What is the next generation of client - can we create the HD-400?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by RonBoyd

When a show is recorded SageTV makes four files -- .edl, .incommercial, .mpg, and .mpg.properties. I suspect the CC data is in one of those. I have not tried playback of the .MPG file with anything other than SageTV so can't comment on that. Nor have I looked at the metadata.

I think that technically SageTV only creates the mpg file and the subtitles are embedded in the video stream in the mpg file which was mandated by the FCC and CRTC.

The .properties file is an add-on file for SageTV plugins with additional metdata but I don't think this is really required since SageTV v7 came out since the metadata is stored in the file. The .edl file is for commercial skipping and is created by Comskip or other similar programs. I haven't seen .incommercial file but given the name I am guessing that they are also for commercial skipping. You can generally delete everything but the MPG file and you are still good to play back the file.

[tvmaster2]

In my case, the Hauppauge tuners won’t pick them up, but I’m confused why my HDHomerun OTA tuner isn’t supplying CC in the digital stream, as that device avoids the Hauppauge tuners.

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by wayner

I think that technically SageTV only creates the mpg file and the subtitles are embedded in the video stream in the mpg file which was mandated by the FCC and CRTC.

The .properties file is an add-on file for SageTV plugins with additional metdata but I don't think this is really required since SageTV v7 came out since the metadata is stored in the file. The .edl file is for commercial skipping and is created by Comskip or other similar programs. I haven't seen .incommercial file but given the name I am guessing that they are also for commercial skipping. You can generally delete everything but the MPG file and you are still good to play back the file.

You are most likely correct. I fully admit to complete ignorance in this area.

In any event, I cannot get the CC to show up when playing the .mpg file with VLC and the MS players won't even recognize the file -- for instance "Windows Media Center encountered a problem while playing the file."

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by RonBoyd

You are most likely correct. I fully admit to complete ignorance in this area.

In any event, I cannot get the CC to show up when playing the .mpg file with VLC and the MS players won't even recognize the file -- for instance "Windows Media Center encountered a problem while playing the file."

There’s a lot of moving parts that have to align to allow CC support to work..
First someone has to create the captions and embed them in the broadcast.
Next the tuning device needs to be able to grab those captions and make them available to the display or capture device.
Next the capture device must save those captions (either as part of the video file or as a separate file.
Next the playback software has to have a mechanism for enabling/ disabling captions and drawing them on the screen.
Finally, the decoder used must know how to recognize those captions are present.

Most MPEG-2 decoders do not know how to deal with closed captions. The old Sage mpeg decoder could handle them, but it is not open source so they had to remove it when Sage went open source (if you upgraded from a licensed copy of Sage v7 or older, and you are running a 32-bit version of Sage you should still have access to this old decoder). I think the ATI mpeg decoder also supports closed captions (requires an ati/AMD video card). I don’t know if there are any MPEG-4 or HEVC decoders that support captions. So as we move to newer video formats CC support may get worse.

Using software to extract the captions and save them to a separate SRT file likely solves the problem of decoders not properly supporting captions.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Using software to extract the captions and save them to a separate SRT file likely solves the problem of decoders not properly supporting captions.

It looks like CCExtractor is just such a tool. Perhaps someone could create a plugin to do this automatically, just like comskip. Or you could run it when a recording ends using SJQ. CCExtractor seems fairly recent as the current version is dated May 21, 2019.

What kind of files can I extract closed captions from?
CCExtractor currently handles:

- Most HDTV captures (where you save the Transport Stream).
- Captures where captions are recorded in bttv format. The number of cards that use this card is huge. My test samples came from a Hauppage PVR-250. You can check the complete list here.
- DVR-MS (microsoft digital video recording).
- Tivo files
- ReplayTV files
- Dish Network files
- DVDs
Usually, if you record a TV show with your capture card and CCExtractor produces the expected result, it will work for your all recordings. If it doesn't, which means that your card uses a format CCExtractor can't handle, please contact me and we'll try to make it work.

Can I edit the subtitles?
.srt files are just text files, with time information (when subtitles are supposed to be shown and for how long) and some basic formatting (use italics, bold, etc). So you can edit them with any text editor. If you need to do serious editing (such as adjusting timing), you can use subtitle editing tools - there are many available.

Can CCExtractor generate other subtitles formats?
At this time, CCExtractor can generate .srt, .smi and raw and bin files.

[wayner]

Here is an old plugin for CC playback https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23752 . This must predate such functionality be added to the core SageTV product.

It was written by JREKiwi and I think he is still around. Perhaps he would be willing to write an extractor process?

[jptheripper]

Any thought to an intel nuc running windows?

m2 drive, lots of ram, do a windows lean install. IR support built in, HDMI, 7.1

To me the advantage of this is the windows client is 100% supported, so no chasing android requirements, etc..

Downsides?

[Zogg]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

Any thought to an intel nuc running windows?

m2 drive, lots of ram, do a windows lean install. IR support built in, HDMI, 7.1

To me the advantage of this is the windows client is 100% supported, so no chasing android requirements, etc..

Downsides?

This is what I run for my HTPC client and it works great. I'm pretty sure it's a 7th gen Core i3 in mine. I actually run Sage service and use it as a network tuner with a local STB also, and I never have performance problems.

The only problem with the NUC is it's not cheap. I think I spent around $350 on mine and that was for the barebones NUC, CPU, and memory. Maybe the SSD too but I honestly can't remember.

You could find an earlier model on Ebay, 5th gen or so, that would easily do the trick, but that would be a one-off rather than a universally available system.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

Any thought to an intel nuc running windows?

Downsides?

It's windows


As others as mentioned (sorta), Sage really doesn't have an extender problem, it has a core sagetv server problem. Had sagetv not been bought, likely today, the software would be modernized, shipping with modern java updates, ffmpeg updates, mplayer updates, and probably an HD400, HD500, etc, but none of this happening, and it's just a matter of time before sagetv does its final build.

If sagetv is working for you, you might continue along for several more years, until something like the EPG stops working, and there's no-one left to fix it, etc.

What sagetv needs more than anything, right now, is for someone to take ownership of the server, and build a team around that, and then make the decision if sagetv needs to be, or should be, in the extender business. Could sagetv act as a recording slave to plex or kodi? Could sagetv UI be something that is built in Kodi (like plex did)? If there's one thing I've learned from doing the Android client, is that video is hard. Even with 3rd party libraries, etc, video is hard. As this community shrinks the odds of finding a really good video developer (like Jeff) is getting harder each day, and I think sagetv will have to delegate the frontend technology, with concessions, to other better maintained platforms like Plex and Kodi, and that is only if you can find a team that is willing to put the effort into modernzing the server.

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by stuckless

What sagetv needs more than anything, right now, is for someone to take ownership of the server, and build a team around that, and then make the decision if sagetv needs to be, or should be, in the extender business.

I agree. Are there any suggestions (from anyone) how to make that happen?

[wayner]

I love SageTV and use it all the time but there is WAY less need for SageTV as when it comes to non-sports the bulk of the compelling content is not on linear TV and even for shows that are on linear TV there are other ways to access them other than to record a show. The need for a traditional DVR is much less than it was 15 years ago. And most cable and satellite providers have their own DVRs that are not nearly as good as SageTV but do the job, for the most part.

That's a godd chunk of the reason why BeyondTV, Windows MCE and ReplayTV are no longer around, and TiVo is a shadow of what it once was.

[Wayneb]

SageTV was great at one time with the extenders but I would never recommend it now, the extenders can't handle 4K and why even bother rewriting it to use as a backend PVR for Kodi when there are other PVR programs that already work with Kodi.

Like I said in a previous post, I would donate if there was a crowd sourced attempt to create a real extender and not an app on an Android device, I doubt enough people care about it to be worth the effort.

The UI on SageTV is old and nowhere near as nice as you can get with Kodi, NextPVR works with Kodi and cheap hardware already works. My Odroid N2 boxes running CoreElec are far more powerful than an HD300.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by Wayneb

Like I said in a previous post, I would donate if there was a crowd sourced attempt to create a real extender and not an app on an Android device, I doubt enough people care about it to be worth the effort.

I would also support a crowd sourced effort.

Can we run a poll on this Board and find out how many people would be interested?

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Wayneb

SageTV was great at one time with the extenders but I would never recommend it now ...

I still recommend it all the time, especially for folks that want to cut the cord and are in antenna range. I also recommend it to folks that are running on the old Charter Cable system - with a HDHR Prime it's quite an exceptional combination. With the 64bit server and numerous HD300's in the house, I've been able to run Gemstone and make SageTV look the way I like.

This is coming from an old guy, but I like to see a linear list of my media, whether it be recordings or movies - you can put so much more info in front of the user all at once that you can with a single picture. I guess that picture format is all most folks understand anymore.

One of the greatest issues that I see with SageTV today is remote access. I can no longer get the miniclient to respond properly at the password/login screen on any Android devices.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by wayner

I love SageTV and use it all the time but there is WAY less need for SageTV as when it comes to non-sports the bulk of the compelling content is not on linear TV and even for shows that are on linear TV there are other ways to access them other than to record a show.

I'm sure it's because I grew up with TV since the late '60's but IMO the streaming landscape gets worse all the time as we get further and further away from the concept of one-guide for all content (whether it's "paper" or "electronic").

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Can we run a poll on this Board and find out how many people would be interested?

Any poll done would have to include price points. Very few people would be willing to pay, say, $500 for an extender even if it could play everything you could throw at it today.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Wayneb

Like I said in a previous post, I would donate if there was a crowd sourced attempt to create a real extender and not an app on an Android device, I doubt enough people care about it to be worth the effort.

I'm confused by the statement (as was others when you mentioned it before). A "real extender" is a piece of software that runs on a dedicated piece of hardware that interprets the sagetv protocol. All the source code is there for the sagetv extenders today, in fact, I referenced it and the placeshifter code quite a bit in doing the android extender. The HD300 runs on linux and just fires up the software on start. Albeit that copy of linux is never getting updates, so, it can never interfere with the software. The android extender is just the extender software running on android os instead of linux os. So you just want it running on linux? The problem with current android extender isn't that it's running on Android, it's that no one is supporting it. So, in all likelihood you'd hit the same kinds of problem on a bare linux build if no-one is there to support it.

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

I would also support a crowd sourced effort.

You could pay someone to build this, let's say you raised 200K and someone decided to build it. Then what? Who supports it? Who supports the server, since, that is the most important and neglected part here.

Originally Posted by phelme

I'm sure it's because I grew up with TV since the late '60's but IMO the streaming landscape gets worse all the time as we get further and further away from the concept of one-guide for all content (whether it's "paper" or "electronic").

I'm sure there are still lots of people that like "guides" and channel surfing, but, yeah, the world is changing and guides just aren't aren't as useful as they once were. Back when you have 10 channels, it was ok, with 1000s of channels it's useless. You need to search it to make any sense of it. I agree the streaming landscape is getting pretty fragmented, and I'm sure eventually we'll see content aggregration streaming services that packages multiple networks into a single "interface" and poof, we are back to where we are now, except things are coming over internet instead of cable/sat (and we won't be able to record it).

Someday, I'd love to get back to working on sagetv. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing that in my near future

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Very few people would be willing to pay, say, $500 for an extender even if it could play everything you could throw at it today.

I don't know about that but many might.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by stuckless

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Albeit that copy of linux is never getting updates, so, it can never interfere with the software. The android extender is just the extender software running on android os instead of linux os. So you just want it running on linux? The problem with current android extender isn't that it's running on Android, it's that no one is supporting it. So, in all likelihood you'd hit the same kinds of problem on a bare linux build if no-one is there to support it.
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I think that is a bit of a contradiction. The reason Android is failing for so many is because nobody is there to support it AND it gets “updates“ that break stuff. The fact that the Linux OS in the HD300 stays the same is why it will continue to work the same. Plus at least as of now there are more Linux or Windows capable people still around. You were the only Android developer that I know of. Honestly it looked pretty intimidating from what I read.

Is there an easy way to bundle a fixed version of Android that will stay indefinitely, along with a convenient way to install SageTV?

Now if new features or bug fixes are needed on a new extender it may require an OS update but then the support is from whomever is adding the feature. Windows on a nuc may also want to update itself but again I think the odds of someone being able to support it is higher.

[Wayneb]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I'm confused by the statement (as was others when you mentioned it before). A "real extender" is a piece of software that runs on a dedicated piece of hardware that interprets the sagetv protocol. All the source code is there for the sagetv extenders today, in fact, I referenced it and the placeshifter code quite a bit in doing the android extender. The HD300 runs on linux and just fires up the software on start. Albeit that copy of linux is never getting updates, so, it can never interfere with the software. The android extender is just the extender software running on android os instead of linux os. So you just want it running on linux? The problem with current android extender isn't that it's running on Android, it's that no one is supporting it. So, in all likelihood you'd hit the same kinds of problem on a bare linux build if no-one is there to support it.

I mean a device that is entirely dedicated to SageTV and not an app, no worries about it disappearing from some app store in the future or being broken by an OS update. The underlying OS is unimportant as long as it works.

The HD300 doesn't need an update because it is hardware limited and couldn't play the new formats anyway, it is also slow compared to current hardware.

I have no real need for a new SageTV extender it is just something I would support, I was probably one of the first few people to donate to your mini client project and I don't ever use it because I have other media players that work well for me. No slight is intended against your efforts on the mini client app.