Tvants on Mac OS X 10.4

by Sammo Li on 5th Feb 2007

So far as I know there are no P2P TV software on Mac OS X. I have took some time to try running Tvants using WINE 0.9.30(not Darwine) on Mac OS X. Please note that I only tested it on Mac OS X 10.4.8 on Intel platform.

What is Tvants?

Tvants is a P2P TV software which let you  watch TV on Internet.

What is WINE?(From Wiki)

Wine is a project which aims to allow a PC running a Unix-like operating system and the X Window System to execute programs originally written for Microsoft Windows. Alternately, those wishing to port a Windows application to a Unix-like system can compile it against the Wine libraries in the form of Winelib.[1]

What you should prepare before installation?

  1. Download Tvants 1.0.x.xx from Tvants
  2. Download WINE 0.9.30 or up from Sourceforge
  3. Download Xcode 2.4.1 or up from Apple Developer Connection
  4. Download VLC 0.8.6a or up from VideoLan
  5. Prepare your Mac OS X 10.4 Intstall Disk  1
I highly recommend you download the files on Desktop so that you can easily follow the guide.

How-To

Installing X11 from Mac OS X Disk 1

There are package on the disk that will let you easily install all of there above

X11 - Run the "Optional Installs" package on the disk and click until you get to "Custom Install" and you should see under "Applications", there are "X11" which action is skip. If not, that mean it is not installed on your Mac and your have to check that item in order to install it.

Installing Xcode Tools

Actually it is as easy as you install any apps on Mac
  1. Double click the "xcode_2.4.1_xxxxxxx_xxxxxxx.dmg" and it will mount on Mac
  2. Double click the "XcodeTools.mpkg"


  1. Then it shows a dialog for installation, click until you see a "Customize" button at the left bottom conner.


  1. Click "Customize" and unselect all the things except "Developer Tools Software", "gcc 4.0", "gcc 3.3", "Mac OS X SDK", "X11 SDK". but surely if you want to try all the thing it is welcome to install the default setting.



Compile and Install WINE

This part should be the hardest but should be not a problem if you have some knowledge on Linux. I will try to write it as detail as I can.

  1. Open X11 in /Applications/Utilities


  1. You can see there are a "xterm" running once the X11 launch.
  2. Suppose that your WINE source file is on Desktop. Then in the "xterm", type as following:
$cd Desktop
$tar -jxf wine-0.9.30.tar.bz2
$cd wine-0.9.30
$.configure



  1. Wait until the "./configure" done. Don't have to worry any warning shows. then after that type:

$make depend
$make

  1. Wait until the "make" done. It should take a long time. then after that type:

$sudo make install
  1. "sudo make install" will ask your password which is your Mac OS X password.

Installing Tvants

This one is easy

  1. Still in the "xterm". Type as following:
$cd ~/Desktop
$/usr/local/bin/wine TvantsSetup.exe


  1. WINE will show that you don't have freetype library but it is fine. Setup the Tvants as usual windows application.

Installing VLC

I am not gonna mention this. It should be very easy for any Mac user.

Run IT!!

Now you can try to run the Tvants:
  1. In the "xterm". Type:

$/usr/local/bin/wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/TVAnts/Tvants.exe

  1. And now it is runing. Double click any channel and you should see a warning message. Write down the channel URL. It is "http://localhost:16900/1" in this case.



  1. Run VLC. Then click "File->Open Network...". In the field "Media Resource Locator (MRL)". Input the channel URL. And click OK.



  1. IT SHOULD WORK NOW. TRY IT!!! But please note that a few channels may need "Windows Media Player 9 Mac Version". And I found Quicktime with Flip4Mac works too. You only need to change the protocol in the channel URL from "http" to "mms". For example: "http://localhost:16900/1" to "mms://localhost:16900/1". (but not recommend as you may suffer some problems)