[REQUEST] Pandora script or plugin for XBMC? [Archive]

Woggle

2006-01-05, 20:28

i've recently come across pandora (www.pandora.com) as i expect many of you have as well. excellent idea and i'm loving it.......except that i haven't got any integration with xbmc.

does anyone know if this is planned/already something out there/is possible to write a python script for.

CGreenTX

2006-01-21, 08:04

i second this. would love to see a script to use pandora.com

cg

catogtp

2006-01-21, 08:09

i third this. i would love to see a script for this added.

tehjr

2006-02-09, 17:55

i'm going to have to bump this up...

the news today about the slimdevices squeezebox getting pandora support sparked my interest. i was thinking i'd want to buy one... but hey, the xbox can do it probably!

so, what does this entail? anyone interested?

BigBellyBilly

2006-02-10, 15:39

it was a closed system until very recently, but they've now added rss feeds, which opens it up to some form of script?

the simplest would be a flexibrowser or ooba plugin.

still no stream url access thou...

faq (http://blog.pandora.com/faq/index.html#78)

EnderW

2006-02-10, 16:04

the rss feeds only contain info about what songs are most played etc i believe...nothing you can use to get songs playing on xbmc. i don't think it's possible with a script unless they open their system (i can't see how it's open already..hmm?)

BigBellyBilly

2006-02-10, 16:06

yes, your post was too quick for my amendment after further reading.

tehjr

2006-02-10, 16:23

well all we'd really need is to open it in a browser. i dont even care if i can make stations on the xbox, i can do that on my computer. but playing my made stations would be gold.

BigBellyBilly

2006-02-10, 16:35

the 'playing' stream is the important bit we dont have access too, so all a script can provide is information from the rss.

you could always drop a mail to their devs requesting it , but i suspect they've heard it before and wouldve done it by now.

tehjr

2006-02-10, 16:54

i've never tried any of the xbox browsers, what kind of support do they offer? it's just mp3s that cache when the song is playing

jiz_king

2006-02-14, 14:47

..another reason why linksbox would be great if finally integrated into xbmc.

:)

diagdave@msn.com

2006-02-14, 15:45

linksbox doesnt support macromedia

tehjr

2006-02-14, 16:37

does a browser that plays flash on the xbox even exist?

diagdave@msn.com

2006-02-17, 14:25

barduck

2006-03-01, 12:46

i am very interested in this. i was playing with the idea of trying to add pandora support to xbmc myself when i thought of checking here if someone already thought about it.

basically, pandora uses a flash player that connects to the pandora server using http requests. i took a look at the http communication with a sniffer and it seems that once the user is connected and authenticated, pandora just streams the media over the http response. i was able to save these streams as mp3 files and play them on winamp without any problem.

the trick would be to mimic the user authentication and song requests recognition to make the server believe it is a pandora client asking these requests. once authenticated, the user identity is saved as a key, probably in the browser’s cookie. i don’t know what is the protection mechanism on the keys passed to the server, if any, but it should be easy enough to figure out the logic by further examining the http requests from the real flash client.

i will take a look at this again once i have some time. thing is, i know nothing (yet) about xbmc development or python scripting but i may pick this up later, if the entire idea is feasible reverse engineering the pandora communication wise.

cheers,

- barduck

diagdave@msn.com

2006-03-01, 14:53

ok yea its possible to sniff the connection and rip apart the current pandora player. but it wouldnt be legal since its not open source.

solexalex

2006-03-02, 21:05

i second this !
anyway, xdk is not opensource neither ;)

tehjr

2006-03-02, 21:48

wouldn't it just be easier to get flash to run in xbmc?

diagdave@msn.com

2006-03-03, 02:07

anyway, xdk is not opensource neither ;)
hence the fact its illegal to distribute the binarys, the code isnt illegal. however taking/stealing a program would be.

tehjr-im not sure that you would find that very easy at all. its hard enough porting a web browser to the xbox but finding an opensource flash plugin wouldnt be easy, and porting it even harder

tehjr

2006-03-03, 04:32

hmm, well that is discouraging. i don't have any coding experience, i was really trying to spark some interest with someone who does code and likes pandora.

not all wishes come true but damn it would be cool

barduck

2006-03-03, 08:02

hence the fact its illegal to distribute the binarys, the code isnt illegal. however taking/stealing a program would be.
i don't understand what would be illegal in reusing public http requests executed against a public server accessible to anyone freely. the source code to do it (whether python script or built into xbmc), if it is doable at all, would be open source as well.

and it is not like the xbmc project (with out without distributed binaries) and the entire xbox modchip scene don't have a questionable legality anyway.

diagdave@msn.com

2006-03-03, 12:25

its more of how you come about these http requests. which are not public! hence the need to sniff or backward engineer the current player. i've had the same problem with legality and my craftytv script. and thatt didnt even have user authentication. which it does now.the best thing todo is to get permission before anything is attempted.

jkaero

2006-04-27, 00:05

pandora is an online music site which will find similar titles to user input. you can check it out @ http://www.pandora.com/

it would be awesome if this could be integrated into xbmc, or a script could be created...its a sweet service

lolol

2006-04-28, 00:03

hi,

it's not possible atm because the site uses flash, which is not scriptable from xbmc...

greets lolol

raid517

2006-04-30, 20:43

install linux and run pandora.

andemann

2006-06-08, 15:40

by decompiling the player, it would at least be possible to make a pandora to mp3stream gateway that could run on your computer, and add that stream to xbmc

andreas

Cobi00

2006-06-09, 15:37

would it be possible to port the gnash flash player to the xbox? would this play pandora?

gnash gnu project (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/)

blenky

2007-05-30, 13:14

Just wondering if its possible to access and play http://www.pandora.com/ via the Xbox?

Thanks

spiff

2007-05-30, 13:29

no for so many reasons.

biggest ones being it not being avail outside the us and no devs are .us and that they provide no open api...

blenky

2007-05-30, 18:54

no for so many reasons.

biggest ones being it not being avail outside the us and no devs are .us and that they provide no open api...

I'm in the UK and listen to it on my PC no problem. However obvioulsy a lot of other reasons beside that.

Ah well thanks for replying.

Gamester17

2007-05-30, 19:49

Besides the US only restriction pandora.com has (http://www.pandora.com/restricted), XBMC and/or Python developers would need like spiff said an open and fully documented API (Application Program Interface) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API) and/or detailed protocol specifications available. It can not require any closed source proprietary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary) software or object-code. Plus depending on the API thay have it may have to be compatible with GPL or LGPL (maybe not needed for python as much as for native XBMC implementation).

Also, does it rely on any DRM (Digital Rights Management) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management) copy protection technology?

PS! A different name for DRM and proprietary technologies: C.R.A.P. (Cancellation, Restriction, And Punishment)

Writhing.Shad0w

2007-07-14, 04:53

Hey everyone,

Just wondering about using the Pandora online radio on xbmc. Couldn't find anything on it in the forums or wiki... it seems possible, but I don't know if there is something holding it back. Thanks for any and all input!

bob.oliv3r

2007-07-18, 19:55

Does anyone know how the Sonus media players that are marketed on pandora.com play the streams? Could the same method be used in XBMC?

Mjsud

2008-11-12, 16:16

i have recently been looking into Pandora on my xbox and i ran across this forum http://forums.xbox-scene.com/lofiversion/index.php/t489597.html i dont know it if helps or not but it seems like it could be possible i really think it needs to be done i just with i know more about python XD

rr_russ

2008-11-19, 22:41

Rather than completely integrating Pandora into the xbmc interface, what about implementing a web browser in xbmc which could then be pointed at their site.

Is it feasible to port a browser like Firefox to the xbmc platform?

Our Wii has a simple web browser that we were able to download. I pointed it to pandora and it got like 90% of the way there (everything loaded and looked like it was going to work), then it ran out of memory.

Thoughts?

-Russ

jterhune

2008-12-08, 09:51

I know absolutely nothing about coding, but here is an open source pandora implementation: http://openpandora.googlepages.com/

All I know is that Pandora uses plain HTTP Get requests to download non-drmed mp3s.

Rand Al Thor

2009-03-30, 02:21

Boxee actually has a pretty awesome Pandora plugin. It would be great if one of the python gurus here could get it to work on XBMC. I know several of the boxee plugins work out of the box but this one does not seem to fall into that category. Cheers.

ethan_9219

2009-03-30, 02:29

the bad thing is that Pandora only works in the US right? It used to work here in Australia, but not anymore?

lewis.donofrio

2009-04-03, 15:44

this...

http://code.google.com/p/openpandora/source/browse/trunk/OpenPandora/Player.cs
:nod:

badmoviesnbeer

2009-04-03, 17:06

All openpandora does is embed a browser (IE) that loads up the pandora site, then passes your key/mouse strokes on to the embedded browser.

@jterhune: you have a source that says they still use plain http get requests? I thought this was changed a while back because of how trivial it would be to grab them with only using a sniffer to determine the urls..

Adam B.

2009-04-28, 05:14

I think that Pandora is a must have killer app. It works great under Boxee, but I like the flexibility of xbmc so much more. Not to mention the vdpau support. ;)

I'm attaching the pandora application and source code from boxee. It's just a few python scripts and a skin. I wouldn't imagine it would be that hard to get working on XBMC. I suspect that nobody has tried.

Are any XBMC scripters willing to take a few minutes to check this out and try to figure out what's needed and how to port it. I may have to try to learn python if there's no interest.

http://www.2shared.com/file/5522305/8bf8500e/pandora.html

Adam B.

2009-04-28, 05:30

It looks like some of the xbmc and scripting work is done by boxeeproxee.pyo. Since it's a compiled python binary, we'll probably either need to get the source or try to decompile it for it to work.

music2myear

2009-05-05, 17:05

Instead of all the plethora reasons why it cannot be done, lets just do it!

Anybody heard of boxee?

They've got pandora working smoothly inside their interface. Saw it the other day on a Mac laptop, ran smoothly, looked great.

So instead of excuses, lets hear solutions!

http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=7621

theophile

2009-05-05, 17:55

So instead of excuses, lets hear solutions!
Awesome! What's your solution?

Hotkey

2009-05-15, 20:03

Do we have a Pandora.com solution?

How about Hulu.com?

theophile

2009-05-15, 20:45

No to both.

Hotkey

2009-05-15, 20:56

No to both.

Is it fair to expect either or both soon? If not, why not? Seems like other "media center" tools have them.

theophile

2009-05-15, 21:47

There are numerous other threads about Hulu. My understanding is that you should not be expecting it any time soon. Hulu is making a concerted effort to make sure programs like XBMC cannot access Hulu content the way XBMC does. The reason programs like Boxee have a working plugin is primarily because Boxee uses a flash player just like a web browser and Hulu can't tell the difference. XBMC does not use flash so if it is going to play a stream, it has to have direct access to the data.

As far as Pandora, I think the only reason we don't have it on XBMC yet is because no one has done it or released it yet. You're probably much more likely to see Pandora in the near future.

Hotkey

2009-05-15, 22:14