Wanted: Developer for Web Interface Mobile

[Moskus]

I've tried reading this excellent thread, but I'm not sure what to conclude:

Can I use this plugin to stream video to my WM-device or not?

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Moskus

I've tried reading this excellent thread, but I'm not sure what to conclude:

Can I use this plugin to stream video to my WM-device or not?

No. Its features at this point are focused on managing TV recordings (record, delete, favorites, convert, etc.), but it cannot stream video. You can download the video from a link on the recording details page and then open in it your device's media player. I realize that's not ideal, but it's available for someone who really wants to get the video onto their device.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Slugger

which means any upgrade/downgrade/removal of an application (be it SRE, mobile web, etc.) is not possible.

Just to clarify, it's possible to do the above, but SageTV must be restarted.

[Brent]

Anyone been following the ngRemote interface being developed for Media Center and the iTouch/iPhone? Similar functionality for SageTV would be really nice

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Tried the new jetty.xml and no dice... same issue - the war is locked if it exists at jetty start up.

I've attached the context file I'm using, looks pretty standard (comes from your skeleton on the wiki), but just in case.

It does look standard. The page I referenced from the Jetty website says that some files are locked because Jetty loads them as memory mapped files if the NIO (Java tech-speak for its newer, more advanced networking) connectors are used. On Windows this prevents the files from being overwritten.

The first thing I had Slugger try is to change the setting "useFileMappedBuffer" which tells it not to load them as memory mapped files. Sounded simple enough but I must be missing something. The second was to remove Jetty's "static" deployer. That one only loads war files at startup and I thought it might be grabbing the war file before the "hot" deployer. It's not necessary to have both enabled but that's what Jetty's example file had.

So far nothing from the Jetty web page has worked. The next thing to try is to switch to the non-NIO connector (it uses Java's older networking technology). I would prefer not to switch this, but it's not like we need this to handle high volumes.

Jason

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Brent

Anyone been following the ngRemote interface being developed for Media Center and the iTouch/iPhone? Similar functionality for SageTV would be really nice

In case anyone is interested at all, here's the answer I got from the ngRemote interface developer when I asked this question:

Are there any plans (or is it even possible) to make this awesome remote program work with SageTV perhaps? I use SageTV and would love to have this functionality.

Originally Posted by NGRemote Dev

Not for me, due to the lack of time and know how of these programs. But ngRC consists of two parts: 1st is the mce-AddIn and 2nd is the web-interface, both communicate via TCP/IP and XML. Theoretically it would be possible to implement an addin for SageTV or BeyondTV, that behaves the same like the mce AddIn does. If someone could do this, it would be possible….

So it is possible.....
Or someone could take the plugin we already have an skin it some more to make it work and look more like ngRC

[jreichen]

This may be taking the thread off topic but I'll post here and if it generates a lot of discussion we can split it off.

Here's the way I see it after working on the mobile web server for a while and considering the possibilities. SageTV add-ons for mobile devices can be broken down into three categories and all have their place. Personally I'd use all of them if they existed.

1. TV recording and media management. If you're away from home and a computer, you can still schedule recordings, resolve conflicts, view TV listings, etc. from almost any type of mobile device. That's what the mobile web interface on this thread targets.
2. Remote control of extenders. That is what ngRemote, MyMote (MythTV addon), and Apple Remote do. (Just to be clear, none of these support SageTV, but are in this class of application).
3. Making the device itself an extender (placeshifter).

For the ngRemote control, I haven't looked at it closely or talked to the developer but I doubt we could use the backend (TCP/IP and XML) without modifying it to understand the Sage APIs. However, we now have something similar in SageTV thanks to stuckless' new remote APIs.

I like the ngRemote user interface. I'd like to know how he did it but I'm a little short on time right now working on #1. From what I understand it's HTML. I tried that with a prototype using Ajax and it was't usable in Opera 9 Mini. After clicking a "remote" button such as volume up, the page reloaded and reset the selected button. That's not usable at all. Maybe Safari is different and that's why it works on the iPhone.

My personal opinion (feel free to disagree or prove otherwise) is that the remote and placeshifter would be better if written as traditional UI applications rather than as web pages. For the iPhone, the only real choice is Apple's SDK. Many other devices support Java ME which would probably work well for the remote. However, I experimented with Java ME video playback and it's not good. The performance is highly dependent on the device manufacturer's implementation. For that reason a placeshifter would have to be written with the device's native APIs. This means writing different client code for iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry, etc. This is what Sling is doing.

There is a lot of opportunity in the mobile space, and I don't know whether the Sage team is planning to introduce anything themselves. It may be up to the user base to do it.

Isn't there a "smiley" for a little exhausted guy?

[bcjenkins]

I would also say that Sling really owns the space today for the multiple device platform and ease of setting it up. I will eventually get a sling box to hook up to an extender just to have place shifting on major mobile platforms and the laptop which has access to all features an extender does.

B

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Brent

In case anyone is interested at all, here's the answer I got from the ngRemote interface developer when I asked this question:

Are there any plans (or is it even possible) to make this awesome remote program work with SageTV perhaps? I use SageTV and would love to have this functionality.

So it is possible.....
Or someone could take the plugin we already have an skin it some more to make it work and look more like ngRC

I think the easiest thing to do is to implement the MCE plugin's output as part of Stuckless' api set. If the examples are available I am sure someone could comment on whether or not SageTV users would need anything vastly different.

B

[jreichen]

Slugger, can you try this jetty.xml? I found another property called useDirectBuffers.

<Set name="useDirectBuffers">false</Set>

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Slugger, can you try this jetty.xml? I found another property called useDirectBuffers.

<Set name="useDirectBuffers">false</Set>

No good, same symptoms.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Slugger, can you try this jetty.xml? I found another property called useDirectBuffers.

<Set name="useDirectBuffers">false</Set>

One of the docs on Jetty site (and, of course, I can't find it to reference) talks about ensuring wars are uniquely named for each new version of an application when using the hot deploy capabilities on Windows in order to avoid these file locking problems. Though I don't like that particular solution, I'm starting to wonder if that's just not the way to go? Kind of a PITA while developing, but it does easily allow for the full hot deploy functionality for end users when installing these apps. Of course, I don't like it because each upgrade (of SRE) leaves an old version of the war on disk. At 2.4MB per war it's not a big deal, but can get cluttered up after awhile.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Slugger

One of the docs on Jetty site (and, of course, I can't find it to reference) talks about ensuring wars are uniquely named for each new version of an application when using the hot deploy capabilities on Windows in order to avoid these file locking problems. Though I don't like that particular solution, I'm starting to wonder if that's just not the way to go? Kind of a PITA while developing, but it does easily allow for the full hot deploy functionality for end users when installing these apps. Of course, I don't like it because each upgrade (of SRE) leaves an old version of the war on disk. At 2.4MB per war it's not a big deal, but can get cluttered up after awhile.

I'm not too crazy about that either. I have another jetty.xml for you to try. This one uses the non-NIO connector.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by jreichen

I'm not too crazy about that either. I have another jetty.xml for you to try. This one uses the non-NIO connector.

No change.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by Slugger

No change.

Bummer. I dug into the Jetty source and think I found the answer. Could you try these files?

Fingers crossed...

EDIT: The jetty.xml file has "useDirectBuffers" commented out (the default value is true). Try that first. If that doesn't work, try to uncomment it so the value is false.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Bummer. I dug into the Jetty source and think I found the answer. Could you try these files?

Fingers crossed...

EDIT: The jetty.xml file has "useDirectBuffers" commented out (the default value is true). Try that first. If that doesn't work, try to uncomment it so the value is false.

Same result with useDirectBuffers set to true or false.

[jreichen]

I'm out of ideas. We've tried everything on Jetty's website and from studying the code. Looks like it's time for me to dust off the old copy of SageTV for Windows and see if I can reproduce and fix it. What service pack do you have installed?

Has anybody else seen the problem with the war file being locked? I'd think I would have heard from others if they were having a problem with the mobile web interface's war file.

[voorhees]

So far I have always shut down SageTV when updating, so I have not seen the problem. Just habit I guess.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by jreichen

I'm out of ideas. We've tried everything on Jetty's website and from studying the code. Looks like it's time for me to dust off the old copy of SageTV for Windows and see if I can reproduce and fix it. What service pack do you have installed?

Has anybody else seen the problem with the war file being locked? I'd think I would have heard from others if they were having a problem with the mobile web interface's war file.

My laptop is running XP Pro Service Pack 2, and it's where I've been doing all the dev work on my apps. Running Jetty within my Sage client installation on my laptop. This is the setup where the file locking problems have occurred (and continue to do so).

Over the last couple days my app has gotten to the point where I'm now running it on my Sage server. To my surprise, the file locking issue does not exist on my server (XP Home, Service Pack 3). And Jetty is using all the default settings (all the changes you've sent I've been applying only to my laptop). My server is headless and only runs SageTV in service mode.

Is it SP2 causing the problems? Maybe, but I can't upgrade my laptop (needs to stay at SP2 for work). Is it the fact that I'm running Jetty from the client? Not sure. Might also be that I always run the debug window when I run my client from my laptop (I only use the client to do devel work on my apps/plugins so I always have the debug window running). I can check the latter and will some evening this week, but I've just tried anything and everything I could think of to get the wars to lock on my server box but couldn't and I just fired up my client again and the war locks immediately on it. So now I'm confused even more on this issue, but happy that it seems to be working just fine on my server instance.

[jreichen]

It looks like we have about four variables in your setup.

1. Windows XP Pro SP2 vs. Windows XP Home SP3. I have a copy of XP Pro so I could try it with SP2 then upgrade it to SP3.
2. SageTV service vs. non-service/client.
3. Java version. Do you have the same version on both computers?
4. Debug window.