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

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by Cayars

Sneaks, on my list for a later version. But when I do this I'll be replacing the IMDB code completely with all my own code.

More then likely I'll replace local weather, IMDB, Weather Suite, RSS etc with a more modular "plug-in" styles code. I'll borrow code I've written from my portal days.

PS For those of you that don't know it, I authoried one of the top company portal systems before selling it off

Carlo, not sure if you saw this yet but, it looks like the IMDB site did change, and Nielm changed his code. Can this be included in release 16?

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...8&postcount=39

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by Sneaks

Great, thanks for the response. Gotta ask now though, which Portal? Or are you not allowed/willing to say. (which I can respect)

It's now a CA product.

Side note, I've got an odd bug, that I didn't notice posted anywhere (did look/search, but there's so many posts, easily could have missed it.)

My preview window video on all menus always has a black square in the middle of it. Viewing TV is fine, only when on menus. This is present in v15 and 16C, and is irrelevant if full screen/window. I/m using Sage 2.1 BTW, not 2.2.2
Very odd.

This is pretty well known and has been covered here. Basically, if the dot bothers you then you need to turn off one of the following: CC, 3D Ac., Semi-transparent Overlays (maybe one other) or switch to VMR9 mode.

Do you have your "list" posted anywhere? That might be helpful, and hopefully reduce the number of questions asked. Perhaps posting in with the release notes at the top of the forum. Could divide it into a couple headings something like: "In Development" and "Requested", etc.

No, it's just here through out the thread. I pretty much try and get as much in each release as possible. There are only a one or two outstanding requests that I'm aware of and one of them is the target of the next release (when ever that happens to be). What's in development that isn't released yet as part of 16 is the DVD Burner. Other than that it's complete.

If you're not careful people may start asking for a full release schedule and Project Plan.

Yep, right here in this thread is the preferred method. I dislike PMs for requests because other people can't comment (can't see it) and also because I'm constantly having to delete my PMs to have room and I can't refer back to them if there not around any more.

Count me as one who knows. I'm probably a little older then most people think!
I left that all to my dad, and I instead played with the HW/OS side of things.

Hence I have to rely on trusty individuals like yourselves.

Thanks again.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Carlo, not sure if you saw this yet but, it looks like the IMDB site did change, and Nielm changed his code. Can this be included in release 16?

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...8&postcount=39

Yes, already in the new zip file. BTW, the zip he provided works just fine so if you don't want to wait just use it. I'll have Test D up tonight however which will have this fix in it.

[Cayars]

STATUS UPDATE:
I'm holding back compression for version 16. I just don't like the results I'm getting from ffmpeg and I want to explore a better solution for the long term.

So 16 won't come bundled with ffmepg compression. I will however put together a zip file with the needed files and instructions for those who wish to use it while I work on a better solution. (best of both worlds). I'm spending to much time on this and not some of the other things that need to get wrapped up.

[Cayars]

I'd like to get some feedback from you guys. I realize many of you have more elaborate systems then the typical PVR user. At least I'm guessing this based on the fact that you guys like all the "bells & whistles" in my STV.

Some of the new things we can add to the system as a whole can really suck up some CPU processing power slowing down the system as a whole. At present the main culprit is ComSkip. Soon it could be DVD Burning, Transcoding, Compression and Commercial Cutting.

What I've envisioned from day one is having the ability to offload these processes to other machines on your network. It could be one other machine or 10 or more depending on your environment.

This would be similar in nature to having a Sage Recorder machine (for those that understand this). What I envision is having a QUEUE setup to manage different type of "jobs". A watchdog service/tray icon program would be installed on each "workstation". It could be configurable to only process jobs at certain times of the day and you'd be able to set the CPU priority of these jobs on the workstation.

This would be ideal for installing on the "house-hold" computer and letting it go full bore from midnight to 7am for example or from 9am to 5pm while you're at works for example. You could of course also have one or more dedicated computer doing nothing but processing jobs.

Besides being able to offload work from the SageTV machine, I'd also be able to do some things that aren't practical right now. For example if we wanted to add commercial cutting (using comskip data) using VideoReDo or DivX conversion using Dr. DivX (arguably the best) I could do this pretty easily on another computer. Both of these programs for example have windows that like to open which is bad for PVR machine interface but not that bad on a machine that no one is using (or dedicated).

With a few hacks/scripts a lot of programs could be added into the mix that wouldn't work on the SageTV machine because of CPU or Interface issues.

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

BTW, this could still be run on your main PVR machine. Nothing would stop you from doing this, so even single computer users would not loose functionality.

Carlo

[ErsatzTom]

Originally Posted by Cayars

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

BTW, this could still be run on your main PVR machine. Nothing would stop you from doing this, so even single computer users would not loose functionality.

Already I moved comskip off to my production wintel box. I just installed sage there and only turned on comskip on that box. Having a more configurable solution that allowed me to take advantage of multiple cpus would terrific. I wonder if I could get our macs in on the fun.

t

[insomniac]

I love the sound of this. This is presently what I do (on a small scale of course) with compskip. My client/network encoder and server process commercials on their downtime. I would love to see an independant queueing and processing piece. Only thing that Im not sure of, is that if its worth the time to create such a nicety

Your mileage may vary....

I.

Originally Posted by Cayars

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?


Carlo

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by Cayars

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

Abso-friggin-lutely! I tend not to run any kind of compression etc because I'd like to off load this onto machines on my network that are doing nothing.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by Cayars

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

Carlo

Absolutely. I've got several PC's that are jumping up and down wanting to be included in my Sage network.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Cayars

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?
Carlo

AbsoFrickinLutely!

[Sneaks]

Originally Posted by Cayars

...With a few hacks/scripts a lot of programs could be added into the mix that wouldn't work on the SageTV machine because of CPU or Interface issues.

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

Absolutely. This is in fact exactly what I want to do. I'm using an already underpowered PC for my SageTV box (PIII 800 1GB RAM) and offloading to my main PC, server machine, and heck even my laptop at times would be fantastic.

Pretty much everything you mentioned is something on my list. Mpeg4 recompression, with commercial cutting is high on my list. Real time commercial processing is as well.

I have less need (if any) for DVD burning, as for the occassion I might want to do this, I can use my main PC. This is really not an ongoing task for me like the recommpression/commskip functions would be.

Sounds great, can't wait to see your results!

Ian

[davephan]

The comskip process benefits are so nice that it might be worth it to offload the heavy CPU process to another computer! Once I started using comskip, I don't want to give it up!

Maybe parts of the comskip.exe need to be written in a more efficient coding (such as assembly language, if that is possible?) to reduce the CPU load. Maybe the only easy alternative is to offload the process to another computer.

Does anyone have experience with multiple processors? Maybe a single CPU computer does not have enough performance for comskip.

Dave

[rsagetv99]

Sounds great to me!

Hopefully you can get the offloaded processes to run from a remote client without having to copy the show over the network to the local PC. It would also be great if it did not require another SAGE (or other software) license...

[MacDaddy]

Originally Posted by Cayars

I'd like to get some feedback from you guys. I realize many of you have more elaborate systems then the typical PVR user. At least I'm guessing this based on the fact that you guys like all the "bells & whistles" in my STV.

What I've envisioned from day one is having the ability to offload these processes to other machines on your network. It could be one other machine or 10 or more depending on your environment.

So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?

Carlo

I would LOVE it!! I've got a home automation system that is severely underutilized. If I could just think of a way to use the processing power in my cell phone while it's not taking calls ........

[mbrown3]

This sounds great, but just not sure how much I want to use my other PCs for processing comskip/compression/etc. (I use my other PCs for different things, like recording music, graphics, etc.). Will these options be adjustable in terms of turning on/off? I think they're a great idea to have, but would need to be able to enable/disable them at will. My .02 cents.

Thanks Carlo! Keep up the great work!

[Cayars]

I was thinking of doing a tray icon type thing. This way it's very easy to see if it's working (icon changes color). You should be able to control the CPU priority of the queue manager and any apps it launches. You should also be able to set certain times for it to be able to work.

I won't actually be doing any of the code for it for a while yet but I wanted to throw out the idea and see the interest level and get ideas/feedback BEFORE coding.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Sounds great to me!

Hopefully you can get the offloaded processes to run from a remote client without having to copy the show over the network to the local PC. It would also be great if it did not require another SAGE (or other software) license...

It won't requre/need SageClient to be installed. The way I'd design this it could be used for SageTV, BTV, Medio, Media Portal, Medic, etc... It wil be it's own stand alone program.

It will be sort of a clustered processing engine. The only interaction with SageTV will be at the STV level to create a "drop file". The drop file will be nothing more than a text file (probably XML) that has information about the show/movie and what process or series of processes to run on it.

I.E.
Check channel or show information to see if it's on a list of channels or shows to process OR check to make sure it's not on a list of Do Not touch shows/channels comskip,
Then Run ComSkip on the file. With results of ComSkip cut commercials from show.
Then transcode show to DivX using AutoGK or DivX.
Put an "Upload File" in a directory for the STV to processes. Also copy show back to video folder.

Then the STV could look for any new "Upload Files" and if it find them update show information accordingly (new size, new extension and size, etc).

Just some ideas...
Then

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Sounds great to me!

Hopefully you can get the offloaded processes to run from a remote client without having to copy the show over the network to the local PC. It would also be great if it did not require another SAGE (or other software) license...

If done correctly you would be able to control the logic. So some people might want to process across the network while others would benefit from copying the file locally first then processings. I think overall it's probably better to copy the file if you are going to do a combination of ComSkip detection and then Cutting the commercials out since this would require two complete reads of the file. When doing more then one process on the file it's going to be better to copy the file first probably and then have all the processing done for that file done on the one computer.

But, I'll try and keep everything modular and scriptable so you can set it up the way YOU WANT it to run.

[Cayars]

I'm looking for a couple of people to do a test run of the DVD Burner.

Let me know if you have VideoReDo?

[White94Cobra]

Originally Posted by Cayars

...
So the question I'll throw out to you guys. Does this sound appealing? Do you guys have multiple computers in the house that you could/would use to do this with? Do you like the idea of being able to really do REAL TIME commercial processing? Do you guys want a distributed PVR solution?
...
Carlo

This would be fantastic. Although I've tried performing some tasks on the Sage files via the network and it seemed quite slow. It was faster to copy the file over to my main PC, perform the task, then copy it back. I've considered upgrading to gigabit ethernet but I don't know how feasible that is for everyone. The concept sounds great though.