STV: SageMC 16x9 Version 6.x (latest dev build)

[mkanet]

Pardon the newbie questions..

There are a few things I do (almost obsessively) in the SageTV stock STV. Can somebody please recommend some kind of reasonable replacement in SageMC for the these things I use regularly:

1) Several times a day, I like to press the remote button for Parallel Recording schedule in the stock STV. This particular view displays upcoming recordings on all my tuners in one screen and very easy to read and scroll through. Furthermore, my Television viewing is NOT disrupted when I'm in this menu. Is there a good ...or better replacement for this kind of information display in SageMC?

2) Since I have "Display Video on Menus"=Always, when start SageTV with my TV remote, I automatically start seeing Live TV (whatever is being recorded). I dont have to press another button yet another time to actually watch TV ...you know, the same way when you go to turn on a regular TV set. Is there a way to have SageMC start up showing TV automatically on the main screen?

3) I depend on a lot of custom command line execution in my menus (via dynamic menus). For example, I have menu items for x-10 automation (turning on and off my lights, etc)... or, executing external applications such as Mame32. Is there even a dynamic menus for SageMC or something comparable?

Thanks in advance!
-Michael

[dflachbart]

Hi Michael,

Originally Posted by mkanet

1) Several times a day, I like to press the remote button for Parallel Recording schedule in the stock STV. This particular view displays upcoming recordings on all my tuners in one screen and very easy to read and scroll through. Furthermore, my Television viewing is NOT disrupted when I'm in this menu. Is there a good ...or better replacement for this kind of information display in SageMC?

There is no "Parallel Recording Schedule" or anything comparable in SageMC, at least not yet. I could provide a crippled display-only import of the default Parallel Schedules screen (not in SageMC themes) if this would be of any help ...

2) Since I have "Display Video on Menus"=Always, when start SageTV with my TV remote, I automatically start seeing Live TV (whatever is being recorded). I dont have to press another button yet another time to actually watch TV ...you know, the same way when you go to turn on a regular TV set. Is there a way to have SageMC start up showing TV automatically on the main screen?

The next version of SageMC will allow to set "Display Video=Always" and display LiveTV in the SageMC video preview which is on almost all of the menus - also on startup.

3) I depend on a lot of custom command line execution in my menus (via dynamic menus). For example, I have menu items for x-10 automation (turning on and off my lights, etc)... or, executing external applications such as Mame32. Is there even a dynamic menus for SageMC or something comparable?

Niel's dynamic menus were always an integral part of SageMC. I recently updated the code to the latest version, and the next SageMC version will enhance the integration even further


Dirk

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by flachbar

There is no "Parallel Recording Schedule" or anything comparable in SageMC, at least not yet. I could provide a crippled display-only import of the default Parallel Schedules screen (not in SageMC themes) if this would be of any help ...

Dirk

Oh yah, even a stripped down parallel schedule would be nice. The parallel listings show at a glance where there are openings in the recording schedule and which tuners are in use. Yes, you do lose some of the SageMC features, but sometimes its worth it. It would be nice to have the 'watched/unwatched', 'like/don't like' and 'favorites' listeners active in it, but I guess once you start going that far, might as well go fully capable instead of crippled.


I've looked at Studio a couple times to see if I could rip it from the stock STV, but its all greek to me.

[mkanet]

Hey Dirk! Thanks for taking the time to explain everything. You've always been so helpful to me (and many others in this forum)!

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by, "...crippled display-only import of the default Parallel Schedules screen (not in SageMC themes)" I dont understand what features would be crippled. What would I lose from what I already have right now in this menu in the stock sageTV STV? So, if I load Morgan's iTV theme, I will not see this menu? Would it look different than everything else?

I would love to see sageMC with video always on! That's great news!

Thanks again,
Michael

Originally Posted by flachbar

Hi Michael,


There is no "Parallel Recording Schedule" or anything comparable in SageMC, at least not yet. I could provide a crippled display-only import of the default Parallel Schedules screen (not in SageMC themes) if this would be of any help ...


The next version of SageMC will allow to set "Display Video=Always" and display LiveTV in the SageMC video preview which is on almost all of the menus - also on startup.


Niel's dynamic menus were always an integral part of SageMC. I recently updated the code to the latest version, and the next SageMC version will enhance the integration even further


Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by, "...crippled display-only import of the default Parallel Schedules screen (not in SageMC themes)" I dont understand what features would be crippled. What would I lose from what I already have right now in this menu in the stock sageTV STV? So, if I load Morgan's iTV theme, I will not see this menu? Would it look different than everything else?

Hi Michael, sorry for not being clear, with 'not in SageMC themes' I meant that the menu screen will not be themed in the SageMC-style look and feel, and not that you cant use it with any of the different SageMC themes . It will still look like in the default STV, which will of course not look very pretty within SageMC.

"Crippled" means that you will be able to look and scroll through the schedules, but you won't be able to trigger any actions when selecting a specific show. I first tried to export the whole damn thing, but including all the listeners would have pulled in half of the whole default STV ... I guess this better than nothing, at least for now.

Dirk

[pilotguy7ca]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Search for all occurences of

Size(MaxChannel + "")

in Studion and replace them with

3

Dirk

Thanks, I'll give that a shot!

[snoopy]

It would be nice to be able to filter by file type and size or better "length".

[jelder]

I just figured out (this could have been there a long time - I have been using SageMC for as long as I can remember) that there is an option in the default STV that allows you to set the picture slideshow as your screensaver. Could we get this option added to SageMC.

Thanks.

Jim

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by jelder

I just figured out (this could have been there a long time - I have been using SageMC for as long as I can remember) that there is an option in the default STV that allows you to set the picture slideshow as your screensaver. Could we get this option added to SageMC.

Thanks.

Jim

This won't make it into the next version (too late ), but it'll be added for sure

Dirk

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by flachbar

This won't make it into the next version (too late ), but it'll be added for sure

Dirk

Great, so when will you begin working on the new one?

[popechild]

Just upgraded to 6.2 and noticed that somewhere along the way the "Edit Video Info" options have changed when looking at a video. Used to be when you selected the pop-up menu, you only had the option to "Edit title." Now you have the option to "Edit Video Info" instead.

This sounds great, except that it's causing a problem when I try to update info that's been saved from an IMDB search.

Example:
I have The Decalogue - a three dvd set of films - saved to harddrive. I try an IMDB search and it finds "Dekalog" - the foreign title. It has all the correct info, including a nice summary, so I choose to save it, which works great. But now the title says "Dekalog" instead of "The Decalogue - Episode I" which is what I want. Before, I could go to "Edit title" to change the title and everything else would stay neatly in place. Now, if I go to "Edit Video Info", it pulls up the page with all the movie details, and has cut off certain fields (most noticably the summary field) to fit a certain length. If I change the title and then Save without changing anything else, it loses almost all of the info that was there, including the entire summary except for part of the first sentence.

Basically, any way to get a simple "Edit Title" option back that doesn't require you to re-save ever field in order to modify it?

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by popechild

Just upgraded to 6.2 and noticed that somewhere along the way the "Edit Video Info" options have changed when looking at a video. Used to be when you selected the pop-up menu, you only had the option to "Edit title." Now you have the option to "Edit Video Info" instead.

This sounds great, except that it's causing a problem when I try to update info that's been saved from an IMDB search.

Example:
I have The Decalogue - a three dvd set of films - saved to harddrive. I try an IMDB search and it finds "Dekalog" - the foreign title. It has all the correct info, including a nice summary, so I choose to save it, which works great. But now the title says "Dekalog" instead of "The Decalogue - Episode I" which is what I want. Before, I could go to "Edit title" to change the title and everything else would stay neatly in place. Now, if I go to "Edit Video Info", it pulls up the page with all the movie details, and has cut off certain fields (most noticably the summary field) to fit a certain length. If I change the title and then Save without changing anything else, it loses almost all of the info that was there, including the entire summary except for part of the first sentence.

Basically, any way to get a simple "Edit Title" option back that doesn't require you to re-save ever field in order to modify it?

Oops, you shouldn't even be seeing this dialog (experimental), it has been left it in there by accident. 'Edit Title' will be back soon...

Dirk

[popechild]

Excellent - thanks!

[Madcoder]

Hi Flachbar! I know there is a way to call an external DVD application instead of the internal player, but I want to do something a little different. I would like the ability to call a particular script upon selecting a video, passing it the information about what directory to play (just like we do now for an external player). This script would then communicate with my backend server and move the selected video dvd into an available changer slot on my powerfile. Then the script gets back an indication that the operation is complete. At this point I would like to cause the internal sage player to begin playing the remotely shared drive that I specify (so I need a way to also pass this value back into Sage, since it might be either of the two slots that has the disc). I had planned on using an empty/fake file structure and video_ts folders to keep the video imports straight in Sage, but then use some kind of mechanism like I described to get the internal Sage player to be used instead of an external one. Any ideas?

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Madcoder

Hi Flachbar! I know there is a way to call an external DVD application instead of the internal player, but I want to do something a little different. I would like the ability to call a particular script upon selecting a video, passing it the information about what directory to play (just like we do now for an external player). This script would then communicate with my backend server and move the selected video dvd into an available changer slot on my powerfile. Then the script gets back an indication that the operation is complete. At this point I would like to cause the internal sage player to begin playing the remotely shared drive that I specify (so I need a way to also pass this value back into Sage, since it might be either of the two slots that has the disc). I had planned on using an empty/fake file structure and video_ts folders to keep the video imports straight in Sage, but then use some kind of mechanism like I described to get the internal Sage player to be used instead of an external one. Any ideas?

I am interested in this as well. I have a Sony DVD changer (PowerFile C200) and would love to see integration. FWIW - You can buy these on Amazon for 300 AMR

b

[dflachbart]

I proudly present: SageMC 6.3.0

This is a major new release, and since it contains so much new stuff it is not unlikely that there will be some issues popping up. Please report all problems you'll encounter, and they'll be fixed in an update later on. Ok, now to the new features:



TV Editorials and TV Series Info

This new V6.0 functionality has been ported from the default STV. The TV Editorials are accessible from the 'Schedule' menu, and the TV Series Info (if available for a show) can be accessed from the options menu in the Program Info screen or the options menu of the show item in any recording list



Full integration of Dynamic Menus as the Main Menu

Using the dynamic menus as a SageMC main menu replacement is now fully equivalent to the native SageMC main menu. All features like MCE/Sage style, side menus, animated icons, etc. work as usual, and you are getting all functionality of the dynamic menus (rename/move/etc) in addition. I included a default menu file "sagemc_menu.xml" which will get you started. For new installations, the dynamic menus will be the default (but of course you can still switch back to the SageMC main menu any time by changing the option in the SageMC options). I also added an option to assign/change the main menu side graphic for a menu item within SageMC, without having to edit the menu file externally. I found that customizability of the main menu is quite a crucial point in user acceptance, and the dynamic menus give you all the flexibility you'll probably ever need.


Re-work of Music Library

Not much to say about this, for me it's *the* best feature of this version. I think the Music Library is now pretty cool and useable (especially the new 'Now Playing' screen), but judge yourself... Everything should be obvious. The visualization type (standard/alternative/Winamp) can now be configured within SageMC in the options menu. On the new 'Now Playing' screen, 'Info' toggles between the cover art and the detailed info view. There is also a setting which automatically changes to the 'Now Playing' screen after starting any music playback.


V6.0 video compression

*Many* thanks to Deria who provided me with the base for this addition, without his work the compression port would have never made it into this version. You get all the functionality from the default STV, the compression for a single show can be accessed from the 'Send To' option in the Program Info. Functionality to compress a group of recordings is also available, thanks to EP for the code. The transcoding status screen is accessible from the 'Video Conversions' menu which is pre-configured in sagemc_menu.xml. If you are not using the dynamic main menu, you'll have to link to the internal screen "Video Conversions"


Automatic compression for favorites

This is a feature you won't find in the default STV (at least not yet ), and almost all of the code has been written by EP, thanks again! You can now set up your favorites to be auto-compressed, and select a specific compression profile for each show in the favorites settings. Once a show (for which auto-compression has been enabled) finishes recording, SageMC will automatically create a transcoding job with the configured compression setting. I also added a new view to the transcoding status screen which allows you to see which favorite shows are scheduled next for compression.

The video compression is currently using the Sage V6 core functionality for transcoding, but has been integrated in such a way that it can easily be replaced by a third-party STVi. Watch out for EP's new DVD burning / compression STVi coming soon... !


Video and Photo Library

The layout has been cleaned up and made consistent with the new Music library look. The focused/unfocused selection icons in all three views are now using the new scaling insets, which give much more crisp image boundaries than before. Due to a bug in the Sage core this might not work correctly if you have 3D acceleration disabled, or if you use a MVP. If you experience 'ghost' lines you can disable the new scaling insets in the SageMC options. The video library contains two new display options: "cover art only", and an option to disable the direct group view. What's direct group view ? Well, this feature has been in SageMC for a long time, but was kind'a hidden: if you are in the custom goup view, and select a group, you will usually see all videos that are part of this group. Disabling this "direct view" will show you the genres of the videos first, so basically it will allow you to group your videos 'on top' of the normal genre grouping. Another new feature is that you can enable/disable the offline icons with the press of the 'Info' button, and the saving of separate Folder/List settings for all views. In the picture libary, 'Info' will toggle the display of picture file name / date when viewing the picture fullscreen, and a 'Pause' icon will get shown when pausing a picture slide show


Channel jump from main menu

Ever fired up SageMC and immediately wanted to watch a specific channel ? Well, now you can, simply enter the channel number (with maximum number of digits) in the main menu, and SageMC will tune to this channel and switch to the Video OSD. If you use the dynamic menus, this function is disabled by default (since the number entry is supposed to select a dynamic menu item), but you can enable it in the Dynamic Menu 'Options'.


Minor Miniguide enhancement

Don't know if it's just me, but it happens very often that while browsing show info in the miniguide the OSD times out, and if you 'traveled" far away from your current channel it takes a lot of clicking to get back to the info you were just reading. I modified the 'Down' button to bring up the Miniguide with the channel of the last Miniguide invocation, rather than the current channel. The 'Up' button works as before and will bring up the MG at the current channel. If you dont like this functionality, you can disable it in the SageMC options.


New theme switching

SageMC is now offering a new method to switch themes: instead of copying all graphics from the theme folder to the 'Images' folder, the folders will just get renamed, so the "Images" folder will get renamed back to the current theme folder, and the new theme folder will get renamed to the 'Images' folder. I find this approach much easier, faster, and cleaner than the copy procedure, since you can customize your theme folder any way you like and be sure that nothing will ever get overwritten. You can still use the old style 'copy' method if you prefer, the setting can be changed in the options menu. Note that the very first time you switch themes with this new method SageMC doesnt know what the name of the current theme is (from then on it stores it in the property file), so it will rename the current 'Images' directory to 'Images.previous', which you usually can delete.


Background Library Import Scan

I never liked the Library Import Scan in the default STV because it doesn't give you any indication when the import is finished. The blocking import in SageMC seemed to be an improvement, but sometimes I really wished I could do some other stuff while it is importing. I now added a dialog box in which you can kick off the scan in the background, but unlike the default STV it will pop up a confirmation dialog for a few seconds when the import has finished. If you missed the box for any reason, the time of the last finished import run will also be displayed in the first line of the Settings 'Info' page



Other enhancements:


- added main menu side-menus for 'My Videos' and 'My Music'
- now showing non-scheduled favorites icon in Show Premieres menu
- added 'recorded/past/future' filter in Other showings
- added 'HD' filter to movies
- 'Select' confirms channel in OSD menu even if you have 'Select' bound to bring up the options menu
- enhanced file browser dialog to first show directories and then files
- deletion in full picture view will not go back to the Picture libary any more
- added custom format (in java.text.SimpleDateFormat style) for recording list times
- show video format in additional info in Program Info menu



Bugfixes

- fixed: weather bar selection did not work in MCE style
- fixed: main menu not updating on add/remove in MCE style
- fixed: font size issue in weather bar
- fixed: clock display (0/24)
- fixed: no fav channels shown if empty channel name is present
- fixed: search im MyTV now only looks for TV files\
- fixed: just finished recording showing up in upcoming recordings
- fixed: channel change bug for network encoder
- fixed: thumbnail not updating when rotating in full picture view


There might be other features / fixes I don't remember ...

Together with this major release I also uploaded a new, cleaned up 6.3.0 base package which contains the whole SageMC distribution with all the latest stuff, and with all problematic old class/jar files removed. This will make life much easier for those who are new to SageMC and switch over from the default STV. But even if you are an 'oldtimer', if you have to perform a new installation at any point in the future, please use this base package instead of the old 5_10.


Installation of the latest dev STV (as usual):

- shut down the UI
- unzip *all* files in the download file
- restart the UI
- load the new STV
- if you want to use auto-compression: on the server, restart the UI once more



Ok, here are some picture which illustrate the new features at a glance:























Special thanks again to Mike, Scott, and Deria, as well as all the others, for their contributions and suggestions.


Enjoy,

Dirk

[Hyperbaric]

Many thanks for this

Really like the music screen

One thing though. Launching Sage after starting service mode.. it just goes to a blank screen. Launching without service mode is OK

[MeInMaui]

Looks like I have no choice but to install the v6 beta on my main rig now.

[banmj]

Great Job Dirk.

Works Great!!!!

[popechild]

Awesome!
Although you've convinced me now to finally give the dynamic menus a try, which I'm having some difficulty with. When I first load it, it goes to "menu.xml" which loads fine, but only has two basically empty menu items on it.

When I try to load the sagemc_menu.xml (I think that's the name) I get an error "Errors: 20 XML Errors during parsing of C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\sagemc_"

Any ideas?