Plugin :: PlayON for v7

[evilpenguin]

Locking down thread, for all futher issues use the new main thread...

This STVi adds PlayON specific shortcuts to the main menu for easy content navigation.

Known Issues/Caveats:

• All videos streaming though PlayOn are streamed/encoded in real time meaning that they do not download faster than realtime. You can just think of it like a TV tuner for internet video.
• Can only stream to one extender (HDX00) at a time (multiple full clients work fine).
• Plugin might not be able to see PlayON UPnP server if you have multiple network adapters or active VPNs.
• @PlayOn/Netflix - Netflix movies don't start from the beginning and/or the resume from the correct last watched place. See this PlayOn thread for info.
• @PlayOn - By default PlayOn continues buffering movies after you've stopped watching them, this is particularly bad for Netflix since it results in the watched bookmark being set past where you stopped watching. You can somewhat fix this by disabling Resume Playback in the PlayOn settings, although, its still pretty hit and miss. But if you watch Netflix content in one sitting then you shouldn't have a problem.

Installation:

Available in Main Menu->Setup->Plugins->Available Plugins under the UI Mod tab.

Requirements:

• SageTV v7.0.9 or greater
• Latest version of PlayOn installed, configured, and the service started

Demo Video

Release History

• 6/06/10 - Initial Release

[evilpenguin]

How to submit a bug:

If you run into any problems with PlayON STVi/UPnPBrowser make sure you...

• Try multiple different types of videos (Hulu/Netflix/CNN/ESPN/etc.). Genreally, if one type of video plays fine but another doesn't then its a PlayON issue and you'll need to submit it to them.
• Specify which video(s) you tried that didn't work.
• Include the LOG FILE (!!!!!!!) which can be found at ...

  ...\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser.log

Troubleshooting:

First of all, 99% of the issues people had with the previous plug-in were actually issues with their PlayON install so please go over their FAQ, Known Issues, and install instructions before you post here. You can also try playing back content via one of their officially supported devices (PS3/Xbox360/HD200 in standalone mode) to verify if your setup is working correctly.


Symptom #1: No content or folders show up for any of the Main Menu shortcuts, including the PlayON one.

This usually indicates that UPnPBrowser can't communicate with PlayON, once you've verified that you're not running into one of the known issues you can check these things...

• Verify that another one of PlayON's supported devices can see the server (if you don't have another device you can try the UPnP Inspector tool tool)
• Check to see if you have a PlayON (...).cache file in the ...\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser\ folder.
• If you don't see a .cache file, open up a command line and try running this command to see if it generates one (if not, please post the resulting UPnPBrowser.log onto this thread).
  

  "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser.exe" /mainmenu /serverSearchTimeout 60

• If you do see .cache files try running this command and post the resulting UPnPBrowser.log onto this thread.
  

  "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageOnlineServicesEXEs\UPnPBrowser.exe" /search PlayON:+1

Symptom #2: Videos are showing up, but you get an error when you try and play them

This is usually a PlayON issue, please check to make sure that you're using the latest version. If you are on the latest version, submit a bug to PlayON and they should be able to help.

[evilpenguin]

v1.1 Release Notes:

• Added PlayON specific shortcuts to main menu easy access to Hulu and Netflix.
• Added PlayON button to main menu for acess to whole tree
• Relocated .cache files to go into a folder next to executable
• Reworked .cache file usage so it'll display/find/use cached servers even if they didn't show up in the server search
• Cached servers will always show up with their official name rather than the name used to search for them
• Added .presets file which can be automatically updated to accommodate PlayON changes without having to update STVi.

[Brent94Z]

Thanks for the great plugin EP! I very much like how ALL my Netflix videos are now displayed and not just the first 50 like before

I know you asked not to bring up issues you already had identified so I apologize if this is something you know about but you don't have it listed above. I'm seeing similar to what was posted in the other thread

2) When I bang out to the menu with the uPnP player in this state, my performance navigating around drops significantly - Eye Candy effects drag in a noticeable fashion. I checked the VJM Heap size after playing and it wasn't even on the high end of out of the ordinary. It's not the end of the world - a quick putting Sage to sleep and waking it back up cures it - but if there's a graceful way I can back out of / close out the player, it might make a difference.

Some info for you, going into the the different areas like Netflix and Hulu things are snappy and fast. But, as soon as the first video is played, everything slows down to a crawl within all of Sage (scrolling all the menus, etc.). Sage stays like this until I exit out of Sage and restart. Once you do this, navagating in Sage is back to the normal speed.

If you're not aware of this and need additional info, let me know what I can provide and I'll try to help. Thanks!!!

[SWKerr]

Been using Boxee but am trying Playon again. (Have full license)

Problems with Playon plugin on SageTV Client. (only)

Installed on the SageTV Server v7 and all works well. Netflix and Hulu
Client machine does not have Playon. (Don't think I need it)
It will work fine on the XBOX360

I have a new build on Win7-32 with pretty much just SageTV. It will very quickly come back with "The External Feed Was Empty"

No .cache file found
Attached log.

Any ideas?

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Been using Boxee but am trying Playon again. (Have full license)

Problems with Playon plugin on SageTV Client. (only)

Installed on the SageTV Server v7 and all works well. Netflix and Hulu
Client machine does not have Playon. (Don't think I need it)
It will work fine on the XBOX360

I have a new build on Win7-32 with pretty much just SageTV. It will very quickly come back with "The External Feed Was Empty"

No .cache file found
Attached log.

Any ideas?

I was getting the same error message but I'm running Zone Alarm. Even though I was selecting "Allow" and to remember the setting, there was something about the player which made it so Zone Alarm thought that even though I was telling it to allow the program, Zone Alarm would think it was "different" and the pop up would come up again in the background (under Sage screen) and was getting the same message. I went into Zone Alarm and manually configured it to allow the playon exe file to do whatever it wanted. That fixed the "The External Feed Was Empty" message.

Basically, if you have a firewall, the exe file responds a bit different than what I'm used to seeing (normally once I allow a program, it works from there on out) so make sure it isn't your firewall messing with it.

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

I have a new build on Win7-32 with pretty much just SageTV. It will very quickly come back with "The External Feed Was Empty"

I had the same problem today with the "The External Feed Was Empty. It is a playon issue. Once, I uninstalled and reinstalled Playon the issue was fixed.

Although, I'm still having playback issues but that also looks to be a playon issue and tech support is working on it.

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Been using Boxee but am trying Playon again. (Have full license)

Problems with Playon plugin on SageTV Client. (only)

Installed on the SageTV Server v7 and all works well. Netflix and Hulu
Client machine does not have Playon. (Don't think I need it)
It will work fine on the XBOX360

I have a new build on Win7-32 with pretty much just SageTV. It will very quickly come back with "The External Feed Was Empty"

No .cache file found
Attached log.

Any ideas?

Went backed and looked at this again today. Ran the command line UPnPBrowser.exe and was able to generate a "UPnPBrowser.PlayOn (KERR_DESK).cache" file. I can only assume I did something stupid before.
I can still not get the client to work. Still reports back very quickly with "The External Feed Was Empty"

I tried this on the PC in the kitchen which is also running the SageTV7 Client. I was able to get that one working fine. At this point the Xbox360 and the Sage Client on Win7-64 works fine.

Something I noticed was a "UPnPBrowser.64bitOut" file in the offending machines SageOnlineServicesEXEs directory. This machine is Win7-32 and the server is Win7-64. Could there be a problem with a 32 bit client connecting to a 64 bit server?

I am attaching the new log file which appears to have really run this time.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

Some info for you, going into the the different areas like Netflix and Hulu things are snappy and fast. But, as soon as the first video is played, everything slows down to a crawl within all of Sage (scrolling all the menus, etc.). Sage stays like this until I exit out of Sage and restart. Once you do this, navagating in Sage is back to the normal speed.

I've never seen anything like that and that's also not something this plug-in should be affecting. All it does is call a process that compiles a list of PlayON video links, passes that to Sage via stdout, and then dies. Beyond that, the handling of the list and playback are all handled by Sage/PlayON so if there's an issue its either in how Sage is handling/caching the potentially large lists or the progressive download/playback of the MPEG-2 content, i'd submit a bug to them.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

No .cache file found
Attached log.

Any ideas?

See Troubleshooting #1 in the 2nd post and run the command.

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I've never seen anything like that and that's also not something this plug-in should be affecting. All it does is call a process that compiles a list of PlayON video links, passes that to Sage via stdout, and then dies. Beyond that, the handling of the list and playback are all handled by Sage/PlayON so if there's an issue its either in how Sage is handling/caching the potentially large lists or the progressive download/playback of the MPEG-2 content, i'd submit a bug to them.

Thanks, EP. What's weird is I had this plugin installed on an Intel based machine and was seeing this. My motherboard died and reloaded Sage on a new AMD machine and I'm seeing the same exact thing??? My Netflix que list is around 90 DVDs so maybe that is it. I'll try reducing the size of my list and see what happens. Thanks!

[tonaeli]

After upgrading to Sagetv v7 I added Playon for v7 plugin. Originally, custom online feeds were not present. You tube and Google feeds worked fine. I then copied my old online services file over to the new version. I now see the feeds but get the " external feed was empty message. I have uninstalled the plugin and reinstalled multiple times. I uninstalled playon and reinstalled. I am able to watch playon on extender in stand alone mode. Also, plugin worked perfect before upgrade to new version. Am i missing something? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[evilpenguin]

Due to very popular demand, the More Online Services menu item is no longer used for this Plugin, check the the demo video from the first post...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccQj2mjKkZM

[audioguy16]

Hi EV, great plugin. really huge improvement from the last one. The plugin was working just fine a day ago and now it is not finding any video. I did the steps you listed in the first part of this thread. Attached is the log file. I already uninstalled/reinstalled the plugin but still cant find the playon feeds. thanks for your help.

Audio

[jdamore]

Originally Posted by audioguy16

Hi EV, great plugin. really huge improvement from the last one. The plugin was working just fine a day ago and now it is not finding any video. I did the steps you listed in the first part of this thread. Attached is the log file. I already uninstalled/reinstalled the plugin but still cant find the playon feeds. thanks for your help.

Audio

Is it possible your IP changed on your server? I would open your cache file with notepad (sagetv/sageonlineservicesEXEs/UPnPbrowser) and make sure your "location" is the correct IP.

[audioguy16]

Originally Posted by jdamore

Is it possible your IP changed on your server? I would open your cache file with notepad (sagetv/sageonlineservicesEXEs/UPnPbrowser) and make sure your "location" is the correct IP.

I thought that might have happened so I renamed the cache files and had the upnp regenerate the cache files again. I double checked the the IP in the cache file and the Playon server and it is the same.

[audioguy16]

Originally Posted by audioguy16

I thought that might have happened so I renamed the cache files and had the upnp regenerate the cache files again. I double checked the the IP in the cache file and the Playon server and it is the same.

I reinstalled the playon on the server, and now its fine again!

[mkanet]

Forgive me if I'm not posting in the right forum thread. I'm not exactly sure where to post since the old playon thread was closed. There are still many of us using sageMC; including me. Would someone please be nice enough to show how to create a .properties file for 3rd party plugins added in playon?

Also, when clicking on "back to main menu", it takes the user to the stock SageTV 7 main menu instead of sageMC's main menu. I'm not sure how to fix that.

I actually would love to upgrade to the stock sageTV STV, but there are just too many must-have sageMC features Id miss such as a nice Upcoming Movies menu.

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions!

[gcrow]

I'm using the Playon plug in and watching through an HD200 which is working with SageTV7 on my server. I first noticed last night that the bottom of the picture was being cut off while I was watching a subtitled movie.

I was using the STV 3 UI due to wife acceptance as well as the old play on plug in, but tried updating all plug-ins and the STV to v7 versions today. I'm not losing much picture, but enough to make the bottom row of titles unreadable. I've tried adjusting all picture parameters and it looks to me like the cropping is happening within Sage. As far as I know, this has always happened, but this particular flick has the titles right at the bottom.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by gcrow

I'm using the Playon plug in and watching through an HD200 which is working with SageTV7 on my server. I first noticed last night that the bottom of the picture was being cut off while I was watching a subtitled movie.

...

Has anyone else noticed this?

I'm seeing this on Hulu. It's cropping a little bit all the way around the screen.

Also, the HULU menu overlay (says Autoplay has full screen options etc) will not autohide. I'm stuck looking at a cropped image with an additional crop due to the menu bar.

This is with v7 on an HD200.

Anyone?

Thanks!