SageTV V4.1.7 Beta Is Available - Now with Placeshifting!

[Narflex]

Howdy all! SageTV 4.1.7 Beta is now available.

SageTV V4.1.7 Release Notes 2/20/06

This is the first release that contains 'Placeshifting' functionality. Placeshifting adds a new client program that allows the user to connect to their SageTV system from anywhere on the Internet. The placeshifting client has the full SageTV UI and it can also stream live/recorded audio & video. It will be known as the SageTV Placeshifter.

This release also includes the Locator feature of SageTV which can be used with placeshifting. The Locator feature allows the Placeshifter to find the IP address of your home server automatically. It does this through a 16-digit unique ID that is generated by SageTV. You can find this ID in System Information or in Detailed Setup->Advanced. Information on disabling this feature is in the release notes.

There's a few things you should know about placeshifting:
1. To access your SageTV Server through the Internet with the Placeshifter you will need to open port 31099 on your firewall/router and forward it to the computer that is running the SageTV server.
2. The current Placeshifter is included in the SageTV Client installation. It is called the SageTVPlaceshifter and is in the Start Menu as well as in the SageTV program folder.
3. To enable the placeshifting server in SageTV, simply enable the media extender server in Detailed Setup->Advanced.
4. IMPORTANT: The licensing for the Placeshifter is done on the server. It uses the same licensing as the SageTV Media Extender. They share the same trial period as well. After the trial is up you will need to have a Media Extender license installed on the server for each simultaneous connection you want to have for either a Media Extender or a Placeshifter.
5. The placeshifting server requires a password for any non-local connections. This password can be set in Detailed Setup->Advanced. NOTE: SageTV does utilize strong security (RSA/Blowfish) in order to protect your passwords, but be sure to choose passwords that are not easy to guess or too short in length.


That was the attempt to get you to read some of the more important release notes. And here's the download links:

SageTV
http://download.sage.tv/SageTV_V4_1_7Setup.exe

SageTV Client and SageTV Placeshifter
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVClient_V4_1_7Setup.exe

See this post for info about running just the placeshifter on a Windows PC w/o installing the full client.

Core Updates
1. change code for A new API AutoScanChannelInfo().
2. Added keystrokes whose names weren't mapped before.
3. Added support for receiving MouseWheel events from the input plugins
4. Added support for transcoding configuration on the MiniClient
5. Fixed bug where the transcoder wouldn't start if it started at the beginning of a file.
6. Fixed exceptions that occurred when seeking before starting the transcode
7. Added support for on the fly bitrate adjustment of the video stream
8. FiX: MPEG PTS wrap round bug
9. Added experimental unsupported property "experimental_video_thumbnail_generation". If set to true, then SageTV will automatically generate thumbnails for any video file when needed.
10. Changed the DVD transcode mode property to not be configurable. SageTV will rewrite the property each time it runs now.
11. Added encryption support for the MiniClient event channel
12. Fixed bug where headless servers with media extenders would go into power saving mode while the extenders were playing video.
13. Added the locator registration client. It can be disabled by setting locator/enable_registration=false or disabling the extender server.
14. Fixed issue with negaitve uptime again (this will correct negaitve ones that currently exist)
15. Fixed bug with forced storage paths for encoders where it only worked when the disks were full
16. When a user remaps a channel and uses dashes in the numbers, SageTV will no longer try to automatically append the major-minor stations for tuning.
17. Reset the display hide timer when video frame events complete.
18. Fixed WMV import bug with not detecting the title correctly.
19. Fixed the issue where SageTV would use the SageTV3.stv file as the default UI instead of SageTV3.xml
20. Fixed race condition between Active & Final rendering threads wrt the update region
21. FIX: PS multiple audio tracks audio bug
22. FIX: some DVB-T TS stream carries the mutiple same stream id mpeg1 audio tracks screw up demux.
23. FIX: first audio stream in PMT table sometime is not main audio track in DVB-T causes PTS detecting failure.
24. Fix: playback TS file without PAT PMT, (reconstruct PMT based on stream type that is dectected by parser)
25. FIX: Scan channel frq file naming bug (convert illgeal character "/\:?*<>" into "-" )
26. Fix: tune to wrong sub-channel bug, some program updates PAT table in middle of stream, that TSParser always lock its first PAT table to mapping channel causes problem, new code keeps checking PAT table if updated, if updated, re-map channel.
27. Fix: raw TS stream data dump bug.
28. Fix:mpeg2(or mpeg1) audio stream tagged as private stream in TS stream screws up PS re-muxing .
29. Fix:1:54:33 bug
30. Embedded SageTV privaite information 10 bytess (audio video stream number, and main track for default play) in padded packet following system packed
31. Change code for mutiple sound tracks supporting in PS
32. Change code for adding Demux audio ctrl by registry value AudioCtrl(DWORD)
33. In USA (ATSC) we wait for audio stream readay in first audio stream (AudioCtrl=0), but In Europe (DVB-T)we pick up which audio is decoded first in multipler audio stream (audioCtrl=1).
34. FIX:Playback PS file without PACK packet.
35. before change channel, drain off data in buffer not to dump current channel data to a new file.
36. Fixed bad private audio stream data in PS file cause MpegDemux 100% CPU usage.

Media Extender Updates
1. Changed buffer loading when doing transcoding for the MVP so that it doesn't play until after some buffers are loaded
2. Added retaining of the volume between sessions for the extenders & miniclients.
3. Fallback to public ip if no private ip found.
4. When MiniClients connect that require authentication, their initial STV is now set to be SecureLogin.xml which is used to authenticate them and then load the main STV if they pass authentication.
5. Extender UI that crashes while its loading (due to connection failure) would sometimes hold onto its license idefinitely.
6. Transcoded streaming for the media extenders is now enabled and doesn't rely on a property file setting.

Studio Updates
1. Changed the Exit() API call so that if it is called from a RemoteUI session, it only closes down that UI session instead of closing down the server.
2. Added Global API call SetRemoteEventEncryptionEnabled which allows enabling/disabling of encryption on the event channel for remote UI clients.

STV Updates
1. Placeshifting setup code is now in Detailed Setup->Advanced
2. Completed Detailed Setup help text & finally removed unused obsolete Detailed Setup areas.
3. Added ability to copy locator ID to the system clipboard.
4. Menus have shading only if background video is playing.
5. Fav Details screen now sets default focus to the Back button.
6. Added display of locator ID in Detailed Setup -> Advanced & System Information; shows content of the "locator/ID" property.
7. Changes to remove borders around various menu parts
8. Highlighted Detailed Setup area name when it is active and does not have focus.
9. Fixed NTE toggle option for email entry for tvtv setup.


We hope you all enjoy. Please submit any bugs at http://www.sagetv.com/bugs.html

Thanks again for your help!

[Para]

Something to try out this week!!!

Jeff,

10. Changed the DVD transcode mode property to not be configurable. SageTV will rewrite the property each time it runs now.

Can you elaborate on this? Will we be able to watch DVDs on the extender or is this for something else? I had tried to edit the FFMPEG DVD settings in the properties file before in 4.1.6 and never had any luck.

Thanks for any info.

[Narflex]

The DVD transcode mode property is for general MVP transcoding. It has nothing to do with playing back DVDs on the extender.

If you want to modify the transcoding settings used for the extender just create a new transcoding mode property with the settings you want and then modify the properties file for the extender to use that specific transcoding mode.

[PGPfan]

Hi Jeff,

Can you provide an example of this? For example, I have my wedding DVD that has AC3 audio. How might I set this up so that I can view it using the MVP in the bedroom?

Many thanks in advance!

-PGPfan

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

Hi Jeff,

Can you provide an example of this? For example, I have my wedding DVD that has AC3 audio. How might I set this up so that I can view it using the MVP in the bedroom?

Many thanks in advance!

-PGPfan

That ability for SageTV to detect the specific subformats that need to be transcoded will be fixed in an upcoming release. Right now it just goes off the container format for whether or not it needs to transcode for the MVP. So right now it won't transcode anything in MPEG2 Program Stream format.

[kltye]

Unfortunately the stuttering with some HD channels is still apparent However I can now dump raw TS files, where before it would just produce a zero-byte file....

The place-shifting client seems buggy too - it wouldn't stop stuttering on my laptop (which is powerful enough to play Half-Life 2), over a strong 802.11g connection. I turned off post-processing, and now I'm stuck at the place-shifting screen that says "Please wait..." I'll probably restart my system and see if that helps.

Oh, and when I establish a connection to the server with the place-shifting client, the server plays the startup sound (yeah I had a startup sound defined in sage.properties). Just thought I'd let you guys know :P

[Fluffdaddy]

Now the real fun begins

[robk]

Now I'm totally confused about media extenders and licenses
Rob

[evilpenguin]

Awww, I was hoping for a platform independant web based placeshifting client so my girlfriend could use it on her Mac. Oh well, guess i'm not done with orb quite yet

[mattsm]

It says my placeshifter trail period has expired. What is up with that? Can you elaborate on how to get a trial for the placeshifting going?

-Matthew

[Bohica]

Jeff,

Any chance we can make the port configurable? Even if it just an option in the config file and not menu accessible? Locking it to a single port will make using this through outbound restrictive firewalls difficult / impossible for a lot of people... Great addition - thanks.

[mikejaner]

At first glance, HDTV seems to be much more stable for me. Even stations with minor glitches keep going, instead of tripping up for a few seconds and killing sound etc...
Of course it will take a week's worth of HD programming on multiple stations to know for sure.

[Polypro]

Picture library seems jacked up again. In 4.16 it was flawless. In 4.17 there is a delay while navigating, some thumbnails aren't showing up, and scanning for thumbnails stalls. This was an over the top install.

P

[mayamaniac]

It's Narflex's evil scheme to make all of us send him more licensing fees. First MVP licenses, now Placeshift licenses, which were both free with Matt's MVP plugin and Orb software or nielm's webserver plugin. Of course, native support is better. I didn't expect a license fee for Placeshifting, but what can we do but send him another $30.

With that said, I've been waiting for this live streaming feature in SageTV for a while, $30 is small price to pay I suppose. Alhtough I'm hoping for a license pack discount for those of us wanting to add more clients and media extenders to our setups. I was using BTV just for live TV streaming, now I can dump BTV for good. Anyone want to buy a discounted BTV3 license?

Anyway, just tested it out, and for basic streaming, it seems to do the job well. Picture quality is pretty good. I'm setting it at 300kbps , 352x240, 30Fps, the default manual settings. I'm just testing it locally, have not tried remotely. I'm sure there are bugs which will be fixed in future updates. And lastly, although not pointed out in the release notes, but this version also allows native remote scheduling as promised a while back. I still like nielm's webserver plugin for quick web access and scheduling. I hope nielm will continue to work on it and not abandon it because of this release.

My server is an AMD64 3000+, and I see ffmpeg.exe is being used for transcoding the streaming data. CPU usage is between 50-75 percent. Which isn't too bad but is still a big hit on the CPU. When you combine Placeshifting along with MVP transcoding and Comskip/ShowAnalyzer processing, what kind of CPU do we need on the server to do all these tasks? With Multi-Cores CPUs out now, does SageTV make use of the separate cores for each task? I know BTV4 makes use of the intel core duo (#43). The other option is maybe give an option to offload MVP Extender and MVP transcoding processes to a SageTV client machine.

[SHS]

It's Narflex's evil scheme to make all of us send him more licensing fees

You know it cost money to buy transcoding software.
I perf to see hardware transcoding processes

[heffe2001]

Just tried it from work, and the video quality was very good, much better than I expected, but my poor server just can't cope with the demands of transcoding. Looks like I'll be upgrading it sooner than I thought.

[David G]

Originally Posted by Narflex

The DVD transcode mode property is for general MVP transcoding. It has nothing to do with playing back DVDs on the extender.

If you want to modify the transcoding settings used for the extender just create a new transcoding mode property with the settings you want and then modify the properties file for the extender to use that specific transcoding mode.

Sorry, this is Chinese to me

Can anybody answer these simple questions;

- can I currently, on my MVP, playback DVDs that have been ripped onto my server?
- if not out of the box, can it be accomplished with some tweaking (as seems to be suggested above)?
- if not right now, is it planned for a future SageTV release?
- finally, what kind of horsepower will I need? My server is currently an Ahtlon XP 2200+. If necessary I could rip the DVDs with DVDShrink so that the bitrate is low enough for the Athlong to handle it... although I'd have no idea how to look for that sweet spot... other than multiple trys I guess

Thanks,

[geogecko]

Just want to make sure I understand this. You have to install the client software on the machine you want to access from, in order to use placeshifting?

I'm glad Sage is doing this now, however, the place I'd probably use it the most (work), forbids "unapproved" software installation... I couldn't believe that it provides streaming, until I read about the client. Would be nice to have a stripped down web version of "ScheduleShifting" to go along with PlaceShifting.

All in all, nice additions to SageTV. I tried both SageTV and BTV, and Sage just appealed to me more, and I think I've been very happy with my choice. Support has been good, *free* upgrades, and good people.

Keep up the good work.

[xred]

Originally Posted by Bohica

Jeff,

Any chance we can make the port configurable? Even if it just an option in the config file and not menu accessible? Locking it to a single port will make using this through outbound restrictive firewalls difficult / impossible for a lot of people... Great addition - thanks.

Just a suggestion, but for those who don't want to (or can't) open a port on your firewall, or want to be sure that no one can "see" what your streaming, I recommend downloading and using Hamachi (www.hamachi.cc). It will create a secure, encrypted tunnel between any machines you add to your network.....very very handy, especially at work =)

[Wheemer]

Originally Posted by SHS

You know it cost money to buy transcoding software.
I perf to see hardware transcoding processes

FFMpeg is free opensource software...