[XBMC addon] SageTV

[dgeezer]

BTW, the first setting F:\SageOne has to be entered manually but the second entry for the network path you can browse to. This works on both my Raspberry Pi and my windows 8 desktop

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by asd

Lehighbri, I finally figured out the default server address needed replacing with my server location and "Voila." It is a very quick response to see the menus and views recordings, channel listings and so on -- quite impressive.

I haven't got it tweaked to play a recording yet but I don't want to wear out my welcome in this thread so I'll play around with settings myself for a while.

Thanks for your help so far and for creating a great plugin.

For playback, similar story. If you have issues, I'm happy to help, just provide a log file. Main thing to get right in the settings is the SageTV Recordings path (which you manually type in which should match what your recording path is in SageTV itself) and the XBMC playback path which you manually browse to which is where your recordings are (this must be a path that is accessible to XBMC or else playback won't work).

[asd]

Lehighbri,
Here's log from last attempt:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=101096

I'm wondering if the issue is playing a ts. file.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by asd

Lehighbri,
Here's log from last attempt:

http://xbmclogs.com/show.php?id=101096

I'm wondering if the issue is playing a ts. file.

Thanks. XBMC can playback .ts no problem so that's not the issue. XBMC is trying to playback the following path and can't find it: "C:\Users\sage\Videos\SageTV\HouseHuntersInternational-1231368-0.ts"

I see your settings you specified lowercase c:\Users. Can you update your XBMC addon settings to exactly match the path above and see if that works? I can try to enhance in the future to be case insensitive but it might be case sensitive for now.

Let me know how it goes.

[asd]

Bingo!

At first it didn't work but then I redid the XBMC path browse steps to my folder and it works.

I'm very impressed with the plugin -- no lag is fantastic. Again, thanks for your very patient and prompt help.

Thanks too to dgeezer for the screen shot. I was entering the path in the folder entry, not just the local address of Sage Server recordings folder.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by asd

Bingo!

At first it didn't work but then I redid the XBMC path browse steps to my folder and it works.

I'm very impressed with the plugin -- no lag is fantastic. Again, thanks for your very patient and prompt help.

Thanks too to dgeezer for the screen shot. I was entering the path in the folder entry, not just the local address of Sage Server recordings folder.

Great, enjoy! And I'm always open to feedback to enhance it further so keep me posted if you see anything you'd like improved.

[Slack]

Nevermind...

xbmc.js was not on the SageTV box.

thanks for an HD200 'Plan B'.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Slack

Nevermind...

xbmc.js was not on the SageTV box.

thanks for an HD200 'Plan B'.

Is it working now? The step you might have missed is what is in the first post:

xbmc.js file (Copy included xbmc.js file to your "SageTV\SageTV\sagex\services" directory)

[Slack]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Is it working now? The step you might have missed is what is in the first post:

xbmc.js file (Copy included xbmc.js file to your "SageTV\SageTV\sagex\services" directory)

Yes it's working.
I gleaned the info from reading the last couple of pages of this thread.

After messing around with NextPVR as a backend and XBMC as a front end - it became painfully obvious that SageTV was going to stick around in this house.

This Add-on for XBMC is a nice insurance plan for dying extenders.
Many thanks.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Slack

Yes it's working.
I gleaned the info from reading the last couple of pages of this thread.

After messing around with NextPVR as a backend and XBMC as a front end - it became painfully obvious that SageTV was going to stick around in this house.

This Add-on for XBMC is a nice insurance plan for dying extenders.
Many thanks.

Glad to help. And keep me posted if you have any improvements you'd like to see made... I'm happy to continue to enhance this addon.

[boukmandutty]

I have a quick question. Is there a way to make the xbmc client machine responsible for decoding video playback for files it accesses through the sagetv plguin?

My server, for instance, is headless and since it has no video card (I think this is the reason) some of my files do not playback. If I browse to them directly over the network through xbmc they actually play.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by boukmandutty

I have a quick question. Is there a way to make the xbmc client machine responsible for decoding video playback for files it accesses through the sagetv plguin?

My server, for instance, is headless and since it has no video card (I think this is the reason) some of my files do not playback. If I browse to them directly over the network through xbmc they actually play.

Not sure what you mean.

[boukmandutty]

Sorry, was in a rush when I originally posted.

I run my Sagetv server using a hp mediasmart (EX495). This server does not have a video chip. I am assuming this is the reason why when I try to watch some of my recordings via the Sagetv XBMC plugin on my other computer, they do not open. These are all unencrypted files of course.

By contrast, if I navigate to the specific file over my home network XBMC actually opens and plays the file. Not sow when I try to access the file using the Sagetv XBMC pugin I am left to deduce therefore, that the Sagetv XBMC plugin is not using my client machine's video chip to do the decoding but is instead leaving this task up to the server (Which as I pointed out does not come with a video card).

My question therefore is if there is a way to direct the sagetv xbmc plugin to use the video card on my client machine (htpc) to play the file when it is accessing from my server.

I hope I have been more clear.

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by boukmandutty

Sorry, was in a rush when I originally posted.

I run my Sagetv server using a hp mediasmart (EX495). This server does not have a video chip. I am assuming this is the reason why when I try to watch some of my recordings via the Sagetv XBMC plugin on my other computer, they do not open. These are all unencrypted files of course.

By contrast, if I navigate to the specific file over my home network XBMC actually opens and plays the file. Not sow when I try to access the file using the Sagetv XBMC pugin I am left to deduce therefore, that the Sagetv XBMC plugin is not using my client machine's video chip to do the decoding but is instead leaving this task up to the server (Which as I pointed out does not come with a video card).

My question therefore is if there is a way to direct the sagetv xbmc plugin to use the video card on my client machine (htpc) to play the file when it is accessing from my server.

I hope I have been more clear.

This is clear, but playing back video has nothing to do with your server having a video chip. Your client PC is always the PC that is doing the video decoding during playback... all the server is doing is "streaming" the file to the client to play.

So that's not your issue in XBMC. Did you configure the addon correctly? Can you send me an xbmc.log file when you try to play back and it fails in the XBMC sagetv addon so I can try to see what's going on?

[odledm]

First off thanks for the work on the plugin. It really makes it easier to access the shows from my XBMC box.

I've been trying to find an alternative for SageTV for when my extenders go out. Right now I am playing with a Raspberry PI running OpenElec 3.2.3 (I believe this corresponds to XBMC 12.3). I have the Sage Addon running. I have the optional raspberry pi codecs installed. I overclocked the PI to the medium settings. And I currently do not post process any of my recordings (beyond comskip but that doesn't alter the raw files)

So here's the question for the other users out there. I am seeing a combing effect when I play HD videos from the plugin. I think I can get this to go away by selecting Deinterlacing in the XBMC options, but then the sound is a little off. Is anyone else seeing this problem and what have you done to resolve it? My guess is the PI is just a little underpowered for that, but thought it was worth asking.

[mzup]

I have never been able to get this to work with any system running xbmc that is not the system running sagetv itself. If I use the xbmc on the sagetv system it plays, but my openelec and my linux systems see the recordings but when I go to play something, nothing happens. Does it have to do with the type of video it is? They are mp4 files.

My paths are field in with trailing \ and the unc path is selected and accessible by the "clients"

[gerberdude]

This is the snippet from the log that I get when I try and play
files. They can be accessed from smb, just not through the addon. I can see the listing of all of the files, but no love when I click to watch one.

T:2812277824  NOTICE: *** sagex request URL:http://sage:frey@192.168.1.107:8080/sagex/api?command=IsFileCurrentlyRecording&1=airing:5330606&encoder=json
20:04:13 T:2812277824  NOTICE: Thread Background Loader start, auto delete: false
20:04:17 T:2812277824  NOTICE: Thread XBPyThread start, auto delete: false
20:04:18 T:2812277824  NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--
20:04:19 T:2812277824  NOTICE: *** sagex request URL:http://sage:frey@192.168.1.107:8080/sagex/api?c=xbmc:GetPluginVersion&1=mediastreaming&encoder=json
20:04:19 T:2812277824  NOTICE: SageTV not detected, or required plugins not installed
20:04:21 T:2812277824  NOTICE: ***SageTV mediastreaming plugin version installed=
20:04:22 T:2812277824   ERROR: EXCEPTION Thrown (PythonToCppException) : -->Python callback/script returned the following error<--
                                             - NOTE: IGNORING THIS CAN LEAD TO MEMORY LEAKS!
                                            Error Type: <type 'exceptions.ValueError'>
                                            Error Contents: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''
                                            Traceback (most recent call last):
                                              File "/home/pi/.xbmc/addons/plugin.video.sagetv/contextmenuactions.py", line 205, in <module>
                                                if(comparePluginVersions(streamingServicesPluginVersion, MIN_VERSION_STREAMING_SERVICES_PLUGIN_REQUIRED) < 0):
                                              File "/home/pi/.xbmc/addons/plugin.video.sagetv/contextmenuactions.py", line 78, in comparePluginVersions
                                                int1 = int(p1[i])
                                            ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: ''
                                            -->End of Python script error report<--

[gerberdude]

Nevermind, I answered my own question. I guess Media Streaming Services is a plugin on the SageTV end, not the RPi end. You should add that to your list of dependencies, since I didn't have it, it was the reason mine wouldn't play the videos. Once I added it everything played perfectly.

Thanks.

[texneus]

Originally Posted by odledm

So here's the question for the other users out there. I am seeing a combing effect when I play HD videos from the plugin. I think I can get this to go away by selecting Deinterlacing in the XBMC options, but then the sound is a little off. Is anyone else seeing this problem and what have you done to resolve it? My guess is the PI is just a little underpowered for that, but thought it was worth asking.

Yes, the combing is interlacing and setting this to 'Auto' will fix it. I'm not certain why they default it to 'Off'.

If by 'the sound is a little off' you are referring to occasional gurgling type noises...yes I have noticed that to although I never associated it with de-interlacing. IME it is tied to the 'Sync Playback to Display' under Settings | Playback. Disable this as all of the sync options seem to do this (perhaps they do with de-interlacing off?). Feel free to raise it over in the Openelec forums, the dev's have been very helpful to me. I just never have because it's a feature I don't really need.

[odledm]

Thanks for the tips. I played around with the deinterlacing setting (turning it to auto) and then adjusted the audio sync to .150 which seems to have fixed it for now, but honestly I didn't spend too much time with it last night. All this makes me wish sage was still around as their extenders just work and the WAF is excellent for them.

Thanks again