wiz.bin viewer

[Cayars]

The Sage 2.0 wiz.bin is not the same and is compressed. It's not readable at all.

[ToonGal]

Exactly what I would have expected. Although I like the line, "It's not readable at all." Were that typed by Narflex, I'd would HAVE to have taken it as a challenge... As it is, I'm just "curious"... All the more reason I'm glad I didn't waste time building anything more detailed. I still think if Sage can release a Sage SDK, then we don't need to wait for Hauppauge for anything.

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity, Cayars.

[gplasky]

Jason said: It seems that a MediaMVP client from Frey is not coming (in the near future...) until an SDK from Hauppauge is released.

I don't know how accurate this statement is. I know it was mentioned by Jeff or Dan that they had it running on the MVP. I think it is just taking a back seat. And a SDK doesn't HAVE to be available-it would just make it a hellauva lot easier.

I've been playing with GB-PVR and he has replaced the Media-MVP server with his own and has the GB-PVR interface working on the MVP. So you get Live TV, channel guide, recordings, music, etc. Still more work to do but my point is it can be done-without a SDK. (And this isn't like BTV where you're hacking away at the guide DB or changing HTML pages everytime another version of the MVP software comes out.)

Gerry

[Cayars]

Originally posted by gplasky
<snip>
I've been playing with GB-PVR and he has replaced the Media-MVP server with his own and has the GB-PVR interface working on the MVP. So you get Live TV, channel guide, recordings, music, etc. Still more work to do but my point is it can be done-without a SDK. (And this isn't like BTV where you're hacking away at the guide DB or changing HTML pages everytime another version of the MVP software comes out.)

Gerry

That could be considered a good thing or a bad thing. In the case of BTV it shows the software is open enough that users can in fact do this (good thing). This is impossible at the moment with SageTV since it's more propriatary in nature under the covers.

BTV makes it easy to integrate with other software/devices. I've got a decent integration (not finished) of the Pinnacle ShowCenter but it's a mute point since I've switched PVRs over to SageTV.

[gplasky]

Sorry-didn't mean to sound too negative. I agree it is a good thing/bad thing. I don't think it was really designed to be open. My understanding too is the db format for BTV is changing. I get the feeling that the db itself won't be as open as it is now and they will have more control of who gets what access to it by the API's they will be providing.

Gerry

[Cayars]

Not at all. They've just switched away from using MS Access as the back end to an embedded SQL database. The thought behind the switch is to reduce some user problems with Jet/ODBC/MDAC issues. The internal database is still accessable to the outside world however. They are also releasing the full API code to the whole program in the upcomming release along with the source code to the web stuff to use as examples. A programmer can use any .NET language they choose to work in or can use a non-.NET language if only database or XML file integration is needed. SS is trying to go out of their way to make the BTV platform as open as possible to get as many 3rd parties involved as possible.

In the end I think I personally like the BTV approach better as it lets the programmer work in an environment they are all ready used to. It also lets the programmer integrate their own libraries into the program. Take my comments with a grain of salt because I'm a fluent .NET programmer and of course would be biased in that direction.

It's going to be interesting to see how their approach pans out against the approach taken by Frey with Studio.

Carlo

[mlbdude]

I wonder how BTV gets away with that since that data is not licensed to be used by anything else but BTV itself?

[Jason]

Originally posted by mlbdude
I wonder how BTV gets away with that since that data is not licensed to be used by anything else but BTV itself?

Exactly! I am sure that it is all up for interpretation, since the 'data' is still being 'used' by the PVR software; ie, the PVR is doing the actual recording and timeshifting.

I can however see the Frey issue, in that the MVP could also be viewed as 'using' the data.

In one of the posts, it was mentioned that Frey already had a frontend of sorts... It would seem that they might want to also start a 'beta' of that??

I keep waiting for one of the 'brothers' to weigh in... Give us something to go on... MS has already apparantly gone the way of the MVP with their Media Center Extender. I for one am ready!

-Jason

[Jason]

OK... if we cannot access the wiz.bin file for use with a front end on the MVP, how about the following...

Originally posted by dkardatzke
Do you just need something that allows you to see your recording schedule and add recordings? Do you have to be able to view more than a day's worth of Guide data? What if you used Zap2it.com to look up listings but were then able to tell your SageTV unit to record based on someting like time and show id?

Feedback is appreciated.
Dan

I took this from another post, but it does bring up some possibilities... In the following posts on SHS's site, there is talk of viewing intra/internet pages. Could we take this approach?

http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4552

http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4489

While this not necessarily 'on-topic', but this is a possibility... for both Sage and BTV (and any others...) This would be a 'kludge' as far as actually using the wiz/bin file, but the data is the same...

-Jason

[Sailn]

The biggest problem I have with Sage is that I use removeable hard drives. If Sage records to them and then I remove the drive and run Sage again, the wiz.bin looses all the information about the shows on that disk. If Frey has a contractual problem with allowing acess to the wiz.bin file, perhaps they could add a suplimental wiz.bin type file in each Sage recordings folder. This file could be referenced when Sage starts or upon some type of update function when disks are added or removed. As it is now, I have a few hundred gigs of shows with only filenames and no guide info. I have started to manually generate a db, but the engineer in me thinks this is really inellegant and a software based solution should be possible.

[robertmcox]

How 'bout an SDK? Maybe just an .ocx where one could get guide data by means only of an id# (like the ones used in the filenames)? Maybe add some more methods to allow scheduling or listing existing favorites and their id#s. Get a list of watch episodes given an id#. If sage provided an interface to the database that didn't expose the entire thing (meaning the guide data being dumped) I think we would satify zap2it and Sage wanna-be-developers.

I think the key thing with this scenario is being able to get the info (all of it) on anything that has been recorded (i.e. files). This should allow an outside development of an mvp client (less the guide, but who cares), yes?

[ToonGal]

Maybe Sage could output certain data in the file naming convention. I'm using v1.4.10 still, but assume the file naming is the same.

Tonight I recorded an Enterprise episode, and it was called: StarTrekEnterprise-Stratagem-226164-0.mpg. I think the format is generalized as: seriesname-eptitle-sequential#-part.mpg.

What I would propose is a file naming convention that includes the relevant zap2it information (which I was able to reverse engineer in the v1 wiz.bin). The zap2it listing for this show has the link: http://tvlistings2.zap2it.com/progra...y=EP4465830072

If the progid/seriesid/dbkey were included in the file name, then the relevant data could easily be obtained from the zap2it database.

Not ideal, but maybe a start to getting closer to what might be useful. I'd hope Sage would be willing, given that zap2it is 100% public information on their website anyway, and it wouldn't be compromising their agreement.

[Sailn]

Well I just had a failure of my wiz.bin file and the backup seems to be corrupted also...arghhhh

It would be so nice if there was a way to edit or generate this file. This has continually been one of the biggests pita about sage. I am hopeful that a solution can be found. It seems that since sage encodes the zap2it show id in the file name, it should be simple to have a utility query zap2it's database and rebuild the show database.

BTW, toongal I think this a great idea, should be easy to do and if you only allow one way encryption into the wiz.bin zap2it's data should be kept secure.

[owilsky]

@Frey:
Can't you provide a tool to view and edit those basic information in wiz.bin which is ok for you and hide those info that you do not want anybody to see/edit?
That would be really fine! Or at least provide a possibility to rename (timed) recordings ....