streamlink/README.md

Livestreamer
============
Livestreamer is a CLI program that launches live streams from various streaming services in a custom video player.

Currently supported sites are:

* GOMTV.net
* Justin.tv/Twitch.tv
* Livestream.com
* Ongamenet.com
* Own3d.tv
* SVTPlay
* UStream
* YouTube


Dependencies
------------
Livestreamer and it's plugins currently depends on these software:

* Python version >= 2.6 and >= 3.0 (currently CPython and PyPy is known to work)
* python-setuptools or python-distribute
* python-requests (at least version 0.12.1)
* python-pbs
* python-argparse (only needed for Python version < 2.7)

For RTMP based plugins:
* librtmp/rtmpdump (git clone after 2011-07-31 is needed for Twitch/JustinTV plugin)


Installing (Linux, OS X etc)
----------
Make sure you have at least Python and python-setuptools then run:

    $ sudo python setup.py install

This should install any missing Python dependencies automatically if they are missing.


Installing (Windows installer)
-----------------------------
1. Download installer from downloads and run it
2. Once installed, open  %APPDATA%\livestreamer\livestreamerrc in a text editor and make sure everything is correct
3. Use livestreamer from command prompt

*Note!* Installer has only been tested on Windows 7 (x64) as of now. Also, if you have previously installed manually you may need to remove livestreamer.exe from PYTHONPATH\Scripts.


Installing (Windows manual install)
---------------------------------
1. Install Python
2. Install Python setuptools
3. Get rtmpdump and unpack it somewhere (rtmpdump-20110925-git-6230845-win32.zip from the downloads section should work)
4. Add these paths to your Path environment variable:
 * PYTHONPATH\
 * PYTHONPATH\Scripts\
 * RTMPDUMPPATH\ (or specify full path with --rtmpdump option)
 * PLAYERPATH\ (or specify full path with --player option)

5. Open a command prompt and change directory to livestreamer source, then run:

    python setup.py install

This should install any missing Python dependencies automatically if they are missing.


Using
-----
    $ livestreamer --help

Plugin specific usage
---------------------
Most plugins are straight-forward to use, just pass the URL to the stream and it will work.
However, some plugins are using what could be called a "meta URL" to find the stream for you.


**gomtv**
Passing the URL *gomtv.net* will make the plugin figure out what match is currently playing automatically.

**ongamenet**
To use this plugin the URL *ongamenet.com* must be passed. 


Common issues
-------------
**livestreamer errors with "Unable to read from stream" or "Error while executing subprocess" on Twitch/JustinTV streams.**

When building rtmpdump from source it may link with a already existing (probably older) librtmp version instead of using it's
own version. On Debian/Ubuntu it is recommended to use the official packages of *librtmp0* and *rtmpdump* version
*2.4+20111222.git4e06e21* or newer. This version contains the necessary code to play Twitch/JustinTV streams and
avoids any conflicts. It should be available in the testing or unstable repositories if it's not available in stable yet.


**VLC on Windows fails to play with a error message.**

VLC version 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 contains a bug that prevents it from reading data from stdin.
This has been fixed in version 2.0.3.


**Own3d streams fail to play**

Due to a flaw in Own3d's API livestreamer has no way of figuring out if these streams are online or offline
before starting the stream, so if it does not play it's probably offline.


Saving arguments AKA config file
--------------------------------
Livestreamer can read arguments from the file ~/.livestreamerrc (POSIX) or %APPDATA%\livestreamer\livestreamerrc (Windows).
A example file:

    player=mplayer
    gomtv-username=username
    gomtv-password=password


Using livestreamer as a library
-------------------------------

http://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/