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

[Homebuilder]

I just installed 4.17, thatwent fine. imported germsage as well as nielm's imports... no troubles. But when I tried to explore the placeshifter, I can not find the options under detailed setup / advanced.

I reimported the default stv, still no options.

Note from first post:
3. To enable the placeshifting server in SageTV, simply enable the media extender server in Detailed Setup->Advanced.
5. The placeshifting server requires a password for any non-local connections. This password can be set in Detailed Setup->Advanced.

I am completely lossed. How can these options not be there for my sage? Is it there for everyone elses?

Is there a sage.properties entry that has to be edited? In past updates I made changes to the properties to do nielms webserver etc...

Any ideas? any help?

[Opus4]

You have to enable the SageTV Server to see any extender options... then enable the extender server to see the place shifter options. If you don't see any of that, then make sure you really are using the default SageTV3.xml file as your STV.

- Andy

[Homebuilder]

Originally Posted by Opus4

You have to enable the SageTV Server to see any extender options... then enable the extender server to see the place shifter options. If you don't see any of that, then make sure you really are using the default SageTV3.xml file as your STV.

- Andy

Hi Andy,

Sagetv server is enabled

but, no option below for extenders. I did a clean install on another machine, the options are there, but really do not wantto uninstall and reinstall (again).

Is there a way to enable in properties?

once enabled, how do I access the computer from the net? is it ip address:31099 like:

http://111.11.111.1:31099

do I need to install additional software on the other computer?

hmm just thought.. might have to stop nielms webserver... but that shouldnt mess with the advanced options...

Thanks for your help!

[heffe2001]

Shut down your sage, edit your .properties file, I bet you're running the old SageTV3.stv. You need to make sure your using the .xml version of that STV to see the latest options. They won't be shown unless you're using the .xml file...

[srothwell]

Installed 4.1.7 and here are my preliminary observations:

1:
When connected through a wired LAN, the video quality, etc are all excellent -- just like using SageTVClient.

2:
However, when connecting via wireless on the local LAN or through an outisde internet connection, things get a little dicy (of course, such is the nature of the internet).

For instance, it appears that the PlaceShifter knows when you're on the local LAN to go full out with the best quality and, most importantly, not to re-compress. But when the default "scaling" compression turns on, my server stars jerking like nobody's business.

I don't exactly have a 4 processor Xeon server, but I do have an Athlon 64 2800+ processor with 1GB of RAM. I mean, the moment it starts re-compressing, the server becomes unwatchable at home. I tried setting the switch in PlaceShifter that turns off post processing and it seemed to help a little, but not much.

3: MP3 files won't play through this, or now through the MVPs

4: Would it be possible to add a page in Sage somewhere that shows what each "box" is watching? Right now, I use neilm's webserver and it shows, by MAC address, which miniclient is doing what. It would sure be nice to have something like that built-in to Sage.

5: Is there some way that this Placeshifter can run on ordinary Internet Explorer? The only catch now, is I have to use special software.

Best regards,

Stacy

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by srothwell

3: MP3 files won't play through this, or now through the MVPs

I can not get mp3 files to play either. Doesn't matter if I am connected via Lan or internet.

[Opus4]

heffe2001 covered the .xml file comment...

Originally Posted by Homebuilder

do I need to install additional software on the other computer?

You need the placeshifter client... the client installation includes that, or see this post for just the placeshifter.

- Andy

[insomniac]

/me throws a [ @ lotusvball

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Narflex

EDIT: We found the problem with the 'Please Wait ' screen. It's when you're using Java 1.4 instead of Java 1.5. We'll fix the issue in the Placeshifter so it does not require Java 1.5 (it was for some encryption stuff).

If its the java version on the server side, then yes, I'm using version 1.42.06. Will be the fix come out soon, like within this week? The reason I'm asking is because I can upgrade to java version 1.5.x or whatever the latest right now. But if the fix is out within this week, then I can wait.

Another question maybe others can answer, is java 1.5x easily removed if it causes problem after I upgrade? I want to know if I can safely go back to 1.42.06 if there are problems after upgrading.

[mikejaner]

I'm afraid to say that HDTV support is pretty broken in this release. I set up a recording tonight, and tried to watch it about an hour into the recording. I received an error decoding the video portion with error number -4,0x80004005. Video decoding worked for SDTV (whose EPG data mysteriously disappeared, but later found out that my dorm TV provider changed the name on zap2it's website).

I too had a major downturn in WAF tonight. The release was looking good last night for a few minutes, but it looks like HDTV broke big time in this release. I had two major crashes affecting HDTV recording for almost 2 hours during the Olympics. The clients all became unresponsive, and I had to restart the SageTV server both times. The SDTV recordings coninued with no cutouts except for when the server was restarting, but the HDTV recordings were a disaster.
I submitted a bug related to this.....

[michelkenny]

Just upgraded to 4.1.7 this afternoon. My family has been watching TV on a couple of MVPs all night and the problems I was having with 4.1.5 and 4.1.6 seem to have been fixed. No more random hard freezing or screwed up programing guide... but I've probably jynxed myself and in 5 minutes someone will call me with a problem on the MVP...

[thatdude90210]

I've been playing with Placeshifter for the past hour, here are some observations:

My server is p4 2.53, 768mb, asus p4s800mobo, 2 theater 550 pro cards. Java 1.5, & cable modem upload rate 384k. I setup an additional connection type (it had found the lan connection already), using the locator ID.

When connecting using the Local Network connection. Mostly worked ok, couple of times the video froze til I change channels. Previous recordings play fine. Even though the transfer rate is pretty high (over 10mbps in Dumeter) video is not as smooth as SageClient.

When connecting through the locator ID, it asks for a PW, and streams under 300k (checked with dumeter, most of the time it averages 130k). When it works, it's not bad and picture quality is better than I expected.

The problem is getting a video started, if I go directly to previous recordings, it would just move the timeline, but no sound or picture. I could wait for minutes and it's still like that. It happens sometimes when using "live tv" or selecting a show from the guide too.

But sometimes the using either live tv or selecting from guide, the video starts, and if I don't close that video and let it play in the video window in the menu, I can play any video from previous recordings or select any channel in guide and it would play. It's like the transcoder didn't initialize but once it did it worked fine afterward.

I tried dialing out using a 56k modem just to make sure I had my router setup correctly. The download rate is so poor that the picture is just a bunch of stutters and stops. So at 56k it's not watchable. I can't wait to try this out at work.

Edit: I don't see a way to set Source aspect ratio settings, like horizontal and vertical stretch, I want to get rid of the black borders in the video.

Plus: it seems the picture wasn't smooth was because "post processing" was turned on in the settings, turning it off and the picture is smoother.

[mkanet]

I'm having a hard time understanding the purpose and practicality of Placeshifter.

Maybe I'm missing something very obvious, but it seems like Placeshifter isn't aiming for the "Anytime Anywhere" concept like Orb Networks & Neilm's Webserver addon.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't just go to any computer (or cell phone/PDA) and start watching SageTV recordings & schedule recordings in a matter of seconds like you can with ORB/Neilm's Webserver. Instead, you would have to carry around your own PC/laptop which already has Placeshifter installed (with respective purchased license).

I know this might sound like a dumb question, but why isn't Placeshifter Web Browser based?

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I'm having a hard time understanding the purpose and practicality of Placeshifter.

Maybe I'm missing something very obvious, but it seems like Placeshifter isn't aiming for the "Anytime Anywhere" concept like Orb Networks & Neilm's Webserver addon.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't just go to any computer (or cell phone/PDA) and start watching SageTV recordings & schedule recordings in a matter of seconds like you can with ORB/Neilm's Webserver. Instead, you would have to carry around your own PC/laptop which already has Placeshifter installed (with respective purchased license).

I know this might sound like a dumb question, but why isn't Placeshifter Web Browser based?

There is a good possiblity that the "Placeshifter" is heading in that direction. We will have to wait and see.

-Matthew

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I'm having a hard time understanding the purpose and practicality of Placeshifter.

Instead, you would have to carry around your own PC/laptop which already has Placeshifter installed (with respective purchased license).

Not exactly... the PS license is an extender license that is on the server, not the PS client PC, so there is no license involved on your remote machine.

You do need to have the PS files, though, but you don't need the full client installed. See this post for a smaller set of files to carry around.

- Andy

[ben_gb]

Hi,

Can I just clarify something about the licencing...

I have 4 Sage servers (in different locations). My interest in Placeshifter is mainly so that while I am travelling, I can schedule recordings, add favorites, and adjust server settings, rather than specifically to watch full programs (though being able to watch a bit to check that the recordings are working is a handy feature).

Does this mean that I would need a separate Placeshifting/MVP licence for each server (i.e. 4 licences in my case), or can I use one licence on all servers?

If so, then I guess having a single client licence on my laptop might be a better option, though I am concerned about the lack of security in allowing a client to access over the internet.

Cheers,
Ben

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I know this might sound like a dumb question, but why isn't Placeshifter Web Browser based?

I remember in the CES video, Jeff mentioned that they are working on an embedded web browser client. I'm not sure if that means that you can just type in an IP and it loads as a webpage, OR, you have to download a small java app like a plugin to run it in your web browser. If its as small as that miniclient.jar file, then that should be fine.

[srothwell]

One more thing on v4.1.7 (I have not previously used .15 or .16)

Can we please have a setting to turn back on the lines that seem to have disappeared on the menus?

For those of us using the unsupported features (i.e. malore's recordings, etc) the screen looks very haphazard and sloppy becuase all this text just "floats" out there with no structure.

I'm sure it looks fine if you're using the default layout but it really looks bad using Malore's.

Thanks

[mikejaner]

I remember in the CES video, Jeff mentioned that they are working on an embedded web browser client. I'm not sure if that means that you can just type in an IP and it loads as a webpage, OR, you have to download a small java app like a plugin to run it in your web browser. If its as small as that miniclient.jar file, then that should be fine.
__________________

I imagine it will evolve into that. since it works with just those four files and no install, I imagine Jeff just has to figure out how to package it into a format that combines those files and downloads them then runs them locally and deletes them when you quit.

[dooferlad]

One for the developers...

At the moment I can't use my DVB card because they don't have BDA drivers. I can put together an app that dumps transport steams to disk, but what does Sage need? The entire transport stream is (I am guessing) too much, because it contains several channels. If I just strip out packets so it just contains 1 video and 1 audio PID will Sage be able to play it, or do I need to extract sections?

Dumping the entire TS and making Sage aware that it has several channels in would rock of course, since I could record several channels at once from one bit of hardware :-)