MyHTPC Integration

[sshapiro63]

Has anybody tried integrating SageTV with MyHTPC? It would be nice to have a complete TV/Video/DVD/Audio interface.

Steve

[JJarmoc]

This would be awesome. Hopefully someone has tried it, or can steer us in the right direction.

[Mark Lamutt]

What is MyHTPC?

[sshapiro63]

MyHTPC is a very nice Home Theatre PC frontend program. Take a look here:

http://www.myhtpc.net/

[dkardatzke]

We are already looking into it...we'll keep you posted.

[Omegadsl]

Intergration with MYHTPC would be great .

[JJarmoc]

Man, you guys are all over everything.. network support, multituner, hidef, myhtpc, xmltv.. It seems like everytime someone mentions something, you're already looking at it! How the hell do you do this?

[dkardatzke]

Ask Jeff, he seems to be able to write code faster then I can keep the website updated with the new features....

[JJarmoc]

Seriously..

For a project with basically one developer (am I wrong there?) it seems development is flying along at an incredible pace. I've seen commercial projects with a dozen or more developers move slower. I don't know if it's a reflection on coding skills, organizational skills, sheer will or what, but you guys are amazing.

[Mark Lamutt]

You should have seen these guys go during the initial beta testing! Jeff constantly amazed us...

[Narflex]

Apparently I'm able to write code very fast. When I'm actually dedicated to doing it, I can produce about 150-200,000 lines of code a year. The average US developer does around 12,000.

I've also been writing code since I was 9 years old, so I've got some experience.

The other huge advantage is that with essentially one developer (others have written plugins like xmltv, and DirecTV serial control) is that you don't waste any time in discussion, meetings, arguments, interfacing, etc. because there's no one to have them with.

There's a book called "The Mythical Man Month" that talks about this theory in depth. One of the basic theories is as you increase the number of developers on a software project, quite often you'll just end up increasing the amount of time it takes to get the project done. Because more people means more meetings and more communication and more differences to deal with.

I also use the product and directly see the benefits of all my work, so I'm highly motivated. There's not too many software developers that end up writing code for 50 hours and then spend another ~30 hours using the software a week. Of course, most people don't get to test their software by watching TV.

[pscs]

For myHTPC 'integration', why not just add a 'Programs' item to myHTPC called 'TV', and make it run

SageTV.EXE -awake

Then, when you've finished viewing, press 'Z' to put it back to sleep.


The only problem with this is that there seems to be a bug in myHTPC at the moment where any parameters to the programs don't work

But, once that's sorted, does anyone see any problems with this 'solution'?

[mlbdude]

Originally posted by pscs
For myHTPC 'integration', why not just add a 'Programs' item to myHTPC called 'TV', and make it run

SageTV.EXE -awake

Then, when you've finished viewing, press 'Z' to put it back to sleep.


The only problem with this is that there seems to be a bug in myHTPC at the moment where any parameters to the programs don't work

But, once that's sorted, does anyone see any problems with this 'solution'?

All I did was add -awake to the program command line. Works great. The only problem is that when I put SageTV back into sleep mode, MyHTPC does not have the focus set to it so I have to click on it once to give it focus.

[pscs]

Originally posted by mlbdude
All I did was add -awake to the program command line. Works great.

Yep, I found out that it was the way I was adding '-awake' that wasn't working (a bit unintuitive in myHTPC)

Originally posted by mlbdude
The only problem is that when I put SageTV back into sleep mode, MyHTPC does not have the focus set to it so I have to click on it once to give it focus.

Yes, I've found this as well - I've spent a while trying to work out how to give myHTPC the focus back, but have failed, so I've asked about it on their forums. To me, this is the only issue, otherwise it works great.

[Crazedz]

Well if you're useing a remote with girder their is a focus command that can be put in to switch focus from one app to another that can be used to bring Myhtpc back to focus.

[pscs]

I'm going to try that, because someone on the myHTPC groups suggested that as well, but I've written my own program to try to bring myHTPC back to focus and it doesn't seem to work on Windows XP (it seems to work OK on 98 & NT though) due to new security restrictions.

I'm not using Girder for my IR control because I loathe its auto-repeat & anti-repeat functionality, so I have my own program to handle the IR controls as I want (ie in the same way that your average TV/video/HiFi works, rather than the slightly bizarre way that Girder works. But, if Girder can bring myHTPC back to the front, I'll either be able to monitor how it does it, or use it for that bit of the required functionality.

[JJarmoc]

Perhaps this is an area where Jeff could help? What i'm thinking is that possible there could be an option for which program SageTV will give focus to upon going into sleep mode.

[ku71]

Interesting thread... I had the same problem today. This is for a PVR 250, myHTCP and SageTV integration:

go to
notepad c:\windows\irremote.ini

under [Applications], add
htpc=

under [Default], add or change
YELLOW={run(c:\progra~1\FREYTE~1\SageTV\SageTV.exe -awake)}
BLUE={run(c:\progra~1\myhtpc\myhtpc.exe)}

add this to the end of the file

[htpc] 
0=0 
1=1 
2=a 
3=d 
4=g 
5=j 
6=m 
7=p 
8=t 
9=w 
CHNLUP={up} 
CHNLDOWN={down} 
OK={enter} 
SOURCE= 
MINIMIZE= 
FULLSCREEN= 
RESERVED= 
GRNPOWER={alt}{f4} 
BACK={bs} 
GO= 
MENU={run(C:\Progra~1\Intern~1\IEXPLORE.EXE)} 
RED={alt}{tab}
GREEN={pgup} 
YELLOW= 
BLUE={pgdn} 
MUTE={app(0x80000)} 
VOLUP={right} 
VOLDOWN={left} 
REC={app(0x300000)} 
STOP={numpad5} 
PAUSE={app(0x2f0000)} 
PLAY={space} 
REWIND={app(0x320000)} 
FASTFWD={numpad6} 
SKIPFWD={ctrl}{shift}f 
SKIPREV={ctrl}{shift}b

(the last section has been stolen from the myhtpc forum)

Done... now leave each program using the green "power off" button on the remote. Sage will go to sleep, myHTPC will terminate. When on the desktop, use the yellow or blue button to launch sage or myhpc

[siberianh]

Maybe its just me, but I would think that integration could be done fairly quickly, and would satisfy most of my needs.

For the Creative DVCR myHTPC can produce XML files that are handed off to various commands to schedule shows and change the current channel. If Sage Recorder could handle the XML .tvvi and .tvwi files (I think those are the extensions) for changing channels and scheduling recordings (The creative card has numerous utilities that already do this) then we'd be 80% of the way there.

If a way could be figured out to delete a scheduled recording (maybe a command field in the XML with "DELETE" or something just as stupidly simple) then I'd be first in line to buy Sage Recorder.

I'd use myHTPC's EPG to schedule the shows and view the produced files.

[JJarmoc]

Siberianh -

That seems to me like a pretty complex way to avoid buying SageTV. Why not just use SageTV and it's integrated episode guide?