Plugin :: PlayOn for SageTV v1.5

[pjpjpjpj]

Any hope for implementing the new "PlayTo" feature, where you could send a video to a Sage instance via the mobile PlayOn app?

http://www.playon.tv/blog/three-exci...r?sf13843055=1

Can Sage be a "Digital Media Renderer (DMR)"?

(honestly, I can't think of why I would need it, but this is a new feature PlayOn is rolling out and I was just curious)

Also note the new "Playmark" feature where you can supposedly mark any online video in your web browser for later viewing, and then find it in a folder within PlayOn and watch it on your TV. Early reviews sound like it doesn't work so well, but it's still in beta, so we'll see...

[trallyus]

I hope I am posting this to the right area , but I went to use the playon plugin for sage tv and everytime I try to use it , it keeps telling me "the external feed was empty" when trying to play anything with the playon plugin.

I removed the playone plugin and tried re-adding it to see if that would fix the problem but it did not.

I used the plugin not to long ago and did not have problems until just now and wondered if some playon update messed up the playon plugin.

Trallyus

[atyrus28]

No it did not break the plugin. This problem comes up for me from time to time. I have needed to either restart the playon service (their auto updates do not always properly restart). The other issue is to clear out any large UPnP files from here:

...\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser

Check for large files or files that are much larger than the rest of them. Sometimes my printer or wifi router will will create a huge file in there causing it to be problematic. I usually just delete the problem file. I really don't need playon to cache my printer or router so I just delete them. This pretty much clears up the problem instantly.

By large I mean that my playon cache file is only 4 KB. If something needs to be re cached it will do that. I have not had any problems delete those files. Of course you should save them just in case though.

Here is the post on the previous page.

Sage Playon at first stopped working
Then I accessed it through UPNP and it was fine for a while.
Then that stopped working.

I went to this directory

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser

look at the size of the files. They all should be in the 3K-5K range.
I found one file that was 156K and I looked inside and it had thousands of lines of ']' character in it.

I deleted all the Characters and now it works fine.

[trallyus]

I found the problem - The problem was Comodo Firewall sandboxing the UPnPBrowser program and no matter what I tried it kept giving me problems until I removed Comodo

[samgreco]

Has anyone seen this? We tend to watch TV episodes on Netflix more than anything and when we start a second episode immediately after the first, it will stop playing somewhere into the second one. Just goes dark and silent. It's random. Never at the same point (timewise).

If I sleep Sage and go to a web browser I can watch the episode from where it went dark. If I watch that episode then wake Sage, I can then watch a third. Very strange.

I have not tried it with another Playon service. Only Netflix. So I don't know if it's anything from Playon, or just Netflix.

Any clues on troubleshooting this would be greatly appreciated.

[samgreco]

Oh, if I stop the playback when it goes dark in Sage and restart it, it goes blank at the same spot. But it seems to be working off the same temp file, since it goes "green" to the point it left off.

[Skiier__Dude]

Originally Posted by atyrus28

No it did not break the plugin. This problem comes up for me from time to time. I have needed to either restart the playon service (their auto updates do not always properly restart). The other issue is to clear out any large UPnP files from here:

...\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser

Check for large files or files that are much larger than the rest of them. Sometimes my printer or wifi router will will create a huge file in there causing it to be problematic. I usually just delete the problem file. I really don't need playon to cache my printer or router so I just delete them. This pretty much clears up the problem instantly.

By large I mean that my playon cache file is only 4 KB. If something needs to be re cached it will do that. I have not had any problems delete those files. Of course you should save them just in case though.

Here is the post on the previous page.

Sage Playon at first stopped working
Then I accessed it through UPNP and it was fine for a while.
Then that stopped working.

I went to this directory

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser

look at the size of the files. They all should be in the 3K-5K range.
I found one file that was 156K and I looked inside and it had thousands of lines of ']' character in it.

I deleted all the Characters and now it works fine.

The fix above worked for me. All of a sudden after a few years of using the PlayOn plugin, it stopped working. If I opened the Task Manager on my WHS server, I'd find several instances of UPnP Browser.exe running -- each taking about 25% of the CPU and a ton of memory. Un-installed the PlayOn plugin, restarted the PlayOn server, Sage server, WHS server.

Finally found the thread above, deleted a few large files that were > 150kb, and the PlayOn plugin is working well again.

[mxg]

Evilpenguin

Thank you so much for the playon plugin. It really made sage more accessible to online premium content… especially Netflix for me.

As posted before, I have been using Playlater as my “online DVR” to feed my sage libraries. Using the Android Playon App, I’m able pick content and “record to” playlater via button on the app (see screenshot attached and feature description here). It works well and I’m very satisfied.


Nevertheless, when I browse playon in Sage, I was always wondering if the playon plugin could expose that feature too? If the playon (or playlater) “api” permits, is there anyway of exposing the “recordto” function via the sagetv Playon plugin? More specifically, when selecting the video via the playon plugin, rather than immediately “playing” the content, another sub choice is presented to “Play” or “Record”.

Why?

I often browse the “netflix recently added” section via sage on my HTPC and always wanted “act” on my decision to record an interesting movie or video. With SageTV + the great plugin development, I’ve been able to integrate so many things, including home automation scenes! So I thought I’d pose the question about playlater.

[OldPCGUY]

So all of a sudden my Playon Stopped working and gave me this message

'External Feed Empty'

Not very helpful.

So I uninstalled my Avast program to no avail.
Then I uninstalled my Playon Plugin and then re-install.

But no help.

So I start looking around

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs directory

Then try running UPnPBrowser.exe but it wasn't there!!!

Fortunately I have a backup of this specific directory so I restored it.

Now playon is running again.

How does a file just up and disappear???? weird!

[trallyus]

I just ran in to the 'External Feed Empty' problem yesterday as well after having a power failure and then trying to use the sage tv placeshifter on the upstairs computer before logging in to the downstairs computer.

At least I assume that caused the problem. I eventually had to restore my computer to an earlier time to fix the problem.

I wish there was an easier way as I tried uninstalling the plugin and all the other suggestions but only a restore worked.

From now on I plan on using acronis to back up the sage tv directory so I can just restore if the next time I run in to that situation as it is a pain to fix the problem when it happens

[bmac.to]

Originally Posted by mxg

Evilpenguin

Thank you so much for the playon plugin. It really made sage more accessible to online premium content… especially Netflix for me.

As posted before, I have been using Playlater as my “online DVR” to feed my sage libraries. Using the Android Playon App, I’m able pick content and “record to” playlater via button on the app (see screenshot attached and feature description here). It works well and I’m very satisfied.


Nevertheless, when I browse playon in Sage, I was always wondering if the playon plugin could expose that feature too? If the playon (or playlater) “api” permits, is there anyway of exposing the “recordto” function via the sagetv Playon plugin? More specifically, when selecting the video via the playon plugin, rather than immediately “playing” the content, another sub choice is presented to “Play” or “Record”.

Why?

I often browse the “netflix recently added” section via sage on my HTPC and always wanted “act” on my decision to record an interesting movie or video. With SageTV + the great plugin development, I’ve been able to integrate so many things, including home automation scenes! So I thought I’d pose the question about playlater.

This already exists in a way - add the Podcast Recorder plugin and you can record Playon streams from within Sage. In Sage, we had Playlater type functionality before Playlater existed.

[Protoman]

I am in the same boat as you Wayneb. My father who also has SageTV and PlayOn setup has his house called me about it.

The error is:
The media download failed.
Error: The requested media file was not found on the server.

Looks like I will be rolling back for now.

[Protoman]

I think we jumped the gun TOO soon this time. I also got the HD Upgrade. The information they stated says that my CPU should be more than enough for HD. I think the reason they are putting the information out is for those who need to transcode the content before it is played. Us using SageTV should've have a problem since the files are stored locally on the SageTV server/PC. We will see though, and I hope they drop a fix sooner than later. I have found that there support is pretty good in regards to trying to get an issue resolved.

[Protoman]

Submitted a support ticket to PlayOn and this is there reply to the issue I mentioned a few posts ago:

Thank you for sending this. There is an issue impacting certain playback devices. We have identified a fix which will be included in the next update of PlayOn.

So I will be patiently wanting...

[trallyus]

Originally Posted by Protoman

Submitted a support ticket to PlayOn and this is there reply to the issue I mentioned a few posts ago:

Thank you for sending this. There is an issue impacting certain playback devices. We have identified a fix which will be included in the next update of PlayOn.

So I will be patiently wanting...

I had the same problem of The error is:
The media download failed.
Error: The requested media file was not found on the server, and finally fixed it by updating playlater to the most recent version. After I downloaded Playlater and updated it to the latest version the problem went away.

So if your having problems make sure Playlater is updated to the latest version as well.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Protoman

I think we jumped the gun TOO soon this time. I also got the HD Upgrade. The information they stated says that my CPU should be more than enough for HD. I think the reason they are putting the information out is for those who need to transcode the content before it is played. Us using SageTV should've have a problem since the files are stored locally on the SageTV server/PC.

What do you meant that files are stored locally with Sage? I am pretty sure that your Playon server still transcodes the file in real time even if you are using Sage. Otherwise you would have to wait quite a while to watch a movie in Netflix, etc.

[Protoman]

I meant locally on the hard drive, not in SageTV. I use HD200 and HD300 connected to my TVs and a "Media" server running SageTV. You do know that you can save the show/movie from PlayOn by hitting the record button after the entire show has been downloaded? It basically copies the file from "System Temp Folder" to a Download folder.

BTW, PlayOn released version 3.81 last night and everything is back in working order.

[Protoman]

With the few videos I have tried so far they have been 480P. My connection is consistently 15+ Mbps and my PC goes well beyond the specs PlayOn recommends. I am not sure what is missing yet or if the videos I chose are only available in SD. I am going to try and experiment with Amazon Instant too. So far I tried HBO Go and Netflix.

[trallyus]

Originally Posted by Protoman

With the few videos I have tried so far they have been 480P. My connection is consistently 15+ Mbps and my PC goes well beyond the specs PlayOn recommends. I am not sure what is missing yet or if the videos I chose are only available in SD. I am going to try and experiment with Amazon Instant too. So far I tried HBO Go and Netflix.

Did you pay the extra money to playon to upgrade the program to playback stuff using HD as I notice a difference with hulu even using my 5 meg connection.

Your copy of playon under registration should read Playon Premium, Playon HD if you did. Also check the General tab and make sure Enable HD Capability is checked as well.

I thought the HD part of it was free until someone pointed out that it costs extra. Not sure if it is $4.99 for everyone or if they charge differently for people that are still using monthly subscriptions as I have the lifetime subscription.

[trk2]

I just wanted to attract attention to this thread as an alternative method for HD Netflix streaming and basically anything else using Chromecast through Sage. I've only been using it a few days, but I think it will replace my Playon usage entirely. The only downside is the hardware cost if you don't already own the components.