Hardware requirements for SageTV client

[BobPhoenix]

Does it show up under "Human Interface Devices" in Device Manager? If so then it could be a Microsoft compatible remote and you could select that in SageTV to control it. Your remote would also then need to be compatible with a Microsoft remote and the HD200 isn't I believe. Personally I would have gotten a USB-UIRT. It is expensive but will work with any remote including HD200 with a little programming. EventGhost will control it as well.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Does it show up under "Human Interface Devices" in Device Manager? If so then it could be a Microsoft compatible remote and you could select that in SageTV to control it. Your remote would also then need to be compatible with a Microsoft remote and the HD200 isn't I believe. Personally I would have gotten a USB-UIRT. It is expensive but will work with any remote including HD200 with a little programming. EventGhost will control it as well.

In device manager, I see "Microsoft ehome infrared transceiver" under Human interface devices so I believe win7 sees it. I tried selecting MCE in sagetv and that didn't work. Neither did selecting the Hauppage 45 button remote (both with the HD200 remote control).

I'll play around with it a little more. If I can't figure it out, I'll go the USB-UIRT / MS remote route. This HP device was $12 w/ free shipping so I figured it was worth a roll of the dice.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

In device manager, I see "Microsoft ehome infrared transceiver" under Human interface devices so I believe win7 sees it. I tried selecting MCE in sagetv and that didn't work. Neither did selecting the Hauppage 45 button remote (both with the HD200 remote control).
I'll play around with it a little more. If I can't figure it out, I'll go the USB-UIRT / MS remote route. This HP device was $12 w/ free shipping so I figured it was worth a roll of the dice.

You can get a microsoft or compatible remote and control sagetv with it. The HD200 is not compatible as confirmed by your testing. Once you get a microsoft compatible remote like this at best buy you can change SageTV to MCE remote and use your IR reciever. I believe an XBox remote will also work with a Microsoft eHome infrared transceiver anyway but if not I would check with your stores return policy. Or you can get a USB-UIRT and use your HD200 remote.

[gilded07]

using EG, I borrowed a Stream Zap remote and IR receiver from a friend. I installed the sagetv and streamzap plugins in EG and am now going thru the laborious task of assigning all the commands...I figured the plug in would do this but apparently not...ugh.

[gilded07]

my installed client plugins show

commercial detector UI 1.31

and

comskip playback 2.0.14

yet, no commercials marked and no CS graphics showing on the client. Any idea what I need to do to get comskip working on this client?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

my installed client plugins show

commercial detector UI 1.31

and

comskip playback 2.0.14

yet, no commercials marked and no CS graphics showing on the client. Any idea what I need to do to get comskip working on this client?

I would try uninstalling them and reinstalling them maybe do that on the server as well. The commercial detector part (non-UI) needs to run on the server not the client from what I can tell - tmiranda would be a better person to ask however.

I've been having weird issues like this myself. I have 4 servers and three clients. One of the servers is also one of those clients - for itself and the other 3 so it becomes more complicated. I don't see comskip icons and try to reinstall and just when I think I have everything setup correctly I start getting Sage errors saying commercial detector doesn't have needed files and it is disabled. When I get time and all 4 servers are not recording I'm going to remove all plugins and restart the servers as indicated and then install commercial detector from my placeshifter instance on each server and then on my clients. I'm hoping once I get everything on the same version and working my problems will go away.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

using EG, I borrowed a Stream Zap remote and IR receiver from a friend. I installed the sagetv and streamzap plugins in EG and am now going thru the laborious task of assigning all the commands...I figured the plug in would do this but apparently not...ugh.

All the plugin does is define the Sage commands to EventGhost. Since EG can work with any remote and each remote and/or plugin would return it's own event code for a remote press EG can't predefine them. You still have to associate each remote press to a SageTV command. That is why I liked the USB-UIRT and my HD200 remote. The buttons all equate to a specific SageTV command and are labeled as such (except maybe the "abc" button). Once I have the buttons assigned to a plugin SageTV command I then use those commands in EG macros to control SageTV. I also then copy the events to other plugins like TMT5 which I setup much of it by hand. Some from a previous version uploaded to the EG forums but I had to change quite a few commands. I think TMT5 must have updated them because earlier commands didn't work (don't remember which anymore).

[gilded07]

thanx. I figured once you installed the Stream Zap plug in and the SageTV plug in that all the commands and buttons would be matched up by virtue of the specific plug ins for each (remote and DVR software).

two more questions:

1. Is it possible to get EG to turn the client hardware on and off? Like pressing the power button on the HDx00 remote turns the SageTV extenders on/off?
2. Each time I enter the windows account (admin, SageTV, guest) on the client machine, SageTV client software starts up and prompts me to connect to the server via IP address. Can I make the client software auto - connect to the server like the HDX00 firmware does on the SageTV extenders?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

thanx. I figured once you installed the Stream Zap plug in and the SageTV plug in that all the commands and buttons would be matched up by virtue of the specific plug ins for each (remote and DVR software).

two more questions:

1. Is it possible to get EG to turn the client hardware on and off? Like pressing the power button on the HDx00 remote turns the SageTV extenders on/off?
2. Each time I enter the windows account (admin, SageTV, guest) on the client machine, SageTV client software starts up and prompts me to connect to the server via IP address. Can I make the client software auto - connect to the server like the HDX00 firmware does on the SageTV extenders?

You can turn it off because I have that setup on mine now. If you sleep the computer you can flash a USB-UIRT and wake the CPU from sleep with a remote press. I don't know if your equipment would allow you to do anything close to that or not. The off is easy just learn it in EG. The on from power off would take special hardware installed in PC to allow it. The on from sleep might be possible. You can setup to auto-connect Detailed Setup/General last option set to yes will auto connect to server.

[gilded07]

I have the streamzap remote up and running. It doesn't <yet> have the features that the HDx00 remotes do but that's may be a result of my programming. I'm borrowing it until I buy an MCE one off of ebay or amazon. I have some questions about which wireless KB to get but I'll save that for another post.

Follow up questions:

1. Does the client somehow have its own channel logos? I added them manually to the server (v6) when I set it up in 2009. There are a few missing logos on the client but most are there and several are not the ones I installed on the server...at least they look completely different. Am I losing my mind or does the client software provide the logos?
   
2. Whenever I watch live TV, there seems to be small lag time between live and what I'm viewing. It shows up as a little green bar on the timeline. On the sage extenders, I don't see this - the live and viewing are in sync. On the client, it won't let me F-FWD up to what appears to be 'live' TV. Is this normal? Not a big deal but would like to fix it if possible.
   
3. Probably a Win7 tweak but is it possible to get EventGhost to load automatically when I start the computer. Right now, I have a PS2 keyboard hooked up to the client and have to manually start EG.
   
4. Related question, Is it possible to have the client computer boot directly into SageTV client? I have a SageTV client user acct; a guest user acct for kids' gaming and my surfing; and an Admin acct that rarely gets used.
   
5. Is it possible to get the local 4GB of RAM on the client to be used for stuff like movie or album artwork or to otherwise reduce the memory usage on the server? (have just recently been getting memory errors on the XP server w/ 2GB of RAM).

[gilded07]

Wireless keyboard -

Have seen recommendations for wireless KBs on the web but I thought I'd post my requirements or desired features and see if anyone can recommend a KB.

• RF deisred but IR acceptable.
• Backlit.
• Built in mouse functionality like roller ball or touch pad (that actually work). Light gaming capable. Needs to operate from my lap as I won't be using lap desk.
• Long battery life - I assume AA or AAA batteries are the best bet? Better than proprietary batteries. Ability to charge the batteries in the KB is good too.
• I prefer a full sized KB rather than a remote control sized device. I've seen reviews of the handheld devices and iOS / Droid apps but prefer, for now, a full size KB for the family's surfing and light gaming (Roblox and Minecraft).

Other features that I'm forgetting?

Suggestions?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I have the streamzap remote up and running. It doesn't <yet> have the features that the HDx00 remotes do but that's may be a result of my programming. I'm borrowing it until I buy an MCE one off of ebay or amazon. I have some questions about which wireless KB to get but I'll save that for another post.

Follow up questions:

1. Does the client somehow have its own channel logos? I added them manually to the server (v6) when I set it up in 2009. There are a few missing logos on the client but most are there and several are not the ones I installed on the server...at least they look completely different. Am I losing my mind or does the client software provide the logos?
   

1. Sage provides a pretty good selection of channel logos in the EPG system. It will use the logos in the SageTV/ChannelLogos folder first though. You do need to copy these to the client for it to use them (the client is it's own entity, so it needs a lot of that kind of treatment).

   Originally Posted by gilded07

   Whenever I watch live TV, there seems to be small lag time between live and what I'm viewing. It shows up as a little green bar on the timeline. On the sage extenders, I don't see this - the live and viewing are in sync. On the client, it won't let me F-FWD up to what appears to be 'live' TV. Is this normal? Not a big deal but would like to fix it if possible.

   It does have a little extra buffer for client playback, so yes, it won't play exactly to live (neither will the extender, though it does play a little closer - there is an option somewhere to adjust this time, but geting too close to live can introduce playback issues.

   Originally Posted by gilded07

   Probably a Win7 tweak but is it possible to get EventGhost to load automatically when I start the computer. Right now, I have a PS2 keyboard hooked up to the client and have to manually start EG.

   I've never used eventghost, but there is most likely an option in it to have it start at startup, if not, you can adda shortcut to it to the Start Menu -> Programs -> StartUp folder, and it will run when the system logs on. (there's other places to put it to get it to start also - registry keys, scheduled tasks, etc, this is just the simplest)

   Originally Posted by gilded07

   Related question, Is it possible to have the client computer boot directly into SageTV client? I have a SageTV client user acct; a guest user acct for kids' gaming and my surfing; and an Admin acct that rarely gets used.

   If you are just wanting a single account to load it, then just put it in that accounts startup folder. If you want all accounts to run it, either put it in the Public start menu startup folder, or use the setting built into the client (I think it's in detailed setup -> Advanced)

   Originally Posted by gilded07

   Is it possible to get the local 4GB of RAM on the client to be used for stuff like movie or album artwork or to otherwise reduce the memory usage on the server? (have just recently been getting memory errors on the XP server w/ 2GB of RAM).

You can increase the JVM heap for sage in the registry key (search the registry for JVMMaxHeapSizeMB and set it to 400 hex (which is 1024MB). This will help the sage UI not have to swap stuff out as often. Beyond that, the only other thing you can do to make it cache more fanart is to use a more aggressive disk cache (I use fancycache). You can likely get away with about 1GB of fancycache on that system, and it will likely make the entire system more responsive.

[BobPhoenix]

Yes EventGhost can start when Windows starts there is a setting for that. I am at work and don't remember the exact place but try options.

[gilded07]

channel logos - didn't find any channel logos in SageTV folders on the client but was missing two in the EPG so I added them on the client folder and they're all there now. The client must be getting them from the server or from somewhere else in the SageTV client program directory. Regardless, since I added the two manually, they're all showing now

client playbuck buffer - couldn't find the setting in detailed set up to tweak but will keep looking

Eventghost - found in EG where to set it up to load on Windows start up. Works fine

SageTV in SageTV client start up menu - Using MSCONFIG, I unchecked SageTV Client from the all accts start up and then I pinned SageTV client to the start up menu in the sagetv client windows acct and it seem to work how I want now.

Java heap size - using SageTV registry settings.exe utility, several months ago, I upped the heap size to 1024mb and all was fine for awhile. Now, using the Java heap size plug in, I see it getting very high and last several times I looked at the server, I was the memory error and lots of page filing. I only have 2GB of RAM on the server...suppose, adding another 2GB might help?

[Fuzzy]

The client doesn't use the servers jvm heap. It has its own, and you will need to set it's size on the client.