STV: SageMC 16x9 11/26/2005 Sage 4.x Version 5_10

[mlbdude]

Hey all, made a few minor cosmetic changes to SageMC 1.0 so it better fits in a 16x9 setting. Also added one minor feature - Themes.

The images included were all done by the MediaPortal (http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/) guys. Want to thank in particular Samsonite and Elow. If either of you guys don't want your work used for this purpose just let me know and I will yank it. I don't want to mess up anything you guys are tyring to do.

SageMC Documentation Project http://www.sage-community.org/index.cgi/wiki/SageMC169.

External Player samples (go in your SageMCE folder)External Media Players (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/external_player.zip).

If we can get some other guys out there to create them, as you can see we can add new ones dynamically. Just need some people with good graphics skills. Seems like MediaPortal has tham all :).

EDITS:
11/26/2005
SageMC_169_5_10 - Version 10 SageTV 4.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5_10 (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=36)
Various bug fixes and enhancements.

My Videos now has a Play menu item when viewing by File System. It will queue up all videos from the current folder and all of its subfolders and auto play the queue.

My Music now remembers your last used view when returning to the menu.

Added back Simple Weather to main menu.

New recording type filter in Recordings menu. It only shows up if you are using Intelligent Recording.
Left is back behavior is now included. Use the below property to enable:
mlbdude/use_left_as_back=false

Added ability to limit external media player launching to specified extensions.
Change or add:
mlbdude/limit_external_to_extensions=*
to something like:
mlbdude/limit_external_to_extensions=.mpg,.mpeg

Updated the Sage weather menu as My Weather. Should be a good replacement for the old Simple Weather now.

Added a new property you can use to clasify what main category SageMC will use to view movies.
mlbdude/movie_category=Movie

New Main Menu style. To disable it use the Options command on the Main Menu. You can now switch between Sage and MCE style. Sage style is same as before. MCE style is similar to how MCE does it but without the animation. This menu style is great for users that have lots of main menu items.
Note: When you enable\disable menu items in the Options menu with the MCE style menu, make sure you use the Refresh option in the Options menu to refresh the Main Menu.
Also added a ability to remove the spacer from the new menu if you don't like it. Use the Options command on the main menu.

Added a new menu item - My Plugins. Enable with the Options menu. Developers can create self contained menu's and have them imported into hte SageMC STV. They can be registered with SageMC by adding property lines as below:
mlbdude/plugins/deria_weater_monitor/Author=Deria
mlbdude/plugins/deria_weater_monitor/Description=The Weather plugin is an enhanced weather module for SageTV
mlbdude/plugins/deria_weater_monitor/Menu=Weather Monitor Plugin - deria
mlbdude/plugins/deria_weater_monitor/Title=Weather Monitor
mlbdude/plugins/deria_system_monitor/Author=Deria
mlbdude/plugins/deria_system_monitor/Description=The System Monitor plugin is an extremely configurable disk utilization monitor
mlbdude/plugins/deria_system_monitor/Menu=System Monitor Plugin - deria
mlbdude/plugins/deria_system_monitor/Title=System Monitor

These samples are live but being worked on. If you want to try them out feel free to add these lines to your properties file while Sage is closed. Also make sure you download each of Deria's plugins and extract to your SageTV folder. Just do NOT import the STVI. Only the supporting files are needed. These will be included in the next full release.
Thanks to Deria for all the work done on these plugins!

Can now select and edit Aspect Ratios, Subtitles, and Audio Language from the DVD controls or if it is not a DVD from the Options menu.

Recreated most of the offline import functionality. Now takes you to a screen to allow you to select or deselect items for import to avoid duplicates. I also improved the detection routines so by default it will select only the ones SageMC thinks should be imported as offline (items that don't already exist in your video library).

For users having issues, enable the error display for DVD Profiler by setting the property:
mlbdude/enable_dvd_profiler_errors=true

This should make it easy to setup and troubleshoot now. Let me know if this helps any of the users having issues with this feature.

If you have posted any bugs, they may have been fixed in the latest dev build. Each day I do any changes I will update this file. Probably not any date info on it you will just have to download and check the file date/time.
Latest Dev Build (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=37&act=down)

Here are some screen caps:
Main Menu Images:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main1.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main2.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main3.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main4.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main5.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main6.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/main7.JPG

TV Guide Images:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_guide.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_guide_filter.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_guide_channel_view.JPG

Program Info w/IMDB Integration:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_imdb.JPG

TV Movies:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_movies_onnow.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_movies_genre.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_movies_genre_onnow.JPG

TV Recording Schedule:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_schedule_suggestions.JPG

TV Search:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/tv_ssearch.JPG

My Music:
Album View
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_album_view.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_album_view2.JPG
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_album_view3.JPG

Album Details
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_album-detail_view.JPG

Artist View
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_artist_view.JPG

Album Artist View
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_artist-album_view.JPG

Genre View
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_genre_view.JPG

Music Queue
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_queue_view.JPG

Music File View: (view music by file directory structure)
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/music_file_view.JPG

My Videos:
Category View - Using IMDB or DVDProfiler Meta-Data
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_category_view.JPG

Video Details View
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_details_view.JPG

Get Video Meta-Data (includes saving image thumdnail from IMDB)
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_details_mdata_view.JPG

Video Search
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_search.JPG

Video Groups - Create your own custom top-level groups to organize video by
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_groups.JPG

Offline Videos - Add offline videos with DVDProfiler information
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_offline.JPG

DVDProfiler Integration
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/video_dvdprofiler.JPG

On Screen Display:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/osd_video.JPG

DVD Controls
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/dvd_osd.JPG

Themes:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/themes.JPG

Easy Launching of External Programs:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/other_programs.JPG

Updated Weather Menu:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/weather1.JPG

Customizable Dynamic Menu:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169/my_menu.JPG

Version 4.x History:

3/20/2005 4:09 PM EST
SageMC_169_2
New test build. Contains Commercial Detect from Malore. Maybe it works, don't have anything to test it with myself :). Replace the SageMC_169_1 STV with this one.

3/20/2005 5:07 PM EST
SageMC_169_3
Files include: Update STV (overwrite exising), and external media players (.cmd files). Place the .cmd files in your "SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2\SageMCE" folder. Edit them with your players and command line parameters. Make sure you leave the %1 in there.

Added external media player functionality.

mlbdude/use_external_dvd_player=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your dvd_player.cmd file when playing back DVD's.
mlbdude/use_external_media_player=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your media_player.cmd file when playing back library non-DVD files.
mlbdude/use_external_media_player_tv_files=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your media_player.cmd file when playing back SageTV recordings.

3/25/2005 5:55 PM EST
SageMC_169_4
Cleaned up a few items with the now playing icon.
Fixed a couple of sorting issues in My TV.
Added a new main menu item - My Menu. This will bring up a version of the Neilm custom menu. Use it if you are brave enough :).

Some Neilm menu documentation to be aware of:
http://www.sage-community.org/index.cgi/wiki/NielmStvMenu

7/29/2005
SageMC_169_5_b1 - BETA SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 1 (http://www.vinceanido.com/mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b1.zip)
A few bug fixes that have been hanging around.
Added in the 3.x detailed setup.
Added in the salsbst's Weather Report Suite with SageMC look and feel (Thanks! salsbst) - Enable it with the Options command on the Main Menu and configure as per the WRS instructions.
Added shutdown popup when selecting the close button on the Main Menu.
Trying out some UI animations. Only on Main Menu and TV menus. Disable with this property: mlbdude/enable_ui_animations=false
Added "All Unwatched" filter to Recorded TV.
Options menu in Recorded TV will now let you set a default filter.
Added some Sage 3.x style options to the Options menu in the Guide and My Videos.
Added Config Wizard from Sage3.x. Not sure if all it working in this yet.

7/29/2005
SageMC_169_5_b2 - BETA 2 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 2 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b2.zip)
Fixed background in source setup.
Fixed Themes not available.
Added Neilm IMDB search to My Videos.
Added quick jump alphabet to My Music (just keep going right).
Added Artist\Album view to My Music.
Modified timing on animations on Main Menu.
Fixed bug with groups of Unwatched recordings.

7/30/2005
SageMC_169_5_b3 - BETA 3 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 3 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b3.zip)
You can now save meta information for My Video files from IMDB.
You can import meta information for My Video files with DVD Profiler if it is configured as per the prior release. Thanks goes to Stanger89 for the java code and STV samples.
TV Subgroups now default to Episode Title.
Movies sorted by Title will have duplicates grouped.

8/7/2005
SageMC_169_5_b4 - BETA 4 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 4 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b4.zip)
New Information menu for Recorded TV.
Improved meta-information options in My Videos - auto load, bulk load, etc.
New Category view for My Videos. Note you must have good imported meta-information for anything to show up here.
Added more info to the OSD during TV playback.
Changed mini-guide behavior to alwasy come up regardless if the show is live or not.

8/14/2005
SageMC_169_5_b5 - BETA 5 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 5 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b5.zip)
Added Add to Queue and View Current Playlist features to My Music. Lets you alwasy see the current queue/playlist and what song in it is playing.

Added back List View to Category View in My Videos.

Added Offline video capability. Check out this thread for details on how to set it up and what is required. I may include a setup wizard for this in the future if it is popular. Offline Videos Setup Instructions (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=110033&postcount=462)

Various bug fixes and enhancements.

This will probably be the last version with new features. Lets get the bugs out and make a 3.x release. Then we can work on whats next.

8/19/2005
SageMC_169_5_b6 - BETA 6 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 5 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b6.zip)
Bug fixes and improvements to My Videos.
Searching in My Videos if using Category View.
My Music Options updates for custom view styles and easy way to view what you are currently playing.
Music preview window now takes you to the current playlist. Use Visualize from there to go to full screen.
Updates to My TV, check out a grouped show in Recordings.
Grouped movies now show the title and description.
Bug fixes for Other Programs.
Enhanced Mini-Guide to allow looking into the future.

8/28/2005
SageMC_169_5_b7 - BETA 7 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Beta 7 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_b7.zip)
If IR is enabled new "Suggestions" view in Schedule.
Various enhancements to My Music.
Custom "Groups" available in My Videos. Configure as in http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=112617&postcount=587.
ChannelLogos can be used in OSD, set mlbdude/show_channellogos_osd=true.
Various improvements and bug fixes.

10/30/2005
SageMC_169_5_8 - Version 8 SageTV 3.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Version 8 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_8.zip)
Various improvements and bug fixes.
New My Music Files menu (enable with Options menu on Main Menu). This will let you play and browse your music collection via the file system.
Stage one of Sage weather integration. This now replaced My Weather.
IMDB Search is now integrated into My TV. Use the Options menu from the Program Info menu.
When saving IMDB information for a Video file, the thumbnail image from IMDB will be saved for you too. Thanks neilm on this one!
VERY IMPORTANT: Neilm has updated his IMDB code - it is now located inteh JARs folder. Make sure you delete the folder SageTV\SageTV\net\sf\sageplugins\sageimdb folder if it exists prior to installing this STV.

11/06/2005
SageMC_169_5_9 - Version 9 SageTV 4.x STV
SageMC169 Ver 5 Version 9 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_5_9.zip)
Various bug fixes and enhancements.
Added DVD Dual Decoders. Allows you to have two sets of decoders setup for DVD playback. Good for users that want to use ffdshow for film DVD's and DXVA decoder for video DVD's. http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=122525&postcount=901
Added DVD Controls popup. This gives quick visual access to DVD controls. Use Up or Down in OSD to bring it up.
Changed the way the FF/REW and FF2/REW2 commands work when a DVD is playing. FF/REW do smooth FF and REW and FF3/REW2 do chapter next and previous. Allows logical control of DVD content with the shared buttons.
Included several new themes - Big download now.
Updated STV and zip file for SageTV 4.x folder structures.


Old SageTV 2.x version:
You can download items here:SageMC169 Ver 4 (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_4.zip)
Minor update to fix odd menu button in My Videos if you download Ver 4 before this link was posted.
SageMC169 Ver 4 Update (http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/SageMC_169_4_1.zip)

[wbarber69]

I setup comskip in this new stv but as it seems to be compiling data nothing shows up when playing the file, everything plays no commercial advance

[gplasky]

Commercial skip sections are showing up across the whole bottom area and not just on the time bar.

http://home.comcast.net/~gplasky223900mi/sagemc169.jpg

Didn't get a chance to see if it worked. Just noticed how it looks.

Gerry

[ToxMox]

I hope mlbdude doesn't mind but I took it upon myself to fix the comskip problems with Version 3 from above. The timebar was messed up as was pointed out and Com Auto Skip wasn't working either. I have fixed these and the file can be downloaded from:
-REMOVED-
Just extract the stv to your STVs/OriginalV2 folder and don't forget to switch the STV to SageMC_169fix.stv

[LegolasX21E]

Im having trouble getting the Blue two Steel theme to work. when I select it it says I have to restart the SageTV UI. I restart sage and there is no change. Are there extra files I need to download? I just extracted the stv to the stv directory. Any image file swapping? Thanks in advance.

[ToxMox]

Legolas, did you follow this section of the first post?:

NOTE: You must add some lines to your Sage.Properties file while Sage is closed.

ui/themes/0/image_root=Images_MC
ui/themes/0/title=MCE
ui/themes/1/image_root=Images_bt
ui/themes/1/title=BlueTwo
ui/themes/2/image_root=Images_bt_m
ui/themes/2/title=BlueTwo Blue Steel

[LegolasX21E]

I added them to the bottom, did I do that right? I just copied and pasted them in there.

[bones71]

Wow, 16x9 and comskip,Thank you thank you, Thank You. Have been waiting for comskip forever now I can finally use sage mce. Thanks dude.

[bones71]

OK started useing it and I have one more request is there anyway to get two pane recordings. got really used to using that. and the wife really likes it. But I love everything else about this stv it finally looks up to date or maybe even futuristic I love it. Just that small request.

[bones71]

legolas did you install the first 16x9 stv first then add the 3rd version I had the same thing happen then went back and intalled the first and now it works still had to restart ui but it took before i didn't get preview either now i do.

[mlbdude]

Make sure you install the first SageMC169 zip. It is big and contains all the image files needed. Use ToxMox's STV as the real Ver. 3 for now. Thanks for that. I have no real way to test that :). Will use that as the base from now.

[LegolasX21E]

THANKS! works great now.

[bones71]

Is there anyway to get the osd to be transparent without using vmr9? I am using overlay due to tearing in vmr. Also is the osd time bar able to have the graphics updated like the other files.Can I open a file and change it in photoshop or something?

[JUC]

I see you've added external media player functionality. How would i go about setting this up for just an external Music player? It would then launch the other app when I click My Music.
thanks
JUC

[Watter]

mlbdude, Does this STV only work well in a 16x9 environment? I don't have a non 16x9 televison to test it on.

[gplasky]

JUC
I believe these are the new commands that go into your .properties file.

mlbdude/use_external_dvd_player=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your dvd_player.cmd file when playing back DVD's.

mlbdude/use_external_media_player=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your media_player.cmd file when playing back library non-DVD files.

mlbdude/use_external_media_player_tv_files=true
Use this property to tell SageTV to use your media_player.cmd file when playing back SageTV recordings.

I would think the second one would be what you want to use. You'll also need to edit your media_player.cmd file in the SageMC directory with the player you want to use. I'm just not clear when he says "tell SageTV to use your media_player.cmd file when playing back library non-DVD files" if this can mean music files or if it is just video files like .divx, .avi, etc.

Gerry

[gplasky]

Watter
I have this running on 4:3 TV set and PC CRTs as well as my 16:9 HDTV. It works fine on all.

Gerry

[mlbdude]

Updated version 3 zip file with the changes to ComSkip done by ToxMox (Thanks!).

Custom media players are only for video. Not sure how you would use them for music files other than playing a single file to a media player.

Should work in 4:3 but it might be tight in a few places. Heck, you may like the better use of space.

[JUC]

Thanks, I was hoping to launch another app for music only.

[john f]

Any way to change the main menu around in the properties file?
I only use Sage for TV...........so I don't want the other junk there ( I use Meedio for that )

Thanks,

John

[mlbdude]

Any way to change the main menu around in the properties file?
I only use Sage for TV...........so I don't want the other junk there ( I use Meedio for that )

Thanks,

John

Try the Options command on the Start menu.

[walts81]

Any way to change the main menu around in the properties file?
I only use Sage for TV...........so I don't want the other junk there ( I use Meedio for that )

Thanks,

John
The "Custom 1" command maps to the "My TV" section. I setup a meedio command to use the Sage sendmessage utility to send the "Custom 1" commannd so that you're taken straight to the TV section and you never have to even see all the other stuff. It's pretty seamless.

- Josh

[gplasky]

Right-click with your mouse on the Main Menu or Ctrl-O (Letter O) and Enable or Disable to your heart's content.

Gerry

EDIT: Shucks-low man again. :nono:

[wbarber69]

its nice to see that someone has given us all what we wanted an stv with the features we want with a very user friendly interface and no stupid over configuration with low level configuring, just came back to see if anyone was having comskip problems to find that they have already been fixed going to see very soon if its all up and running right on my machine I'll attach my properties file so if anyone thinks I may have something screwed up they can give me some input

[wbarber69]

is it normal to have all your cpu taken up by comskip or what, its really slowing down my system

EDIT: still no comskip showing up anywhere, how long does it normally take

[wbarber69]

I must have missed something.....not sure where to start though this stv is totally different than the other stvs with comskip....kinda

[abasu2003]

mlbdude,

so are you goign to be working on this STV some more. There are a couple of things I would like to add to this STV before I switch over.

[wbarber69]

new problem since I started using this stv my webserver for sage wont start up, not sure why though the stv should have nothing to do with it

EDIT: sorry forgot I also updated to newest java version and forgot to add servlet.jar

[ukmgranger]

Anyone have much experience with compskip?

It's working (kinda) on my system, but the accuracy of where it thinks that there should be some commercials is way off. In a film thay has say 4-5 com breaks in it, comskip will find one correctly! All the other purple bits on the time bar are way off.
Is there some kind of configuring that needs to be done?

[mlbdude]

ComSkip is going to take near 100% CPU when running. I have not used it for so long and don't have it installed now though so I am not an expert on it.

It is possible that the ComSkip code from Malore is expecting a standard time-bar. Can someone post a comskip file with instructions on how to "fool" Sage into thinking it is for one of my recordings? I might have to shrink or expand the ConSkip bar. I actually did not even intend to have the breaks show up in the OSD. What benefit do they serve?

I am not going to do too much new development on this except for possibly bug fixes or the occasional feature that I quickly need. However, if I find the ideas to be something I want ;). Sorry.

[ToxMox]

On the STV I posted the comskip markings are exactly where they should be and work perfectly. I like having the bars there because I can visually see if the comskips are correct or not. I think UKMgranger is just having issues with detection accuracy. They need to find the settings that work well for them.

[mlbdude]

Thanks ToxMox! That is what it sounded like.

[ToxMox]

ukmgranger: If you haven't already you should probably read up in the commercial advance thread about the settings. Especially since you are in England the defaults will probably not work well. The FPS may not even be set right in the comskip.ini for your recordings. Even though I was born there I don't know anything about the TV in the UK.

[ukmgranger]

Thanks for the info Toxmox.
I checked out the comskip.ini and found that I was set to 29.97f (not 25 (PAL)). Hopefully this will sort out some of the comskip issues for me.
I did set the framerate in SageMC's setup, but this did not seem to change things in the comskip.ini. This is probably something for mlbdude.
Anyhew, I shall persevere and see how I get on. If there is anyone from the UK reading this that uses comskip - could you post your .ini settings so I can check them out.

Thanks

[JUC]

I recently noticed that My Programs is coming up blank. Is it working for everyone else?
Thanks. Also, commskip is working great for me! The only thing that was giving me trouble was that I forgot when I last did my clean install to reinstall the commskip app. Once that is installed, all should work well.
JUC

[wbarber69]

still nothing it was working all night and no program that has been recorded since turning on comskip skips commercials, there are no indicators in the time bar and cpu stays at a constant 100% with absolutely no program info on comskip as if I'd know where to look for it in ths stv but I have dug and dug and have found nothing

[JUC]

Do you happen to have lots of past recordings that have not been commskip processed yet? I'm not sure of the order that it processes the files but maybe it is working from old to new?

[wbarber69]

122

but I tried viewing last one thinking like you did, but maybe its working alphabetically and I just haven't found the right one yet

[ToxMox]

If it was pulled from Malore's code which I'm pretty sure it is then it starts from oldest to newest.

[wbarber69]

thx I guess I'll let it run for a week and see how that goes

[briands]

You should be able to look in your recordings folder for .txt files that store the commercial skip information. If you have any, then try one of those files.

[Wheemer]

I'm using DirMon to process the comskip files from a networked computer. Having not used comskip previously, I must say that this is awesome. The cuts are almost perfect so far, usually a few frames before the commercial actually ends. It would be nice if it was perfect, but I guess this is better than not using it.

Is there a more recent version of comskip besides .64? Anything I can adjust to get the commercials more accurately detected?

[ukmgranger]

You can adjust the comskip.ini file to change things such as the delay. Have a look at the file - there are explinations for all the parameters in the file. It will be located in the dir. as the comskip.exe.

[abasu2003]

mlbdude,

I guess I'll go ahead and ask for the requests and see if its something that you're itnerested in.


-a 2 pane recording screen. Actually, this isn't as important as just being able to have all the recordings of one show grouped (like it does on "Sort by Name) but then having it sorted by date instead of alphabetical order

-IMDB Search integrated into the Detailed Info section. At the very least, maybe somethign that launches a webbrowser with that IMDB query.



And on a separate issue, I can't seem to get any of my icons to show up on teh weather. Do you know what folder they are supposed to be in?

[mlbdude]

#1 It should be grouping then by title then sorting by date now. Sounds like it is not, that would be a bug.

#2 We need neilm to put out a import STV that works with this STV. He mentioned something about it at one point. Maybe if we ask nice he will do it for us :).

I think weather icons have their own folder under the SageMCE folder. If you used an STV with the simple weather before, you may want to delete all your mlbdude/weather lines from the properties file and restart.

[dvd_maniac]

I want to give this STV a shot. But can I make the entries in the Properties file and extract the neccessary files to my Sage directory and go back and forth from this STV and Cayars? I have Cayar's Ultimate installed and setup almost perfectly but there is alot of things in Cayars that I do not use and this STV seems like more of a clean UI.

[mlbdude]

It would depend on what he did to the features he ported from my old STV (did he rename the properties). I would make a copy of you exisintg sage.properties file before trying another STV.

[dvd_maniac]

What if I closed SageTV and copied the folder to another location and implemented the changes for this STV? Would I be able to open either instance of Sage? Or does the registry look for the installed location?
Has anybody tried this?

[abasu2003]

I've tried a few things with the weather but I still can't seem to get it to work. I did as you suggested and first deleted all of the items in SageClient.properties but then it defaulted to weatherroom.com and that didn't work. So then I tried manually adjusting the code and I think I converted all of the necessary entries:

mlbdude/weather_exe=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\getweather.bat
mlbdude/weather_exe_java=false
mlbdude/weather_file=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\Weather.txt
mlbdude/weather_image_root=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\weather\\
mlbdude/weather_provider=www.weather.com
mlbdude/weather_url=
mlbdude/weather_zip=21201

This displays weather but I am still not getting pictures (and I made sure there are corresponding pictures for the weather to get). Any ideas, anything seem wrong in the entries?

[ToxMox]

I have both Cayars and this STV installed and haven't noticed anything strange happen yet. I would just backup your Sage directory just in case you do find a problem in the future.

[mlbdude]

I've tried a few things with the weather but I still can't seem to get it to work. I did as you suggested and first deleted all of the items in SageClient.properties but then it defaulted to weatherroom.com and that didn't work. So then I tried manually adjusting the code and I think I converted all of the necessary entries:

mlbdude/weather_exe=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\getweather.bat
mlbdude/weather_exe_java=false
mlbdude/weather_file=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\Weather.txt
mlbdude/weather_image_root=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\weather\\
mlbdude/weather_provider=www.weather.com
mlbdude/weather_url=
mlbdude/weather_zip=21201

This displays weather but I am still not getting pictures (and I made sure there are corresponding pictures for the weather to get). Any ideas, anything seem wrong in the entries?

If it defaulted to weatherroom.com them something else is wrong. The default for this STV will be www.weather.com.

Here are my properties:

mlbdude/weather_exe=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\GetWeather.bat
mlbdude/weather_exe_java=false
mlbdude/weather_file=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\Weather.txt
mlbdude/weather_image_root=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE
mlbdude/weather_provider=www.weather.com
mlbdude/weather_url=http\://www.weatherroom.com/xml/ext/
mlbdude/weather_zip=32907

Note the weather_image_root property.

[kayoti]

I'm having a very difficult time getting any theme to work. When I start Sage - all I can see is the text (My TV, My Videos...), everything else is black. I am unable to select anything and it is impossible to use. I made sure the ui/themes entries were made and saved to the properties file while sage was shut down. The image files are installed where they should be. The only thing I can think of is my Sage is installed under D:\Sage\SageTV\ - but that has not affected anything else before. Any help is greatly appreciated ;)

[mlbdude]

I'm having a very difficult time getting any theme to work. When I start Sage - all I can see is the text (My TV, My Videos...), everything else is black. I am unable to select anything and it is impossible to use. I made sure the ui/themes entries were made and saved to the properties file while sage was shut down. The image files are installed where they should be. The only thing I can think of is my Sage is installed under D:\Sage\SageTV\ - but that has not affected anything else before. Any help is greatly appreciated ;)

Did you download and install the main zip file and the update? Where you installed Sage should be fine since all the pathing is relative.

[kayoti]

If by main zip you mean ..169_1.zip, no. I installed 169_3 when that came out and had problems with it. Today I installed the 169_1, and then the 169_3 again. I think what I did essentially, is made a mess ;(

If I delete everything from both zips and reinstall both (in correct order this time) should it work alright?

[mlbdude]

If by main zip you mean ..169_1.zip, no. I installed 169_3 when that came out and had problems with it. Today I installed the 169_1, and then the 169_3 again. I think what I did essentially, is made a mess ;(

If I delete everything from both zips and reinstall both (in correct order this time) should it work alright?

It should just make sure you have a folder structure as in the first ZIP file (you will see when you open it). That should be unzipped to the SageTV folder and let the folders recurse out.

[kayoti]

Ahh, figured it out. When I unzip the 169_3, the .stv is installed in ..\SageTV instead of D:\Sage\SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2. All I had to do was move the stv to the OriginalV2 folder and it works now ;) Thanks

[JasonJoel]

Hmmm. My Weather just sits there at 'Loading...' and never comes up with any information. :(

I checked the properties file, mine looks just like your (except the zip code).

Not sure what the issue is. Probably something dumb I didn't do.

Jason

[lotusvball]

You're not the only one. Mine does the same thing. The funny thing is my client system, using SageMc, works fine.

[wbarber69]

well after 2 days I finally have some programs with comskip and its pretty damn acurate, from what I've seen so far but I guess we'll see

[dvd_maniac]

How do I get the media player to work? I put all lines into properties file including: mlbdude/use_external_media_player=true
I edited the media_player.cmd file with
"C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero ShowTime\ShowTime.exe" %1

but when I try to open a *.mp4 file it doesn't open the media player and tries to open in Sage instead and gives me a playback error

Edit: This is on a Client. The Sage Server is still running Cayars. Do I need to change it there as well?

I even tried to change the mlbdude/videos_delete_enabled=false and it is still showing the Delete in the UI. I SEEMS like nothing is changing no matter what I put in the SageClient properties file.

[mlbdude]

How do I get the media player to work? I put all lines into properties file including: mlbdude/use_external_media_player=true
I edited the media_player.cmd file with
"C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero ShowTime\ShowTime.exe" %1

but when I try to open a *.mp4 file it doesn't open the media player and tries to open in Sage instead and gives me a playback error

Edit: This is on a Client. The Sage Server is still running Cayars. Do I need to change it there as well?

I even tried to change the mlbdude/videos_delete_enabled=false and it is still showing the Delete in the UI. I SEEMS like nothing is changing no matter what I put in the SageClient properties file.

Sounds like you are editing the wrong properties file somehow or are not closing Sage while editing it?

[mlbdude]

Hmmm. My Weather just sits there at 'Loading...' and never comes up with any information. :(

I checked the properties file, mine looks just like your (except the zip code).

Not sure what the issue is. Probably something dumb I didn't do.

Jason

Completely delete those lines, then open Sage to regen them. Post them up here after that.

[dvd_maniac]

Sounds like you are editing the wrong properties file somehow or are not closing Sage while editing it?

Sage is definitely closed and no service running either. Checked Task manager... The only property file I have on the Client is SageClient properties file, so I can't be doing the wrong file since it is the only one I have.

Any other ideas are welcome?

[gplasky]

You might want to try re-associating mp4 files with Showtime. And take the *.mp4 file extension out of your Sage .properties file if you ever added that to get Sage to try and play those files.

Gerry

[dvd_maniac]

I did take it out a while ago. It opens up in Showtime when using Cayars STV. And when I edit the properties file to disable Cayars external video player, it takes. But no such luck when editing the SAME properties file for SageMC...

[gplasky]

Make sure you're showing file extensions. Are you sure you're not editing SageClient.properties.autobackup ? Maybe you've associated the .autobackup extension to notepad?

Gerry

[dvd_maniac]

I know I am editing the right file because when I edit it for Cayars to use external or not and switch to Cayars STV it takes the changes. SageClient is shut down, edit file, save file, open SageClient Cayars STV changes work SageMC changes do not.

[gplasky]

Very strange. I just used your example and changed mlbdude/videos_delete_enabled= from false to true and back. I was able to save the changes and everything worked. This was on my client. Is your client installed on your server or a seperate PC.

Gerry

[dvd_maniac]

seperate pc.

[kayoti]

When I use 'Play DVD', everything works perfect. Except the image is too large - My PVR is also my main computer. Computer moniter for my PC (1280x1024), and SVideo cable from my PC to my TV (640x480). When a DVD is played through Sage on my TV - for some reason it looks way too large, probably at 1280x1024 and only half of the picture is visible. If anyone knows a fix for this, please let me know ;) Thanks

[Watter]

When I use 'Play DVD', everything works perfect. Except the image is too large
Does this occur with the default STV or only SageMC?

[JasonJoel]

Deleting the lines, restarting, specifying a new ZIP, and reloading the weather program fixed it.

My lines are now:

mlbdude/weather_exe=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\GetWeather.bat
mlbdude/weather_exe_java=false
mlbdude/weather_file=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE\\Weather.txt
mlbdude/weather_image_root=\\STVs\\OriginalV2\\SageMCE
mlbdude/weather_provider=www.weather.com
mlbdude/weather_url=http\://www.weatherroom.com/xml/ext/
mlbdude/weather_zip=62062

Which is what I thought they were originally, but whatever.

Now I just need to figure out how to change the view from 3 days to 5 or 7. :)

Jason

Hmmm. My Weather just sits there at 'Loading...' and never comes up with any information. :(

I checked the properties file, mine looks just like your (except the zip code).

Not sure what the issue is. Probably something dumb I didn't do.

Jason

[JasonJoel]

Is it just me, or do "PM Showers" not work? I know thre isn't an icon, so I copied the "AM Showers" one, and renamed it to PM Showers.png.

Still doesn't show up in the weather report though. Just a blank instead of a picture.

Do you have to restart Sage if you add a new icon?

Jason

[Wheemer]

yes, any image changes require a restart, don't forget to restart the service too if applicable.

[kayoti]

Does this occur with the default STV or only SageMC?

This occurs with the default STV as well - never tried that before. Before Sage, I used PowerDVD to watch my movies. It worked beautifully - except everytime I started it I would have to manually move the app from my PC moniter to my TV. Then I would maximize the app and it would fit perfectly on my TV. I am wondering if this is sort of the same thing - does Sage call up some sort of external app to run the DVD's that doesn't recognize my screen size or something?

[dvd_maniac]

Is there any way to have the external player open for only non-native files?
MyNero Digital *.mp4 files do not play in Sage. However most of my Video Libary is XVID which will play in Sage. I would like everything except for my mp4 files to play in Sage. Is there a way to do this with this STV?

[Watter]

This occurs with the default STV as wellIn that case you can probably get a few more people to take a look at the problem by posting it in the "SageTV Software" forum. You may want to consider submitting a support ticket as well.

[mlbdude]

Is there any way to have the external player open for only non-native files?
MyNero Digital *.mp4 files do not play in Sage. However most of my Video Libary is XVID which will play in Sage. I would like everything except for my mp4 files to play in Sage. Is there a way to do this with this STV?

Sorry, no. I do all my video file watching in ZoomPlayer and all DVD playback in TheaterTek.

[kayoti]

In that case you can probably get a few more people to take a look at the problem by posting it in the "SageTV Software" forum. You may want to consider submitting a support ticket as well.

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll do that.

[JUC]

Any chance of having the My Music section be browsable by folder structure like it was in Mlbdude's original STV?
Thanks
JUC

[mlbdude]

Added version 4. Minor changes. Updated main download.

[jelder]

I originally posted this in the MVP thread as I think it is a MVP client based problem, but is in anyone else experiencing this? I am using Sage MC version 3.

If I play an album or a playlist, it will only play one song and then stop. Occassionally it will actually look like it disconnects for a second from the server. It works fine on the server. Thanks for your help.

[kayoti]

Added version 4. Minor changes. Updated main download.

Bravo for incorporating Neilms Menu!! Thank you very much - I can't wait to tinker ;)

[lyonl]

mlbdude, thanks for the update! I am also one who is glad you incorporated nielm's menus...cool!

[bones71]

Thank you mlbdude for continuing work on this stv. I have one small request I fell asleep wathing a show today when I woke up the stop screen was on and no screen saver, could you fix it so the screensaver comes on? Don't want it burnt into my screen. Thank You for all the hard work.

[abasu2003]

not quite 5/25 yet...

[Opus4]

not quite 5/25 yet...Yeah... but this STV is ahead of its time, so that date is allowed. ;)

- Andy

[mlbdude]

Thank you mlbdude for continuing work on this stv. I have one small request I fell asleep wathing a show today when I woke up the stop screen was on and no screen saver, could you fix it so the screensaver comes on? Don't want it burnt into my screen. Thank You for all the hard work.

Hmm, that is interresting. The screensaver is not something I can get my hands on (as far as triggering it). There is no reason it should have not come up. I would assume video was stopped or paused in the background the the popup was up. This sounds like a Sage core bug.

[bones71]

Thanks mlbdude will check it out and submit a bug report thanks.

[David Lawrance]

Wonder if some of the additional program info that shows up in Cayers might be added, such as ratings.

(For some reason, I am also having a problem with hanging on loading in the weather page, at least while I have the server running (got it to work once when the server module was not running.) Both of my property files are the same.

[ukmgranger]

I just installed version 4 and it seems to be unuseable!
the UI seems to have completely crapped out on me. The background is black and there are no coloured bars when you hover over a menu item.

I have had to revert back to 3 for now. :)

any ideas?

[bones71]

ukmgranger for some reason it is not finding the background file try reinstalling the stv.

[ukmgranger]

Surely that would just cause the background not to load. I am also having problems with green bar that appears when the mouse is over an option. this does not appear, or only occasionally.

I will give another install a try though. :)

[ukmgranger]

Not entirely sure what happened there. I re-installed and all seems fine!?!?

[kayoti]

Not entirely sure what happened there. I re-installed and all seems fine!?!?

Same thing happened to me with a previous release... Turned out the .stv installed itself into ...SageTV/ instead of ...SageTV/STVs/OriginalV2/. Who knows... :rolleyes2

[flashbacck]

Some of the images/menus/backgrounds don't match up with the themes. For example, when bringing up any popup menus the background color is always the bright MCE blue color. And the My Games section is in the original SageTV STV theme.

btw, Is there anyway I can change these things myself? Or do I have to have studio?

[Xsabre]

Wanted to start out by thanking Mlbdude for continuing his work on SageMC stv. Saying that he has done a great job is an understatement.

Just wanted to point out a few bug / features that I have had issue with.

1. After using the internal DVD player and than going to view recorded shows the commercial skip doesn't work. Even with the feature enabled. (Mlbdude, I know you use an external player but thought you may have wanted to look into this.)

2. This is a feature request that was in SageMC 1.01 that Watter worked on. When you have multiple recording of the same shows the date change to "More". Clicking on it listed all the shows. The problem with this is all the shows have the same name (i.e. Modern Marvels) and it is difficult to tell what the show title is. Watter change this to allow the title of the show (Automobiles) and the show name in the upper left corner (Modern Marvels) of the GUI.

I am sure Watter would be happy to give you the underline code for this. Thanks in advance...

[kayoti]

btw, Is there anyway I can change these things myself? Or do I have to have studio?
If by 'changing these things' you are referring to the images, yes. You can change them - just find or create a new image, size it, then save it into the folder the theme is in with the picture's original name.

But if you mean redirecting what images show up where in the stv, then you cannot change these things without Studio.

[JUC]

This goes back to the original SageMC but...is there a way to add batch files to the 'other programs' page? This would help automate a bunch of functions like DVD ripping ---I envision using Cayars DVDrip.bat file to automate that side of things. I think I remember trying to drop the shortcut into the folder but nothing was showing up in the SageUI.
Thanks
JUC

[gplasky]

In the sage properties file there is a line by default installation of SageMC: mlbdude/other_programs=D\:\\temp

You need to change this to whatever directory you want to use. (I use C:\temp) and drop your shortcuts to the program and any .jpg named exactly as the shortcut so it uses that as an icon. SO you could use a shortcut to a batch file no problem.


Gerry

[flashbacck]

But if you mean redirecting what images show up where in the stv, then you cannot change these things without Studio.

:mad: the lack of availability of studio is... irritating.

[JUC]

Well, i got it working, er, i actually had it working. Nice to see that it works for .bat files too! However, for some reason, when I click on the Other Programs button, it brings up the files I placed in the //temp folder. All is fine. But, if I right arrow on the button, it brings up the the smaller window but it is blank. I can't scroll up or down to see the other programs. Any thoughts?
Thanks
JUC

[gplasky]

I think I avoided that issue by using a .jpg for each program. I just did a .jpg of a TheaterTek icon and a Zoomplayer icon. That's all I see. I don't see the files (shortcuts) at all.

http://home.comcast.net/~gplasky223900mi/sage01.jpg

Gerry

[kayoti]

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know ;)

-kayoti

http://img227.exs.cx/img227/1579/kayotimc12gk.jpg

http://img227.exs.cx/img227/4916/kayotimc27qt.jpg

[Bohica]

Hey those look cool! Good job! What proram do you use to design your graphics?

[ukmgranger]

just to have them in colour would be nice! :D

[mlbdude]

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know ;)

-kayoti



Very nice!

[mlbdude]

On the topic of themes, I want to take them one step further. My desire would be to have an XML file in each theme folder that would contain information for font, font size, font color, background colors, and any other item that we can configure. To do this I need a Java class. I don't know Java enough to do this quickly and what I need is realy simple so if someone can create one for me I would apprecieate it.

Here is a sample XML file:

<theme>
<global>
<popup_background_color>#f0f0f0</popup_background_color>
</global>
<start_menu>
<menu_font_name>Arial</menu_font_name>
<menu_font_color>#fffff</menu_font_color>
</start_menu>
</theme>

I just really need one static method:
string GetValue([path], [group], [element])

Ex. GetValue("c:\\theme.xml", "global", "popup_background_color")

[edbmdave]

Ok, I am working on a new skin for MC, here are a couple test shots. I am going for a minimalistic feel, but if you guys have any suggestions/desires, let me know ;)

-kayoti




Humm, Someone has talent. Very nice. Perhaps introduce a little color for the icons. Kind of like the muted colors in an old photo or perhaps think of the coloring in the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or stick with the greyscale. It is very nice...

[heffe2001]

Hmm, a Sky Captain-esque colored theme would be interesting..

Those icons are very nice, but like the others, a splash of color would definitely help bring them out (and very much improve the WAF of the theme, as it stands right now, she'd say it's to manly :p).

[kayoti]

Hey those look cool! Good job! What proram do you use to design your graphics?

I used Maya to model the icons - nothing better than true 3d. Photoshop was used for everything else.

[kayoti]

Thank you all for the feedback. I am agreeing with you all about the Sky Captain idea and am very excited to try it out. Unfortunately I am a busy student so this weekend is devoted to projects... I promise to have a sample for you all first thing next week. Glad you enjoy my work ;)

-kayoti

[kayoti]

On the topic of themes, I want to take them one step further. My desire would be to have an XML file in each theme folder that would contain information for font, font size, font color, background colors, and any other item that we can configure. To do this I need a Java class. I don't know Java enough to do this quickly and what I need is realy simple so if someone can create one for me I would apprecieate it.

Here is a sample XML file:

...Would be fantastic. I would be willing to learn some basic Java.

[Watter]

welchkinsage.jar (http://sage.welchkin.net/downloads/welchkinsage.jar)

Here's a jar file for you, mlbdude. Just drop it in the "jars" directory of SageTV and it will be accessible to the STV. Rather than being tied to this specific function, this class is a more generic XMLUtil that can be used for any XML related work you need. Right now it only has a few basic methods, but I can add whatever capability you would like.

It doesn't use static methods as written because the getValue() method you proposed needs a reference to the document that you want to get the value from. In java parlance, this class would be used like so:

XMLUtil xmlUtil = new XMLUtil();
xmlUtil.parse("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = xmlUtil.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");
You can also pass the document location to the class constructor if you'd like:

XMLUtil xmlUtil = new XMLUtil("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = xmlUtil.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");
You would want to store the created "xmlUtil" for future reference so that you don't have to reparse the xml file every time you want a value.

If you would prefer, I can modify the class to use only static methods. The user code would then be something like:
Document doc = XMLUtil.parse("/location/of/document/to/parse/document.xml");
String value = XMLUtil.getValue(doc, "global", "popup_background_color");
If we went in this direction, you would want to store the "doc" for future reference so that you don't have to continually reparse the doc every time you want a value. There are other ways to work this with static methods that might be a bit more elegant, so if that's what is needed, just let me know.

Finally, will you be retrieveing the values frequently? I would assume so unless you are retrieveing them once and then storing the values for future use. If you do intend to retrieve them frequently, then I would recommend that we wrap XMLUtil in a class that will cache the returned values. Doing lookups on an XML file, even one stored in memory, isn't terribly slow, but it's certainly not fast. One or two lookups won't cause much of a stir, but dozens or hundreds might cause a noticible hitch in UI rendering. Let me know if you're like this wrapper created. It's a simple process.

[mlbdude]

I believe the lookups would be occurring on every page load. Similar to how the properties are read from the sage.properties file. I am not sure if those values are cached or not. I would suspect they are in memory though since the settings seem to be re-written when Sage is closed.

I can see how using a static method could be slow. I can load the XML class on startup and assign it to a global. At that point I would defer to you as to what would work the most efficient. Thanks!

[Watter]

Properties files are cached naturally.

I'll get back to you in a bit with a new jar. I'll wrap the XMLUtil with something that will cache the values in a map so that lookups don't have a chance to become a problem.

[edbmdave]

MLBDude,

On the Recorded TV screen, you currently have a filter for "View All", "View Movie" etc...

How about added one for "View New" that would show programs that have not been watched, or call it "View Unwatched"..

thanks for all the great work.

[Watter]

welchkinsage.jar (http://sage.welchkin.net/downloads/welchkinsage.jar)

A new jar file is in place. This one contains a new class called "SageMCTheme". It's in the package "mlbdude" so it should be referenced as "mlbdude.SageMCTheme".

Somewhere in the code you need to load the Theme xml document. This only needs to be done once. If you need to load a new document for a different theme, just call this method again:
mlbdude.SageMCTheme.loadThemeDoc("/location/of/theme/xml/document/theme.xml");
Then, sprinkled throughout your code wherever needed, you can call:
mlbdude.SageMCTheme.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");
The values will be cached after their first lookup so there's no need to worry about calling this as many times as you'd like.

Let me know if this isn't your prefered usage or naming. I can change it to be whatever is convenient.

[mlbdude]

welchkinsage.jar (http://sage.welchkin.net/downloads/welchkinsage.jar)

A new jar file is in place. This one contains a new class called "SageMCTheme". It's in the package "mlbdude" so it should be referenced as "mlbdude.SageMCTheme".

Somewhere in the code you need to load the Theme xml document. This only needs to be done once. If you need to load a new document for a different theme, just call this method again:
mlbdude.SageMCTheme.loadThemeDoc("/location/of/theme/xml/document/theme.xml");
Then, sprinkled throughout your code wherever needed, you can call:
mlbdude.SageMCTheme.getValue("global", "popup_background_color");
The values will be cached after their first lookup so there's no need to worry about calling this as many times as you'd like.

Let me know if this isn't your prefered usage or naming. I can change it to be whatever is convenient.

All looks great! Thanks for jumping on this for me. I will play with it this weekend.

[skyw33]

Sorry to jump in here with something that appears to be a little off topic but... I would like to see a feature that would allow you to run an external program when the sage screen saver comes on. From what I understand this would be really easy to implement in an STV. The reason I want this is so that I can turn off my monitor whenever the sage screen saver comes on. I can't set this up in the windows power settings because it's not sensitive to when sage is working/sleeping.
skyw33

[kayoti]

All looks great! Thanks for jumping on this for me. I will play with it this weekend.

...If you decide you want to use the XML for fonts and what not, lemme know about it a bit. Or send me a 'dummy' file where I could just fill in the blanks with font/background colors. I would love to incorporate this sort of thing with my skin ;) I will pm you my email address.

[fieldeffect]

A couple of weird things with the mini-guide (i.e. the cut down OSD section displayed at the top of the screen in Live TV which has the program title and description):

The first one is just a curiosity - the top line of the OSD which shows the channel and program title isn't always left justified. The line of text seems to start at random points along the screen as I scroll through channels. It's as if it is trying to centre the text, except that the text is already long enough to fill the whole screen, so it looks like this...


-----------------------------------------------------------------
- 30 Sky One - Star T.. -
- Description of program properly left justified. Blah blah blah -
-----------------------------------------------------------------



... with the position at which the channel number starts being seemingly random.

The second (and more serious) thing is that during Live TV if I press the Up or Down buttons this OSD should appear and let me scroll through channels until I find one I want to change to, at which point I press select and the channel changes. What actually seems to happen is that sometimes neither up or down work at all until I press select, which then shows the OSD. Then when I first press up or down the OSD changes slightly to have an up/down scrollbar on the far left and it then works as expected.

Does anyone else have these problems? Admittedly they're pretty minor concerns.

Cheers,

Nick.

[MTuckman]

:mad: the lack of availability of studio is... irritating.
:bang:
I couldn't agree more... I contacted Frey to see if they are still accepting beta testers and the answer was a very clear NO.

I don’t understand why after being in beta for so long they have yet to release it or just open the beta to a public beta test.

The results so far from the few that have it are very impressive, but it is beginning to bother me that it looks like the early STV developers are starting to lose interest.

In the end the question just keeps coming back to why are they keeping Studio so tightly wrapped up?

Just my 2 cents worth :soapbox:

[MTuckman]

mlbdude:

First... Let me say I cannot tell you how impressive your STV is.

Based on your posts, I guess asking for an enhancement to the progress bar, so that it was similar to the one that Meekel did, from the Teehan+lax interface document?

Anyway... Great work on the STV. Can only hope that someone finds the time and resources (Studio!) to continue to expand tmlbdude:his interface.

[mhatten]

The second (and more serious) thing is that during Live TV if I press the Up or Down buttons this OSD should appear and let me scroll through channels until I find one I want to change to, at which point I press select and the channel changes. What actually seems to happen is that sometimes neither up or down work at all until I press select, which then shows the OSD. Then when I first press up or down the OSD changes slightly to have an up/down scrollbar on the far left and it then works as expected.


Nick...

I am getting the same problem. After a period of watching TV, if I press the up or down arrow, the Minii-guide does not come up. If I have the OSD up on the screen already, the mini-guide works well.

So far its the only problem I've had with this version of SageMC. Other than that, I think its FANTASTIC!

[mlbdude]

The mini-guide is only available during LiveTV. Is is possible that the show is past its end time when you try to bring it up?

[spaceghost]

I love this STV. I have a couple of questions:

1. How do I go "back" a page in any menu? I don't see any back keys, and hitting "back" on the remote takes me to the movie playing. I've also tried hitting "left" on the remote to see if that takes me back a level.

2. How do I enable more detail on the guide? Cayar's was nice because it listed whether a movie was in HDTV or not....see attached files.

[ldavis]

I am very late to the game of comskip and have tried to find a concise how-to for this feature. Specifically how to get the comskip files generated. Unfortunately, I have not had any success. Could someone please point me in the correct direction.

[mhatten]

The mini-guide is only available during LiveTV. Is is possible that the show is past its end time when you try to bring it up?

I feel kinda dumb now. Thats probably the answer.

Lately, when I am watching a show, its time shifted so much it might be after its scheduled end time. Testing it now with almost live tv and the mini guide works fine. I'll try it timeshifted past it its end time to see if I can recreate my problem. Thank for the quick response and great STV!

[bstowers]

I am very late to the game of comskip and have tried to find a concise how-to for this feature. Specifically how to get the comskip files generated. Unfortunately, I have not had any success. Could someone please point me in the correct direction.

Basically, get the ComSkip application and put it in your SageTV directory (the same one that has wiz.bin in it). I'm using v0.64 that I got from here. (http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showpost.php?p=70894)

In your detailed setup, there's a Commerical Skip section at the bottom. You configure it there. Also, while your watching a show, if you bring up the Options menu, you can enabled automatic skipping.

Think that covers the basics.

[ldavis]

bstowers,

Thanks for the help. I remember some of the original comskip banter and as I recall it was kinda complicated. I do not think this could be much easier. One final question. Do the orphaned .log and .txt files need to be manually deleted? Exactly how do these get cleaned up.

[Wheemer]

The txt file contain the locations of the commercials for sage, so you don't want to delete those... Not sure if they'll disappear if the recording is delete though... You can edit the ini for comskip and change verbose=0 and the log files won't get created anymore.

I use dirmon to process the comskip files on another network machine. Works awsome and it will definately clean up files that have no mpg associated anymore.

[ldavis]

Wheemer,

Thanks for the addtional input. I understand what you are saying about using dirmon to cleanup the .txt file. I have tried to set this up and and successful in getting it to differentiate between orphaned and non-orphaned txt files. In the processor section and try to type in "del" but it tells me this does not exist. What am I doing wrong here?

[Wheemer]

Dirmon does the cleanup automatically as far as I know... All I did was setup comskip as a processor with does not exist=txt

If there are existing txt files that it doesn't find mpg files for, it will delete them.

[Wheemer]

When I select an xvid/divx imported video file to play the video takes about 3-4 seconds to start displaying. The audio begins perfectly fine. If I switch back to the default STV the problem goes away... Also if I load the regular SageMC STV there is no problem either. It only shows up with this latest version.

Any Ideas MlbDude?

[mlbdude]

When I select an xvid/divx imported video file to play the video takes about 3-4 seconds to start displaying. The audio begins perfectly fine. If I switch back to the default STV the problem goes away... Also if I load the regular SageMC STV there is no problem either. It only shows up with this latest version.

Any Ideas MlbDude?

divx/xvid seem to load just as fast as Sage recordings for me.

[oshapir]

Hi mlbdude,
It's good to see you you're back working on SageMC STV :clap:

I switched to your 16x9 v4 STV from Watter's SageMC v1.01, BUT I'm missing the small but VERY needed change he did -
when looking in the recorded shows, selecting a show which has MORE (more than one show recorded), will give me a list of Sub Titles of the show and not (as in your STV) a list with the show names, which is the same for all.

It would be great if you could change it... :nod:

(Hope I'm not repeating - didn't check...) :blush:

Thanks,
Oren.

[stanger89]

For those of you who have noticed that using a monolithic XML is really slow (especially if you have a lot of DVDs :D) I tweaked the loader a little so it should be faster. I haven't tried it much, but it seems to work fine for me. I'd say try it at your own risk (of course, it's not really any riskier than using the original :D).

Just replace the current DVDPro2Sage.class file with the attached one. I'd make a backup copy in case it doesn't work for some reason.

[fieldeffect]

The mini-guide is only available during LiveTV. Is is possible that the show is past its end time when you try to bring it up?
Nope. Just confirmed that it happens when a show is live (it was 45 mins into a 1 hour show and totally live). However, i'm wondering if this isn't a Sage thing rather than a SageMC thing...

If I go back to the default STV, I don't get this exact problem, but something that could be related. With the default STV quite often if I try to use Up/Down in Live TV I get a totally blank mini-guide window. Only way to fix is to go into the main menu and back to Live TV at which point the mini-guide is populated again. It looks like the problem in SageMC is just a different manifestation of an underlying Sage bug. Hurrah! (I think :) )

How about the thing with the top line of the mini-guide starting at random positions. Is that a known problem (that definitely doesn't happen in the default STV).

Oh, and one more thing (I just remembered this, but it is so infuriating when it happens. I can't believe nobody has mentioned it before)... When using the SageMC STV, when Sage wants to change channel only the top line of the message is displayed, so rather than:

"Is it Ok for Sage to change to Sky One at 21:00 to record 24?"

I get:

"Is it Ok for Sage t..."

Which means I have to say yes and then go to the main guide to see what the hell it wanted to do :)

Sorry to be critical. This is still far and away the nicest STV available. :thumb:

Nick.

[skyw33]

I have seen some screen shots of the guide in sagemce and sometimes it shows 10 channels of data. My guide shows only 5 lines. Is this a configurable setting or is this specific to the stv?
skyw33

[mlbdude]

Nope. Just confirmed that it happens when a show is live (it was 45 mins into a 1 hour show and totally live). However, i'm wondering if this isn't a Sage thing rather than a SageMC thing...

If I go back to the default STV, I don't get this exact problem, but something that could be related. With the default STV quite often if I try to use Up/Down in Live TV I get a totally blank mini-guide window. Only way to fix is to go into the main menu and back to Live TV at which point the mini-guide is populated again. It looks like the problem in SageMC is just a different manifestation of an underlying Sage bug. Hurrah! (I think :) )

How about the thing with the top line of the mini-guide starting at random positions. Is that a known problem (that definitely doesn't happen in the default STV).

Oh, and one more thing (I just remembered this, but it is so infuriating when it happens. I can't believe nobody has mentioned it before)... When using the SageMC STV, when Sage wants to change channel only the top line of the message is displayed, so rather than:

"Is it Ok for Sage to change to Sky One at 21:00 to record 24?"

I get:

"Is it Ok for Sage t..."

Which means I have to say yes and then go to the main guide to see what the hell it wanted to do :)

Sorry to be critical. This is still far and away the nicest STV available. :thumb:

Nick.

This is a different issue than what I commented on before. This would not be something to do with the STV. Perhaps you are using some custom font settings? What resolution are you running at?

[Xsabre]

Hi mlbdude,
It's good to see you you're back working on SageMC STV :clap:

I switched to your 16x9 v4 STV from Watter's SageMC v1.01, BUT I'm missing the small but VERY needed change he did -
when looking in the recorded shows, selecting a show which has MORE (more than one show recorded), will give me a list of Sub Titles of the show and not (as in your STV) a list with the show names, which is the same for all.

It would be great if you could change it... :nod:

(Hope I'm not repeating - didn't check...) :blush:

Thanks,
Oren.

I mentioned this in an earlier message. Like I said before this should not be difficult to incorporate as Watter has already completed the coding. :thumb:

[mlbdude]

Due to the nature of Studio, anything done in another STV will need to be rewritten from scratch in this one. I do not have any plans on adding this due to time constraints, but you never know.

[Xsabre]

bstowers,

Thanks for the help. I remember some of the original comskip banter and as I recall it was kinda complicated. I do not think this could be much easier. One final question. Do the orphaned .log and .txt files need to be manually deleted? Exactly how do these get cleaned up.

krutaw in the comskip thread created a vbscript the removes all of the orphan files. Very simple and easy to use. Below is the link...

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=66994&postcount=494

Thank u krutaw :clap:

[Xsabre]

Due to the nature of Studio, anything done in another STV will need to be rewritten from scratch in this one. I do not have any plans on adding this due to time constraints, but you never know.

Thanks for letting us know. I can live with that. Like I said before stating that this STV is great is an understatement. Thanks for all your work.

On a side note it seems that Studio is the one that needs to be revamped. Those of you who wish to get your hands on it should be careful what you wish for. Studio doesn't seem to be a very flexible development environment.

[spaceghost]

I love this STV. I have a couple of questions:

1. How do I go "back" a page in any menu? I don't see any back keys, and hitting "back" on the remote takes me to the movie playing. I've also tried hitting "left" on the remote to see if that takes me back a level.

2. How do I enable more detail on the guide? Cayar's was nice because it listed whether a movie was in HDTV or not....see attached files.

bump

[pcuoco]

Spaceghost,

You need to bind a key on your remote to the "back" command in Sage to go back a level.

I don't think there is a way to get more detailed information. Part of mlbdude's plan was to make this a simplified UI, and that carries through to show descriptions.

[Watter]

Due to the nature of Studio, anything done in another STV will need to be rewritten from scratch in this one. I do not have any plans on adding this due to time constraints, but you never know.
Quite true. On my own SageTV setup I have put the new listing methods into the 16x9 version of SageMC. I'll try to get with mlbdude and see if there's a way to put these sections into his base tree.

[fieldeffect]

This is a different issue than what I commented on before. This would not be something to do with the STV. Perhaps you are using some custom font settings? What resolution are you running at?
I'm not doing anything special with fonts. Resolution is 720x576 (i.e. PAL). I'll post a couple of screen dumps tonight.

BTW, i've experimented more now with the mini-guide display problem (the one you originally commented on) and i'm now 100% convinced that it happens under exactly the same circumstances as the similar problem with the default STV. So SageMC is blameless. I'll hassle Frey instead :)

Nick.

[kayoti]

mlbdude - Are you satisfied with and willing to add the XML coding for font colors?

[mlbdude]

mlbdude - Are you satisfied with and willing to add the XML coding for font colors?

Watter is going to troubleshoot something on that first. Then when I get time it will be added.

[fieldeffect]

Ok, here are some screen grabs, and an admission of total idiocy in not seeing what has been causing one of my problems:

cutoff.gif - shows the message where sage asks if it is Ok to change channel. As you can see, it's not very useful. This is running the OSD in 720x576

noprob.gif - Nothing wrong with this one, just an example that shows that not all messages get cut off like the one above. This grab shows a long message which does get properly displayed.

longchannel.gif - Is the problem i've been posting about for the last couple of days and just seen what causes it and felt like an idiot for not spotting it before. It writes the information into four "cells", so if the channel name (bottom left) is very long, it makes the start of the episode name (top right) start a long way across. mlbdude - is there any chance (maybe some point in the future when you're really bored) of having the top and botom lines both start on the left of the screen? In the mean time I can change my XML search/replace tool to shorten my channel names.

Thanks,

Nick.

[kayoti]

Alright, I've been messing with the colors a bit. I tried a few things with the 'muted colors' from the likes of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and it ended up looking pretty bland. Here is a shot with some colors. Let me know what you guys think or want changed...

http://img185.exs.cx/img185/1540/kayotimc39ca.jpg

[ToxMox]

kayoti: any chance you'd be willing to post your source Maya files for the images?

[kayoti]

kayoti: any chance you'd be willing to post your source Maya files for the images?

Sure. Would you want to work together on a theme?

[ToxMox]

I've never used Maya I kind of wanted to have something to tinker around with in Maya to give me an incentive to play with/learn it.

[kayoti]

I've never used Maya I kind of wanted to have something to tinker around with in Maya to give me an incentive to play with/learn it.

;) ...What version do you have? I have 5.0, whose files will not open in 6.

[ToxMox]

6.5 I found a converter here:
http://www.highend3d.com/files/dl.3d?group=mayaplugins&file_loc=mayaFileConverter_10_WIN32_FREEWARE-v1.0-.zip&file_id=2936

That supposedly can convert between versions.

EDIT: we should probably take this conversation to PM land so as not to clutter this thread.

[kayoti]

Let me know how that converter works - hopefuly it will be flawless, then I can finally do my homework at home and bring it to class!

Here are the MyTV and MyVideo files.

MyTV (http://home.ripway.com/2005-4/283671/MyTV.mb)
MyVideos (http://home.ripway.com/2005-4/283671/MyVideos.mb)

Let me know if you have any questions...

[ukmgranger]

Alright, I've been messing with the colors a bit. I tried a few things with the 'muted colors' from the likes of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and it ended up looking pretty bland. Here is a shot with some colors. Let me know what you guys think or want changed...


Looking sweet man. Keep up the good work!! :D

[Naylia]

Hey guys, I saw a comment early on that there didn't seem to be an problems running this on a 4:3 tv. Is that still true, has anyone seen any 4:3 isssues since then?

Also I've been using Cayars v17 and editing what menu items are where and such by playing with the XML, I'm guessing it's possible to do that on all STVs but thoughts I'd ask before trying it out. I'm going for a minimalist look in Sage and don't want to many options not being used which lowers the GAF.

[heffe2001]

I'm using it on my 4:3 right now, with no ill effects (occasionally text is partially cut off on the bottom of the screen, but I need to adjust my overscan.

[Naylia]

Ok, great to hear. I'll give it a shot tonight. I do have a little bit of overscan but hopefully everything will stay inside the bounds of Sage's overscan adjustment.

[kayoti]

Ok, great to hear. I'll give it a shot tonight. I do have a little bit of overscan but hopefully everything will stay inside the bounds of Sage's overscan adjustment.

...And even still if there are any legibility problems (cut off text), you can always change the font sizes in the SageProperties file.

[stanger89]

FYI, I don't know of anything in Sage that would cause this to have trouble on 4:3 displays, it's just that the layout has a little more stuff in it horizontally to take advantage of wider displays.

[Naylia]

But since Sage will squish it into my 640x480 it's probably just that there will be a little unused space at the top and bottom....hopefully....

[stanger89]

Actually it will still fill top to bottom, it will just get squished in sideways.

[Naylia]

Is there a way to edit what menu items are shown?

[mlbdude]

On the main menu you can use the Options command to show or hide any menu item. One of the menus you can show is "My Menu" wich launches into Neilm's custom menu for advanced users.

[stanger89]

Hey mlb, any chance of adding the power button to the show/hide list? I hate getting stuck up there :)

[mlbdude]

Hey mlb, any chance of adding the power button to the show/hide list? I hate getting stuck up there :)

Actually, yeah that is in the next build. With the new themes I can't get it so it wraps anymore. Very annoying.

[Naylia]

On the main menu you can use the Options command to show or hide any menu item. One of the menus you can show is "My Menu" wich launches into Neilm's custom menu for advanced users.

very nice!!! sounds perfect for my needs. :thumb:

[JUC]

Any possibility of bringing back a My Music section that lets you browse by folder structure like we had with Mlbdude's STV? That would solve all my music problems for good.
Thanks
JUC

[ukmgranger]

a small bug:

the sleep button in the top left hand corner of the main screen seems to stay the same size no matter how big the window is that sage is in (when not full screen).

[geogecko]

Probably been asked before, but if I set everything on CA to enable (during sleep, recording, active), will a show that I just recorded, automatically start having CA done, as long as one isn't going at the time the recording finishes?

(I don't actually have an HTPC setup yet, so I can't test it.)

BTW, love the new themes you've got in there.

[Naylia]

Hey guys,

Does anyone know what the font is? Style, size on main menu, is it offwhite or white, etc...?

[kayoti]

Hey guys,

Does anyone know what the font is? Style, size on main menu, is it offwhite or white, etc...?

The Style is Arial. Size varies, but on the main menu I believe it is 18pt. You can check the sageproperties file to see, or change the fonts used in this stv. As for the color - this cannot yet be changed. mlbdude is (hopefully) working on an addition that will allow font colors to be changed.

[theMixxMaster]

Also wondering about font sizes. Does anyone else have the pop-up alert asking to change channels have the font too big, making it hard to see the entire sentence? How can this be adjusted?

[fieldeffect]

Also wondering about font sizes. Does anyone else have the pop-up alert asking to change channels have the font too big, making it hard to see the entire sentence? How can this be adjusted?
See my post #152 in this thread. Nobody responded at all. It's good to know that someone else has the same problem :)

One of the pics I posted shows a long message that is displayed properly, so it's not a font size thing or a general problem with long messages, the pop-up just needs to be bigger. It's STV specific, because the pop-up is fine with the default STV.

I don't understand why more people haven't noticed this. Do people just not watch Live TV?

Surely this can't be a big deal to fix?

[Jason]

See my post #152 in this thread. Nobody responded at all. It's good to know that someone else has the same problem :)

One of the pics I posted shows a long message that is displayed properly, so it's not a font size thing or a general problem with long messages, the pop-up just needs to be bigger. It's STV specific, because the pop-up is fine with the default STV.

I don't understand why more people haven't noticed this. Do people just not watch Live TV?

Surely this can't be a big deal to fix?

I noticed it... but as you said... I may not watch that much live tv. In actuality, my wife noticed it. :rolleyes2

=Jason

[lyonl]

I have noticed this also, but I have also noticed that nobody seems to get an answer about a fix :confused:

[pbennington]

does anyone know if the weather suite in this stv can be used with uk locations? had a look on weather.com but couldn't see the codes for uk?

[RedCoat999]

So with dynamic menus, can I import the WRS for viewing detailed weather info then? How about any comskip, would this work too - or does this need to be built in?
Thanks for keeping Sage alive mlbdude.

[mlbdude]

So with dynamic menus, can I import the WRS for viewing detailed weather info then? How about any comskip, would this work too - or does this need to be built in?
Thanks for keeping Sage alive mlbdude.

Comskip was pretty much part of the SageMC 16x9 release.

You probably could import WRS and then create a dynamic menu item to point to it. Not sure what it will look like though :). let us know.

[JUC]

mlbdude, nielm just came out with dynamic ff/rw via an import module. It works with the original.stv but doesn't seem to take with sagemc. I can import it fine, it shows up in the deatailed setup screen and lets me select the options but doesn't work. Nielm said he is going to look at it but I didn't know if there was something that needed to be done on your end as well to make it work.
Thanks
JUC

[mlbdude]

mlbdude, nielm just came out with dynamic ff/rw via an import module. It works with the original.stv but doesn't seem to take with sagemc. I can import it fine, it shows up in the deatailed setup screen and lets me select the options but doesn't work. Nielm said he is going to look at it but I didn't know if there was something that needed to be done on your end as well to make it work.
Thanks
JUC

Nielm just needs to make sure it works with the SageMC full screen video menu and it should be fine.

[JUC]

Good enough. Thanks
JUC

[Jesse]

Hello,

Well I cant get this to work. I downloaded the version 4 zip file. I closed sagetv and the service. I right clicked on the zip and extracted to Frey Technologies/SageTV. I copied and pasted the lines of code in the first post at the bottom of the Sage.Properties file and saved it. Restarted the computer and sage and went to the detailed setup where I selected the stv option and found sagemc as available. I selected it and sagemc came up. I tried changing to the blue2 theme but no other themes other than the "default" theme were available. I then re-checked the Sage.properties file and found that the code I had pasted in was no longer there????? I closed sage and pasted the code into Sage.properties again. I restarted sage and got a black background with the menu in white. The ui responded very slugishly but I was able to switch back to the sagetv ui. I tried restarting the computer again. No change except that once again the code I pasted onto the bottom of the Sage.properties file was no longer there.

Anyone willing to take a guess at where I screwed up??

Thanks from the newb,

Jesse

[Wheemer]

If you are running in service mode you need to stop the serivce while you edit the properties file... all I can think of.

[stanger89]

You need to put that in the sageclient.properties file (in case you didn't)

[kayoti]

Anyone willing to take a guess at where I screwed up??
..I had a problem similar to this with an earlier version of MCE. Finally I realized that for some reason, the .stv had been unzipped to the wrong folder. Make sure SageMC_169.stv is in the correct folder (...SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2\). Then you will have to reload the stv from that location instead.

Hope that helps ;)l

[wrwaugh]

Mlbdude

Well... I downloaded and tried this STV. I think it is very good looking and has good functionality.

I do, however, have one major problem which will prevent me from using it... lack of mouse controls. I only watch tv on my computer and control it from a mouse. Without a remote I cannot get out of screens and keep getting trapped. Should you put a "back" button or icon on every page I could use it; and would,

Thanks for the continuing efforts.

[Wheemer]

All you really need is a multimedia keyboard with a mouse that has a back button...

[stanger89]

Or Alt+Left

[Jason]

So with dynamic menus, can I import the WRS for viewing detailed weather info then?

RedCoat-

Have you tried this out yet... importing WRS into SageMC?

-Jason

[bones71]

wrwaugh You can map any key you want to the back command I use backspace.

[wrwaugh]

OK, I'll map one. thanks alot all of you

[Jesse]

Hello and thanks for the help,

stanger89,

Are you saying that I need to copy/paste that code into the sageclient.properties file in addition to the sage.properties file, or instead of the the sage.properties file? In the first post of the thread mlbdude says to add it to the sage.properties file. :confused:

kayoti,

Make sure SageMC_169.stv is in the correct folder (...SageTV\STVs\OriginalV2\). Then you will have to reload the stv from that location instead.

I am ashamed to ask, but what do you mean by "reload from that location instead?" I attempted to select the stv in detailed setup. What am I missing? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Thanks again for all the help,

Jesse

[Opus4]

Are you saying that I need to copy/paste that code into the sageclient.properties file in addition to the sage.properties file, or instead of the the sage.properties file?As mentioned on p. 15 of the v2.2 manual (in the service mode section), when running the service, the UI portion uses SageClient.properties. So, any property file changes to affect the STV that is used or other UI-affecting properties should be made in SageClient.properties. BTW: The service doesn't load an STV at all.

- Andy

[kayoti]

what do you mean by "reload from that location instead?"
I was just saying if it turns out the .stv file is in the wrong directory, move it to the correct one. Then in Sage goto Detailed Setup > Advanced > And load the .stv from the new directory you placed it in.

[skyw33]

Yes, I agree. Mouse support would be nice. I've gotten around this issue by using the free mouse-gesture program called stokeit (http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/). I still would like to see the ability to click on the time bar so that you could fast forward to a specific spot, but this program makes mousing great!
skyw33

[Jesse]

Hello Opus and Kayoti,

Thanks again for your help. I will give it another go as soon as I solve some new playback problems that have cropped up.

Jesse

[lovingHDTV]

The one thing I miss in this STV that others have is a way to stop the current playing file. How do I do this? I don't see a close file anywhere.

thanks,

[briands]

The one thing I miss in this STV that others have is a way to stop the current playing file. How do I do this? I don't see a close file anywhere.

thanks,

You use the stop button on the remote. This will bring up an options window on which the fine print reads Press stop again to return to the menu.

[lovingHDTV]

I just bound stop on the remote to the sage stop command. That should work :)

I thought that I had already done this, but a quick check of my girder file showed I was wrong.

[Surtr]

Howdy all -

I'm new to this STV. Love it BTW. I was just wondering - is there a place that people are posting custom themes? I'd love to get my hands on that black and white one that someone posted here which spawned some discussion around a "Sky Captain" theme.

Thanks

-Justin

[kayoti]

Howdy all -

I'm new to this STV. Love it BTW. I was just wondering - is there a place that people are posting custom themes? I'd love to get my hands on that black and white one that someone posted here which spawned some discussion around a "Sky Captain" theme.

Thanks

-Justin
Hehe...yeah. Those will be completed sometime soon. I just have so many other projects to do at the same time. I'm glad you are excited for them though - the motivation I need ;)

[skyw33]

I've sorted my recordings by title and if I have more than one show with the same title it says "More" next to it. If I click one of those shows with the mouse, it takes me to the list of all shows with that same title. However, if I use the select key on my remote, it appears to select twice so that it first goes to the list of shows and then very quickly selects the first show in the list and ends up in the show's detailed information screen. When I hit the back button on my remote, it goes back twice as well! Every time, without fail. I don't think it's my remote because this is the only screen this happens on. Anybody else able to reproduce?
skyw33

[kayoti]

I've sorted my recordings by title and if I have more than one show with the same title it says "More" next to it. If I click one of those shows with the mouse, it takes me to the list of all shows with that same title. However, if I use the select key on my remote, it appears to select twice so that it first goes to the list of shows and then very quickly selects the first show in the list and ends up in the show's detailed information screen. When I hit the back button on my remote, it goes back twice as well! Every time, without fail. I don't think it's my remote because this is the only screen this happens on. Anybody else able to reproduce?
skyw33

What type of remote and receiver are you using?

[skyw33]

What type of remote and receiver are you using?

I'm using USB-UIRT and an inexpensive Philips PMDVR8.

[stanger89]

You don't have enter, left, and/or play mapped to the same key do you?

[RedCoat999]

RedCoat-

Have you tried this out yet... importing WRS into SageMC?

-Jason

Yes, just finished doing this. Got the RSS News Feeds, IMDB, and WRS working through a separate menu that can be accessed throught the main menu by clicking "My Menu".

Unfortunately, my only gripe is that the theme does not carry through to these imported screens. But other than that they work fine.

[pawn]

Hi!

Well, I've tested it enough now to feel there's a pretty major bug with this STV (SageMC169 version 4 as of the writing of this post). Actually, someone else mentioned something simlar in a previous post in this thread.

If random play is set for mp3 playback, at the end of the first mp3 being played, CPU usage vaults to 100% and stays there, and the next mp3 does not play. In fact, the problem persists until reverting back to a known good wiz.bin/properties files or a clean install. I have tested this with a setup that worked flawlessly for months, as well as a clean install of both Sage version 2.2.7 and 2.2.8, same results.

Unfortunately, this STV is my favourite, but this kills it for me.

Thanks,

KJ

[mlbdude]

Hi!

Well, I've tested it enough now to feel there's a pretty major bug with this STV (SageMC169 version 4 as of the writing of this post). Actually, someone else mentioned something simlar in a previous post in this thread.

If random play is set for mp3 playback, at the end of the first mp3 being played, CPU usage vaults to 100% and stays there, and the next mp3 does not play. In fact, the problem persists until reverting back to a known good wiz.bin/properties files or a clean install. I have tested this with a setup that worked flawlessly for months, as well as a clean install of both Sage version 2.2.7 and 2.2.8, same results.

Unfortunately, this STV is my favourite, but this kills it for me.

Thanks,

KJ

I can't reproduce this but will keep an eye out for it.

[pawn]

I can't reproduce this but will keep an eye out for it.

Hmmmm...like I said, fresh install and the same thing. I've got about 2000 MP3's in a single directory, all access through a network share. I wonder if that matches your setup in any way whatsoever. MP3 playback is without trouble under the original v2.0 STV.

[mlbdude]

I do access my music from a network share, however, I do not have that many. One good test would be to see if you get different results using the "Play From Here" menu option. That one does not use a queue or playlist for playback.

[Xsabre]

Can someone please explain how to unarchive a show. Can't seem to find away to do this. :bang:

Thanks..

[mlbdude]

Can someone please explain how to unarchive a show. Can't seem to find away to do this. :bang:

Thanks..

You wish! :) SageTV does not support this.

[skyw33]

Why does my guide screen show fewer lines (5) than the one posted by mlbdude (7)?
See attachments:

[nielm]

Unarchiving...
You wish! :) SageTV does not support this.
but there is a workaroud: see my post on how to associate a file to an airing...
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=10646

basically, if you rename the first part of the filename (the bit before the numeric suffix: "-123456789-0.mpg"), while the server/service is shut down, when Sage restarts, it will see a 'new' file and link it to the old airing using the numeric ID in the filename...

Lots of caveats -- check the above post for full details.

[mlbdude]

Why does my guide screen show fewer lines (5) than the one posted by mlbdude (7)?
See attachments:

Check your properties file:
ui/epg_num_cols=4
ui/epg_num_rows=7

The manual for SageTV should have the full list with what they do.

[Opus4]

Can someone please explain how to unarchive a show. Can't seem to find away to do this.Another way I know of (similar to what nielm said, but w/o renaming) is to move the file to another recording dir while SageTV is closed, as mentioned in this FAQ: I moved a SageTV recording to the library. Is there a way to move it back out of the library and into the SageTV Recordings list again? (It says 'library', but that's because that's what the Recording Detail screen calls it: "Move to Library".) ... at least it worked the last time I tried it. :)

- Andy

[flashbacck]

I know you're not really taking feature requests anymore, but I have one anyway :p. Would it be possible to add the ability to set a preferred tuner for each favorite? I don't mean just setting tuner priorites in the properties file. Is such a thing possible via Studio? I have my Fusion working via Stealth's HDNE plugin and I want to specify my SD tuner for SD shows and HD tuner for HD shows. Thanks.

[Crashless]

I know you're not really taking feature requests anymore, but I have one anyway :p. Would it be possible to add the ability to set a preferred tuner for each favorite? I don't mean just setting tuner priorites in the properties file. Is such a thing possible via Studio? I have my Fusion working via Stealth's HDNE plugin and I want to specify my SD tuner for SD shows and HD tuner for HD shows. Thanks.

How do your channels map? You might be able to restrict your favorites so that they only record on your HD channel, thus restricting it to your HD tuner.

[flashbacck]

N/m it's not really that big a deal anymore. My main concern was that SD shows recorded on the HD tuner end up letterboxed, but I figured out how to edit the aspect ratios so that wouldn't really be a problem anymore.

[flashbacck]

Ok, how about the ability to set tuner priority within Sage? Rather than exiting and editing Sage.properties. Is that possible with Studio?

[mlbdude]

Ok, how about the ability to set tuner priority within Sage? Rather than exiting and editing Sage.properties. Is that possible with Studio?

This is not possible with Studio.

[GbrNole]

nice job on this stv, mlbdude!

finally got my sage running again after 2 months layoff while i remodel and the one new addition that i have never used is comskip.

what exactly do i need to get it running?

i have comskip 1.64 downloaded and i'm assuming that i need dirmon? any special place where this stuff needs to be installed to?

thanks and sorry for being a lazy dumba$$! :p

[stanger89]

Yeah, Dirmon is probably the best way to do it, although I think the STV can do it also (I like dirmon better since it cleans up orphan'd files:)).

Basically just install Dirmon, point it to comskip and your video directory(s), and set up a processor. You'll want something like this:
Command line:
O:\Apps\SageTV\comskip\comskip-0.64\comskip.exe (I have hide checked)
Command line options:
--ini=O:\Apps\SageTV\comskip\comskip-0.64\comskip.ini --videoredo (don't need the --videoredo if you don't want the project files created)

And under triggers I have:
Does exist: mpg OR (nothing)
AND
Does not exist: txt OR vprj (don't want the vprj if you don't have --videoredo specified).

[technazz]

Just an annoyance. When i go to change the whats playing either From My Videos or My TV the OLDVideo info will show up on the TOP of the screen before playing the new one. It displays for abour 2 sedconds then gos black then the new one shows up. It makse you think you selected the wrong file. Is there a way to clear this out so you dont see this anfter selecting a new video?

Technazz

[Xsabre]

After viewing a DVD the comskip becomes disabled even with it enabled in the option view of the recorded show.

Has anybody figured out how to re-enable comskip after viewing a DVD? (Without restarting Sage)

[Naylia]

Hey guys,

I just released a skin for XLobby which integrates pretty flawlessly with SageTV and the SageMC skin (currently only supports Blue Two...the other themes are coming).

Check it out over here (http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3147) and let me know what you think. I'm really trying to make this an option to provide all the funtionality in Xlobby and leave the PVR job to Sage. It even goes stragiht to the My Tv view so you don't have redundant main menus.

I'd especially love your feedback mlbdude and I have an issue with Sage passing focus back to Xlobby, maybe I can work this with you and we can get an option to enable a button on the my tv screen or a custom command that fixes it.

I started a thread for this here. (http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11253)

[pawn]

I do access my music from a network share, however, I do not have that many. One good test would be to see if you get different results using the "Play From Here" menu option. That one does not use a queue or playlist for playback.


I have played around some more, and indeed I have no trouble when using "Play From Here". I've even gone so far as to test with a clean install, pristine properties and wiz.bin files and only about 20 MP3's in a local folder. If I hit the normal "Play This Song", I get 100% CPU. Again, no problems with the orignal V2 STV, nor with "Play From Here". I'm actually a little surprised that nobody else is speaking up, since I can't think of a single thing on my system that would be causing it.

I'm not even sure what the "Play From Here" means. But if, as you say, it has something to do with bypassing any playlists, etc., then maybe it's important to mention I have never set up a playlist in Sage. I'm just shuffling everything in my MP3 directory.

BTW, I enabled logging and when I try to change songs or wait for the shuffle to happen, an endless stream of this occurs:

java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "[Ljava.lang.String;@a072dd"
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.965 at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.965 at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.965 at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.965 at sage.ai$a.if(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.ai$a.access$500(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.ai$26.do(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.u.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.a.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.966 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.a.m.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ai.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.967 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.968 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.968 at sage.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.968 at sage.e.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.968 at sage.e.run(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.968 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.969 EXCEPTION in getValueAsObject:java.lang.Exception: EvaluatorVisitor.getValue(): Error during evaluation
java.lang.Exception: EvaluatorVisitor.getValue(): Error during evaluation
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.969 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.969 at sage.a.m.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.969 at sage.ai.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.969 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.970 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.970 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.970 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.970 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.970 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.973 at sage.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.974 at sage.e.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.974 at sage.e.run(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.974 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.978 EXCEPTION in getValueAsObject:java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -1
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -1
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.979 at sage.ai$f.do(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.979 at sage.a.a.j.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.979 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.979 at sage.a.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.979 at sage.a.k.if(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.a.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.a.d.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.a.m.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.ai.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.980 at sage.k.do(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.981 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.981 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.981 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.981 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.981 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.983 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.983 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.983 at sage.ar.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.984 at sage.c.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.984 at sage.e.a(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.984 at sage.e.run(Unknown Source)
Wed 4/27 17:58:57.984 at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

(etc., etc.)


Either way, I have a fix now ("Play From Here"), so I'm happy to use your beautiful STV, but it would be nice to be sure my wife isn't going to hit the wrong button.

Thanks.

p

[mlbdude]

It basically sounds like there is a size limit on Playlists. I will bring this up with Frey to make sure they are aware of it or if there is a workaround. Thanks Pawn!

[jcato]

First off, great STV! I hope you're still working on it, if so I have a small (I think) request. On the My TV page, where it shows Recent and Upcoming Recordings, it would be nice if it showed hours/minutes if the show time is withing 24 hours instead of 'Today'. Something like

Good Eats.........In 17 min

or

Family Guy............3 hrs 22 min ago

Anyway, I like the look and simplicity of this STV. I think this STV is my best bet to get Meedio and Sage to look seemless.

Oh, I guess one more thing I'd like to see is the date along with the time in the upper righthand corner.

Thanks!

[Jason]

Would it be possible to add/modify things a bit...? :jump:

On the detailed info screens there does not seem to be a specific menu for setting the dont like flag. Yes, I know that I can set up a specific remote code to set it, but with the wife, things need to be specific....

Also, on the Movies 'page', would it be possible to 'change' the sort by title screen to include folders? It is a pain the a$! to scroll through 60+ entries of a specific show only to have to wade through another 60 entries of the next one... With folders, it would seem to be much easier to scroll through the 6000-7000+ shows.

Just my 2 cents...

-Jason

[mlbdude]

I think Don't Like only shows up if you have IR enabled.

[Jason]

I think Don't Like only shows up if you have IR enabled.


Ahhh... you are right... Why is that? If I manually record something, don't you still want/need to update the wiz.bin in case you ever start IR?

-Jason

[mlbdude]

Possibly, but to keep confusion low and to get some space back it is hidden for non IR users :).

[Stuntman]

I just installed SageMC and love the look.. I had been using Cayars 17.. question is this.. For some reason I don't get the comskip options any more.. I don't get "My Menu" as mentioned in some posts and there is no comskip options in detailed settings any longer.. I use the client exclusively, and all worked great under Cayars 17.. any idea where that stuff went?? The server is still creating the comskip files.. so I know they are there.. it's just SageMCE doesn't seem to process them from my client..

Thanks in advance!

[mlbdude]

Well I don't use Comskip so I am not much help there. Here are some tips though. Use the Options command on the Main Menu and throughout the STV to access configuration commands. Also, lots of Cayars was based on most of my early work so I am seeing users have issues when they move from that STV. I would suggest removing all mlbdude/ lines from your properties file to allow this STV to initialize those values.

Also make sure you are using the STV from this thread and not the 1.0 thread.

[flashbacck]

small bug that's probably been reported before: I've noticed that pressing up/down to bring up the miniguide thingy doesn't always work. Exiting to the guide seems to fix it.

[Jesse]

Hello,

I'm still having a few issues with this stv. I downloaded version 4 from post #1 of this thread. I added the necessary lines to my sage properties while sage was closed. I extracted the zip to SageTv\STVs\OriginalV2 and restarted sage. I was able to select the new stv in detailed setup and it looks GREAT. When attempting to change the theme it lists MC, Blue2 and Blue2 S. When I select another theme and attempt to apply it a message box informs me that I must restart the UI portion of sage for the change to take effect. I tried putting sage to sleep and then waking it-no change in theme. I tried closing sage and then re-opening--no change in theme.

The other issue is with the detailed set-up screen/menu. When using this menu I get a strange ghost-like effect in the right side pane. As I move the cursor up and down in the left pane it seems to be slowly fading in and out the various texts in the right pane which makes it pretty much un-readable. If I move the cursor to the right pane it will slowly clear up and in a few seconds it looks pretty much normal. The menu does, however, seem to function normally and I can use it to make setup changes.

Any thoughts?????

Thanks!

Jesse

[JUC]

Jesse, i am having the same issue as you are in regards to switching themes--tells me to restart--i do, and then i still have the same theme as i originally had. Any help would be great.
JUC

[mlbdude]

Are either of you running the service? I have never tested that with the service. All it does when you switch themes is copy the images from from of the source folders to the main images folder. Make sure the images are actually being copied.

[Jesse]

Thanks for the reply dude.

I am not running the service at all.

I am sure this is an elementary question, but what would be the best way to ensure that the images are being copied?

Any thoughts on the ghosting issue in detailed setup?

Even if I cannot get the other themes to work I will still use this stv as it sure beats the original stv. :thumb:

Thanks again for this stv and your help.

Jesse

[mlbdude]

The ghosing issues makes me wonder if this is isntalled correctly. Did you install it to the SageTV folder an allow the zip to create the folders?

The easist image to check for is the background image. You should see it changing each time you change themes.

Detailed setup will not be pretty when setup right but you should not get ghosting (which indicates the default theme can't find the background to use from the path the STV is in).

[Jesse]

dude,

I right clicked on the zipped folder I downloaded. I selected extract all. It then asked where I wanted to extract it to. I then pointed it to c:\program files\freytechnologies\sagetv\STVs\originalV2. I did not create any new folders, I just did the above and let XPpro due its thing. Was this wrong?

Could it be that I added the new lines to my properties files BEFORE I unzipped the new stv? Also note that I had to add the lines to both the Sage properties file and Sage.properties file to get the additional lines saved. If I try just adding and saving them to sage.properties and then restart sage they will not take (ie the file just goes back to it's original state without the additional lines).

Is there a way to remove the stv so I can try re-installing it?

THANKS AGAIN for your help.

Jesse

[mlbdude]

You need to unzip the .zip file to the folder "c:\program files\freytechnologies\sagetv". The zip contains a folder structure that needs to be maintained. You probably have an STVs folder under your OrigionalV2 folder that you are now using and can delete.

[Jesse]

dude,

Looks like I did screw up then. I will see about getting rid of that folder when I get home tonight. Thanks again for all your help.

Jesse