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

[k1114]

A couple of things that i'd love to see in the next release:

1. Default quality for recordings only - I want to watch live TV @ 5gb/hr or higher so that the quality is great, but I want my favorites, scheduled recordings, and intelligent recordings to record at a predetermined setting (I use 1.8gb/hr). I hate that sage keeps live tv and scheduled recording quality tied to the same setting.

2. Fix for the VMR9 menu distortion/corruption when using VMR9 and hardware acceleration for the menus with video showing either in a window or the background. This is a big deal for me, but i've just turned it all off for now. I've seen this menitioned before somewhere back in the thread, so I know its not just me. (This is a STV specific issue, dosen't happen with the original)

I love the work you've done so far, definately in a class of its own

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

By the way, you (Carlo) mentioned earlier that this thing was starting to consume your life, which I fully understand given the pace of updates. But you can't keep up this pace. Although I greatly appreciate the value that you've added to SageTV (including these wonderful future ideas), don't let this thing burn you out. I'd rather see a slower pace of updates than force you into abandoning development due to burnout.

Well, I'm currently unemployed so I've got a little extra "life" to consume.

It's not a matter of burn out for me. I could do this for 10 years before I'd burn out on it. It's more a matter of income. The wife would prefer a paycheck.

I'm going to shortly start to except donations for some of this work as many have suggested! Probably the level of donations will determine how many hours get put into this stuff going into the future.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by k1114

A couple of things that i'd love to see in the next release:

1. Default quality for recordings only - I want to watch live TV @ 5gb/hr or higher so that the quality is great, but I want my favorites, scheduled recordings, and intelligent recordings to record at a predetermined setting (I use 1.8gb/hr). I hate that sage keeps live tv and scheduled recording quality tied to the same setting.

I looked into doing this before. Some of the needed recording hooks just aren't available via Studio to accomplish this. The way I'd have to do it is sort of reversed. I'd have to use the "default" recording level as the liveTV and then use a newly added "default2" for all scheduled recordings. The code would be pretty similar to what is used now for overiding the default padding that I do. However there are a few places that I can't control and these are the deal breakers. IR really gets in the way on this one too as it would always use the higher recording values.

2. Fix for the VMR9 menu distortion/corruption when using VMR9 and hardware acceleration for the menus with video showing either in a window or the background. This is a big deal for me, but i've just turned it all off for now. I've seen this menitioned before somewhere back in the thread, so I know its not just me. (This is a STV specific issue, dosen't happen with the original)

I've looked at this until I'm blue in the face. I know it's something I'm doing but I can't put my finger on it. Does this also happen to you if you are using Overlay or just VMR9?

I love the work you've done so far, definately in a class of its own

I try.

[mbrown3]

OK, so I know this is probably something simple and/or stupid, but I just upgraded to 2.2.2, and am still using your version 15. However, every time I exit Sage and come back into it, it reverts back to the original V2 stv. I change it each time, but it doesn't seem to be saving my preference. I've checked the properties file(s), but can't seem to figure out what I'm missing. Can anyone help? Thanks.

[BerrantRyke]

[flattery]
Thanks for making SageTV indispensible in my home... My wife was opposed to a PC in the living room, however now she complains whenever we watch live TV. "ewwww! commercials!!" And the kids enjoy watching Blues Clues whenerv they want. My many thanks comes from adding all the extras I wanted in the interface.

Please post that Pay-Pay address, and take our cash as a thanks.
[/flattery]

Now a question:

1) Am I a moron, or is there a way to keep the folder.jpg files I have in my video library from showing up in the picture library? Just looks odd to be viewing vacation photos and up comes the DVD cover for 'Man on Fire'.

And my $0.02 worth of suggestions/wish list:

-screensaver based on picture library (random of course)

-support for SVCD's (ie. i place a .iso or bin/cue in a folder in my video library and am able to play it like I can a mpg or divx file and ,yea I know its a pipe dream, the ability to drop a burned SVCD into the DVD drive and play the sucker from inside sage negating the need to play with an external player)

-support to play an "internet radio station" similiar to how I can use winamp and www.shoutcast.com

- a weather widget, bottom right of main menu showing current conditions only. Show me a picture (sun, clouds, rain, etc and the temp) I'm thinking about 2/3 the size of the free space widget.

Well, thats my current wish list, but all this aside, you have taken and made Sage a most indispensible product for my home and my family. Now we not only do not have to worry about missing a show again, but we enjoy the interface we use to watch it. Cayars, you da man!

[Demideus]

Originally Posted by alon24

I find that I record many shows and they show up ok but after a few days, they are suddly shown as no title, no header.

Originally Posted by Cayars

Somebody else mentioned this same thing a day or two ago in one of the SageTV forums. This person wasn't using my STV but was using 2.2.2. and XML plugin if memory serves me correctly.

Originally Posted by Demideus

I've been using XMLTV since Sage 2.0.14Beta and to my experience the Sage interface does not accept updates of shows that start in the past (even if it's only a few seconds).
Therefore recorded shows should not be affected by EPG updates.

Oops, I've recently played around with the category translations, and it did in fact change the categories of a show in the past. I previously recorded that show, and it indeed lost all info.

I guess Sage has updated the internal workings somewhere between 2.0 and 2.2.2 so it would allow updates of shows in the past.

I'll update my XMLTVImportPlugin so it will not update the EPG with shows that have already started (original Sage behaviour).
I'm not sure if that will work when a show has not yet started but the padded recording has... If it isn't I can put in yet another patch...

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by mbrown3

OK, so I know this is probably something simple and/or stupid, but I just upgraded to 2.2.2, and am still using your version 15. However, every time I exit Sage and come back into it, it reverts back to the original V2 stv. I change it each time, but it doesn't seem to be saving my preference. I've checked the properties file(s), but can't seem to figure out what I'm missing. Can anyone help? Thanks.

This has happened to a few people. First off upgrade to 16 which has numerious fixes to version 15. Then the easiest fix assuming you still can't change the STV seems to be to completely shut down sage and then to edit the property file. Change the reference to OriginalV2.stv to Cayars16.stv (or 15) and re-start sage. Everything should be up and running at that point.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by BerrantRyke

[flattery]
Thanks for making SageTV indispensible in my home... My wife was opposed to a PC in the living room, however now she complains whenever we watch live TV. "ewwww! commercials!!" And the kids enjoy watching Blues Clues whenerv they want. My many thanks comes from adding all the extras I wanted in the interface.

Please post that Pay-Pay address, and take our cash as a thanks.
[/flattery]

Soon I promise!

Now a question:

1) Am I a moron, or is there a way to keep the folder.jpg files I have in my video library from showing up in the picture library? Just looks odd to be viewing vacation photos and up comes the DVD cover for 'Man on Fire'.

Yes, there is a way. It's in the Sage manual page 82. What you need to do is change the file attributes of the folder.jpg file and make it hidden.

And my $0.02 worth of suggestions/wish list:

-screensaver based on picture library (random of course)

Cool idea. I'll check and see how hard this would be to do.

-support for SVCD's (ie. i place a .iso or bin/cue in a folder in my video library and am able to play it like I can a mpg or divx file and ,yea I know its a pipe dream, the ability to drop a burned SVCD into the DVD drive and play the sucker from inside sage negating the need to play with an external player)

Another Great Idea. So great in fact I already added this functionality in version 16 of the Cayars STV. I'll bet you'll be upgrading after reading this.
It supports the following image types: CUE, BIN, ISO, CCD, BWT, MDS, CDI, NRG, PDI, B5T. You need to install the freeware Daemon Tools package if you don't already have it installed. My STV will automatically manage the process for you. The mounting process becomes transparent to you. It will auto mount your disc and begin playback directly in SageTV or it can use a 3rd party program (i.e. PowerDVD, WinDVD, WMP, etc) which is configurable in detailed setup.

-support to play an "internet radio station" similiar to how I can use winamp and www.shoutcast.com

It's on my list down towards the bottom. I was starting to work on this right when Frey Announced Sage Media Center sound I put this on the back burner until we find out what will be in Media Center. If it's not supported it will go back toward the top of my list.

- a weather widget, bottom right of main menu showing current conditions only. Show me a picture (sun, clouds, rain, etc and the temp) I'm thinking about 2/3 the size of the free space widget.

Another good idea. It could also rotate views and show forecasts also. (configurable of course).

Well, thats my current wish list, but all this aside, you have taken and made Sage a most indispensible product for my home and my family. Now we not only do not have to worry about missing a show again, but we enjoy the interface we use to watch it. Cayars, you da man!

Thanks for the compliments, btw this was a pretty well thought out list of items and I'll see what I can do with getting many of these into an upcoming release.

Carlo

[follower]

Is there a way to have the Imported Videos remember where I stopped watching the show. I have DVD's I converted to DIVX and slammed in the Imported Videos. The problem is that I watch a bit get out and watch something else. When I come back it is back to the beginning of the movie again... Please help!!!

[dvd_maniac]

Hey Cayars,

Still very much enjoying your STV, I was wondering though if you had figured out why the LiveTV won't work when using an external video player? I can still veiw tv and it stays in the Sage GUI and starts tv fine. However, when trying to pick something from LiveTV Guide it tries to open in the external video player. I checked and it is doing it in both my SageTV and SageClient.

Any help you could provide would be great.

I know you are working on only using external player for non native file types and i imagine this would solve the problem. Should I just wait til then?
Is this a problem anybody else is having?

Again, thanx for this awesome work of art.
Looking forward to donating to show a little appreciation...

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by follower

Is there a way to have the Imported Videos remember where I stopped watching the show. I have DVD's I converted to DIVX and slammed in the Imported Videos. The problem is that I watch a bit get out and watch something else. When I come back it is back to the beginning of the movie again... Please help!!!

I don't think there is any function to do this in Imported videos. Imported videos don't have any of the "normal" SageTV information and are treated as "foreign" files for the most part.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Hey Cayars,

Still very much enjoying your STV, I was wondering though if you had figured out why the LiveTV won't work when using an external video player? I can still veiw tv and it stays in the Sage GUI and starts tv fine. However, when trying to pick something from LiveTV Guide it tries to open in the external video player. I checked and it is doing it in both my SageTV and SageClient.

Any help you could provide would be great.

I actually haven't checked this out myself but I would assume it does exactly as you said it does. It's on my list of things to "check".

I know you are working on only using external player for non native file types and i imagine this would solve the problem. Should I just wait til then?
Is this a problem anybody else is having?

I already have this done and I've been using it for non-native types. Depending on the test above I might make another config option besides:
1 A) All Files
1 B) Non-Native file types
One of the above would be selected.
2) Never use external player for items being recorded

Again, thanx for this awesome work of art.
Looking forward to donating to show a little appreciation...

You're Welcome

[dvd_maniac]

I already have this done

You mean you have it done for the next release, or it is in 16 somewhere?

[Cayars]

Next release but it is working on my systems

[k1114]

Originally Posted by BerrantRyke

[flattery]
Thanks for making SageTV indispensible in my home... My wife was opposed to a PC in the living room, however now she complains whenever we watch live TV. "ewwww! commercials!!" And the kids enjoy watching Blues Clues whenerv they want. My many thanks comes from adding all the extras I wanted in the interface.

I'm with ya bud, my wife now complains whenever we are visiting my parents and she can't fast forward on their TV

I didn't realize how bad her addiction to the HTPC was until I told her that I had to take the box down for about 36 hours while I leak test the new watercooling - let's just say that the watercooling is still in the closet...

[rsagetv99]

Hi Carlo, I've been away for the holidays and just got done reading through the posts that I missed. Still trying to digest it all, but I think you asked in one post which remote keys were not working. One that I use a lot it the Play key, I have it set to {ctrl}d, which up until 16 if I pressed it while watching a video it would bring up the info/timebar for the show. More importantly, whenever I would pause a show I could hit the Play button to resume. Now, Play does not seem to do anything.

Great job on the new features, I'm itching to try out the DVD burning stuff!

[pciccone]

Carlo, I am still plagued with the "800K DVD ISO" problem, even after switching from "fair" to "DVD ELP" quality. I did get some good ISOs at some point so I am trying to figure out what the pattern is to better troubleshoot the problem.

I am not sure if its the show length, quality, number selected, etc that causes it to happen. I will keep working at it and try to narrow down the issue. I will also watch to see which step its now failing on when I get home tonight.

I just wanted to give you a heads-up the problem still exists, just in case someone else steps forward with a similar issue.

Thanks!

Phil

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Hi Carlo, I've been away for the holidays and just got done reading through the posts that I missed. Still trying to digest it all, but I think you asked in one post which remote keys were not working. One that I use a lot it the Play key, I have it set to {ctrl}d, which up until 16 if I pressed it while watching a video it would bring up the info/timebar for the show. More importantly, whenever I would pause a show I could hit the Play button to resume. Now, Play does not seem to do anything.

Great job on the new features, I'm itching to try out the DVD burning stuff!

I don't have an issue with play or pause in version 16. These are two that I know to work well as I use them all the time. These are also the same keystrokes that are mapped via the Hauppauge Remote software.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by pciccone

Carlo, I am still plagued with the "800K DVD ISO" problem, even after switching from "fair" to "DVD ELP" quality. I did get some good ISOs at some point so I am trying to figure out what the pattern is to better troubleshoot the problem.

I am not sure if its the show length, quality, number selected, etc that causes it to happen. I will keep working at it and try to narrow down the issue. I will also watch to see which step its now failing on when I get home tonight.

I just wanted to give you a heads-up the problem still exists, just in case someone else steps forward with a similar issue.

Thanks!

Phil

BTW, is this using the new build I posted in message 1812?

[pciccone]

Originally Posted by Cayars

BTW, is this using the new build I posted in message 1812?

Yeah, it was the 2nd one posted out of the two you uploaded.

Phil