Unofficial Secret Extra v5-6 UI Features

[reboot_this]

Originally Posted by Opus4

• SageTV Recordings Style - select from the default menu, malore's custom menu, or mlbdude's 2-pane menu.
• Menu Header Disk Space Bar Options - Choose Configure to enable/disable the disk space bar above the title for every menu and to configure some options for that bar.

- Andy

I am using v2.2.x with Cayars STV and I use "Two Pane Horizontal" for my recording menu... is this the same as mlbdude's 2-pane menu? If not, are there any options to be able to use/implement it with v4.x?

Can someone post a screen shot of the "menu header disk space bar" option? I'm hoping it's the one I currently use.

also I guess I can ask while I'm here, are there any options (stv imports, secret feature, etc) with the SageTV original STV in v4.x to retain the "Upcoming Recordings" pane at the bottom of all the menus that scrolls left/right as with Cayars STV for 2.x? I don't know where this option is in the setup menu so I don't know what it's called but I really would like to continue using it.

Thanks!

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

I am using v2.2.x with Cayars STV and I use "Two Pane Horizontal" for my recording menu... is this the same as mlbdude's 2-pane menu? If not, are there any options to be able to use/implement it with v4.x?

I don't know which one is the "Two Pane Horizontal", so I don't know. Anyway, if it is that one, it won't be exactly the same.

Originally Posted by reboot_this

Can someone post a screen shot of the "menu header disk space bar" option? I'm hoping it's the one I currently use.

This is shown at the top/center of every menu (from my old MalDude2 STV):

Well... the numbers change according to the conditions.

also I guess I can ask while I'm here, are there any options (stv imports, secret feature, etc) with the SageTV original STV in v4.x to retain the "Upcoming Recordings" pane at the bottom of all the menus that scrolls left/right as with Cayars STV for 2.x? I don't know where this option is in the setup menu so I don't know what it's called but I really would like to continue using it.

I think you are talking about nielm's dynamic menu system; see the List of available customizations.

- Andy

[MTuckman]

Was wondering if anyone else is experiencing the same thing... If I have the disk space bar enabled, there is a delay of a second or two displaying any menu. With it turned off, no problems...

[reboot_this]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't know which one is the "Two Pane Horizontal", so I don't know. Anyway, if it is that one, it won't be exactly the same.

see "recordings menu" screenshot below, is this menu style available at all with v4.x? It's called "two pane horizontal" on my setup.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/atta...1&d=1135191185

(sorry, couldn't get the stupid picture to populate here, so I left it as a link)

Originally Posted by Opus4

This is shown at the top/center of every menu (from my old MalDude2 STV):

Well... the numbers change according to the conditions.

that's it!

Originally Posted by Opus4

I think you are talking about nielm's dynamic menu system; see the List of available customizations.

- Andy

I read further on nielm's dynamic menu stuff and it does include the upcoming recordings, but everywhere I looked it was only for v3.x, am I right to assume that it will work for v4.x since v4.x is really v3.x with studio?

Thanks Andy!

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

see "recordings menu" screenshot below, is this menu style available at all with v4.x? It's called "two pane horizontal" on my setup.

That is sort-of the one in here as a hidden feature, but like I said above: it isn't exactly the same. (Read earlier in this thread; I don't use that one, so I haven't had the inclination to do more work on it.)

I read further on nielm's dynamic menu stuff and it does include the upcoming recordings, but everywhere I looked it was only for v3.x, am I right to assume that it will work for v4.x since v4.x is really v3.x with studio?

I don't use it, but it works for v4; see the v4 sections of the List of available customizations.

- Andy

[reboot_this]

Thanks Andy for the info...

not to be a pain, but what's different about that "recordings" menu in the hidden features?

[Opus4]

I don't know what all is different.

- Andy

[reboot_this]

Originally Posted by Opus4

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, it is a problem that happens at times while using DirectX when video is playing. It has been around for quite a while.

- Andy

Has this problem been fixed yet?

[Opus4]

As far as I know, it is an issue outside the control of SageTV & it still occurs.

- Andy

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Opus4

As far as I know, it is an issue outside the control of SageTV & it still occurs.

- Andy

Funny ... I was about to post what I think is the same issue .... See attachment ...

FYI ...

• I was playing a show when I ...
• Backed in to the Main Menu ...
• Moved over to the Recoding Schedule ... (Bad Screen)
• And even clicked Options for a show ... (Bad Screen)

ALSO

• I do have 3D Acceleration turned on, and ...
• Had just yesterday uninstalled / reinstalled my ATI Video Driver and ...
• Reinstalled DirectX 9.0c, and ...
• Ran DirectX diags which passed ...

Soooo .... ???? Heck if I know??? ... But I'm not using Cayars STV for Sage 2.x. I am using the standard stv in Sage 4.0 with Dynamic Menus and some other Neilm plugins, a couple of deria plugins and salsbst WRS.

It is reproducable however ... Is anyone even looking at this for a possible fix??

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

I read further on nielm's dynamic menu stuff and it does include the upcoming recordings, but everywhere I looked it was only for v3.x, am I right to assume that it will work for v4.x since v4.x is really v3.x with studio?

I use Upcoming Recordings in 4.0 and it works fine ...

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by reboot_this

see "recordings menu" screenshot below, is this menu style available at all with v4.x? It's called "two pane horizontal" on my setup.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/atta...1&d=1135191185

(sorry, couldn't get the stupid picture to populate here, so I left it as a link)

I also like the 2-Pane Recordings Menu myself ... And Sage 4.0 “does” have a similar one ... It can be set to filter by Category, which is my desire, but the worst thing to me is; though it does allow you to sort shows in each Category by date / time (thus newest recordings float to the top), it “does not” allow sorting of the Categories by date / time. It always sorts them in alphabetical order. To me that makes it easy for finding a Category, but I prefer reviewing all my recordings by Newest Category on top with the Newest show on top in each Category.

So, all I have been told is, I have to figure out myself how to do it in Studio. I was able to import the screen (originally provided by mlbdude from Sage 2.x), but it broke some links to show info after importing. Having other Sage issues, I have not have time to see if I can figure out how to make it happen yet.

Anyway, that’s probably more than you wanted to know about 2-Pane recordings ... T.

[Kirby]

I've been tinkering with these secret features and really enjoy them. I do have one issue though that I cant seem to get around, nor find a solution on the forums here. On the usage bar, when I set it to say, 48 hours look ahead for recordings, is there a way that the formula used to calculate disk usage can be modified so that HD channels are taken into account at a larger data rate? Ideally, I would like to be able to set channels at their actual rate, something like this:

1. 1920x1080i channels = 8.5GB/hr
2. 1280x720p channels = 7GB/hr
3. 1280x1080i HD-lite channels = 5.5GB/hr

Of course those values might have to be tweaked a bit more, but would make the upcoming usage much more realistic, as right now my bar shows 2 shows on FOX-HD coming up, and only going to use 4GB of space.

Maybe this functionality already exists too? If so, I have completely overlooked it, can you please point me the right way? Thanks!

[jbuszkie]

Yeah.. This annoys me too..

I was going to look into fixing this... but I got side tracked on more important things... like taxes and spending time with the wife! I may still do it...

But I would just have 1 encodng for the digital tuner. I'm not sure if the aspect raitio show up in the guide data so I would assign a deafult encoder value like 9GB/hr for the digital tuner.. so it would show the worst case space availible...

Jim

[Opus4]

The space value is just an estimate & SageTV doesn't know how much space a digital recording will require. BTW: are all shows on a specific digital channel broadcast at the same data rate, or would actual HD shows take up more space than SD shows? Since there is no standard data rate, maybe a couple HD & SD size estimate properties could be used for a worst case estimate, as jbuszkie mentioned.

- Andy

[nielm]

The code only looks at the specified recording quality for a manual recording, and then falls back to using the global default:

quality = If(Size(GetRecordingQuality(airing))>0,GetRecordingQuality(airing),GetDefaultRecordingQuality())
bitrate=GetRecordingQualityBitrate(quality)
size = (bitrate/8.0*GetScheduleDuration(airing)/1000.0)

It does not take into account:
different recording qualities per favorite
different default recording qualities per encoder
(the reason being that when I wrote the disk space bar, these features did not exist!)

So the code will need updating for HDTV, but as I do not have HDTV, I do not know how Sage reports recording qualities for scheduled HDTV programs...

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The space value is just an estimate & SageTV doesn't know how much space a digital recording will require. BTW: are all shows on a specific digital channel broadcast at the same data rate, or would actual HD shows take up more space than SD shows? Since there is no standard data rate, maybe a couple HD & SD size estimate properties could be used for a worst case estimate, as jbuszkie mentioned.

- Andy

Typically you can come up with a value based on a channel. This would normally hold true for channels like HDNet, Discovery HD, and similar channels. Where you would run into problems would be on a channel like Showtime, where you might get a show coming through at 10Mbps rate, and the next one could be 14-15mbps. It all depends on the source I guess. For simplicity's sake, a general 9GB/hr rate would suffice, as a worse case estimation. With all the rate shaping, down rezzing, and other bandwidth limiting practices going on out there, its probably safe to use something lower than 9GB/hr, maybe 7.5. Or could this be a setting in the props file that we can manually tune if we like.

[aperry]

I'm recording with Firewire, and the HD files I get are around 8-9 GB per hour. When I record from a digital channel (SD), I've seen anywhere between 1 GB per hour up to 3 GB per hour. Though, at least for me, the sizes do seem to stay pretty standard on each channel.

I think the safest thing would be to just make sure that you have tons of hard drive space available to you.

[jbuszkie]

I've created a new thread to discuss the diskspace bar

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...846#post148846

[brookb]

I just upgraded from 2.2.? to 5.0.4.92. Yea, I know that's a long time to go without an upgrade, but Sage was working pretty well - especially with the Malore STV in 2.2. I switched, because the Search for Keywords disappeared in 2.2 for some reason, and I figured I'd upgrade to see if it would come back (it did).

After upgrading, I installed the Malore STV for v3. But the 3-panel menu was missing, which I really liked. I found the secret code to turn it on: 5309. And when I turned it on, the 3-panel menu showed up and the commercial skip which I had installed also started showing up. However, here's the problem.

Whenever the secret features of Malore are turned on, the menus start showing up in 'tranlucent layers', for lack of a better term. You know how in some modes, when you select different items or menus, things 'fade' between the previous menu and the new one? You know how it looks like there are maybe 8 time slices of the old item fading out and the new item fading in, all in about 1 second? Well that's kind of what this looks like, except that the display freezes on each time slice. See the attachment for a screen capture of the problem.

Each slice of the fade changes only when you move the mouse over a different menu item, or click on a new menu. When you go to new menu X+1, that new menu does show up or highlights, but the previous menus don't go away. The previous menu, menu X, fades a little. The menu before that, menu X-1, fades even more. Basically, you end up seeing about 8 layers of menus all on top of each other, as if they're fading into the fog.

If I disable the secret feaures, all goes back to normal. But I lose the 3-panel menus and the commercial skip features.

I make have to go back to 2.2 unless there's an answer to this problem.

I've got a Hauppauge 350.

I updated Direct X to the latest as of August 2006. I tried playing with all of the settings. Rendering doesn't help (default doesn't work, and Overlay and VMR9 both show the same problem. I use the Intervideo decoder, as my system is too slow to work without it. I've tried all combinations of 3D acceleration and Overlay color keying. Nothing helps.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!