Open source HD400

[_Demo_]

Hello,

I've been wondering if any people would be interested in contributing some code/testing for a new open source "HD400" based on an existing media box.

My first goal will be usage as an extender only (no local UI) with most features of the HD300 and adding 4K HDR output as well as the H265 and VP9 codecs.

JF

[mechling-burgh]

How would you do this an Android box reflashed?

[stuckless]

Is something different than the existing Android MiniClient (ie, Android App that runs the MiniClient (ie HD300) as an App on Android TV)

[KarylFStein]

I think focusing on an app makes more sense now. I haven't retired my HD300s because the current app doesn't do some things today that I want. Namely bitstreaming audio (works for 5.1 in ExoPlayer, but that's hit or miss on what it plays and I'd like to play around with some Atmos stuff in the future), and also the remote buttons accepted. If you're up to making an HD400 then I'd say why not instead contribute that experience to making the Android mini-client better? I'm guessing that there's some way to make an Android device boot to an app...? (And if not there's an app for that ).

[_Demo_]

Yes that's right for reprogramming an android box, my current target device are S905X based boxes.

Regarding making an app instead, the main issue is that for many features missing the app doesn't seem to have enough control over the box.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

Yes that's right for reprogramming an android box, my current target device are S905X based boxes.

Regarding making an app instead, the main issue is that for many features missing the app doesn't seem to have enough control over the box.

How does the SHIELD TV keep adding features to Kodi and Plex apps (which I don't use) for audio and video? 4k/HDR/Atmos/etc. are in there from the release notes. How can that gap be bridged?

[CollegeProject]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

How does the SHIELD TV keep adding features to Kodi and Plex apps (which I don't use) for audio and video? 4k/HDR/Atmos/etc. are in there from the release notes. How can that gap be bridged?

Those apps all use the native Android player. I believe stuckless went this route to preserve commercial skip. I'm in the boat if the Android app doesn't do something you want control feature wise, contribute to it rather than start a new.

I see no benefit in a "hd400" if you boot to sagetv you lose all the apps that make Android an all in one solution.

[Fuzzy]

Have to agree.. while I loved the simplicity of the HDxxx series of devices, most users want more than that these days, and the cost/benefit really seems to mean focusing on refining the android app makes more sense today.

That said, it'd be nice to port the Android app to a few other platforms - XBoxOne would be great. Possibly AppleTV (is that still a thing?).

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

Yes that's right for reprogramming an android box, my current target device are S905X based boxes.

Regarding making an app instead, the main issue is that for many features missing the app doesn't seem to have enough control over the box.

Likely the things that you are looking to solve, can probably be solved in the Android App, if the right people with the right skills are able to chip in... and it's the same skills that you'd need if you were doing a direct rewrite for a linux arm native port without Android.

For example, the reason that HD Audio passthrough doesn't work is because the player (native code) needs to be modified to support it, and I don't have the skills to do it. But, if you were doing something outside of Android, you'd have the same issues, and someone would have to natively provide code that would do this. Similarly, things like DVD playback with menus isn't there because there are APIs in the MiniClient that I've not implemented, but if they were implemented, DVD playback with menus would work.

The Android App is a direct port of the sagetv miniclient code, using the linux Mplayer and the HD300 implementations. The challenge on the video playback front, is that each port needs a very specific implementation of the video processing. The linux mplayer port used mplayer (and it has it's own share of issues) and the HD300 uses it's own video playback using video player apis specific that hardware. So, doing a native (linux) HD400, that solves all the video problems in the Android Client would likely be huge task of trying to build a video player, from scratch that does all the things you need. This is not a small task... the video handling code for the miniclient is likely the hardest aspect of the client, and, I suspect that pretty much everything could be handled in the Android TV app itself, with the right skills. (Espeically when you hear, Kodi can do ____, or Plex can do ___... generially this means people on their teams have the skills necessary to make the video player modifications to support more features on the hardware)

I have 3, HD300s sitting in a box right now, all replaced with Android TV boxes. I didn't retire them because they didn't work well (they did), but because as a single purpose box, it had limited value. Now, I can switch between YouTube, SageTV, Netflix, and host of other apps quickly and easily.... and that holds a lot more value, to me.

have you played with the Android MiniClient app? I'm aware of a few deficiencies, but I'm curious what you are missing, specifically, and what additional hardware control you'd need to solve the issues.

[Tiki]

I'm guessing some of those who replied don't recognize the OP, _DEMO_, because he doesn't post as much as some other people, but he is one of the moderators on this forum. Based on the fact that he is a moderator and chose to start this thread, I'm guessing he has most of the skills necessary to actually do this.

One of the issues I see with the Android miniclient is that there are too many variations with Android. Hardware and software are constantly changing and you never know what will be compatible. We've seen that the Amazon Fire products worked with the miniclient for a while, then support was broken with a forced software update. We've seen that Exoplayer works really well, but only if hardware decoding is 100% supported. The miniclient will always be a moving target game of whack-a-mole, with some things working well for a while and then breaking, and other things never working quite right.

Picking a single hardware platform with a fixed (or at least controlled) operating system, makes it much easier to support for a longer time period.

I'm not an expert on these products, but it looks like the S905X product that DEMO suggested is an ARM device that runs Android and offers hardware decoding for just about everything. Plus it supports 4K,60p output, HDMI 2.0 and Ethernet.

Is it any better than the Shield or the MiBox? I don't know, but I see they sell for less than $30. Also, since it runs Android, maybe Sage could be treated as an app and you could then still run other Android Apps too.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm guessing some of those who replied don't recognize the OP, _DEMO_, because he doesn't post as much as some other people, but he is one of the moderators on this forum. Based on the fact that he is a moderator and chose to start this thread, I'm guessing he has most of the skills necessary to actually do this.

I did recognize him Which is why, I'm aksing that if someone has the native skills to build a player form the ground up... I'd love to see that effort put into somethng more portable

One of the issues I see with the Android miniclient is that there are too many variations with Android. Hardware and software are constantly changing and you never know what will be compatible. We've seen that the Amazon Fire products worked with the miniclient for a while, then support was broken with a forced software update. We've seen that Exoplayer works really well, but only if hardware decoding is 100% supported. The miniclient will always be a moving target game of whack-a-mole, with some things working well for a while and then breaking, and other things never working quite right.

I know you're not an Android fan, and that's OK. But I do own Shield, Fire TV, Mi Box, and even a S905X box. The Android MiniClient runs on all of those, and no-one considers an Amazon box to be "Android". It's great that it can run "some" Android boxes, but, let's not pretend it's NOT an Amazon walled garden, that just happens to use the Android OS (which is open source).

On the Mi Box, Shield, and S905X box... the existing MiniClient runs pretty much the same on each of those. The "android" challenge with the S905X box is that it's not a "build for TV" os that is running on it, so, it really does feel like it's a Tablet running on TV.

While the existing MiniClient can run on a phone/tablet, that isn't the end goal. The end goal was really to create an AndroidTV app, compatible with Android TV devices (as of now, there are only 2 devices)... but, getting it to run additional devices, well, should you need to, would be much less effort, than building something from the ground up, that only supported a single device. You only need to look at Plex, Kodi, etc... if it were easier to build a completely stand-alone media center, vs, utilzing the OS frame of Android.. they would have likely done so.

So, I do think the "there are too many variations in Android, so we should forget about that" is not really a good argument. To be honest, if you found a single device that worked well, say the Shield... and said, that is the ONLY box you were going support, you'd be in the same position as the OP in building something for a single purpsose box, but you'd have the advantage, that you could likely support other devices, with no, or minimal changes.

Picking a single hardware platform with a fixed (or at least controlled) operating system, makes it much easier to support for a longer time period.

That's why I think AndroidTV as the OS makes the most sense. Where as creating something purely native would require huge rewrite when S905X is obsolete in a year, you are starting all over with the S906X, etc.

I'm not an expert on these products, but it looks like the S905X product that DEMO suggested is an ARM device that runs Android and offers hardware decoding for just about everything. Plus it supports 4K,60p output, HDMI 2.0 and Ethernet.

Is it any better than the Shield or the MiBox? I don't know, but I see they sell for less than $30. Also, since it runs Android, maybe Sage could be treated as an app and you could then still run other Android Apps too.

I can say that the "android" experience on the S905X is certainly underwhelming, given that it's a phone running on a TV. The remote is equally bad

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I'm guessing some of those who replied don't recognize the OP, _DEMO_, because he doesn't post as much as some other people, but he is one of the moderators on this forum. Based on the fact that he is a moderator and chose to start this thread, I'm guessing he has most of the skills necessary to actually do this.

One of the issues I see with the Android miniclient is that there are too many variations with Android. Hardware and software are constantly changing and you never know what will be compatible. We've seen that the Amazon Fire products worked with the miniclient for a while, then support was broken with a forced software update. We've seen that Exoplayer works really well, but only if hardware decoding is 100% supported. The miniclient will always be a moving target game of whack-a-mole, with some things working well for a while and then breaking, and other things never working quite right.

Picking a single hardware platform with a fixed (or at least controlled) operating system, makes it much easier to support for a longer time period.

I'm not an expert on these products, but it looks like the S905X product that DEMO suggested is an ARM device that runs Android and offers hardware decoding for just about everything. Plus it supports 4K,60p output, HDMI 2.0 and Ethernet.

Is it any better than the Shield or the MiBox? I don't know, but I see they sell for less than $30. Also, since it runs Android, maybe Sage could be treated as an app and you could then still run other Android Apps too.

To say that the reason to avoid refining the andriod app because there are a bunch of different android hardware configurations out there as a reason to go with a dedicated box is sort of going around the argument the wrong way. If you are going to say 'go out and buy this specific piece of hardware to load this alternative image onto it', you might as well say 'go out and buy this specific piece of hardware that has been well tested and load this app onto it'. The latter would still offer far more to the end user.

[_Demo_]

I should have probably mentioned that I did write all the extender code for the various devices from MVP to HD300 though I can't work on this full time anymore which is why I'm looking to see if others interested.

From my point of view I thought a native implementation might be easier but I'd be curious to hear which device would be recommended on the Android side. My main concern with android was that it didn't expose many of the more advanced features so I guess you need to implement box specific logic/workarounds.

I do have a Shield TV device but I didn't really try much with it using recent firmwares.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

I should have probably mentioned that I did write all the extender code for the various devices from MVP to HD300 though I can't work on this full time anymore which is why I'm looking to see if others interested.

From my point of view I thought a native implementation might be easier but I'd be curious to hear which device would be recommended on the Android side. My main concern with android was that it didn't expose many of the more advanced features so I guess you need to implement box specific logic/workarounds.

I do have a Shield TV device but I didn't really try much with it using recent firmwares.

The devices that interest me are the SHIELD and the Mi Box. I'd also like to see playback more stable on my tablet when off the LAN, (skipping being the main issue there--works sporatically).

[KryptoNyte]

I have to be honest here - I didn't find the true beauty of SageTV extenders until after Google showed up. When I realized how complete the extender experience was (HD200, HD300), I never looked back. It's so easy to purchase the box, plug it in, connect it to the server and go. Even my relatives can use it like they would a set-top-box.

Maybe I'm in the minority these days, but as a Sage USER, I would welcome an out-of-box extender experience like an HD400. I have a feeling that there are a lot more folks out there that would very much enjoy this, too, but they haven't even arrived here yet because of the work involved in getting a whole home experience with SageTV as it stands today.

The developers that are still here have done extraordinary things, and only a handful of them at that, but if you could cast SageTV to a TV without having to acclimate the client side by reading the forums for a month ... it could be really helpful to the average person.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

I should have probably mentioned that I did write all the extender code for the various devices from MVP to HD300 though I can't work on this full time anymore which is why I'm looking to see if others interested.

I'm sure people are interested in you building something But if you are asking if there are people interested in building a native HD400 extender, my guess is that you'll be hard pressed to find the right skills. I built the current Android MiniClient with Jeff's help (lots of emails) and I know nothing about OpenGL and media players, and it performs fairly decently, so imagine how great it could be if someone with your skills were to help with the opengl and media player code (To date, no one has stepped up to help with the miniclient, you might be in the same situation)

From my point of view I thought a native implementation might be easier but I'd be curious to hear which device would be recommended on the Android side. My main concern with android was that it didn't expose many of the more advanced features so I guess you need to implement box specific logic/workarounds.

My guess is that if you built on Android, you might do some "per box" work arounds, but you might get lucky and your work arounds might not actually be per box at all.

I'm still not 100% sure what limitation doing a "native" client on top of linux would solve vs native integrations into Android (as it does today).

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I have to be honest here - I didn't find the true beauty of SageTV extenders until after Google showed up. When I realized how complete the extender experience was (HD200, HD300), I never looked back. It's so easy to purchase the box, plug it in, connect it to the server and go. Even my relatives can use it like they would a set-top-box.

Maybe I'm in the minority these days, but as a Sage USER, I would welcome an out-of-box extender experience like an HD400. I have a feeling that there are a lot more folks out there that would very much enjoy this, too, but they haven't even arrived here yet because of the work involved in getting a whole home experience with SageTV as it stands today.

Again, this is "software" problem. ie, I could create the MiniClient so that it direct boots into the MiniClient on start and you never see an Android launcher (I'd just have to make the miniclient request "launcher" permissions and then your full featured android tv box because a single purpose app box. I do see the value in that for some circumstances... ie, parents that don't want netflix, youtube, etc, maybe a kids "tv" where again, you don't have netflix, youtube, etc.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I have to be honest here - I didn't find the true beauty of SageTV extenders until after Google showed up. When I realized how complete the extender experience was (HD200, HD300), I never looked back. It's so easy to purchase the box, plug it in, connect it to the server and go. Even my relatives can use it like they would a set-top-box.

Maybe I'm in the minority these days, but as a Sage USER, I would welcome an out-of-box extender experience like an HD400. I have a feeling that there are a lot more folks out there that would very much enjoy this, too, but they haven't even arrived here yet because of the work involved in getting a whole home experience with SageTV as it stands today.

The developers that are still here have done extraordinary things, and only a handful of them at that, but if you could cast SageTV to a TV without having to acclimate the client side by reading the forums for a month ... it could be really helpful to the average person.

+1 for me. I can get netflix on my TV if I just want to stream. But I usually record it with PlayOn so that I can watch a show past when it is aged off by netflix.

[Fuzzy]

I can say that I just swapped my Mi Box to my master bedroom, and the HD-300 into the living room. The only reason for going through this was because the Mi Box can get netflix in the bedroom, while the living room already has an XBoxOne to handle netflix duties. With the android app available, I don't think I'd purchase an HD300 today, if it was available even at the same low price.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I have to be honest here - I didn't find the true beauty of SageTV extenders until after Google showed up. When I realized how complete the extender experience was (HD200, HD300), I never looked back. It's so easy to purchase the box, plug it in, connect it to the server and go. Even my relatives can use it like they would a set-top-box.

Maybe I'm in the minority these days, but as a Sage USER, I would welcome an out-of-box extender experience like an HD400. I have a feeling that there are a lot more folks out there that would very much enjoy this, too, but they haven't even arrived here yet because of the work involved in getting a whole home experience with SageTV as it stands today.

The developers that are still here have done extraordinary things, and only a handful of them at that, but if you could cast SageTV to a TV without having to acclimate the client side by reading the forums for a month ... it could be really helpful to the average person.

+1 here as well. The simplicity of the box is what I love about it, and it plays almost anything you throw at it.

I have tried the android mini client. It is a great piece of software. But as far as I can tell I still can't play my ripped blurays and DVDs on it like I can on my PC client or extenders. Works great for TV tho.

Neither my wife, I, nor my daughter use Netflix. It's all recorded TV or our library of blurays and DVDs. Probably partly because of the lack of catalogue in Canada versus the US.... Even if we did, having checked out PlayOn, I suspect it would meet our needs...

[trk2]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I have to be honest here - I didn't find the true beauty of SageTV extenders until after Google showed up. When I realized how complete the extender experience was (HD200, HD300), I never looked back. It's so easy to purchase the box, plug it in, connect it to the server and go. Even my relatives can use it like they would a set-top-box.

Maybe I'm in the minority these days, but as a Sage USER, I would welcome an out-of-box extender experience like an HD400. I have a feeling that there are a lot more folks out there that would very much enjoy this, too, but they haven't even arrived here yet because of the work involved in getting a whole home experience with SageTV as it stands today.

The developers that are still here have done extraordinary things, and only a handful of them at that, but if you could cast SageTV to a TV without having to acclimate the client side by reading the forums for a month ... it could be really helpful to the average person.

Another +1.

I use SageTV as a dvr and as a home theater media sever. I love the HD300 because it simplified the HTPC experience without sacrificing quality. I use features like native output switching, WOL, 1080p24 output, and pass through audio. I would love a successor that adds 4K HDR and H265 to what the HD300 offers. Is this all possible and reasonable with an app?