Gemstone UI Addon and Theme

[camTexas]

Looks really good. Any chance of throwing us a bone to test out anytime soon? Thanks, Chad

[samgreco]

You know, things around here have been way to stable for way too long...

[jusjoken]

No bones yet... but here is the Gemstone Weather I have been working on...

You can change icon sets, use 3 providers (World Weather, Yahoo and Google/NWS) and customize the look for a vertical/horizontal forecast.

We also now optionally support weather backgrounds on both the Weather Screen as well as the main menu!!!









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[les_bloom]

I am very excited for this! Thank you to all for your hard work so far

[rnadeau]

I have also been looking forward to this for a while. Hopefully it will be available soon. I have had nothing to play with for a while and it is boring and I have a rock solid setup. It will be fun to play with this. My wife feels otherwise but isn't that always the way! She says if it aint broke , don't fix it, but I tell her that is no fun!! Then I say what is wrong with you when I make a change and she doesn't know how to use it. She is good about it though so I rarely end up in the dog house. She knows boys must have their toys.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by rnadeau

I have had nothing to play with for a while and it is boring and I have a rock solid setup. It will be fun to play with this. My wife feels otherwise but isn't that always the way! She says if it aint broke , don't fix it, but I tell her that is no fun!! Then I say what is wrong with you when I make a change and she doesn't know how to use it.

Wow, that sounds JUST LIKE.... um... most of us?

[rnadeau]

Will the Gemstone ui support Slugger's tv guide data plugin?
I also thought it would be worth as least mentioning that Neflix support would be great either natively or through the playon plugin. The current playon plugin every so often has the screen go black and loose the sound, but the time clock keeps going. If you repley the show it stops again at the same place unless you reboot the system.

I know this is alot to ask for but I just wanted to give my 2 cents. The screenshots look awesome and looking forward to it.

[jorton]

Re: Slugger's Guide Data Plugin MC2XML and Gemstone UI Addon - I believe it should work but haven't tried it myself as the Zap2it Guide Data is still working fine for me. I see there is an associated plugin (stvi) to install but it probably doesn't touch what we change (only the EPG "guide" itself not the source data code).

Re: Playon and Gemstone UI Addon - It works fine for me (in Canada) using Playon/Netflix and I don't have any blanking out issues (not sure how to help you there). I just ran a test for about 30 minutes and no blank screen or no dropped sound etc...

[rnadeau]

The problem with the screen going black and losing sound happens with netflix and hulu. The playon folks have tried to help me diagnose and finally said it is a known problem with the sage playon plugin. Another sage user has told me they have the same issue. It doesn't happen all the time. I have been watching netflix and hulu for 3 days since the last time it happened. The time it happened before that it did it for 3 consecutive shows. So there is no knowing when it will really happen. I guess I should turn on the debug log in sage and try to track it that way. The playon logs are encoded so it can only be read by their techs. I think it's because they don't want you to be able to tell if it is a problem with their software. If I figure it out I will post it so that other folks that may have the same issue can benefit from it.

[jorton]

Not that i want to turn this into a Playon/Netflix/Hulu debate, but I generally use my PS3/Xbox360 for Netflix to get HD and 5.1 as the Playon Server software only seems to serve down converted "DVD" quality (even though Netflix content is HD) so that is as good as EP's great Sagetv Playon Plugin will display.

[rnadeau]

I also have a WII that I can watch Netflix on but that is only stereo and the picture quality and sound is better with sage and the playon plugin. I am also using spdif to my receiver which upconverts to surround and sounds alot better than with the WII. I get 5.1 sound with this setup and my receiver is incredibly adept at sending the audio to the correct speakers so that it sounds almost true surround sound.
I understand that you don't want to reinvent the wheel. I was asking because it is an issue I have had forever and changing the computer hardware and updating the operating system hasn't made any difference. I would just like something that works and has no issues. I just turned on the sage debug log because it just happened again about 10 minutes ago. Hopefully I can detect what is going on and fix it.

[jorton]

What type/speed connection do you have to the Internet? Could it be connection related? Is it maybe trying to buffer and just doesn't recover leading to the loss of video and audio?

[rnadeau]

I have Time\Warner cable for internet .The speed is up to 39 Mbps when I do a speed test. Playon have said it was a loss of internet connection, but I told them I can watch netflix or hulu on my WII for a couple of months and it doesn't happen with the WII. I am gonna check if I can also turn on debugging in he playon plugin to try and figure this out. I've turned debug on in sage and am waiting for it to fail.

[Fuzzy]

I still prefer watching Netflix via direct-launching the 7MC netflix plugin. quality is great, quick and responsive.

[rnadeau]

Do you mean windows 7 Media center? and if so where can I get the plugin. Can you use you remote to control it?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I still prefer watching Netflix via direct-launching the 7MC netflix plugin. quality is great, quick and responsive.

I do the same. Sometimes the plugin will freeze ehshell or just freak out in general. How are you launching it? I think the way I do it might be the issue.

Originally Posted by rnadeau

Do you mean windows 7 Media center? and if so where can I get the plugin. Can you use you remote to control it?

If you are on w7 that has media center built in all you do is go install playready and the internet tv plugin (which includes netflix) and you are good to go.

[rnadeau]

Are you saying that netflix freezes when used with MC7 or when used with the sage playon plugin and if you are using the WM7 to watch netflix movies, do you use something like eventghost to control it with your remote? and how do you switch between sage and Wm7?

[panteragstk]

I have a batch file that will launch the w7 media center netflix plugin directly. I created a menu item for sage that executes that batch file.

So, the way it works is I click the netflix menu item in the sage online menu and it launches directly into netflix. Works great. I use an MCE remote so I didn't have to configure anything to work with netflix. The one thing I did do was make the green button close the media center interface and go back to sage. I did that with eventghost.

[rnadeau]

Can you tell me how you create a menu item and if it will work with diamond ui. Can you also share the batch file. I'm taking for granted that netflix works fine , now losing picture or sound and having to restart the movie or show you are watching. Thanks

[panteragstk]

I'll get the information for the batch file, but creating a menu item is something you're going to have to look into with sagetv studio. It isn't all that difficult, but it isn't something I can tell you how to do in a post. I use ortus with allows you to create menus and choose existing actions or menu items in sagetv. It is very simple. Past that I wouldn't be much help.