HD200 connect to a playon server?

[Spriter]

Originally Posted by Brent

I have no idea what you just said.
What is it that is threatening SageTV's survival??? And what does it have to do with the HD200 and playon (the topic of this thread)?

Playon uses upnp to connect to renderer line the HD-200.

Playon is a media server using uPnP. There is well over a dozen such media servers on the market and they are evolving fast.

Some of them offer today similar functionalities to Sage Server software. Sage Server is not however uPnP or DLNA compliant.

At some point in time, one such media server will evolve and enable not only Media extenders like the HD-200, the xBox etc.. but will also record TV and will stream music to Roku, pictures to photo frames and so on.

When this become a reality, why would we run Sage Sever? we would be better off with a single media server that does its magic with everything. Not just the HD-100 and 200.

Playon is the tip of the Iceberg.

[Brent]

Okay, I understand your point now.

Unless cableTV, SatelliteTV and/or OTA goes away in the next ten years I don't see that happening. You really still need a tuner in a computer (or similar device) to be able to record - Not sure how you would ever be able to truly record without a server serving that stuff to your UPnP device.

Or am I still missing something?

[Spriter]

Originally Posted by Brent

Okay, I understand your point now.

Unless cableTV, SatelliteTV and/or OTA goes away in the next ten years I don't see that happening. You really still need a tuner in a computer (or similar device) to be able to record - Not sure how you would ever be able to truly record without a server serving that stuff to your UPnP device.

Or am I still missing something?

Some of these media sever does work on a PC with a TV tuner in it and record TV shows according to a schedule. Nero MediaHome is one.

None of them can do what Sage is doing and are able to control multiple TV Tuner and the HD-PVR however.

This being said and again, this is just a question of time. These platform share a more modern codebase which make them open to multiples devices.

My understanding is that Sage would probably need to be re-written to achieve that. However, not doing so could hamper the company growth or even contribute to it's death over a period of time.

This is Disruptive technologies. There is a book written on it. Polaroid suffered and finally died in failing to adapt to Digital photo. While Kodak strive.

In which camp is Sage?

[mayamaniac]

That isn't about uPnP or streaming standard. It's basically about internet streaming content. Internet streaming content is a threat to content providers like cable and satellite companies, more so than SageTV. I would put Blu-Ray in that group too with cable and satellite in terms of the threat. Why start collecting a huge Blu-Ray collection when you can subscribe to an internet streaming service that can deliver a bigger library in HD right to your TV at a push of a button from your couch? And why wait to watch or record TV shows when they are accessible anytime via Hulu, Netflix, etc?

It seems inevitable that the internet and the TV will be integrated once high speed bandwidth is everywhere. But it is still a long way from happening. Until then, cable and satellite companies has many years to go before they become another Polaroid. And if they are smart, they will be switching their business to internet streaming when the time comes, much like the telephone companies investing into the wireless business.

[disco340]

Has anybody figured out a solution to the slow navigation using playon?

[3beezer]

I have just started using SageTV and the HD200. I learned about PlayOn at this forum. When I first tried using the HD200 with PlayOn, I found that navigation was very slow and the image frame rate was about 1 frame/sec. I thought that I would mention the solution that I found, in case it is not completely obvious to the more-experienced users who frequent this site: I turned off the virus detection software (Eset). My platform is Windows XP. It would be interesting to know whether it is possible to use the HD200/PlayOn combination with virus protection software running, but my main purpose in posting was to save other people from the hassle I encountered.

[mayamaniac]

I have no anti-virus softwares and it still very slow when I tried PlayOn installed on Vista. What speed difference did you see after turning anti-virus off?

[Slack]

I tried PlayOn (Hulu) last night. and geeez it was pathetically slow. The only items that seemed to work for me were the movie trailers. I had a couple of daily shows in my queue, but got tired of looking at the green bar - they never played. I've got 3meg DSL, and nothing else was downloading at the time - I don't see why it would take so long to just fill the item descriptions when browsing the PlayOn device. I can understand a delay while it fills the buffer cache after you actually play something.

After restarting the HD200 and going back to extender mode - SageMC was slow. That prompted me to revert the server back to an image I made before installing PlayOn.

I might try it again on my main desktop. It has a lot more horsepower than my server box.

Originally Posted by disco340

Has anybody figured out a solution to the slow navigation using playon?

[SageGk]

Yea, navigation and load times are awful. I tried the latest beta firmware with no luck. Playon is very fast on my ps3. Shame.

[scott2020]

I upgraded the HD200 to the latest Beta firmware and upgraded Playon to the latest version out as of today, and the two do not play together. At least they don't for me. I have another machine that I will need to check the Playon version for and maybe roll back the HD200 firmware. I had to jack with it! I should have left it alone. This is the stuff that drives me nuts, when it works one time and craps out another. No "normal" person would tolerate it for a second. Good thing (and understandable) why it is not supported.

[brb84]

I also seem to be having difficulty. I got a Netflix movie to play just fine, but trying to watch anything on Hulu just hangs forever on "Preparing to Watch..." Not sure what's going on with it.

[scott2020]

I tried the latest beta firmware for HD-200 and the latest Playon version, installed on my quad core machine and no dice. I can browse the playlists and such (painfully slowly) but I also get stuck around the "preparing to watch" area and it hangs forever. I have to power off the HD-200 and start over. The log files on the Playon side show lots of errors. I sent the logs to Playon but they basically said it was the HD-200's problem and get lost, since it's not supported. Oh well.

[brb84]

My latest discovery echos a problem someone else mentioned earlier in this thread - I can see my Netflix instant queue movies. However, only one of them gives me the option to actually play the video. When you open up the others, I can either copy the file to the library or delete it. I've tried changing around the queue order, but nothing seems to work. Not understanding why only one movie is showing the ability to play.

[Kypp]

For some reason I can only see TV shows from Netflix that are in the Queu? If I put movies in then they don't show up unless I turn the option to "All File Types" and then I can see the media information (description etc.) but not play?

Anyone else having this issue?

Hulu seems to work just fine... a little slow but not bad.

[randyth]

Any "official" effort going on between with The Media Mall and SageTV folks to get PlayOn to work smoothly with the HD200? Seems like a killer combination where everybody wins.

I suspect the kinks could be worked out in software on either side -- server or client. Making them play nice could be as easy as sending The Media Mall an evaluation HD200 along with a case of beer.

-Randy

[DaveW42]

I agree. It would be great if there were some movement on the SageTV / PlayOn front. This seems to be the best option right now to get both Hulu and Netflix going.

Dave

Update: For those who may be interested, there is a $10 off promotional code (AUG10OFF) for PlayOn that is good through the end of the month.

[simonen]

I would like to see UPNP support integrated with SageMC so that PlayOn could be viewed by any extender or placeshifter without having to go into standalone mode on the HD200. I sent a request into Sage for this and I think that the more people that do the same, the chances we will see it happen will increase.

[otaku]

Just a quick note on my experiences:

I've been using SageTV + PlayOn for a while now. With the latest PlayOn and the firmware version before the one released today (haven't had time to try out the latest firmware), I've been getting good results.

I was able to reduce initial "load times" by knocking out usernames and passwords only for those services I really wanted to log into (ie, taking it out of the Amazon VOD). This seemed to speed up the initial load time. After updating a few weeks ago, there is almost no lag time.

Browsing is still a pain, but when things play they have been playing real well recently. This was after a couple months back in early summer when stuff wasn't working so well.

So I'm glad to have it all working again. I just wish there could be an agreement between the two. or I at least wish SageTV would deliver on the promised native Hulu support they teased us with back at the beginning of the year!