Better Mouse Trap ??

[mightyt]

I've been wondering ... hanging in the forum for a about 5 months now and then the subject of Music Jukebox comes up. Seems like folks just chuckle about it. Ligitimatly our focus has been the core PVR function and UI, however, we now get cool STV's with great Weather plug-ins and News Feeds, even Custom Menus and on and on. Has anyone considered, or is anyone actually working on an improved Music component? I know we also talked about hooking in to an external program, but with all the talent here I can not believe someone isn't working the idea.

Is this on anybodies To-Do list or will we have to wait for SageTV 3 ??

Who will beild the better mouse trap ... :jump:

[ukmgranger]

I think thats a great thought!:nod:

The only media player that I'm happy with is iTunes. The only problem with this is the fact that it doesn't have a 'TV mode'. I've tried Jriver media center and it's just not that hot. The TV mode is also appalling (very hard to search for things).

I have 40 gigs worth of CD's that I've ripped in and would love to be able to listen to them from within Sage.

I am part way there with iTunes listed in my Sage menu, but its just a little difficult to see it on the TV.

One of you brain boxes must be working on something............:jump:

[salsbst]

mightyt, don't feel you must believe what you cannot.

I like J River Media Center for its organizational features.

[JasonJoel]

Well, and that has been my contention from the beginning.

Given 5 years, I doubt Sage would ever make a music program better than J River Media Center. It is awesome.

So as opposed to them wasting (my opinion) a bunch of developer time making their own media program I would be much more interested if we could get a plugin make to interface with J river's API.

Meedio does exactly this, and it works AWESOME! Seemless. Plays in Meedio 'natively', but you never leave Meedio. :)

Jason Bottjen

[salsbst]

Last time I looked, I was not a fan of the myHTPC integration with JRMC. No access to view schemes IIRC. It worked on the principle of exporting your JRMC library data into Meedio format. I'm interested in something more like Theater View from JRMC, except hosted within the SageTV STV.

[mightyt]

Actually I am open to both ...

1 - The ability to plug-in another robust music product. (though I'd hate to have to spend more money on what Sage is intending to provide.

2 - Also, I wonder if anyone can again "build a better mouse trap" ... thus have a Sage look and feel Music Jukebox replacement. I mean Weather, Weather Report Suite, News Feeds, and other Sage capabilities have been built by others. Wondering if any focus is being put here.

T.

[stanger89]

2) Is essentially what Stuart (and I) are thinking, a Sage interface that makes use of JRMC as the "backend" it would look like Sage, but have JRMC functionality.

[mightyt]

2) Is essentially what Stuart (and I) are thinking, a Sage interface that makes use of JRMC as the "backend" it would look like Sage, but have JRMC functionality.

Excellent, thank's Stanger89 ... That would be most desirable ... now the question is ... is anyone either seriously considering or actually working on this?

Thanks ... T.

[salsbst]

essentially what [we] are thinking
is anyone either seriously considering or actually working on this

thinking -- seriously considering -- working on -- what's the difference? :)

[mightyt]

thinking -- seriously considering -- working on -- what's the difference? :)

Nothing ...Guess I am prodding the STV gods ... :rolleyes2

Hoping for an "affirmative" response that someone is actually going there, doing it now or seriously considering it ... vs. ... no, not interested ... :confused:

T.

[salsbst]

Sorry to tease you -- your enthusiasm is heartening.

Yes, we're actually working on it.

[mightyt]

Sorry to tease you -- your enthusiasm is heartening.

Yes, we're actually working on it.

Excellent ... !!!! Ah, and yes my enthusiasm is only overshadowed by my gratitude ... Thanks to you and the others taking on the challenge ... I will now go on standby with something to look forward to! :corn:

[briands]

Any progress on this? I'll have some spare time around the house next week.

[sleonard]

2) Is essentially what Stuart (and I) are thinking, a Sage interface that makes use of JRMC as the "backend" it would look like Sage, but have JRMC functionality.


:clap: :jump: :clap: :jump: :nod: :goodjob:

This would make Sage just about perfect and its just about the only major feature I'm missing in Sage. Years ago I spent weeks ripping a huge CD collection into 192Kb WMA. I used up a large portion of my free time last spring re-ripping to WMA lossless when it was made available. I am not about to spend that much time re-ripping yet again, esp. to MP3. The cost of JRMC is far less than the time it would cost me.

Care to share any details of this wonderful project? I have never used JRMC so I am having a hard time picturing how it would work or look.

[briands]

:clap: :jump: :clap: :jump: :nod: :goodjob:

I am not about to spend that much time re-ripping yet again, esp. to MP3. The cost of JRMC is far less than the time it would cost me.



You don't have to re-rip to MP3. There are applications that will convert your WMA rips to MP3. This is what I have done until someone figures out how to use a better format with SAGE. Of course that means I'm wasting about 40gigs on redundant files.

[JUC]

How is this coming? JRMC integration would be great. I am using it now but unfortunately the theater view doesn't support CD ripping or burning. If it did, or if a plugin did it now that would be awesome!
JUC

[salsbst]

This project stalled a bit due to real world occupation. My fault.

As of now, I have no plans to implement CD ripping or burning, but won't stop someone else from doing so. I'm pretty sure that it would take some fancy footwork since JRMC doesn't expose those features via its COM API.

[GbrNole]

anyone taken a look at Got Tv Media recently?

that pretty much has every function that i really want with a good music filing system with cd burning ala mce2005, local (iso's avi's etc) and filed dvd profiler support (so i can still browse the library and insert a dvd when it asks) and the standard picture viewing plus the obligatory pvr ap.

only problem is i don't want to use GTM!!!!! :D

[mightyt]

Any progress on this? I'll have some spare time around the house next week.


Thanks for resurrecting this brainds ... With the release of 2.1 and everyone (who can) creating and porting over STV's it would be an excellent time (or should I say opportunity :) ) to build that better mouse trap ...

T.

[briands]

Since I am looking for the music functionality to replace my 200CD changer, have high WAF and be useful on a 25" 10yo TV. I thought I'd try out JRiver and the "Theater" display mode. Not thrilled with Theater mode as it has limited functionality. For example there is limited ability to manage playlists. But for the STB replacement functionality that I am looking for here, I think it will work OK.

So I decided to modify the menu in Cayers Handy Dandy (TM) STV (which is GREAT BTW :thumb: ). I decided to replace all of the SAGE music disfunctionality with that of JRMC so I added the following to the menu file...


<actionMenuItem
title="Music"
icon="STVs\OriginalV2\cayars\speaker.png">
<actionList>
<sageCommand command="Power Off"/>
<extCommand
window="normal"
command="mjextman.exe /mode[theater]"
arguments=""
waitforexit="1"/>
<sageCommand command="Power On"/>
</actionList>
</actionMenuItem>

But I get an error message whenever I select the menu option. :bang:
Windows can not find 'mjextman.exe /mode[theater]' make sure you typed the name correctly and then try again.

If I put this in start>Run it works just fine. The rest of the menu option works fine too, Sage goes to sleep, then I get the error message and when I dismiss the error, Sage comes back in the home menu. The only problem I see (assuming I can figure out my current hang up) is that it is a bit slow in transition.

Any thoughts??? Please!

Or maybe Frey will eventually fix there jukebox so I don't have to buy other software to replace one of the advertised features :clap:

[nielm]

try:
command="mjextman.exe"
arguments="/mode[theater]"
(and if that doesnt work put the fill path to mjextman in the command="" line)

[briands]

try:
command="mjextman.exe"
arguments="/mode[theater]"
(and if that doesnt work put the fill path to mjextman in the command="" line)

Thanks neilm, but I tried only

command="mjextman.exe"

with no arguments and I also tried to put the whole path, c:\windows\system32\mjextman.exe and got the same error message...

What is confusing is that all of these work in start>run...

:bang:

I also tried c:\program files\... \mediacenter.exe but got the same error.

When I get home, I will try something obvious like solitair.exe to see if that works...

[briands]

It's pretty slow during the transition, but I got it working.

I copied the path from the desktop shortcut properties and it works OK now. I do not know if I can use the /mode[theater] attribute, but I have the MC properties set up to start in theater mode.

My Snapstream remote works fine with the transition. The Exit key closes JRMC and Sage wakes back up.

Issues:
Slow to transition, but no worse than when I was using an CD changer...

Can't access sage Photos or weather with music playing

That's about all for now, it is not a final solution, but it will do until there is another way to support lossless with Sage.