainly for those using the XBMC o/s, but may contain useful elements if you've installed it on other operating systems (o/s).
Note that this method can be used for any of the on demand sites.
Requirements
- XBMC plugin Advanced Launcher
- pepper plugin for the o/s (to get flash audio working)
- chromium-browser
- wrapper script to stay chromium in XBMC nicely
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer, or any other urls you want to view
Download and install Advanced Launcher
Download the plugin from:http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/xbmc/addons/eden/plugin.program.advanced.launcher/plugin.program.advanced.launcher-1.7.6.zip
Install the plugin through XBMC using the install from zip file through System -> Add-ons
Adobe Flash plugin is no longer being supported on Linux platforms so you need to obtain the pepper player flash plugin for chromium. This can be done using apt-get as follows;
Install package with;
sudo apt-get install
Install for chromium with;
sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree
sudo update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install
Wrapper scripts to run chromium within XBMC
I wrote 2 scripts to make it possible to run the web browser through XBMC without having to exit to a different window manager. I set various options with chromium to make it run in full screen mode. The key difference between the two scripts is whether we want the address bar or not. You will need to access the command line on your XBMC system for this, which you can do with CTRL+ALT+F2. You will then be asked to login in. You will need to know the user and password that was created during install. I created a directory called bin in that users home directory and put the scripts in their.
Full screen kiosk mode script, called browser.sh (remember to chmod +x browser.sh after creating);
#!/bin/bash
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=""
flashso="/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so"
flashversion=`strings $flashso|grep ^LNX|sed -e "s/^LNX //"|sed -e "s/,/./g"`
CHROMIUM_FLAGS="$CHROMIUM_FLAGS --ppapi-flash-path=$flashso --ppapi-flash-version=$flashversion"
openbox &
/usr/bin/chromium-browser --start-maximized --disable-new-tab-first-run --no-default-browser-check --no-first-run --kiosk $CHROMIUM_FLAGS $*
killall -9 openbox
#!/bin/bash
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=""
flashso="/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so"
flashversion=`strings $flashso|grep ^LNX|sed -e "s/^LNX //"|sed -e "s/,/./g"`
CHROMIUM_FLAGS="$CHROMIUM_FLAGS --ppapi-flash-path=$flashso --ppapi-flash-version=$flashversion"
openbox &
/usr/bin/chromium-browser --start-maximized --disable-new-tab-first-run --no-default-browser-check --no-first-run --kiosk $CHROMIUM_FLAGS $*
killall -9 openbox
Full screen with address bar, called browser-nonfull.sh;
#!/bin/bash
CHROMIUM_FLAGS=""
flashso="/usr/lib/pepperflashplugin-nonfree/libpepflashplayer.so"
flashversion=`strings $flashso|grep ^LNX|sed -e "s/^LNX //"|sed -e "s/,/./g"`
CHROMIUM_FLAGS="$CHROMIUM_FLAGS --ppapi-flash-path=$flashso --ppapi-flash-version=$flashversion"
openbox &
/usr/bin/chromium-browser --start-maximized --disable-new-tab-first-run --no-default-browser-check --no-first-run $CHROMIUM_FLAGS $*
#/usr/bin/firefox
killall -9 openbox
Adding the scripts directory as a source
You must make your bin directory available to the Advanced Launcher so that you can use your scripts.- Select Advanced Launcher
- Right click Default
- Select Manage Sources
- Select Add Source
- Select Browse and locate your bin directory
Creating the menu items
Create the menu items to launch the web browser with the right starting page using the advanced launcher. Since we used the $* in the scripts we can pass extra parameters of which one is the url we require.To do this go to the Programs menu in XBMC.
- Select Advanced Launcher
- Using the mouse right click the Default
- Select add new launcher
- Select standalone (in my example below it is the xbmc-scripts)
- Locate your script.
- Provide any arguments, e.g. the url, such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
- Give the program a name, e.g. BBC iPlayer
- Select Linux as the operating system
- Select ok for the next 2 items which are thumbnails and fanarts
- The final link
You now have a link that will start iPlayer in a web browser and goes straight to the web page. You will however still need a keyboard and mouse since applications don't use the remote. On the upside you do have access to lots of other online services that are retorted as broken in XBMC or Kodi.
One thing you need to be aware of though, is that the audio will take a little while to become available as XBMC likes to work out that it's not using it and then lets the web browser use it. This can take several minutes, so be patient.
One thing you need to be aware of though, is that the audio will take a little while to become available as XBMC likes to work out that it's not using it and then lets the web browser use it. This can take several minutes, so be patient.
