6.4 Mac Advanced features

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There are a couple of advanced features in the 6.4.4 Mac Client and Full builds.

To do any of the following you will need Property List Editor. It's installed with the Apple developer tools (free download from ADC), or if you're comfortable with XML and Apples plist DTD then you can edit in a text editor.

Eventually these will have a UI to make configuration easier, but for now they're being treated as advanced options. No warranty is expressed or implied and since this is a beta things might still break.. you've been warned



Host settings (currently only used by the DVD player):
When connecting to another system via the client, you can manually mount a share to that server and map the local mount point. To do this, you will need to edit the preferences file manually.

First mount the server share and make sure you have proper access to the files you want to play. Dragging the mounted share to the Login Items in the Accounts settings in system prefs will automatically mount the share whenever you log in.

1> Open "/Library/Preferences/tv.sage.SageTV.plist"
2> Expand (click the little arrow so it's pointing down) "Root", then click on "New Child"
3> Change the name of the new entry to "HostSettings" and the type to Array
4> Select HostSettings, expand and click "New Child"
5> Set the type of the new entry to Dictionary
6> Select and expand the new dictionary
7> You will need to create at least one of two entries:
a> If you have the IP address of the server, create an entry with key "HostAddress" and a String value with the ip address as a dotted quad, e.g., "192.168.1.5"
b> If you have the host name, create an entry with key "HostName" and a String value with the name of the server.
8> If the server is a machine running Windows, create an entry named "WindowsPaths" and change it to a "Yes" Boolean value.
9> Now create a dictionary named "PathMappings"
For each mounted share from this server, create an entry in PathMappings. Each entry should be a String value, the name of the entry is the SERVER path, the value is the LOCAL path. For example, if the server path is C:\SageMedia\ and it's mounted at /Volumes/SageMedia/ then the entry name will be "C:\SageMedia\" and the value will be "/Volumes/SageMedia/". The name MUST match the path that SageTV thinks the media is at, or the mapping will fail.

And since a picture is worth 1000 words, here's roughly what it should look like:
hostsetting.png



The second new feature allows you to tell QT to keep it's grubby hands off certain file types. This can be useful in a couple of cases where QT needs to scan the file, which delays playback (usually when Perian is used to play AVI or WMV files).

You should play the file type that you want to disable at least once, you'll see why in a bit...

Open the same preferences file as above, "/Library/Preferences/tv.sage.SageTV.plist"
1> Expand Root if it isn't already, look for an entry named "QTKitSettings", expand it
2> There should be an entry named "PlayedMediaTypes", if not then you haven't played anything yet. Expand this entry.
What you'll see is a list of types that the embedded QT player has encountered and successfully played, or at least loaded. Each entry will be formatted like so:
extension | container | video type | audio type

The first two are what we're interested in. Here you have a choice, you can disable a specific file extension, or a container type. Keep in mind that a container type (like ASF) will disable ALL files of that type (e.g. .wmv, .asf, etc...)

3> Select "QTKitSettings" and click "New Child"
4> Name the new entry "DisabledContainers" or "DisabledExtensions" (or both) and set the type(s) to Array
5> For each type or extension, create a new entry in the appropriate array and simply set the value to the container or file extension (minus the dot).

Then just save the file. SageTV should not need to be restarted, it'll sync the prefs before attempting to play. If a file is disabled, then the client will fall back on mplayer for playback.

And a picture for this one too:
qtkitsettings.png