SageTV Catchup

[michaeldjcox]

SageTV Catchup 0.2.7

Plugin to assist UK users to watch UK catchup TV online sources via online services menu.

These services are usually geo-restricted to UK so this plugin will not be of use outside the UK.

I have no desire to break any T&Cs with this plugin - merely show the content on the big screen rather than the PC or tablet.

There are various good plugins for integrating online sources into SageTV so why another?

I was mainly inspired by the HomeView boxes in the UK that have forwards and backwards EPG where you can select a program in the past on the EPG and watch it.

I haven't got there yet!

However it occurs that the meta data is often very good and a higher tie in between shows online and shows known to SageTV via EPG is possible. I also found some of the technology, e.g. UPnP, a little cumbersome and abandoned one SageTV plugin I never released based around this.

The plugin takes the strategy of cataloging the source periodically rather than going straight to source. The reason for this is that the browsing speed will be faster and some useful recategorisation and reorganisation can be done. For TV catchup sources refresh overnight is probably frequent enough.

This beta release features BBC iplayer browsing, watch, and record to TV recordings area.

Installation

Installation is via SageTV plugin screens.

You have to install get_iplayer separately. For windows the installer is here: http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer...tup_latest.exe

Known issues:

• get_iplayer will not download some programmes even though you can view them on BBC iplayer. I probably need to work a little on the command line params or get_iplayer has a bug.
• SageTV has a 5 minute caching of online sources so some of my info entries in online services do not refresh often enough. This is governed by the online_video/cache_time_limit=300000 property in the client
• If you want to see the recorded shows in the TV recordings area rather than video imports even though they physically reside in a recordings folder you have to set select an option in SageTV options. See this post http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...76&postcount=4
• It really needs an STVi import rather than the podcast-based control features it has. I think I might be too dumb to ever be able to write one of these!

Hope you find it useful - I already find I'm watching things outside my usual favourites.

Enjoy,

Michael

[brewston]

Hi

I was curious about this when you posted in the UK forum, I could understand what it did (Offered iplayer programs in Sage) but couldn't figure out how they were presented. I just installed it (along with get_iplayer) and I'm afraid I'm still confused. I thought maybe it would show up as another video source (it doesn't) or an option within the EPG (I use Phoenix 2 but I tried it in the default STV too)

How do I use it ?

Thanks

[michaeldjcox]

So you should see a new entry in the online services menu. See attachments

[michaeldjcox]

I should add it takes a little time to "warm up".

It will start cataloging iplayer - this will take some time - maybe an hour.

Information about what its up to is available in the plugin configuration and also via a web service and in the Catchup status area in online services menu of SageTV

It will try to use port 8081 for the webservice

See further attachments:

[brewston]

Ah, I didn't think to look in there it's not showing there for me but I've not restarted Sage. TBH, my family never use that screen (and I think training them would be an uphill battle) so I'm not sure this is worth debugging.

get_iplayer looks interesting, if I set it to download to my sage recordings directory, do they automagically appear as recordings ?

[michaeldjcox]

My 7 year old picked it up straight away.

My wife won't go into online services - so I go there to service her requests and mark an episode for record.

Then it will download and get saved to TV recordings.

The plugin uses the SageAPI to set the meta data for the media file.

I suspect that you could use get_iplayer to drop a media file in there but it will appear in video imports.

meta data has to be set to register it as a TV recording - which you could do manually with BMT.

Then that sageTV option I mention in the known issues needs to be set.

My plugin attempts to automate all that and marshall the meta data.

So I am in a happy place where missed episodes I download from iplayer appear grouped in TV recordings with ones recorded by SageTV.

My family are very familiar with using that side of SageTV

[deanm]

Hi

Thanks for the great plugin. I can see me using iPlayer much more. Mainly because I always forget about it. And also because it means using another remote to access it via my tv.

Installed the plugin and all seems to be ok. I can browse the shows etc.

But I have a problem when I try to watch a show I get an error

"There was an error playing
C:users\admin\appsdata\local\temp\onlinevideoxxxx.flv:
Error(-2):Files selected for playback are no longer on disk"

Not sure if this was how I installed Get_iPlayer as I changed the default paths

Any ideas

Dean

[michaeldjcox]

Probably the stream is failing.

There should be a log file on the server in :

<SAGE INSTALL DIR>/sagetvcatchup/logs/sagetvcatchup.log

Can you send me the zipped contents of that please?

[deanm]

I don't have a logs folder or any logs

[michaeldjcox]

So theres a

<SAGE INSTALL DIR>/sagetvcatchup/

directory but it has no logs subdir?

[deanm]

Yes but not logs folder or log files.

I have noticed that in some of the config files that they point to Get_iPlayer to be in a default location on the C drive.

Mine is installed on the d drive. I have manually changed these but get same error

Dean

[michaeldjcox]

So you have edited sagetvcatchup/config/sagetvcatchup.props for iplayer location?

Thats fine

I suggest a disable and reenable of plugin (to pick up new props)

possibly a restart of the server.

It should remember the result of the last cataloging run and caches the properties in tmp dir

In fact there is no pain in enable/disable or even uninstall/install - everything will come back as before.

Thanks for being a trail blazer - there is always a few issues when a plugin hits a new environment but it should be a thin shell of resistance - everything underneath that shell is well tested and should work well.

Michael

[PeterC]

I installed this on Windows XP and had to edit the paths in "sagetvcatchup.properties" and remove the " (86)" from them. After doing this the new Catchup TV menu entry appeared in online videos, although there are no entries in any of the sub menus.

Is there anything else I should be doing to access the videos?

Peter

[michaeldjcox]

Hi Peter,

A placeholder menu appears under online services and then cataloging begins.

Some time later - maybe an hour - (I must measure it) cataloging will be finished (and catalog persisted) and you should see more.

There should be a "Catchup Status" category under "Catchup TV" and withing that there is a "Cataloging Progress" entry which will show how far its got through iplayer.

If you cannot see it it is also displayed in "Installed plugins" if you select "Configure" for the plugin.

Although some patience is required for this initial cataloging exercise the results in terms of navigation speed are well worth it and we have 30 days to notice new content so a catalog refresh every 12 hours is fine.

Michael

[PeterC]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi Peter,

A placeholder menu appears under online services and then cataloging begins.

Some time later - maybe an hour - (I must measure it) cataloging will be finished (and catalog persisted) and you should see more.

There should be a "Catchup Status" category under "Catchup TV" and withing that there is a "Cataloging Progress" entry which will show how far its got through iplayer.

If you cannot see it it is also displayed in "Installed plugins" if you select "Configure" for the plugin.

Although some patience is required for this initial cataloging exercise the results in terms of navigation speed are well worth it and we have 30 days to notice new content so a catalog refresh every 12 hours is fine.

Michael

All of the sub menus display "No Videos Were Found", although in the plugin configuration it states cataloging has finished and the next on is in 9Hrs.
Where is this data actually saved? I wonder if it might be another incorrect path problem.

Peter

[michaeldjcox]

Are you able to see the logs dir?

Got to sagetv server dir. There should be a subdir sagetvcatchup and in there a logs dir.

If you could zip up the log file and post it that would be cool.

Also the web server will try and use port 8081.

Could you open a browser and see if you can bring up

http://localhost:8081

(if your already on the server box - if not substitute the server name for localhost)

It may be that port is already in use in which case it can be changed in the config dir adjacent the logs dir:

#
# Port to use for the web service
#
podcasterPort=8081

The catalog is stored in tmp dir.

If your on windows and sagetv is running as local system user it is probably C:/Windows/Temp

The name of the file will be

sagetvcatchup.xml

Hope this helps.

Michael

[wayner]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

SageTV Catchup 0.2.7These services are usually geo-restricted to UK so this plugin will not be of use outside the UK.

The geo-restriction can be overcome with services like Unblockus.

These types of services are very popular here in Canada to allow us to access streaming services that are only available to Americans like Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, etc and they also allow you to access any country's Netflix service. This also allows people from anywhere in the world to access the BBC iPlayer.

[PeterC]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Are you able to see the logs dir?

Got to sagetv server dir. There should be a subdir sagetvcatchup and in there a logs dir.

If you could zip up the log file and post it that would be cool.

Also the web server will try and use port 8081.

Could you open a browser and see if you can bring up

http://localhost:8081

(if your already on the server box - if not substitute the server name for localhost)

It may be that port is already in use in which case it can be changed in the config dir adjacent the logs dir:

#
# Port to use for the web service
#
podcasterPort=8081

The catalog is stored in tmp dir.

If your on windows and sagetv is running as local system user it is probably C:/Windows/Temp

The name of the file will be

sagetvcatchup.xml

Hope this helps.

Michael

What should be displayed on http://localhost:8081? I think another app was using 8081 so I changed it to 8090 and all I see is a blank page.

There is not a Logs subdir.

sagetvcatchup.xml is in the Windows Temp folder and is populated with data although I still do not see any entries in online section.

Peter

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by PeterC

What should be displayed on http://localhost:8081? I think another app was using 8081 so I changed it to 8090 and all I see is a blank page.

There is not a Logs subdir.

sagetvcatchup.xml is in the Windows Temp folder and is populated with data although I still do not see any entries in online section.

Peter

And you disabled/enabled the plugin to pick up the new properties?

[michaeldjcox]

I have just done a clean install on my home system and I cannot see the log file. So thats something to look at. It may appear after restart of server because I certainly had it before.

Also

The host and port is in the catalog so after a port change the catalog will need rebuilding. Thats also something to look at.

I suggest no new attempts until I can look at these issues.