Have I been a moron for the last 8 months?

[Opus4]

Things like ComSkip or the older CC display get the info of what parts to skip during playback or the CC text to be displayed by looking for the data file in the same location as the mpg file. For a client, this is accomplished by using either UNC paths when defining a Video Directory in SageTV or mapped drive letters on the client. (Of course, mapped drives are out when using the service.) View the Recording Detail for a recording & look at the lower right corner, scrolling down if needed, to see the file path. That is the exact path that must be visible to the client PC in order for some customizations to work. If it isn't a UNC path, then the drive letter has to be mapped on the client. If it is a UNC path, no mapped drive letter should be needed, since what is there to map to? There is no drive letter in UNC paths.

No one has said that the default client itself needs any sort of UNC or mapped drive letters just to play a recording; only the use of certain customizatons makes it necessary.

- Andy

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Opus4

No one has said that the default client itself needs any sort of UNC or mapped drive letters just to play a recording... - Andy

Actually, I believe heffe2001 did

Now as for client, most likely the problem you'll see if you don't have the drives mapped is it won't authenticate to the server if it's not already mapped.

Or maybe I misinterpreted "authenicate to the server", which IRRC is necessary for Client to work at all! Client finding and being authenticated and connected to the Server has nothing to do with drive mappings was my point.

[stanger89]

I think he meant authenticate in the sense of the Client PC/user not being authenticated for the server's network share.

[heffe2001]

I know Sage doesn't need the drives mapped for a client to play video. If you want ot use comskip, then SageClient needs direct access to your comskip files. If you want to go the mapped drive route, you must keep in mind that the drives must be mapped in the exact same place, if your storage drive is E, then your mapped drive should be E. Now if you're using your C drive for storage, that obviously won't work (easily that is, you can install windows on other drives than C). If you go the UNC pathname route, then you don't need to map any drives at all. Just make sure that your client machine can log into your server machine (NOT SAGE, windows login), or you'll have problems.

Now that being said, my system is set up like this: Server machine has 3 tuners in it, and all video storage. I don't store ANY video files on my C drive, only on the other drives. On my client machines that I use comskip on, I map those drives where they are located on my server machine, D to D, E to E, etc. That was how I initially set up Sage, and never felt like going through all the work to change it. Eventually I'll put a raid card in that server machine, and replace my current drives with larger ones. When I go through all that trouble, I'll start using UNC paths. For mp3 storage, I'm currently using that as a UNC map to my 2k3 Server machine, but I will end up moving my MP3 storage drive into that machine this weekend.

EDIT: stanger hit the nail on the head, I ment authenticated to the network share, not the SageTV server software.