Screen Saver to Shut off TV

[phantomfsoc]

One feature I've wanted on Sage since day 1 was a sleep timer that is able to shut off the TV. Its been asked for many times and some even say its possible but no one has it. I was messing around with Sage the other day and did the Screen Saver Slide show http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...t=screen+saver
Now I'm wondering if it is possible instead to set Sage to send out a USBUIRT command when it goes to sleep to turn off the TV.
In my head it doesn't seem that hard to do;
Set the command in the USBUIRT settings in sage
Then in Studio instead of showing a screen for a screen saver after 15mins or so it sends out the command.
But since I have no clue on how to do it, its probably not as easy but if someone can do it, it would be awsome. I and others would love the fact that we aren't burning out our screens after passing out watching the simpsons all night.
Anyone have an Idea??
Thanks

[Opus4]

Perhaps you could look into using the AfterMenuLoad hook in the ScreenSaver menu (That's the menu always loaded when the screen saver kicks in) & have an action there send an IR command to turn the TV off. Then, you could use a BeforeMenuUnload hook to turn the TV back on when exiting the ScreenSaver menu.

- Andy

[phantomfsoc]

Thanks opus, I've been plying around with it but programing just ain't my thing. I'll keep at it

[Humanzee]

Go phantomfsoc go,

This will be a great feature. I have a usbuirt, but I only use it to change channels on my set top box. Can Sage Learn IR commands from your other device remotes to control things other than just channel changes or do you have to use Girder or somthing to do that?

Some TV sets have descreet IR commands for On and Off so that you can better control what exactly happens when. Because you wouldn't want to get out of synch. Imagine sitting down to watch tv and grabbing the TV remote to turn it on, and then hitting a button on your sage remote just to have it turn the tv off. I guess you'd learn quickly.

It seems like you might want or need this to be a completely seperate function from the screen saver. I.E. A seperate timer that will put sage to sleep and turn off the TV via IR command after a certain amount of time and turn everything back on again when you hit the power button.

I kind of like having a screen saver for a while, but if the time gets excessive then maybe have it turn off the tv.

I posted in the thread about the slide show screen saver about looking for a way to put sage to sleep Vs. running the sage screen saver.

If I can put it to sleep then, I can use the windows screen saver to do this. Then when the powersave timeout is reached it will put my computer into stand by and my new flat pannel LCD screen (which is basically a big computer monitor) into suspend mode, which should be basically like turning it off. Either way it will be better than burning extra hours on a monitor or tv that isn't in use.

Im not sure how the sage tv service works with windows power saving features though. Will the Sage service reinitialize the monitor when waking if it is going to make a recording and the computer is in standby? I don't think I want my monitor turning on and off all night long while it records various shows.

Idealy, I'd like for a windows screen saver to activate instead of sage's and then after a set amount of additional time the monitor/TV would turn off. But I think FSE disables the windows screen saver and power saving features.

[Opus4]

There is an option in Detailed Setup -> General for turning off SageTV's screen saver.

You can learn extra IR codes via the USB-UIRT, but by default, SageTV doesn't use it for anything other than channel changes. Note that I haven't tried what I mentioned above, but there is an API call for emitting an IR code.

Also (assuming it works), you could get more fancy in that ScreenSaver menu & have it delay a while before turning the TV off... and remembering whether it did so, so that it will know whether to turn it back on or not before exiting that menu.

- Andy

[briands]

If there was a way to send IR commands either tied to events or tied to specific received IR codes, that would be great ... look honey only one remote

Power on / off TV, receiver or any other IR device even window shades, IR dimmers, screens and masking...

Utilize audio receiver volume control/ muting

Personally, I would like the following

Power on/ Off of TV and Receiver

Volume up / Down to receiver

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by briands

If there was a way to send IR commands either tied to events or tied to specific received IR codes,

So you are talking about macro's built in sage and not in your remote. That might work, however, I suspect that there could be interference with your signal being recieved, and the one that is retransmitted by the USBUIRT. Maybe some Delay.

There is a program called Girder that does this sort of thing, but I don't own it or know how well it works. http://www.promixis.com/products.php?section=girder

Still it would be nice if more expanded control of IR devices could be handled directly by SageTV.

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

So you are talking about macro's built in sage and not in your remote. That might work, however, I suspect that there could be interference with your signal being recieved, and the one that is retransmitted by the USBUIRT. Maybe some Delay.

There is a program called Girder that does this sort of thing, but I don't own it or know how well it works. http://www.promixis.com/products.php?section=girder

Still it would be nice if more expanded control of IR devices could be handled directly by SageTV.

I would think with Girder all that stuff would be possible (it's pretty powerful), but Girder isn't the easiest program to use (although at some point it'll all just click, and then it's easy to configure). It should be fairly easy to map the power button on your remote to whatever function you want though.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Opus4

There is an option in Detailed Setup -> General for turning off SageTV's screen saver.

Ok I got it to turn off, but setting the time out to zero wasn't intuative. Thanks for the tip cause the manual is a little vague too.

[briands]

Thanks for the info, but I am aware of girder... I just don't want to pay another $30 for each client for this functionality. Not to mention it would be one other program to install, configure and maintain.

The thing is Sage already has the core functionality to understand and send IR commands. If that were extended a bit, it would allow a lot of users to ditch a tv remote and use whatever they had available (eg snapstream, non programmable that was purchased with a Sage bundle).

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Ok I got it to turn off, but setting the time out to zero wasn't intuative. Thanks for the tip cause the manual is a little vague too.

Actually, I meant the "Screen Saver on Sleep" option... disable that & it won't use the screen saver. But, I guess the timeout option could be used too.

- Andy

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Actually, I meant the "Screen Saver on Sleep" option... disable that & it won't use the screen saver. But, I guess the timeout option could be used too.

- Andy

I thought that would start the screen saver when you hit the power button on your remote, vs. minimizing it to the system tray. Setting the time out to zero changes the dialog to say "disabled" which you can't select otherwise. Now the windows screen saver takes over when sage is idle. I'm not sure about that when FSE is enabled though. I turned it off a while back because it seems to stop sage from working after about 10 minutes.

Im going to build a new HTPC box after my new LCD TV arrives, hopefully I can get this all worked out then. FSE definately helped with tearing and studdering. Not so noticeable on the SDTV but shows up on the 15" vga quite clearly.

[briands]

Originally Posted by Opus4

There is an option in Detailed Setup -> General for turning off SageTV's screen saver.

You can learn extra IR codes via the USB-UIRT, but by default, SageTV doesn't use it for anything other than channel changes. Note that I haven't tried what I mentioned above, but there is an API call for emitting an IR code.

Also (assuming it works), you could get more fancy in that ScreenSaver menu & have it delay a while before turning the TV off... and remembering whether it did so, so that it will know whether to turn it back on or not before exiting that menu.

- Andy

Would this be TransmitCommandUsingInfraredTuningPlugin?
public void TransmitCommandUsingInfraredTuningPlugin(java.lang.String TuningPlugin,
int TuningPluginPort,
java.lang.String RemoteName,
java.lang.String CommandName,
int RepeatFactor)Causes SageTV to instruct the specified tuning plugin to send a command

Parameters:
TuningPlugin - the name of the tuning plugin that should send the command
TuningPluginPort - the name of the port the specified tuning plugin is on
RemoteName - the name of the 'Remote Control' that should be used to send the command
CommandName - the name of the command to be sent
RepeatFactor - the 'repeat factor' to use for sending the infrared command, 2 is the default

Where would one find the details of "Command Name"?

This also assumes that you have a tuner setup to use your USBUIRT for tuning, which I do not. So it might not work anyway.

[Opus4]

Yes, that would be the API call I was referring to, but it has to be used on the server, not a client.

I believe the command name is one of the commands defined in the .ir file. (Or: one of the commands you see via the SageTV UI when adding or testing the commands.)

- Andy

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by briands

Would this be TransmitCommandUsingInfraredTuningPlugin?
public void TransmitCommandUsingInfraredTuningPlugin(java.lang.String TuningPlugin,
int TuningPluginPort,
java.lang.String RemoteName,
java.lang.String CommandName,
int RepeatFactor)Causes SageTV to instruct the specified tuning plugin to send a command

Parameters:
TuningPlugin - the name of the tuning plugin that should send the command
TuningPluginPort - the name of the port the specified tuning plugin is on
RemoteName - the name of the 'Remote Control' that should be used to send the command
CommandName - the name of the command to be sent
RepeatFactor - the 'repeat factor' to use for sending the infrared command, 2 is the default

Where would one find the details of "Command Name"?

This also assumes that you have a tuner setup to use your USBUIRT for tuning, which I do not. So it might not work anyway.

Yes, this is the correct API, I use it in my SleepTimer plugin to send IR codes when the timer goes off.
As far as I know it only works on the server, but not on a client.

CommandName is the name you specify when learning the new IR command (Setup Video Sources -> Select Source -> Tuner Control -> Learn New Command).

Dirk

Edit: oops, didn't see Andy's reply before submitting ...

[briands]

Thanks you both... unfortunately, since it only works on the server, it is of no help to me...