IOS Client Beta Testers Needed

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by davidb

Yes, I have been working on it 5 to 6 days a week since I closed the beta. I have made quite a bit of progress but alas I have much that I still want to do.
I have issues I am dealing with on my windows server code and IOS client that I can manage but I have run into several snags on extracting what I need from SageTV. These are issues trying to extract show/guide data such as director, comments and a few other fields. The standard stv is showing them so I thought since it is now open source I could just look at the java code and see how they were accessing it but so far I have only found an .xml file, which I am lost on how to interpret.

The other big item is, that I seem to be causing memory leaks when I access the sagetv info using sagex from my c# code. I saw this on my sagetv 7 setup but have since upgraded to the current sagetv 9 and still see the issue. I am not clear if I have to do anything special using sagex to not cause a memory leak or if I have uncovered a bug in either sagex or sagetv.

I was planning on doing a forum post(s) in early January to ask about both of the above issues but I guess I will do so in the next day or so. In the mean time if anyone is lurking "do I need to do anything special l when I am finished using sagex to not cause a leak on the server? If not what options and or logging should I use to better show what is happening to cause this on the server? Sagetv runs out of memory and reports an out of memory error. I can restart it and get it to happen in a few hours so I can fairly easily duplicate it.

I don't want to release a beta until the memory leak issue is resolved. This would cause too much frustration to someone with their Sage system.

David

You need to use Studio to view / edit the STV if you want to see how they did something. It does get stored as xml, but that is not really meant to be looked at directly.

[Ghildebr]

Originally Posted by SageWizdom

Is there any update on this effort? I've been out of the loop for a bit, but could not find any updates searching around.

I too am looking to see if there are any updates on this. All of my TV's already have a Apple TV hooked to them, and those devices are used almost daily. I have 2 of my 5 HD300's starting to give me issues playing videos from my server. I really don't want to buy all new hardware but at this time the only other option I see is the Android Miniclient.

[davidb]

Originally Posted by Ghildebr

I too am looking to see if there are any updates on this. All of my TV's already have a Apple TV hooked to them, and those devices are used almost daily. I have 2 of my 5 HD300's starting to give me issues playing videos from my server. I really don't want to buy all new hardware but at this time the only other option I see is the Android Miniclient.

Yes I am still constantly working on this project most days of the week. I have been adding features to the IOS client and currently right now am about 80% of the way through a rewrite of the windows server code. When I get the server code rewritten I have a small punch list on IOS issues I want to address and then I will be comfortable releasing a version. The release unfortunately won't do what you need as it will target the iPhone and iPad running IOS 11 with the server code running on windows. At the moment I don't even own an Apple TV so that is not on my current plans. My family has been using it quite a bit this past summer when we did a lot of international traveling. We know about the bugs that it does have and how to work around them.

David

[Ghildebr]

I would think that if it works on the iPhone and iPad it should also work on the Apple TV. But then I am not a developer so what do I really know. I already have the server code running on a windows platform. I am just looking for a SageTV app to install on a iOS platform so that I can get rid of my aging extenders.

[davidb]

The TVOS has severe restrictions on what you can store on the device. They sell a 32GB and 64B model but from an app standpoint you can only store 1 meg of local data! They really want you to use iCcloud so this is the reason for the artificial restriction. This sucks but it's Apples way! In contrast the he IOS code downloads a database of your sage system so In my case I have around 3000 media items which are a mix of dvds and tv shows. The IOS size is less than 10 meg on my device so the approach I am using would not directly work. On the good side the expectation is you would have high speed wifi or wired inside your house back to your sage server so in theory the server code could be modified to provide the sage data as needed. This would negate the need to store sage data on the device. I was actually using this approach on rel 1 of my code for IOS. This worked great in my house and in my city but traveling in a more rural area of the country caused it to be laggy. I scrapped the server code and started over with the approach I am using now. This is one of the reasons it's taking so long! As it's not a paid work project I am ability to make it "just the way I want" rather than the typical mentality of work in "make it good enough"! There are benefits in both ways and this is what is one of the reasons that makes it fun to work on!

David

Originally Posted by Ghildebr

I would think that if it works on the iPhone and iPad it should also work on the Apple TV. But then I am not a developer so what do I really know. I already have the server code running on a windows platform. I am just looking for a SageTV app to install on a iOS platform so that I can get rid of my aging extenders.

[Taddeusz]

Is the server part Windows only? With many SageTV users like myself switching to unRAID a Windows server is at best undesirable and at worst frankly useless.

I'm also still a bit confused about what purpose the separate server component would do that sagex doesn't since it already provides a full JSON interface to the SageTV API. But maybe that's my programmer self not wanting to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

[Ghildebr]

I see your point. I will send you a PM with the specs of my equipment. Its way more than the average setup.

[davidb]

Yes the server is windows only. I am using sagex extensively in the server code already. The sever is needed as Apple has very strict guidelines for an app to be accepted for the app store. One of of the many restrictions is all video has to be HLS streaming and I couldn't find a way to accomplish this without using an executable on the server. There are other issues that lead me my approach also. I plan on releasing the source for the sever code at the same time or shortly after release so if someone wanted to port the code to unRAID they could. I wouldn't expect it to take much effort.

David

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Is the server part Windows only? With many SageTV users like myself switching to unRAID a Windows server is at best undesirable and at worst frankly useless.

I'm also still a bit confused about what purpose the separate server component would do that sagex doesn't since it already provides a full JSON interface to the SageTV API. But maybe that's my programmer self not wanting to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

[skier]

Are you still working on this? If so any idea when it will be ready?

[davidb]

Originally Posted by skier

Are you still working on this? If so any idea when it will be ready?

Yes I am. I have found a multitude of ways to have less than optimal results especially with marginal cell service! I have playback, guide data, searching of guide data, searching of all media, recording schedule, downloading with offline playback working now.

What I don't have working is a plugin to get updates from sage when media is added or deleted. I pick it up now by a process than runs once a day, but I think most people wouldn't like that! But back to your original question I expect I will complete the plugin and be ready to submit it to Apple's test flight beta program within the next month. Depending on the outcome there I could have to make changes and resubmit but it shouldn't be anything major. When it does release it will be for windows(32 or 64 bit).

David

[wayner]

I am also willing to be a beta tester. I have a bunch of iOS devices and I have multiple SageTV servers. My production server is on unRAID but I have three other instances of SageTV server running on Win10, Win7 and WHS2011.

I would also reiterate that it would be great to have this run on an unRAID server. There are other streaming video apps that accomplish this with servers running on Mac, Win and Linux. On my unRAID server I have a docker running Air Video HD which is the main way that I currently watch SageTV content on my iPad. Plex would be another example.

[davidb]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am also willing to be a beta tester. I have a bunch of iOS devices and I have multiple SageTV servers. My production server is on unRAID but I have three other instances of SageTV server running on Win10, Win7 and WHS2011.

I would also reiterate that it would be great to have this run on an unRAID server. There are other streaming video apps that accomplish this with servers running on Mac, Win and Linux. On my unRAID server I have a docker running Air Video HD which is the main way that I currently watch SageTV content on my iPad. Plex would be another example.

At the moment my only SageTV server is a windows 2012 box with a high end i7 with 32GB of ram. So that is what I have focused my development on. My mental list of what I would like to add in approximate order is:
1) plugin for sage media changes
2) sagetv messages
3) watch live tv that is if I can get enough support from the relatively few developers left as well as the archive of messages here.
4) Favorites support - Name only with minute +- support.

After that I don't know yet!

[wayner]

My advice, for what its worth, is to focus on viewing and playing back TV shows, especially those that are currently recording. If you need to manage recordings, favorites, etc you can use the web UI on iOS - I have been doing that for close to a decade. If you want to play back movies then you have probably set up something like Plex to play back movies to iOS and other clients.

But watching currently recording TV shows is difficult today on iOS. The best that I have found is something like Air Video HD but it will cut out when you reach the "end" of the file when you starting playing back.

But I am being selfish since that is my pain point.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by davidb

At the moment my only SageTV server is a windows 2012 box with a high end i7 with 32GB of ram. So that is what I have focused my development on. My mental list of what I would like to add in approximate order is:
1) plugin for sage media changes
2) sagetv messages
3) watch live tv that is if I can get enough support from the relatively few developers left as well as the archive of messages here.
4) Favorites support - Name only with minute +- support.

After that I don't know yet!

Super glad to hear you are still pursuing this. Many thanks for your efforts!

-S

[davidb]

Originally Posted by wayner

My advice, for what its worth, is to focus on viewing and playing back TV shows, especially those that are currently recording. If you need to manage recordings, favorites, etc you can use the web UI on iOS - I have been doing that for close to a decade. If you want to play back movies then you have probably set up something like Plex to play back movies to iOS and other clients.

But watching currently recording TV shows is difficult today on iOS. The best that I have found is something like Air Video HD but it will cut out when you reach the "end" of the file when you starting playing back.

But I am being selfish since that is my pain point.

I already have playback of dvds(movies) and tv shows with comskip if available working now. I am not sure how from a technical standpoint to handle a recording in progress so my code skips them for now. Does plex support comskip? I have never used it.

David

[skier]

sorry for more questions but I am new! So how does this compare to the plex way I see talked about? Which is cheaper or better? Will this work with the iPhone x?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by davidb

I already have playback of dvds(movies) and tv shows with comskip if available working now. I am not sure how from a technical standpoint to handle a recording in progress so my code skips them for now. Does plex support comskip? I have never used it.

It appears that Plex supports Comskip for its own DVRed content. Hopefully that means that it also does for other video files as well. See https://support.plex.tv/articles/115...g-commercials/

In terms of handling recordings in progress - you might want to talk to stuckless if you haven't already done.

[bcjenkins]

Plex doesn't support EDL files for its recordings, it will permanently cut commercials out of the recorded shows.

[davidb]

Originally Posted by wayner

It appears that Plex supports Comskip for its own DVRed content. Hopefully that means that it also does for other video files as well. See https://support.plex.tv/articles/115...g-commercials/

In terms of handling recordings in progress - you might want to talk to stuckless if you haven't already done.

You get me thinking about handling a recording in progress! I did some research and I believe I can create a thread and run ffmpeg with getting its input from stdin. I can then redirect it and provide the data from a file I am reading of the recording in progress. So "theoretically" it should work! Anyone lurking here that has other inputs I would love to hear them...
FFmpeg is what I am using to do the encoding/HLS creation.

[wayner]

stuckless wrote the AndroidTV app and he has been playing around with building a web based SageTV client. So he or Narflex (the original inventor/owner of SageTV) would be great resources for you.