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

[mls]

Cayars -

Maybe this will help you figure out what's up with the mini-guide not always initially starting on the current channel.

I notice that if you have the video set to come up in the background (full screen) from the LiveTV Guide, then the mini-guide will initially start at the current channel.

However, if the video is set to come up in a window (upper right corner), then when you click again to get to full screen play the mini-guide will start from the lowest channel initially.

Hope this helps you figure out what's going on.

[davey_fl]

I need some clarification on the Real-time CS please, just so I understand what I "should" be seeing. When you're watching a live show and you right click (go into the options for it and enable Real-Time CC, what is the expected result? Is it that it should do the detection of commercials as I watch the show, so that if I want to watch the show at a later time (meaning again) the Commercial breaks will show up? If this is the case, then I assume this benefits people who have more than one tuner so that you can watch one tuner while the other does realtime CS.

OR

Is it that the Real-Time CS automatically advances through the Commercial so that you don't have to do so with the Custom 4/5 commands, thereby watching your show, without interruptions, in one consecutive sitting.

Also, I have CC enabled via the registry settings. Now I have no idea whether this worked because I'm not sure how to check.

TIA.

davey

[JasonJoel]

BIG bug...

Using Malore's recording screen (if that matters). EDIT: Nope, I get this same behavior no matter what screen I get to the recording details screen from. Looks like a bug in the screen itself! Also not,e tried it with the OriginalV2 STV and it does it on that STV though - so doesn't seem to be a Cayars bug per se.

Noticed I was about full up on X-Men cartoons, so was going to change the favorite and increase the number of episodes it keeps before deleting.

So, from the recordings screen I:
1. Right arrowed to an episode
2. Right arrowed again to get to the episode details
3. Selected FAVORITE OPTIONS
4. Selected the KEEP AT MOST SETTING (was set at 15)
5. Entered 20, and clicked OK.

It changed it to *7* and deleted 8 episodes of my show!!!

I typed in 30, and it changed it to 14.

Something is seriously messed up with changing the number of episodes!!! I finally was able to enter *31* and get it back to *15*.

Kind of ticked it deleted my episodes, but since the setting got changed to 7 (even though I entered 20), I guess it did what it was supposed to do...

Any thoughts?

Jason Bottjen

[Cayars]

Davey,

If you kick off the manual ComSkip via the options menu in the OSD it starts processing the CC data while you're watching it. The STV itself will watch for changes in the .txt file and will load up commercial breaks as soon as it can see a change in the .txt file.

The effect of this depends on a few things. First of all if you have any setting enabled that require 2 passes to process, then you're not going to get any decent results since it pretty much needs the whole file before it can start the second pass (unless Jere changed this logic). If you're watching the show close to real-time, there isn't enough time for it to process and you're not going to get the commercial breaks.

Here's an example of how it can work well. I have West Wing set as a Favorite. It starts recording at 9pm. At about 9:20 I kicked off the detection. By approximately 9:25-9:30 I had a couple of commercial breaks detected while I was watching the show. As I progressed through the show (watching it), a few other commercial breaks showed on the timeline. I hope this helps a little.

Basically, I did a couple of "hacks" to the existing routines to get this to work. It could probably use a re-write to get ComSkip working faster and more reliable for people. This is currently being done or looked into.

Personally, I'm not a fan of doing this kind of "background" processing inside of the STV. I'm still thinking of moving the whole thing outside of Sage and into a VBS script or Visual Basic program. The advantage of this is that anyone/everyone who can program could contribute to the scriptprogram (Studio not required). The script could be run from any number of computers on the local network (assuming mapped or UNC drives). It could be run even when SageTV isn't running. It could easily be modified to give certain shows a high priority (CSI first, West Wing next, etc...). Heck it could even be modified over time to add queue management or become a job control task manager (ComSkip, Commercial Cutting, Transcoding). I think this is the direction I'll more then likely go in if no one else steps up and does anything with the internal code.

The downside to this approach is that it could require an additional piece of setup.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

BIG bug...

Using Malore's recording screen (if that matters). EDIT: Nope, I get this same behavior no matter what screen I get to the recording details screen from. Looks like a bug in the screen itself! Also not,e tried it with the OriginalV2 STV and it does it on that STV though - so doesn't seem to be a Cayars bug per se.

Noticed I was about full up on X-Men cartoons, so was going to change the favorite and increase the number of episodes it keeps before deleting.

So, from the recordings screen I:
1. Right arrowed to an episode
2. Right arrowed again to get to the episode details
3. Selected FAVORITE OPTIONS
4. Selected the KEEP AT MOST SETTING (was set at 15)
5. Entered 20, and clicked OK.

It changed it to *7* and deleted 8 episodes of my show!!!

I typed in 30, and it changed it to 14.

Something is seriously messed up with changing the number of episodes!!! I finally was able to enter *31* and get it back to *15*.

Kind of ticked it deleted my episodes, but since the setting got changed to 7 (even though I entered 20), I guess it did what it was supposed to do...

Any thoughts?

Jason Bottjen

I just checked and came up with the same thing. This uses internal core stuff so I can't do a work-around on it. Best to keep it at "ALL" for now to stay out of trouble.

Have you submitted this as a bug yet? If not, PLEASE DO!

[JasonJoel]

I sent an email to support@freytechnologies.com with the details.

I assume that is an acceptable way to submit bugs these days. If not I can submit again on the web support form I guess.

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by Cayars

I just checked and came up with the same thing. This uses internal core stuff so I can't do a work-around on it. Best to keep it at "ALL" for now to stay out of trouble.

Have you submitted this as a bug yet? If not, PLEASE DO!

[kevpriest]

I'm sure this is discussed somewhere, but I can't find it. I was using the maldude STV and was able to place a folder.jpg into my DVD directories and see the dvd covers. Now I've upgraded Sage and switched to the Cayars stv and I no longer get dvd covers. Album covers are fine, and folders of mpgs where I've put a folder.jpg show up right, but it appears that ripped DVDs (I assume because they have directories under the main folder). Any one can point me toward the right settings to get these folder images back? Thank you,
KevPriest

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by kevpriest

I'm sure this is discussed somewhere, but I can't find it. I was using the maldude STV and was able to place a folder.jpg into my DVD directories and see the dvd covers. Now I've upgraded Sage and switched to the Cayars stv and I no longer get dvd covers. Album covers are fine, and folders of mpgs where I've put a folder.jpg show up right, but it appears that ripped DVDs (I assume because they have directories under the main folder). Any one can point me toward the right settings to get these folder images back? Thank you,
KevPriest

Where are you putting the folder.jpg file?

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by Cayars

Here's an example of how it can work well. I have West Wing set as a Favorite. It starts recording at 9pm. At about 9:20 I kicked off the detection. By approximately 9:25-9:30 I had a couple of commercial breaks detected while I was watching the show. As I progressed through the show (watching it), a few other commercial breaks showed on the timeline. I hope this helps a little.

Personally, I'm not a fan of doing this kind of "background" processing inside of the STV. I'm still thinking of moving the whole thing outside of Sage and into a VBS script or Visual Basic program. The advantage of this is that anyone/everyone who can program could contribute to the scriptprogram (Studio not required). The script could be run from any number of computers on the local network (assuming mapped or UNC drives). It could be run even when SageTV isn't running. It could easily be modified to give certain shows a high priority (CSI first, West Wing next, etc...). Heck it could even be modified over time to add queue management or become a job control task manager (ComSkip, Commercial Cutting, Transcoding). I think this is the direction I'll more then likely go in if no one else steps up and does anything with the internal code.

I thought that one reason to move to real-time processing was because CS became less of a resource hog since it had to be slowed down to real-time. This is a great idea, because the problem I always had with CS was that it pegged my CPU. One thing I would change however is, I would have the real-time commercial detection turned on all the time (whenever a show is being recorded). I think even if you have multiple tuners the CPU would still be able to handle it because the CS is slowed down so much, but if it proves to be a problem you could have a setting that says, only process 1 show at a time, and either give shows a priority or a particular tuner the priority. Then maybe have SAGE check if any other shows need to be processed while SAGE is sleeping and that would take care of the non-priority shows.

What do you think?

[Cayars]

Actually, it WILL do this now by default (sort of). If all of your shows are currently processed and you record a new show then the next show ComSkip will process will be your currently recording show.

I only made a few changes to the STV logic for calling ComSkip. This was mostly because I wanted to make sure ComSkip was working in this version due to the couple of things that got broke a couple of versions back. Now that it appears ComSkip is working again I'll be a little more adventurious.

[remmy925]

So where do I mail you that beer again...lol

[rsagetv99]

UPDATE: Here's another example of my Favorite icon not working.

Sage is currently recording one of my favorites that do not show the Favorite icon in the Malore recording screen. The newly recorded show does not have the Favorite icon yet, only the REC icon - but what's weird is that in the other menus the Favorite icon is shown for this show on the Upcoming/Currently recording bar at the bottom of the screen.

[rsagetv99]

And in case this helps, here are the shows I am having trouble with.

I have a Keyword favorite for "Forensic", the shows that don't come up with icons are:
Forensic Files, Expeditions to the Edge, and Mysteries of the Deep. I thought maybe this might be related to the fact that it was a keyword favorite until I noticed that the icon does show up for other shows that were recorded by this favorite like The New Detectives and CSI.

I have another Keyword favorite for "RV" and it is having the same problem with the show RV Today. I do not have any other shows that were recorded using this favorite so I am not sure if they would also be affected.

I also have the problem with the Title favorite "Dr. Phil" and the Title favorite "I, Detective".

Hope this helps.

[JasonJoel]

I posted this elsewhere, but thought I would mention it again.

There is a setting to force COMSKIP to not take all available resources...

If you set the "play_nice_Start" and "play_nice_end" in the COMSKIP.INI file it will only use up to 50% of your CPU for COMSKIP during the hours that fall within the play_nice start & end. (At least I think it is 50%, been a while since I looked).

That may help if you are having loading issues while COMSKIP is running.

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

This is a great idea, because the problem I always had with CS was that it pegged my CPU.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

UPDATE: Here's another example of my Favorite icon not working.

Sage is currently recording one of my favorites that do not show the Favorite icon in the Malore recording screen. The newly recorded show does not have the Favorite icon yet, only the REC icon - but what's weird is that in the other menus the Favorite icon is shown for this show on the Upcoming/Currently recording bar at the bottom of the screen.

You're probably seeing a difference in a couple of different implementations. I don't remember, but are you running my released version or Tox's modded version?

[sleonard]

Ok, latest update - I did a fresh re-install of the client. OS, Sage, everything. I let the Sage setup install Java _04 and have not installed _05 or _06. I also purchased and installed NvDVD.

CC is now working with NvDVD but not the postprocessor or with Sonic. Strange since it did work with Sonic last week when I was using Maldudes STV. The CC icon shows properly on all shows, all views except for one of my favorites - Countdown w/ Keith Olberman. There are 3 recorded, none get the CC icon. I can however display CC text in all 3 when watching.

Favorites icon also does not show for Countdown. It is a favorite and all 3 give access to favorite options. Just no heart icon. The icon does show properly for all other shows currently recorded.

CS icon - I needed to d/l and install the jpg as it is not in Cayers14.zip nor Corefiles.zip. I got this from ToxMox in an earlier post, Thanks.
Since then it is showing up for most of the shows but not all. Of the ones that it is not showing up on a few of them had empty comskip.txt files and a few others had no comskip.txt files but most did have valid <>0 byte comskip files.

Auto comskip is running right now but is using only about 20% cpu and going very slowly. It is version 0.63 not the one in Cayers14.zip. This is probably due to livetv=1 in the .ini but am not sure yet. It is certainly too slow to be working on livetv as its been working on the same 1 hour show for about 4 hours and going now.

I also still cannot run a manual comskip from the detailed info screen. Trying results in "Comm Detection Error" This may be caused by the fact the comskip is currently running. I will stop auto comskip and try again when it finishes.

[srothwell]

I've got some more questions for how comskip works with Cayars STV.....

1. I'm still having trouble understanding what triggers Sage/Cayars to automatically process a recording without any intervention whatsoever, at any time. I have everything turned to Enabled. Sometimes shows will have CS, and others just won't have ever done it. If I initiate a manual, then it will work. If you have the OSD options set correcly, then you'll get the comskip menus on the option menu. Do you have to initiate a "Comskip ALL" at least once for each favorite to get it to automatically CS new recordings?

2. So, I'm figuring out that if I'm running Client and I tell it to comskip something, that the comskip actually runs from the client machine. It also makes the client machine run its processor and LAN usage at about 100%. Even if you've shut SageClient down on the client machine, how every many times you asked sage to initate Comskip, there will be that many instances of Comskip running as a service and it systematically read the entire file over the LAN into the client machine and generate the .txt file. Shutting down the client PC while this is in process causes problems becuase even though the file really hasn't beeen CS'd, the menu for that show to initiate a manual CS is removed.

Now, I realize that #2 is kind of like "Doctor, Doctor... it hurst when I do this..... So the Doctor says... Don't do that." But, is there a way that when a client initiates a CS, that it can simply be queud on the server. I think it's scary to start running things locally on the client machine. Everything should be on the server.

Best regards,

Stacy

[sleonard]

Auto comskip is running right now but is using only about 20% cpu and going very slowly. It is version 0.63 not the one in Cayers14.zip. This is probably due to livetv=1 in the .ini but am not sure yet. It is certainly too slow to be working on livetv as its been working on the same 1 hour show for about 4 hours and going now.

I also still cannot run a manual comskip from the detailed info screen. Trying results in "Comm Detection Error" This may be caused by the fact the comskip is currently running. I will stop auto comskip and try again when it finishes.

quick update: I ended task on comskip, deleted the partial comskip .txt and .log files, and disabled auto comskip settings. I also set livetv=0 in the comskip.ini file. I can now run a successful manual comskip from the detailed info screen and it runs full speed

[davephan]

"RIP a DVD" (under "Utilities/Setup") is not working. When clicking on the "RIP a DVD", the screen flashes to black for less than a second, then returns to the "Utilities/Setup" menu.

Under the DVD setup, I set DVD-ROM drive to "Yes".

Are there other items to set to get "RIP a DVD" to work?

Dave

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by srothwell

I've got some more questions for how comskip works with Cayars STV.....

1. I'm still having trouble understanding what triggers Sage/Cayars to automatically process a recording without any intervention whatsoever, at any time. I have everything turned to Enabled. Sometimes shows will have CS, and others just won't have ever done it. If I initiate a manual, then it will work. If you have the OSD options set correcly, then you'll get the comskip menus on the option menu. Do you have to initiate a "Comskip ALL" at least once for each favorite to get it to automatically CS new recordings?

You have it set correctly. Ther is no Comskip All type thing. It just looks through your files and processes them in a manner that shouldn't over tax the CPU. It doesn't do a file and then start another right afterwards. I didn't write the code in the STV that "interfaces" with Comskip.exe. I just modified it here and there to allow manual triggering from the OSD and to allow it to process files that are still recording. I also modifed the routines that update the OSD timebar. I haven't touched the algorithm Malore did to actually process the files.

To be honest, I really don't understand fully what it's written the way it is and I hesitate to mess with it.

2. So, I'm figuring out that if I'm running Client and I tell it to comskip something, that the comskip actually runs from the client machine. It also makes the client machine run its processor and LAN usage at about 100%. Even if you've shut SageClient down on the client machine, how every many times you asked sage to initate Comskip, there will be that many instances of Comskip running as a service and it systematically read the entire file over the LAN into the client machine and generate the .txt file. Shutting down the client PC while this is in process causes problems becuase even though the file really hasn't beeen CS'd, the menu for that show to initiate a manual CS is removed.

Now, I realize that #2 is kind of like "Doctor, Doctor... it hurst when I do this..... So the Doctor says... Don't do that." But, is there a way that when a client initiates a CS, that it can simply be queud on the server. I think it's scary to start running things locally on the client machine. Everything should be on the server.

Best regards,

Stacy

Yep, don't do that is the answer. Many people like the fact that they can process files via the client. You can remove the ComSkip.exe from the client machine and I guarantee it won't run on the client anymore.

EDIT: this was post number ONE THOUSAND. Quite the active thread.