Live Tv and Sage Client behavior

[mattridings]

We are in process of looking to use Sage MC in conjunction with 15-20 Sage Clients. The server will have 4 tuners available, so we'll be limited to 4 live tv channels at any given time. Unlike most environments however, this will be an environment in which the *only* tv usage will be watching live, not recorded tv. The 4 channel limit is just fine for our needs even under that circumstance, but I'm having a really difficult time understanding the behavior of the Sage clients and how they deal with that conflict when someone tries to change to a '5th' channel.

Essentially what I need is for the Live TV stream to a client to immediately stop if that client leaves their Live TV session for any reason (e.g. goes to Main Menu screen, etc.). Basically I need to break all of those nice reasons for having a PVR in the first place (buffering/time shifting). But I can't figure out if that happens when you just go out to the menu or not on the client.

An explicit example:

Sage 'server': running its service but not tuned to any channel

Client 1: Watching channel 1
Client 2: Watching channel 2
Client 3: Watching channel 3
Client 4: Watching channel 4
Client 5: Not watching a channel... yet

Now, let's say that Client 4 leaves off watching TV for a minute and goes out to the Main Menu. And now Client 5, clicks over to watch channel 5 in Live TV. Will Client 5 receive a message regarding all tuners already being in use, or will they go right to live tv? My hope is the latter of course, but I suspect that Client 4 still has their tuner tied up and the server chugging away at recording their channel even though they aren't watching it anymore. If they receive a conflict message what does it say? and more importantly, if they can 'take over' and switch to their desired channel what happens to the client whose channel was taken over?

Can anyone confirm the exact behavior under this circumstance?

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

-Matt

[Opus4]

Leaving the playback screen doesn't automatically stop what that client is watching, so it sounds like you will want to customize any STV a client will be using.

Changing channels may or may not happen... if all 4 tuners are in use & a fifth client tries to watch a 5th channel, it won't work because there is no other tuner available. If any client tries to change the channel while all tuners are in use, it will depend on whether anyone else is watching the channel that client is currently watching -- when all 4 tuners are in use & 2 clients are watching the same channel, neither of those clients will be able to tune to a 5th channel. If only 1 client is watching the channel, then the channel change can happen.

- Andy

[mattridings]

Definitely not what I wanted to hear of course, but it sounds like from your statement that you can customize the STV to accomplish it. Any hints as to where to even begin with that customization?

On a related note, I suppose one could also program the remote keycodes, the menu actions, or similar to execute a 'Stop' command prior to taking you away to any menu. That should do it as well right?

Lastly, are you saying that you *can't* change channels if you are the 5th user in my scenario, or that you can't do so without forcing one of the other clients off of their channel? If the former it would seem you should have the choice doesn't it? If I've left multiple TV's going in my house and wanted to change channels from another room I'd surely want the option to override some other client.

Thanks for the info!

-Matt

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mattridings

Definitely not what I wanted to hear of course, but it sounds like from your statement that you can customize the STV to accomplish it. Any hints as to where to even begin with that customization?

In the default STV, the "MediaPlayer OSD" could use a BeforeMenuUnload hook to stop playback whenever the menu is exited.

Lastly, are you saying that you *can't* change channels if you are the 5th user in my scenario, or that you can't do so without forcing one of the other clients off of their channel? If the former it would seem you should have the choice doesn't it? If I've left multiple TV's going in my house and wanted to change channels from another room I'd surely want the option to override some other client.

I haven't tried this in a long time, but I don't think this has changed: If 2 clients are watching the same channel & one of them tries to change the channel when no other tuner is free for use, then the channel won't change. Otherwise, it would be like 2 people watching 1 TV & they both have a remote for that TV... who wins? You might want to be able to override someone else, but do you want them to override you?

- Andy

[mattridings]

Originally Posted by Opus4

In the default STV, the "MediaPlayer OSD" could use a BeforeMenuUnload hook to stop playback whenever the menu is exited.

I'm unfortunately new to the development environment, but extremely happy with the flexibility it seems to have. It was one of the major reasons I've decided to go with Sage. That said, any more details you might have on how to accomplish your suggestion would be much appreciated as I've literally just done some basic menu editing with it, nothing more elaborate.

One thought I had; I'll be setting up a button on the remote that switches between Sage and another application. Basically just an alt-tab (although my understanding is that it can be done better through a windows message. Just don't have the details on how to do it yet). Possibly that button could be a macro that sends a stop command first, and then switches to the other app? Remember, I don't care about buffering of live tv in this particular situation. Think that would work? Any idea of best way to do this using a StreamZap remote?

Originally Posted by Opus4

I haven't tried this in a long time, but I don't think this has changed: If 2 clients are watching the same channel & one of them tries to change the channel when no other tuner is free for use, then the channel won't change. Otherwise, it would be like 2 people watching 1 TV & they both have a remote for that TV... who wins? You might want to be able to override someone else, but do you want them to override you?

- Andy

Typically I'd think even in a home scenario you'd definitely want the option to override. e.g. "All tuners are busy on other channels, are you sure you wish to still change the channel.?" Granted that brings with it all sorts of other questions, like should you be able to choose *which* tuner/channel you are about to override, etc. And vary the message depending on whether or not those tuners are busy with LiveTV or with a scheduled recording. But other software I've used (MCE in particular) give you the option to still change the channel and cancel a recording that's in progress for example, so would seem like the same thing here, just taken to a different level if you have a large number of clients. But without question I'd want to be able to override locally vs. traipsing around the house trying to find a TV I want to turn off, especially given the size of this house. Nothing to be done about it now I guess, in for a penny in for a pound as they say. It's going to put a major damper on this installation though. But sure would like to see this as an available option choice in the setup configuration (allow local override of tuners, or similar).

Thanks so much for your help, if anyone else has any further suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Cheers,

-Matt

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by mattridings

I'm unfortunately new to the development environment, but extremely happy with the flexibility it seems to have. It was one of the major reasons I've decided to go with Sage. That said, any more details you might have on how to accomplish your suggestion would be much appreciated as I've literally just done some basic menu editing with it, nothing more elaborate.

The short version would be to add a BeforeMenuUnload hook to the "MediaPlayer OSD" menu & then call CloseAndWaitUntilClosed() under the hook.

The code under that menu's Stop listener does more, including stopping a downloading video, but it also jumps to another menu... you could reference the code to stop an online video if they would ever be used.

One thought I had; I'll be setting up a button on the remote that switches between Sage and another application. Basically just an alt-tab (although my understanding is that it can be done better through a windows message. Just don't have the details on how to do it yet). Possibly that button could be a macro that sends a stop command first, and then switches to the other app? Remember, I don't care about buffering of live tv in this particular situation. Think that would work? Any idea of best way to do this using a StreamZap remote?

The streamzap remote macro could call the SendMessage.exe utility to send the Stop command, but I still think you would want it to stop playback when you leave the playback screen, or else you can leave things playing on a client when you go to some other menu & just sit there.

- Andy

[mattridings]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The short version would be to add a BeforeMenuUnload hook to the "MediaPlayer OSD" menu & then call CloseAndWaitUntilClosed() under the hook.

The code under that menu's Stop listener does more, including stopping a downloading video, but it also jumps to another menu... you could reference the code to stop an online video if they would ever be used.

The streamzap remote macro could call the SendMessage.exe utility to send the Stop command, but I still think you would want it to stop playback when you leave the playback screen, or else you can leave things playing on a client when you go to some other menu & just sit there.

- Andy

The CloseAndWaitUntilClosed() seems to work fine for my needs, that was a major headache for me so thanks a lot. Haven't tried it on any true 'clients' yet but I'm running in client mode on the server and it seemed to do the job. I didn't reference the stop video code as my problem is just conflict resolution of the tuners, not bandwidth, etc. but nice to know it's there if I ever need to emulate it.

Time to think about deployment I guess, I had assumed the clients would simply inherit whatever STV the server happened to have loaded but it seems like I might be mistaken on that so haven't really figured out a good way to insure all the clients would be deployed with the same settings and appropriate STV. Not sure how Sage would deal with an image deployment so had planned on adding it at the end after pushing out the images, but now....

Thanks again, you really helped me a lot as I never thought about the OSD and being able to hook off of that.

Cheer,

-Matt

[brucesm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

. Otherwise, it would be like 2 people watching 1 TV & they both have a remote for that TV... who wins? You might want to be able to override someone else, but do you want them to override you?

- Andy

Hi Andy,
Yes, I would like the second user to overide the first.
Most likely it is just me in another room wanting to watch another satellite channel.
I will request this as a UI option for Version 7.0...

Thanks for the workaround in the meantime...