STV Import: Slim Player for SageMC (for SageTV 6.3+)

[ESkel]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

You need to LOAD SageMC_169.xml as the STV and then IMPORT sagetv_slimplayer_import.xml.

I loaded SageMC_169.xml
The screen was very unresponsive
I had a black background with white lettering.

There was no highlighting of anything when I used the up/down controls.
When I hit the select button, I had no idea what item I was on.

Backed all the way out and reinstalled the original SageTV3.xml

Any other suggestions???
Eric

[Morgan111]

Your are saying that SageMC by itself is not operating correctly? Did you download the full version (as opposed to the update version) and unzip all of that to the SageTV/SageTV folder? If that is is what you did, did you also try restarting Sage after you had loaded the SageMC STV. Seems that I sometimes see strange display behavior until I restart.

[ESkel]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Your are saying that SageMC by itself is not operating correctly? Did you download the full version (as opposed to the update version) and unzip all of that to the SageTV/SageTV folder? If that is is what you did, did you also try restarting Sage after you had loaded the SageMC STV. Seems that I sometimes see strange display behavior until I restart.

Yes I downloaded and unzipped the full SageMC in the SageTV directory.
Stopped and started the server.
I'll have more time to troubleshoot with today being the last of work for the week.
I know there is a debug log file, is there something in it I should be looking for.
I have been working with JAVA and C++ for 15+ years.
I would like to help out with some coding if possible.


Eric

[michaeldjcox]

Just installed this and its looks great.

But I cannot see any channels to navigate.

Any ideas pls?

[mbowe]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

I do have an updated import file here that should support the loopback feature for the Extender.

....

Try this new import out from below and see if there are any real problems that anyone runs into. If/when it looks satisfactory I will update the main installation.

Morgan

MORGAN!!! You are the man, Slimplayer is working great on my extenders, I'm one happy dude.

I finially got to work on it tonight. Had to wait for the family to hit the sack so I could take control of my loopback tuner to validate things were working. And, they are working well, I'll have to return my loopback tuner to dedicated service now.

A few issues/comments, 1) When using the search feature, I can't seem to move to, or modify, anything beyond the first character. 2) My Sage launched Slim Player seems to have lost connection on a few occasions, the UI populated with question marks and I had to restart Sage to correct. But, I was messing with a few things so it may have been unrelated. I'll keep an eye on things, to see if stability improves when I'm not dinking around. But, it's all local high-speed network so I wouldn't think I should be seeing disconnects like that. 3) When I first enter into the Slim Player UI and navigate to something of interest, the first 'Play' attempt seems to only sync/connect with SqueezeCenter. I have to hit 'Play a second time to kick things off. 4) And lastly, I could not get the SageMC Music -> Submenu to populate during the import. I'm running SageMC 6.3.8 with your Netflix and MovieTimes imports and the CenterSage theme as an FYI.

Anyways, I really appreciate your focus here, as well as over in the Netflix and Movietimes worlds, it all makes a good product much more valuable and fun at the same time.

Thanks again, let me know what I can do/provide if you have any questions.

-mike

[mbowe]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Just installed this and its looks great.

But I cannot see any channels to navigate.

Any ideas pls?

You might just need to create/add to favorites, and/or, create playlists to see what you're looking for. You also may need to familiarize yourself with how the navigation works in the small Slim Player UI. If it's a new UI for you, you might want to spend a few minutes working in the standalone SoftSqueeze player to get a hang of it.

Once you've done that, you enter the Slim Player submenu in Sage, hit the navigate button and work within the small Slim Player UI, basically moving up and down quite a bit and then 'righting' into areas of interest until you're quite a few layers in, once you find what you're looking for, hit enter, you return to the Sage UI, and then need to move the Sage UI cursor up to the Play button to kick things off. You can also 'right' over from low level items in the Slim Player UI and find a 'Add to favorites' option that you can again 'right' over on to add those items to your favorites.

Once you done added a few favorites, you can use the filter on the bottom of the Sage menu to the left, select favorites and you'll see channels of interests, etc. You can also edit your list of favorites from within the SqueezeCenter UI.

[ESkel]

Originally Posted by mbowe

MORGAN!!! You are the man, Slimplayer is working great on my extenders, I'm one happy dude.

-mike

What are you doing that I'm not???
I get a black backdrop with the menu in white letters.
I have no highlight to move up or down.
Tried this twice with no luck.

What is the loopback tuner???

Eric

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by ESkel

What are you doing that I'm not???
I get a black backdrop with the menu in white letters.
I have no highlight to move up or down.
Tried this twice with no luck.

What is the loopback tuner???

Eric

Are you seeing anything show up in the slimplayer faceplate on the Slimplayer page?



You then need to navigate (with navigate button on left) to channels, stations or whatever you want to listen to and can add them to favorites from there that will be added to the list below.

The loopback hack can be configured as per this post. I will work those instructions into the SlimPlayer instructions in Post #1 here when I update the standard installation.

Make sure softsqueeze works first. If that does not work then SlimPlayer will not work.

If you want to change the names of some of your favorites that may show up a little cryptically, then look at the Notes and Tips section of Post 1.

[ESkel]

I have the opening menu only.
I have no up & down
If I hit the select button, I get the top option "My TV"
From there I can go left back to the main menu.

Nothing else.

Eric

[ESkel]

Can Slim Player work as a standalone import???


Eric

[ESkel]

My extender Firmware version is 2008080901
Is this OK with the Sage169.xml???


Eric

[Morgan111]

Eric, the SlimPlayer must be imported with the SageMC STV loaded. You may want to summarize your setup and what you are seeing in the SageMC thread here
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17979

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by mbowe

You might just need to create/add to favorites, and/or, create playlists to see what you're looking for. You also may need to familiarize yourself with how the navigation works in the small Slim Player UI. If it's a new UI for you, you might want to spend a few minutes working in the standalone SoftSqueeze player to get a hang of it....

Thanks all sorted - just had to learn to drive it a bit. Looks sweet.

Looking at getting the solution for MVP working at the weekend.

[michaeldjcox]

Morgan111 - great work fella.

I've been looking at how to solve the radio over MVP thing for a few weeks now from a different tack though: building an network encoder for a USB FM tuner dongle.

Wondering why I bothered now - internet radio offers so much more.

Just for my curiosity in such things - did this solution involve building a client for the slim server, or did it involve incorporating an existing logitech client app within sage and learning how to push its buttons from sage?

[belleboyd]

Never mind -- got it installed and running.
Just have to learn how to drive the thing.

This is completely awesome.
Thank you Morgan.

[eded9698]

I'm having trouble getting the slim player on my HD extender to connect to the internet radio or anything else. I can see my favorites, but when I try to connect the result is a ?on the screen. The loopback is set to 0 and everything works on the computer.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by eded9698

I'm having trouble getting the slim player on my HD extender to connect to the internet radio or anything else. I can see my favorites, but when I try to connect the result is a ?on the screen. The loopback is set to 0 and everything works on the computer.

Make sure you can run softsqueeze on the server and copy Softsqueeze.jar to the SageTv\Jars directory as listed in the instructions.

[eded9698]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Make sure you can run softsqueeze on the server and copy Softsqueeze.jar to the SageTv\Jars directory as listed in the instructions.

I did that. Softsqueeze works, Sagetv on the server works, but the extender doesn't work. I can see the stations I saved and it doesn't connect to the station. After it fails or times out it has ? in the slim player screen. I think it has something to do with the loopback. I've changed the loopback from 0, 1, 999 and nothing worked.

Can you explain how to install and configure the loopback hack for this plugin?

[eded9698]

After pressing one of the favorites I saved the slim player says "checking stream", "connecting", then "??". And everything disappears. I have to go to the main menu and back in to refresh everything.

[brainbone]

I'm trying slimplayer on a v6.5.3 SageTV (Vista 32) client.

I can get SoftSqeeze working from the same client machine to the SqueezeCenter 7.2.1 server (on a different machine) just fine.

I've copied softsqueeze.jar to the SageTV Client JARS folder and imported slimplayer into the SageMC Client. In slimplayer I get the menu options "Play", "Stop Playback", "Navigation", the "favorites, play lists, etc." toggle, and the image of the slimplayer, but no text on what the slim player is doing. Selecting "navigation" shows the navigation help dialog, but nothing on the slim player.

Any idea on what I'm missing?