STV Import: Pandora Internet Radio (Default STV and SageMC)

[cncb]

Has anyone else noticed that Pandora is a little repetitive? It is almost like it is playing a playlist for my stations. These are stations created from a single artist but there are a number of songs I can count on it playing even if I Thumbs Up/Down a number of them. I don't know if this is different with a paid account but I'm not getting the randomness that it seems should be present.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cncb

Has anyone else noticed that Pandora is a little repetitive? It is almost like it is playing a playlist for my stations. These are stations created from a single artist but there are a number of songs I can count on it playing even if I Thumbs Up/Down a number of them. I don't know if this is different with a paid account but I'm not getting the randomness that it seems should be present.

I've noticed that a little - but it only seems to happen on occasion. Mostly I get a decent mix of songs.

On another note, any chance this plugin will ever make it to the extenders without the netflix hack? Or would that require official support by SageTV?

[cncb]

Originally Posted by Brent

On another note, any chance this plugin will ever make it to the extenders without the netflix hack? Or would that require official support by SageTV?

Unlikely - the best would be for Sage to have some kind of direct playback agreement/mechanism like Sonos and Logitech seem to have. There is just too much dependence on Flash and a browser with the standard Pandora player.

There is a technique of broadcasting the audio output of the server as a WMA radio stream that might work but this would still require browser playback and internet radio support in the extenders, of course.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by cncb

Has anyone else noticed that Pandora is a little repetitive?

I've noticed repeating songs if the station has a limited number of seed artists or songs. If I seed a station with ten or more artists or songs then the variety is very good.

[craigap]

I just installed the Pandora Plugin today and it is great. One question though. When I'm watching TV and I decide to go back to my menu and start pandora I still have the TV preview window playing TV, so I hear the Audio from the TV as well as the Pandora player. If I start up sage without going into TV first then I don't have the preview window there to begin with and it's fine. Anyway to get it so that preview window goes away if I switch to Pandora from watching TV? I'm using SageMC if that matters.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by mbowling

I've noticed repeating songs if the station has a limited number of seed artists or songs. If I seed a station with ten or more artists or songs then the variety is very good.

Interesting but I don't think I could think of 10 artists that I want on the same station. I guess I could watch the tracks it chooses and then add 10 of the artists manually but isn't this the whole point of Pandora - to do it for you? Seems strange. I wonder if seeding it with a song would yield a better random mix?

[cncb]

Originally Posted by craigap

I just installed the Pandora Plugin today and it is great. One question though. When I'm watching TV and I decide to go back to my menu and start pandora I still have the TV preview window playing TV, so I hear the Audio from the TV as well as the Pandora player. If I start up sage without going into TV first then I don't have the preview window there to begin with and it's fine. Anyway to get it so that preview window goes away if I switch to Pandora from watching TV? I'm using SageMC if that matters.

Issue the STOP command when you first enter the Pandora screen and it will stop the currently playing TV/media. You could also do this before you enter the Pandora screen in your main menu.

[cncb]

For all interested in better support for Pandora on extenders please send a feature request to Sage for internet radio streaming support on the extenders. I have requested this before but I have no idea whether it is a priority for them. There are a few options that would allow you to broadcast sound output from your server PC as a radio stream. This would still not be as perfect as a direct "connection" to Pandora but would greatly improve the experience on extenders since the "Netflix hack" would no longer be necessary.

[mkanet]

Hi Heffe2001, I'm very interested in getting a loopback audio channel on my sageTV server. However, there's just no way I can stop using sageTVservice.exe on the server. Have you figured out any way around this limitation with your software only solution since you made your post below?

Thanks in advance,
Michael

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Ok, I switched my server over to non-service mode (for now anyway), and I have the player up and running using decoders that should be on ANY sage system (using the Sage mpeg encoders & muxer). The graph looks like this:

http://www.agesofhighadventure.com/p...ra_filters.jpg

The last filter in that chain is labeled SageTV MPEG Multiplexer, just use it like any other dump filter and it should work fine.

Step by step:

...

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Hi Heffe2001, I'm very interested in getting a loopback audio channel on my sageTV server. However, there's just no way I can stop using sageTVservice.exe on the server. Have you figured out any way around this limitation with your software only solution since you made your post below?

Thanks in advance,
Michael

I never did find a way to get it working in service mode, and at the moment, I'm not running the pandora plugin (rebuilt my server back in Feb, and just haven't taken the time to get it all up and running again).

[heffe2001]

Just wanted to add that I re-installed the virtual audio cable software on my new server, and set it all up running on my Extender (in service mode even). It sort of works, but I never see the pandora controller come up on the screen (even when I'm logged in as the same user, BUT it does change to the last selected channel when you bring it up (whatever you last asked it to listen to that is), but you can' change the channel until you disconnect the player, and reconect to it. Then it switches to the correct channel. So it sort of works, just with a more limited-functionality. Skipping doesn't work either btw. If we could get the controller program to be configured to load automatically and take directions in the background it'd work in service mode..

[cncb]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Just wanted to add that I re-installed the virtual audio cable software on my new server, and set it all up running on my Extender (in service mode even). It sort of works, but I never see the pandora controller come up on the screen (even when I'm logged in as the same user, BUT it does change to the last selected channel when you bring it up (whatever you last asked it to listen to that is), but you can' change the channel until you disconnect the player, and reconect to it. Then it switches to the correct channel. So it sort of works, just with a more limited-functionality. Skipping doesn't work either btw. If we could get the controller program to be configured to load automatically and take directions in the background it'd work in service mode..

You need to have "Allow service to interact with desktop" enabled for it to be able to interact with the Pandora Player window. This is only available when you log in as the local system account. You can start up the Pandora Player window yourself manually from the command line (java -jar "c:\program files\sagetv\sagetv\cncb\PandoraPlayer.jar" 2908) at Windows startup, for example, and Sage will use that player window but I still don't think you will be able to control it from the Sage service (the keystrokes need to interact with the window).

[heffe2001]

Would it be possible to have the plugin make changes to a text file, and have your player window read it (or even have a seperate process forward the packets to the player window?), or monitor specifically on the port for commands and go from there? If you could do that, it could even be set up on another machine, not necessarily the main server machine. Just have it monitor a specific location for a text file, pass the keys in it, then wipe the file when they are passed.

I tried starting the player logged in as the same user as my sage runs under, and the player window shows what's playing, but you can't interact with it. As it stands now, it's usable as it is, you just have to take it as it comes, on skipping or changing channel (without disconnecting and reconnecting to the controller, which works for basic playing).

[cncb]

I missed it - why can't you use the local system account with desktop access?

In any case, the .EXE used to pass the control commands is part of the .properties file and can be changed to use something else. So, anyone can write their own app to send keystrokes to the player window for skip, pause, etc. (unfortunately this is currently the only way to control the Pandora player). You could write something that monitors for a file as you describe.

Alternatively, a while ago I started to write the Player window to be a .NET app that you could run on startup that would always be running to accept commands (and would handle sending keystrokes internally for player control). I never finished it but could revisit it if you think it would be useful.

[heffe2001]

If any user-account on the machine could pass commands to that .NET app, then I'd suspect that would work fine.

As it is, I can make it work after a fashion, but I did notice last night that the UNE program was using a huge amount of memory (I'm getting a leak somewhere in the filters I believe, I'm going to try to trace that down this weekend when I get some time). It used to sit at around 200m ram usage (what I could consider still a bit high, but I could manage that on the machine, but 998m was a bit excessive).

If you could run the plugin in service mode, configured with the virtual audio cable software, it'd make a great tunerless way to get the Pandora music working with the Sage extenders..

[cncb]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

If you could run the plugin in service mode, configured with the virtual audio cable software, it'd make a great tunerless way to get the Pandora music working with the Sage extenders..

I guess the virtual audio cable software doesn't work in service mode using the "local system account"?

[heffe2001]

Oh it works fine that way, my problem is I use a seperate server for movie/dvd storage, and the only way for Sage to be able to access it is to use a user/password.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

If any user-account on the machine could pass commands to that .NET app, then I'd suspect that would work fine.

I attached the alternate .NET player window in the first post. I finished this in a hurry but I tried it in service mode when logged in as a specific user and it seemed to work fine. I hope it works for you.

[heffe2001]

It's working almost perfectly now in service mode (figured out my high memory usage problem, I was trying to use very large animated gif for the video portion, and that was causing the graph to use almost 1g of ram (it's a 56m gif file, which apparently takes quite a bit of ram to animate, as well as a full single core of the quad pegged at 100%, lol). The only thing that's NOT working at the moment, are the Stations... When I first restarted the system after putting the new player in, it worked for the first channel change, now it shows a blank station section (the Set stations ID is set to the correct station, but it's in all upper case, where the station name is in lower case in the URL, would that cause the problem??). If it's the upper/lower case thing, I guess I"ll have to stop sage, edit the client config file, then start it back up, since there's no option to do it in lower case on that particular screen in the plugin.

At the moment, the sgraphrecorder is using about 31m (although it does seem to climb about 2k/sec for some odd reason) and about 2-8% CPU usage, and the SagePandoraPlayer.exe is running approx. 100mb usage (a little under, closer to 99 I guess). I just need to keep an eye on the sgraphrecorder to try to figure out where that leak is (although it drops down to about 20m when you stop recording the stream).

[cncb]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

When I first restarted the system after putting the new player in, it worked for the first channel change, now it shows a blank station section (the Set stations ID is set to the correct station, but it's in all upper case, where the station name is in lower case in the URL, would that cause the problem??). If it's the upper/lower case thing, I guess I"ll have to stop sage, edit the client config file, then start it back up, since there's no option to do it in lower case on that particular screen in the plugin.

Yes, the stations ID is case sensitive. Press the Guide button or Pause button when the text entry screen is shown which might change the input case (I'm pretty sure the Guide button works in SageMC).