Zattoo plugin for TV-Browser

Zattoo Plugin 1.0 was developed by Bodo Tasche and Michael Keppler. After version 1.0.2.0 it was no longer maintained. The current plugin is based on their work.

Features

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• Opens current program in Zattoo
• Mark programs to be opened in Zattoo on start.
• Filter by supported channels
• New in 1.5: Create your own channel list
• New in 1.5: Generate import file for all Zattoo channels
• New in 1.5: Add country channel list for Austria
• Update in 1.5: Update country channel lists for Germany and Switzerland.

Requirements

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• TV-Browser 4.2.4+
  The plugin was only tested under 4.2.4. The TV-Browers library is of version 3.2.1. I.e., this plugin should run on older versions as well.
• Windows 7+ and maxOS is supported.
• Linux not tested.
• Others not tested.

Installation

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Installation in TV-Browser

1. Go to Tools, Install/Update Plugins...
2. Check Zattoo 1.5.0.1
3. Press Download selected plugins
4. Restart TV-Browser
5. Confirm installation was successful
   • Go to TV-Browser preferences
   • Under Plugins you should see an entry named Zattoo
     

Manuall installation

1. Download the file ZattooPlugin.jar from GitHub.
2. Copy ZattooPlugin.jar into the TV-Browser plugin directory:

Operating System	Path
Windows 7+	C:\Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\TV-Browser[TV-Browser version]\plugins
Mac OS X	/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/TV-Browser/plugins
Linux	/home/[username]/.tvbrowser/plugins (until 4.2) /home/[username]/.config/tvbrowser/plugins (since 4.2.1)
Others	/home/[username]/.tvbrowser/plugins

See also Wiki TV-Browser

3. Restart TV-Browser
4. Confirm installation was successful
   • Go to TV-Browser preferences
   • Under Plugins you should see an entry named Zattoo
     

Usage

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Get prepared

If you have a Zattoo account for Germany you are all set.
If you have a Zattoo account for Switzerland or Austria, just go to the Zattoo plugin settings and change the Country drop-box list to your country.

Switch to Zattoo

With the right mouse button click on a program. The popup dialog shows a Zattoo menu:

• For programs which are currently running you see Open in Zattoo now
  
  This menu opens a new page in your web-browser and displays the channel in Zattoo
• For programs which are not yet started, you see Open in Zattoo on start
  
  When the program starts, a new page will be opened in your web-browser and displays the channel in Zattoo. Remarks: The Open in Zattoo on start information will not be stored when TV-Browser is closed.

If you don't get the expected Zattoo menu, the selected channel is not available in Zattoo for your country, or the channel is just not configured to know the Zattoo channel. In latter case, you can define your own channel list.

Predefined channel lists

The existing country channel list for Germany, Switzerland and Austria should cover all channel information for your country.

Country	No. of Zattoo channels	Zattoo Website	No. of linked TVB channels1
Germany	178	Zattoo Germany	663
Switzerland	336	Zattoo Switzerland	942
Austria	132	Zattoo Austria	593

¹ Data plugins EPGfree-data and EPG-Plus were used.
² EPG-Plus provides 35 channels. So it is worth a look.
³ EPG-Plus provides only 4 channels which are supported by Zattoo for Germany/Austria

Define your own channel list

Please see also Plugin settings for detailed information.

There are 3 use cases for an own channel list:

Use case 1: Zattoo menu is not shown

You subscribed a channel in TV-Browser but no Zattoo menu appears for this channel. The basic reason for this is quite simple: The chosen country channel list does not include the Zattoo channel name. And why is it?: Zattoo added the channel recently. What to do?

• Go to your plugin settings
• Create your own channel list:
  • Set the Country to Own channel list
  • Check the Update own channel list box
  • Choose a Source country (normally the country for which you have a Zattoo subscription)
  • Check Add only subscribed channels
  • Press Apply Update button

By applying the update, for every subscribed channel a configuration is added in the editor below. On the left side of the equation sign you see the country and the name of the TV-Browser channel (Example: de,arte). Please do not change it. On the right side you see the name of the Zattoo channel.
The channel for which the Zattoo menu does not appear will be listed, but the right side is empty. To get the name for the channel you must go into the Zattoo WebApp and start the desired channel. At the end of the URL the name is displayed. Example for Arte:
The Zattoo URL for Arte is https://zattoo.com/live/DE_arte. I.e., the correct Zattoo channel name is "De_arte" and the correct configuration entry must look like this: de,arte=DE_arte.

Use case 2: Zattoo menu is shown, but the channel does not exist in Zattoo

You use the correct country channel list, and you get the Zattoo menu, but Zattoo does not find the desired channel. This means, that the configuration in the channel list is wrong. For predefined lists this should not happen. But maybe Zattoo recently renames a channel without making a redirect. Whatever, if it happens it is up to you to follow the steps in the previous use case and correct the Zattoo channel name.

Use case 3: Subscribing all channels of a country channel list.

A side effect of defining your own channel list is, that an import-file for TV-Browser channels is created as well. So even if you do not have to change Zattoo channel names you can use this functionality to subscribe all channels for your country. Here is what you have to do:

• Go to your plugin settings
• Create your own channel list:
  • Check the Update own channel list box
  • Choose a Source country (normally the country for which you have a Zattoo subscription)
  • Un-check Add only subscribed channels
  • Press Apply Update button

Remarks: For this use case it is not necessary to set the Country to Own channel list.

By applying the update all channels from your chosen country list are written into the following file:

Operating system	Customized channel file
Windows 7+	C:\Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\TV-Browser[version]\java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.txt
Mac OS X	/users/[username]/Library/Preferences/TV-Browser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.txt
Linux	/home/[username]/.config/TV-Browser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.txt
Others	/home/[username]/.tvbrowser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.txt

Now:

• Go to General settings Channels
• Set Countries to All countries and Plugins to All plugins
• Press Export/import channels
• Import java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.txt from your local settings directory listed above.

Filters

The filer Zattoo: Supported Channels shows only channels which have a valid entry in current channel list ( country or your own list).
Remarks: If channels were just added and their program is still updating, these channels will not be displayed. This happens only for new added channels.

Favorites

When defining favorites you can configure to send the programs to Zattoo (Pass programs to:). Thereby, these programs will be opened when they start.
Remarks: This information will not be stored when TV-Browser is closed.

Plugin Settings

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For detailed configuration please see Usage first.

General settings

• Country
  The Country drop-down list contains three predefined channel configurations for Germany, Switzerland and Austria . The Own channel list is empty by default and can be used for customization.

If you change your country also the source country (see next chapter) will be set to the same value. This is what you normally need if you start creating your own channel list.

Create your own channel list

• Update own channel list (only once)
  If checked, your own channel list will be updated when pressing Apply updates. If you press OK, Cancel or Apply in the main window, no update will happen.
  After the update, Update own channel list (only once) will be un-checked.
  • Merge
    Existing entries and entries from the selected Source list will be merged.
    • Add only new
      All channels from the selected Source list will be added to your channel list. They will overwrite existing entries only if the existing entries do not have a Zattoo channel name configured.
    • Add and replace
      All channels from the selected Source list will be added to your channel list. I.e., existing entries which have already a Zattoo channel name configured will be overwritten with new Zattoo channel names.
  • Replace
    All existing entries in your channel list will be removed first.
    Then all channels from the selected Source list will be added to your channel list.

If you check Add only subscribed channels your channel list will only include channels which were already subscribed. You need this if you want to add a TV-Browser channel for which no Zattoo information is provided in the country channel list.

The Apply update button just updates the list below. If you press Cancel in the main window the changes are lost.

Adopt your own channel list

Your channel list is stored in a file. You can edit/save it in the Adopt your own channel list area in the TV-Browser settings panel. If your prefer, you can edit it in a text editor of your choice.

Operating system	Customized channel file
Windows 7+	C:\Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\TV-Browser[version]\java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.prop
Mac OS X	/users/[username]/Library/Preferences/TV-Browser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.prop
Linux	/home/[username]/.config/TV-Browser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.prop
Others	/home/[username]/.tvbrowser/[version]/java.zattooplugin.CustomChannelProperties.prop

If there is a format error in your file, only the correct entries will be used. But you can see all entries in the plugin-settings. If you store the file here the plugin tells you the lines which are not valid.

The Verify Zattoo names button looks if given Zattoo channel names exist on the Zattoo channel page:

• German channel page
• Swiss channel page
• Austrian channel page

Which channel page is used depends on the selected Source channel list.
If the Zattoo channel name is not found it will be highlighted in red. Unfortunately, this is not a guarantee that the channel name is valid. On the Austrian page there are two channels which are misspelled. Therefore, the channels kabel_eins_doku_at and mtvgermany are highlighted in red, even they are correct. The same for the German and Swiss page where deutschewelle_de is not listed at all.

The Save button stores your changes in your local settings. If you press OK or Apply in the main Window, your changes are saved as well. The Reset button can only undo changes which where not saved before.

Acknowledgements

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Special thanks to Bodo Tasche and Michael Keppler for developing version 1.0. This good work has made my job so much easier.