STV: Cayars17 Ultimate STV (Release 17 - Jan 18)

[Cayars]

Yea, not serial or IR-blaster related as far as I can tell as I have my system running ONLY on the internal tuner at present. <-- I thought of this too, so I'm testing this theory out.

The only thing I notice out of the ordinary is that my EPG data keeps trying to refresh (noticed this today), but this could be due to a server being down at Frey. I'm watching this to see if it corrects itself. Otherwise this could be the source of the problem (EPG re-loading).

[Cayars]

Would you guys mind if I change the naming convention of the STVs? I'd like to drop the letter/release and just use an incremantal numbering. Previously I "tried" to make whole letter changes only when new substantial functionality is added but the line is blurring. With a pure numbering method I'd just release when ready and not worry about the difference between fixes and additions.

If you guys don't mind I'd go back and renumber them as follows. I could keep or drop the 2.10 at the beginning. The only thing this represents is the version of SageTV it is designed to work with.
2.10.1 - Version A
2.10.2 - Verson B
2.10.3 - Version B Release 2
2.10.4 - Verson B Release 3
2.10.5 - Version C
2.10.6 - Version C Release 2
2.10.7 - Verson D
2.10.8 - Version D Release 2
2.10.9 - Version E
2.10.10 - Verson F
2.10.11 - Verson F Release 2
2.10.12 - Next Version.

If sageTV puts out a point release (2.11) and I make this STV compatible then I'd start back at 1 or keep the numbering going.
2.11.1 or 2.11.12 as Next Version

OR

Cayars1 ... Cayars10 ... Cayars25 ,,,

What do you guys think?

[Hector]

Hmmm guide updates. Is there anyway to know this is happening other than watching the port?

Something happened today (that I didn't see) that caused the the tuner to change channels (back to the previous) right in the middle of a recording. Never seen anything like it. Had I not been able to recover the partial recording with a disk recovery tool it would have been as if it never happened.

Does anyone know if there is a property or something that turns logging back on? I guess Frey turns it off for release versions. One thing that Tivo has that I have not yet found in Sage is a history log that shows what happens to each recording (removed, system error etc) or potential recording (didn't record because . .).

peace . . .

peace . . .

Originally Posted by Cayars

Yea, not serial or IR-blaster related as far as I can tell as I have my system running ONLY on the internal tuner at present. <-- I thought of this too, so I'm testing this theory out.

The only thing I notice out of the ordinary is that my EPG data keeps trying to refresh (noticed this today), but this could be due to a server being down at Frey. I'm watching this to see if it corrects itself. Otherwise this could be the source of the problem (EPG re-loading).

[Cayars]

You can see the last guide update by going into the Information screen in setup. However, my system just completed a guide update so I'm assuming it was a Frey server issue since a few other people had the same problem and are now getting the updates again.

My system seems to be getting worse by the day. I've been waiting nearly two minutes now for a remote control button press to get processed. :
( Trying to watch a movie is studdering like crazy (never happened before) so I'm not sure what is going on.

I might be making a 2.0 skin yet

[Hector]

Hmm well it's not that for me, I had a successful update at 6am'ish.

Also it's not necessarily video output related as 1) I have a pvr-350 and I don't think you do and 2) it hung for 3 minutes today when I selected System Information.

Probably not relevant but are there issues with Channel setup in your STV? Sage hangs forever if I select it, but its not an issue with the Original.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by Cayars

You can see the last guide update by going into the Information screen in setup. However, my system just completed a guide update so I'm assuming it was a Frey server issue since a few other people had the same problem and are now getting the updates again.

My system seems to be getting worse by the day. I've been waiting nearly two minutes now for a remote control button press to get processed. :
( Trying to watch a movie is studdering like crazy (never happened before) so I'm not sure what is going on.

I might be making a 2.0 skin yet

[pengdahl]

Originally Posted by Cayars

I'm going to look into this today. So my question is: What would be the best way to select one of these "Custom LineUps"? I'd question using the GUIDE key since we already have this assigned to the Mini-Guide.

I'm thinking of making it a choice in the options menu. Then after we get it working we could add a custom command to "flip" through them without the need to use the options menu. Does this sound about right?

PS. The Mini-Guide won't make use of the custom guide data until phase 2

Personally, I would prefer making the GUIDE key cycle between all the available guides. I've turned off the link from the guide key to the OSD on my system.

IMHO, the best/most intuitive functionality is as follows:

GUIDE key brings up the Live TV guide and cycles between sub-guides with additional keypresses.

Directional keys (Up, Down, Left, Right) automatically bring up the OSD mini-guide when pressed while watching a show.

Personally, I don't think it's necessary to have a separate key to bring up the mini-guide, as you have to use the arrow keys to navigate it anyway. Simply hitting an arrow key should be enough to indicate to the system that you want to bring up the mini-guide.

[Pumpkinhead]

Sage crashed on me for the first time when sitting at the couch today. Installed Cayers F2 version and I had just disabled and reenabled some different osd/keying settings in setup, went back to livetv, and it crashed within seconds. Anyway, went back in, and things were ok after verifying the settings were in place and working.

[EDITED] - No such luck, it crashed 2 more times in the next 1/2 hour. Never crashed like that before. I had my Catalyst control panel running in the background, which I dont normally do, but it's not the first time. So I closed that out to see if it keeps happening.

pengdahl's idea seems fair for up and down, but I want my left and right to be for volume as it is now. Someone who wants to change channels for browsing wouldnt like it to bring up the OSD instead of changing the channel though.

I think version numbers without the 2.1 on the front would be less confusing. I assume the latest version of Cayers is for the current version of Sage... more details about requirements and fixes should be in the included readme.

Tip: Dont forget to edit the comskip.ini. It's too generic as packaged. More details here -

http://www.sage-community.org/index....ComSkipIniInfo

[Hector]

I might be missing something but these are questions I have about your suggestion.

How would the user bring the mini-guide up first if that's they wanted? Or any other one?

What you're calling sub-guides are just filtered views of the guide right? Why bring up all the data before the filtered data when that's all the user might want? A user might have 5-10 filters, would they have to cycle through them all each time to get to the last one?

Good discussion.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by pengdahl

Personally, I would prefer making the GUIDE key cycle between all the available guides. I've turned off the link from the guide key to the OSD on my system.

IMHO, the best/most intuitive functionality is as follows:

GUIDE key brings up the Live TV guide and cycles between sub-guides with additional keypresses.

Directional keys (Up, Down, Left, Right) automatically bring up the OSD mini-guide when pressed while watching a show.

Personally, I don't think it's necessary to have a separate key to bring up the mini-guide, as you have to use the arrow keys to navigate it anyway. Simply hitting an arrow key should be enough to indicate to the system that you want to bring up the mini-guide.

[srothwell]

Cayars,

I've also noticed strange video things with v2.1

There is an almost imperceptible hesitation about once every 10 seconds or so. No one but me notices it in my house. Did you always have a little video "skipping" when the ODS disappeared? I always did even under 2.0. I just chalked it up to getting the OSD off screen.

Now it happens, as I mentioed above, about once every 10 seconds. I've also noticed, a lot less frequently, cases where the video will freeze or severly stutter but the audio will continue correctly. Then, after 4 or 5 seconds of frozen video, it will play in fast-motion until the video catches up with the audio.

The only other place I've seen this is on my laptop when I transfer the .mpg files to watch on the plane. Snice the laptop has power-saving I figure it had something to do with the HDD spinning down or something.

The above seems to be worse using Sage in service mode. I switched to Service mode becuase my wife and I were gone to Italy last week and I came home to find that Sage (2.1 Cayars D2) had completely frozen-up (no Windows, just Sage) and I missed all of last week's programs.

So........ If anyone has "The West Wing" and "Lost" from 11/10/04 and would like to post it somewhere I'd be eternally grateful :-)

Best regards,

Stacy

[Hector]

I don't know if this is relevant but this is what happens for me when Sage freezes during a channel change. It may not even be related to the other freeze we're seeing on remote presses.

The Jump command seems to restore things. This happens sometimes even between two channels that come over cable (and not on the satellite STB/COM port).

[Cayars]

Now that's a cool time. That is most definately a core value being passed back. I've seen this once or twice in 2.1 but I don't remember if I've seen it in the released version or not.

[Pumpkinhead]

I consistantly get regular jitters whenever an OSD is displayed or CC are displayed, and shortly after things such as forward and reverse and using an OSD.

I intermittently get jitters which may occur once every 6 seconds or much more intermittent. It's difficult to troubleshoot, and sleeping/waking, restarting Sage, or rebooting may all affect how it will perform the next attempt to watch something. Reclock hasn't helped, and I haven't attemped changing the buffer.

Haven't seen any channel changing issues. But got a few crashes upgrading from Cayers D to Cayers F2 while using the miniguide and other transparent overlays. Had Catalyst control panel open in the background, so I closed that out to see if it reoccurrs. Hadn't had it happen in the last 2 weeks, and suddenly 3 times today after installing Cayers F. I'll see how it goes.

[davey_fl]

Hey Cayars nice job on the stv. I'm using mlbdudes right now but I'm considering switching. A couople of questions if you dont mind...

Currently I have a "Currently Recording" view on my main menu. It's there if t's recording something, otherwise nothing shows up (no box or anything). Is this an option with your stv instead of Upcoming recordings? Or, does upcoming recordings also show you current or in progress recordings?

With regards to the EPG, I notice I can customize columns etc with your stv. Are there any over features for the epg? A nicer layout than the stock stv? I really like the one I have with mlbdudes (V2.0).


Again great work and much appreciated.


Davey

[jdbrown]

I am using the DVD rip feature on version F2. I changed the dvdrip.bat file to rip only the movie. When I try to play it in SageTV, I then get a Sage playDVD I/O error.

If I change the .bat file to rip the entire DVD, it works fine. My guess is that when I rip only the movie, it is missing a file. For example, I did not see a .BUP file when I review the results from the "movie only".

I tried this on several DVDs. On each, the "movie only" rip would not play, but the full movie would play.

Anyone else having this problem?

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by davey_fl

Hey Cayars nice job on the stv. I'm using mlbdudes right now but I'm considering switching. A couople of questions if you dont mind...

Currently I have a "Currently Recording" view on my main menu. It's there if t's recording something, otherwise nothing shows up (no box or anything). Is this an option with your stv instead of Upcoming recordings? Or, does upcoming recordings also show you current or in progress recordings?

With regards to the EPG, I notice I can customize columns etc with your stv. Are there any over features for the epg? A nicer layout than the stock stv? I really like the one I have with mlbdudes (V2.0).


Again great work and much appreciated.


Davey

It shows both currently recording and upcoming recordings. It's configurable so you can set it how you want it to work or remove it.

The default "Live TV" guide is stock looking with a few extras thrown in. There are also other Guides:
Browse by Category
Custom Guide 1
Custom Guide 2
Custom Guide 3
Upcoming Movies
Series Premiers and Specials

With that being said, if you tell me what you like about the guide in Mlbdude's STV I can see about adding those features if there're not already implemented. I'm close to satisfying 95% (if not more) of the requests people ask for (if it's possible to do).

Carlo

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by jdbrown

I am using the DVD rip feature on version F2. I changed the dvdrip.bat file to rip only the movie. When I try to play it in SageTV, I then get a Sage playDVD I/O error.

If I change the .bat file to rip the entire DVD, it works fine. My guess is that when I rip only the movie, it is missing a file. For example, I did not see a .BUP file when I review the results from the "movie only".

I tried this on several DVDs. On each, the "movie only" rip would not play, but the full movie would play.

Anyone else having this problem?

You can probably add a line directly under the "Movie" Rip. Make it a .BUP only rip into the same directory. I would think that would work. I think I may have even tried that too but didn't document it.

[mikejaner]

Quick question.

When I run DVD Rip, or Delete Orphaned Files on my Sage Client system, I notice that a command window opens in the background, but nothing happens. If I click on the batch files individually, they do what they are supposed to do. All of my Dirs are standard and configured properly, I think. Any pointers?

[Cayars]

what happens if you run the VBS files? Do you have the MS script engine installed (default on XP).

[mls]

Cayers -

I don't know how much you can actually examine of someone elses STV with Studio... However, could you take a look at whatever mlbdude had done in mlbdude2 regarding the display of Schedules by Capture Device?

I have 4 tuners. With the OriginalV2 and your STV on that screen I can't tell which is which because the line across for the tuners only shows part of the info truncated as:

Hauppauge
WinTV PVR...

Somehow mlbdude had altered this so that all the info would display to see which was #2 or USB2, etc.. He might have used a smaller font or some scaling effect. Since this is only a minor thing I'll understand if you feel it's not worth the extra time to figure out.

[mikejaner]

what happens if you run the VBS files? Do you have the MS script engine installed (default on XP).

I have MCE 2005, so yes on XP

When I double click on silent.vbs, I get the same command prompt window, as if I typed cmd in run