STV Import: Sage Movie Wall (SMW)

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by pjwerdna

Didnt have any pluckHD entries before. I did try closign down, deleting them & restarting with no change.

If I click the "Movie Wall" option at the top I get a blank blue screen with just the disk bar & date/tiem on. Using studio shows that this is the "Sage movie wall scaling menu", but it looks like the menu container goes off the bottom of the screen (5:4 aspect ratio)

Never seen this your overscan settings correct in sage?

[pjwerdna]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Never seen this your overscan settings correct in sage?

Yep!

Got all animations on and no other imports

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by pjwerdna

Yep!

Got all animations on and no other imports

don't know what to say haven't seen or heard this one

Also if you ran version 2 you had to have had pluckyhd properties
You can set the property to false and it will bypass the scaling menu

[pjwerdna]

I never ran V2 on this server. Im currently doing a test install on another machine.

However I suspect its some jar or something from a previous SageMC...

I copied the wiz & properties files, uninstalled SageTV, reinstalled everything in order and replaced the wiz and properties fil with no pluckyhd lines.

Looks like it now works! a little better. Im now getting the same cover for everything until it gets hilighted when the correct cover appears!

[mkstretch]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Are you trying this with the remote (if so you have to hit stop to delete the 9 already in there) also keep in mind the interface spacing wise is optimize for 4 x 9 or 3 x 8 rows and columns. It will work with less but the spacing may not be ideal.

Yes you can go to you fanartfolder\moviename\posters\ and put whatever poster you want in there or fanartfolder\moviename\backgrounds\ for background images.

Thanks but I do not see those fanart folders anywhere

[wrems]

Originally Posted by mkstretch

Thanks but I do not see those fanart folders anywhere

You can see where your Fanart folder is by going into SageMC settings:

My Menu>>Settings>>SageMC Setup>>Paths

Make sure to scroll down on this paths list. It’s kinda buried.

This will show you where the fanart directory is buried by default. I prefer to keep my fanart folder outside of the Sage installation directory for ease… C:\Fanart. That way I don’t have to worry about backing up all those fanart folders when I backup my Sage folders. If you move your folder just remember to update your Paths in SageMC to reflect this change.

[PLUCKYHD]

I have added a link to this in the original post:

If you are having speed issues 90% of the time I have found with users this is do to your fanart posters/backgrounds being to large of files. If you are not using fanart then your folder.jpg's are to large of files and my app currently does not scale folder.jpg's.

If you are using fanart please try the following solution to remedy your speed issues:

1. Shut Down Sage UI and service if applicable
2. open your properties file for your pc/client/extender and search for the below properties and change them to the values below

"pluckyhd/SMWScaleMenu = true"
"pluckyhd/SMWHomePage = false"

3. restart sage and sage service if applicable.
4. navigate to Sage Movie Wall you will see the scaling option menu if you have set the above mentioned properties correctly. Set the following options on the scaling menu page.

Set scaling to true (top option)
Set scale posters to on (does not automatically get turned on)
Set Background scaling to your resoultion or the closest to it.
Set Small backgrounds to around 50% (recommended)
Go to scale all items (this will scale all Backgrounds and posters and can take some time on larger collections) I recommend not doing anything during this process it can take some time). After the process is complete go to sage movie wall (the only way to really tell is what your cp usage it will drop dramatically when done)

5. Shut down sage again after this and restart to clear out anything that may be hanging it up from all the scaling.
6. restart and performance should be great.

cheers
pluckyhd

[heffe2001]

Just a quick question, but when SMW scales these images, are they stored in the cache, or are the images in my fanart folder scaled and overwritten?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Just a quick question, but when SMW scales these images, are they stored in the cache, or are the images in my fanart folder scaled and overwritten?

They are stored in the phoenix api Scaled directory which by default if you haven't changed the default it is

Sagetv\sagetv\cache

they are then in a subdirectory the latest phoenix puts then in imagefactory

it does not effect the images in fanart directories

[PLUCKYHD]

Hey everyone working on a new build and wanted some thoughts from everyone. I am having allot of people have speed issues and mostly because their fanart posters are too big or their jpgs are to large. I think in the next build I am going to do away with the scaling of posters option and scale all posters and jpg's to 200 pixels width and height will be scaled propotionatily.

This does two things for me

a. it makes the coding allot simpler as I don't have to worry about scaling on the poster calls (there are allot of them)
b. Allows most speed issues people are having to go away and not worry about thier settings of scaling posters

the only downturn is it will keep two copies in a sense of your fanart posters on your computer one in your fanart folder and two in the cached folder. We are not talking a huge amount of space but that is the only downside, But in all honesty you are doing that with the next build of SMW anyways as all posters have some sort/form of transformation done on them in the next build.

The backgrounds will still be optional.

If you totally oppose this let me know as this is the direction I am going I think...

[Fuzzy]

Sounds reasonable. The scaling options are a rather complicated extra step. A setting of 200 px would be okay, though I'd think you might be able to auto-determine the optimal for each user (have an auto-scale routine that the user can choose to run. It pops up a message saying to make sure you are full-screen, then it can check the window size, and determine based on that, and the wall column/row count the optimal scaling to use. THEN go through the scaling process. This can be done for backgrounds as well.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I am having allot of people have speed issues and mostly because their fanart posters are too big or their jpgs are to large.

I’m curious to know if one uses BMI exclusively to collect their fanart; can improperly sized fanart be the problem? To my understanding Sean has made provisions to scale these on the fly…

In any regard, if your proposed changes make for a better/consistent performance increase than I say go for it.

[petereader]

I'm all for this. I know that programmers have to struggle with opposing user demands:stability, control, ease of use. In this case, I think it would be a minor control sacrifice for greater stability and ease of use. That sounds like good compromise to me.

[PLUCKYHD]

Thanks for the support guys I decided to scale all posters regardless as I am already manipulating every poster I display in the new build in one regards or another. Backgrounds are still optional but recomended.

That being said the new build is coming along nicely the speed improvements are huge in my testing on the hd200,server,and client pc's. There are new views to enjoy some I am really pleased and impressed with. I am hoping to release in the next week or two one more build that will hopefully only require minor tweaks here and there.

The new build handles fanart transforming/caching/scaling in a much new and improved way as all of my folders are labeled and easily identified by folders starting with SMW and then description of what/where the transformations are used. That being said be prepared for a little space sacrifice more or less depending on your collection size.

My collection of over 400 movies is approx 4gb of scaled/transformed fanart when you including scaling of the backgrounds without the backgrounds it is approx 2gb.

Now that doesn't seem like allot to me but might to some so I wanted to make you aware of the space it will require.

Maybe I can share some new screens soon..

[PLUCKYHD]

I am going to put another request for someone decent at photo shop don't have to be great need 5 or 6 media logos created pm please if you will.

[superdodge]

Plucky,

First of all I wanted to say that I'd be happy to help with logo creation in Photoshop if you still need help.

Also I wanted to point out a bug I'm seeing. I use SMW in wall mode with file system sorting and non-DVD set as the filter. I have random fanart backgrounds on and have not used scaling as my system is stout enough to run quickly without it. I have list view enabled when choosing a folder with multiple items (TV Shows).

If I am in one list of tv shows and then return to the wall list and select another tV show folder the first two pieces of fanart shown will be from the previous show. Once I highlight the item that corresponds to the third background being displayed everything is ok and I see art for the currently selected show. I only see this behaviour in SMW and nowhere else in SageMC.

Any ideas?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by superdodge

Plucky,

First of all I wanted to say that I'd be happy to help with logo creation in Photoshop if you still need help.

Also I wanted to point out a bug I'm seeing. I use SMW in wall mode with file system sorting and non-DVD set as the filter. I have random fanart backgrounds on and have not used scaling as my system is stout enough to run quickly without it. I have list view enabled when choosing a folder with multiple items (TV Shows).

If I am in one list of tv shows and then return to the wall list and select another tV show folder the first two pieces of fanart shown will be from the previous show. Once I highlight the item that corresponds to the third background being displayed everything is ok and I see art for the currently selected show. I only see this behaviour in SMW and nowhere else in SageMC.

Any ideas?

First and foremost thanks for the offer to help. I have sent you a PM.

Second I don't have any insight at the moment as I don't use nested folers in SMW for tv shows. I will create some in there and see if I can recreate the problem you are seeing.

[MHAD]

Hi all,

I'm new to SageTV and I'm getting to grips with the wealth of customizations available. First of all I must say that the user community and the time and effort that people put into this is amazing - thank you all very much !

I'm trying out SageMovieWall for the first time and I'm stuck - can anyone help me with where I'm going wrong please?

This is what I've done so far, copied from the instructions on page1 of this thread.

Shut down sage ui - done

1. Backup your sage folder (This is beta) - done
2. Make sure you are running the latest beta sagemc version and phoneix api or BMT latest version - done. I'm using SageMC v6.3.9a prerelease 46, and BMT version 2.3.1 from here http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...batch+metadata I think BMT is working OK because my movies now have .properties files and .jpg files that they didn't have before
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...37&postcount=6

3. Version 6.18RC is required (I believe didn't test below that.) - done. I'm using the latest Sage 6.5.9.204
4. Extract the attached into your Sagetv\sagetv folder - done
5. Import Latest Version of BMI (batched metadata importer) Version 3.0 or above is required!!! Import of the add-in is required before Sagemoviewall if you use addin. - this is where I got stuck initially. I hadn't realised that this "import" was in Sage in the Options / Settings bit. I've done this now and as above, I think this is working as my movies now have dvd covers as thumbnails and .properties files in the same directory.
6. Import Sagemoivewallv1.xml from a blank sagemc xml. (by blank I mean one that doesn't already have a SMW any version imported over it.) Make sure you 5re using latest beta of Sage and Sagemc. - not done - I can't find sagemoviewallv1.xml anywhere. Where should I be looking? I don't fully understand the instruction about importing "from a blank sagemc xml I'm afraid. What does this mean?
7. Import Sagemoivewallv3-b1.xml from a blank sagemc xml. (will not import over existing) Make sure you are using latest beta of Sage and Sagemc. - I did have sagemoviewallv3-b1.xml in the "import STV" list in Sage's settings. I imported this.
8. Go into sagemc screen specific options and point video library to Sage Movie Wall. (If not running latest see 8.a) - not done. In SageMC Screen Specific Options I don't know how to point the video library anywhere. In My Menu>Settings>SageMC>Main>Screen Specific Options> I have "Main Menu UI Animations, Dyanamic Main Menu, Main Menu Pop Up" etc but nothing that asks for a path
8a. Go to Dynamic menu options on your main screen and add pointer to internal screen Sage Movie Wall. (hopefully Maui will get it up soon where you can point to it in options and replace your video libray view)
9. Make sure core animations are enable!!- not done. No idea how to do this. Is this the "Main Menu UI Animations" option above?
10. Explore and Have fun!!!


What happens now is my movies have .properties and .jpg images as explained, but the menus under My Videos are just the same as before.

From an MVP extender I can select and playback a title as before, however from the client on my server I can't - if I select a title to playback I'm presented with a "Add Series By Actor" screen with A-Z 0-9 and a list of artists (from my music collection) down the right hand side

I have one of those feelings that tells me I'm close but I've done something wrong.

If I need to supply any more info on my setup I'll gladly do so - I'm just grateful for the help !

Thanks very much

[PLUCKYHD]

MHAD,


First step number two you need to be running the latest phoenix api and bmt no version 2 it can be found at the bottom of this thread

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41502

Second you need to map Sage Movie Wall to your menu. Either by adding a new menu item or changing the default see this post on how to do it

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=494

cheers

[petereader]

Hi MHAD,
Welcome to the Sage community!

Also, I think step 6 and 7 are redundant (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). You only need to add the latest plugin .xml which should look something like sagemoivewallv3-R104.xml.

What is meant by a blank sagemc.xml file: boy, that is a good question. When you import an add-in what you're actually doing is importing that add-in (called and stvi in sage world) to your current stv (in your case sagemc.xml). If you look for your stv file inside the sage folder, you will see that it has been renamed each time you added a plugin (once you import metadatatools.xml, sagemc.xml will become sagemc-1.xml, when you import smw it will become sagemc-2.xml and so on). what you want to do is to point your sage installation back to the original sagemc.xml file. That will give you a blank sagemc.xml. Keep in mind, this is necessary only if you had already installed a previous version of SMW. If this is your first time importing it, you won't have to worry about any of this until next time.

Hope that helps rather than confuses. Perhaps someone else can chime in and save you from my directions

Cheers