Come Back to SageTV - Open Source in "Near" Future

[wayner]

Originally Posted by asd

Unblockus? Never heard of it. Does it work?

Unblockus is a DNS spoofing services that allows you to receive video streaming services on a whitelist by changing the DNS setting of your device or of your router. It allows people outside of the U.S. to access US Netflix (or pick which country of Netflix that you want), Amazon streaming, Hulu, most US TV network sites, etc. It also usually circumvents local blackouts for streaming services for MLB, NBA, NHL, etc.

It also allows people outside of the UK to access BBC iplayer, ITV, etc. The same thing for a few other countries.

It is $5 per month and is very widely used in Canada. There are also other competing services. And then there are also VPNs which are a bit different but have other pros and cons.

I have been using it for years - initially to use Netflix before it was offered to Canadians. It also works with Playon.

https://www.unblock-us.com

[wayner]

Originally Posted by cron

. Using 3rd party solutions lik unblock-us are not something everyone is comfortable and willing to do.

If someone is running Sage then running Unblockus, which requires changing the DNS settings in your network config, is trivially easy.

For cord cutters outside of the USA I would think that a service like this is extremely useful since it vastly opens up the content you can access.

And Unblockus isn't required for many services, like Netflix Roku, etc, but it vastly increases the amount of content available.

[Gustovier]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

UI work has always been easy for the userbase to do, that doesn't change with the opensourcing. in that regard, all open source will really accomplish is possibly bring in some fresh blood to tweak the UI.

Streaming could be greatly improved by leveraging the PlayOn connection, just needs that plugin to be tweaked in whatever way is required to allow PlayOn to send HD streams. I honestly don't know what PlayOn is using to determine the capabilities of the client, but whatever it is, isn't allowing the HD to be sent. I've no doubt sage could render it quite well, and would be a great step forward in that regard. The PlayOn interface could use some improvements, but it is functional as is. Not bad considering EvilPenguin stopped working on it in 2011 I think. (I have looked through his code, and honestly, I'm at a complete loss - it seems like it is simply asking for the URL that the PlayOn server is providing for the stream, so no idea what PlayOn needs to improve the quality).

Plucky, I believe playon looks at the user agent of the browser to determine if it will stream in HD. I remember reading about Kodi not getting HD streams until they fixed something around the user agent.

[mistergq]

I just recently added playon later so I can get an offline copy to view when streaming is not an option.

I have not revived the playon plugin because we will be using Amazon Firetv or Roku for that.

If we can get an android interface that would work with Amazon FireTv, than you have all streaming options.

The other thing to consider is building a client/extender for an atom little computer which we can have Netflix, Hulu, vudu etc running as a separate app

[will]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

The problem is that people have vastly different ideas of what "nicer" is One of the great strengths of SageTV is that the UI can be changed and customized. I hope dozens of people create new UIs!

Totally agree. I still like the default v7 interface, sure it could use a few tweaks here or there, overall it is very efficient and well thought out. I don't know about other people but when I turn on the TV my main goal is to find what I want to watch as fast as possible, not to be wowed by menus and pretty covers - distractions to the main objective.

[wayner]

Gemstone for me, especially when my kids were pre-literate. Having banners ow walls of posters allows them to find what they want.

[toony]

Originally Posted by wayner

Gemstone for me, especially when my kids were pre-literate. Having banners ow walls of posters allows them to find what they want.

I found Gemstone complicated. It probably isn't but it just didn't seem very intuitive. Plex does shine here.

[TechBill]

Thank you Google!!

Bill

[Stu Gare]

Gemstone for me, killer feature being able to press up when viewing, and get scroll of thumbnails. Great for skipping adverts (I couldn't get com skip to reliably work on my dvb-t2,t recordings. I also like the menu configurator combined with views and view filters.
Having said that I still prefer SageMC on my last mvp for music playback.(kitchen/garden for music)
Creating playlists is so simple.

[Damstas]

Does this open source thing mean, that it would be possible to create Google Fiber like interface for Sage TV?

[AlphaCrew]

Wow, this is not what I expected to see today (I came here looking to see what people where using instead of SageTV.)

I said in the beginning that Google would = the death of SageTV in any iteration...

Well looks like I might have been wrong about that prediction..

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Damstas

Does this open source thing mean, that it would be possible to create Google Fiber like interface for Sage TV?

You could do that right now, without it being open source. it's been possible to make your own UI for Sage for years.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

Plucky, I believe playon looks at the user agent of the browser to determine if it will stream in HD. I remember reading about Kodi not getting HD streams until they fixed something around the user agent.

That does sound reasonable - and both good and bad. The good is that since it's a user agent based selection process, it should be easy to have sage spoof it's user-agent to match that of a player that is white-listed, and the MPG it pulls should then be HD - bad because that needs to be done in the core of sage, meaning we can't get at it until we get into the source code. Currently, sage appears to not set the User Agent at all, so when it requests the video file from the PlayOn UPnP server, it is requesting it with the default "Java/[version]" user-agent, so currently no HD.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I have a FireTV and use Kodi. It has pass through audio and works quite well with my AVR.

I'll be darned if I can figure out why I could get 5.1 channel audio via the Xbox 360 Amazon app, yet on the very same Amazon video could get only stereo audio on the full FireTV.

Even more disappointing, and an important thing to note as we investigate using computers as Sage Clients, online services that feed via a web browser do not provide 5.1 channel audio. Well, Amazon Prime anyways.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I'll be darned if I can figure out why I could get 5.1 channel audio via the Xbox 360 Amazon app, yet on the very same Amazon video could get only stereo audio on the full FireTV.

Even more disappointing, and an important thing to note as we investigate using computers as Sage Clients, online services that feed via a web browser do not provide 5.1 channel audio. Well, Amazon Prime anyways.

One of the many reasons RedBox is better than Netflix/Amazon.

[Gustovier]

Well the closet thing you can come to for one input to rule all is to get an Xbox one and have a sage pc client (I'm using am Intel NUC) feed into the hdmi pass thru of the Xbox one. This will get you live TV/dvr and access to all the major streaming (Netflix , Amazon , HBO go, showtime, starz , fox, fx, tbs, comedy central , etc) and ultra violet lockers all on input one. It's not all the same user interface but it's pretty close. If you use Apple devices you can even buy AirServer to get AirPlay support (non protected content). With this setup I can say "watch tv" and Im I'm sage. Then say "watch Netflix" then I'm in Netflix getting HD AND 5.1 sound (not all streaming apps deliver 5.1 )

You can even get tighter integration by modding whichever STV you use to work with Xbox one Kinects rf blasting. So you can make use of the one guide , shows trending etc..

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Gustovier

Well the closet thing you can come to for one input to rule all is to get an Xbox one and have a sage pc client (I'm using am Intel NUC) feed into the hdmi pass thru of the Xbox one. This will get you live TV/dvr and access to all the major streaming (Netflix , Amazon , HBO go, showtime, starz , fox, fx, tbs, comedy central , etc) and ultra violet lockers all on input one. It's not all the same user interface but it's pretty close. If you use Apple devices you can even buy AirServer to get AirPlay support (non protected content). With this setup I can say "watch tv" and Im I'm sage. Then say "watch Netflix" then I'm in Netflix getting HD AND 5.1 sound (not all streaming apps deliver 5.1 )

You can even get tighter integration by modding whichever STV you use to work with Xbox one Kinects rf blasting. So you can make use of the one guide , shows trending etc..

When you say "watch Netflix" you literally mean speaking it? I think it would be funny if you were watching a moving on Sage and one of actors said the words, "Watch Netflix" and it just switched you over to Netflix

I've given up on the idea that one application (ie, sage or anything) can be a single source for everything. The reality each provider (hulu, netflix, etc) all use protected content, and as such provide their own interfaces. I'm ok with a single box that can jump out to each offering, and I think that possible. It would be cool if you could get a search index into each provider so you could search for a movie, and show results from local, netflix, amazon, etc, and then when you selected it, would jump into that specific app. (AndroidTV is close with this, but Netflix still doesn't provide a hook into their search).

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stuckless

When you say "watch Netflix" you literally mean speaking it? I think it would be funny if you were watching a moving on Sage and one of actors said the words, "Watch Netflix" and it just switched you over to Netflix

I've given up on the idea that one application (ie, sage or anything) can be a single source for everything. The reality each provider (hulu, netflix, etc) all use protected content, and as such provide their own interfaces. I'm ok with a single box that can jump out to each offering, and I think that possible. It would be cool if you could get a search index into each provider so you could search for a movie, and show results from local, netflix, amazon, etc, and then when you selected it, would jump into that specific app. (AndroidTV is close with this, but Netflix still doesn't provide a hook into their search).

Someone who's good at making web site scrapers should make a reader for www.canistreamit.com...

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Someone who's good at making web site scrapers should make a reader for www.canistreamit.com...

That's an interesting site...Good to know about it.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by stuckless

When you say "watch Netflix" you literally mean speaking it? I think it would be funny if you were watching a moving on Sage and one of actors said the words, "Watch Netflix" and it just switched you over to Netflix

I've given up on the idea that one application (ie, sage or anything) can be a single source for everything. The reality each provider (hulu, netflix, etc) all use protected content, and as such provide their own interfaces. I'm ok with a single box that can jump out to each offering, and I think that possible. It would be cool if you could get a search index into each provider so you could search for a movie, and show results from local, netflix, amazon, etc, and then when you selected it, would jump into that specific app. (AndroidTV is close with this, but Netflix still doesn't provide a hook into their search).

.

Netflix makes a hook I believe they just don't share it but they sure let Roku access it in their universal search.I am about where you are on gave up along time ago for one box to rule them all.you can get close but never can get it all from one.