lcd info displays for HTPC with Sage

[tvmaster2]

has anyone ever had any luck with these kinds of things, aka as a built in IR blaster or info display that could in any way work with Sage?
If so, which models, cases, etc.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...mfp51&area=usa

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

has anyone ever had any luck with these kinds of things, aka as a built in IR blaster or info display that could in any way work with Sage?
If so, which models, cases, etc.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...mfp51&area=usa

Yes, I use an Antec Fusion (which has a Soundgraph VFD). Software wise I use LCDSmartie + the getstatus plugin, which allows display of things like currently playing, recording etc. There are some older threads on this forum that discuss the how to part.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Rico66

Yes, I use an Antec Fusion (which has a Soundgraph VFD). Software wise I use LCDSmartie + the getstatus plugin, which allows display of things like currently playing, recording etc. There are some older threads on this forum that discuss the how to part.

thanks...having a few extra terms to search for will help

[texneus]

I'm using a VL System LIS MCE with good success, although when it dies I might look for a four line display (two lines is rather cramped). A display compatible with LCDSmartie is key. You'll need that and one of the two LCDSmartie drivers for Sage "LCD Smartie status display", "MizookLCD LCDSmartie plugin for Sage". Or you can do what I did and combine the best features of both :-). Those in turn interface with the "External Monitor Interface" plugin. All are available in the downloads section (not in the plugins installer of SageTV 7)

Another option would be babgvant's LCDWriter, but (no offence to Andy) lacks allot of the flexibility and customization that LCDSmartie does.

Can't help you on the blaster, I use firewire...

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by texneus

I'm using a VL System LIS MCE with good success, although when it dies I might look for a four line display (two lines is rather cramped). A display compatible with LCDSmartie is key. You'll need that and one of the two LCDSmartie drivers for Sage "LCD Smartie status display", "MizookLCD LCDSmartie plugin for Sage". Or you can do what I did and combine the best features of both :-). Those in turn interface with the "External Monitor Interface" plugin. All are available in the downloads section (not in the plugins installer of SageTV 7)

Another option would be babgvant's LCDWriter, but (no offence to Andy) lacks allot of the flexibility and customization that LCDSmartie does.

Can't help you on the blaster, I use firewire...

thanks - no firewire on my satellite box. What, if any, is the best and most useful part of having a display on a HTPC box?

[texneus]

With the above plugins you can pretty much have it display whatever data you deem necessary. It probably doesn't really show anything you can't glean on screen anyway, but it's a nice touch, IMO. On a headless server it's probably more critical so you can see critical status information without having to do a remote login.

Under Sage it does several things depending on what SageTV is doing:
- Shows Time, day, date when idle
- Shows elapsed time, show title, and channel info when watching live or recorded TV
- Shows track name, elapsed time & total time for music
- Shows video title, elapsed time & total time for videos
- For DVD all it can do is show the total elapsed time :-(.
- When recording it also shows show title, channel info, and time info (will alternate this display with one of the above, whatever SageTV happens to be doing at the time)

When SageTV is not the window "in focus", it will rotate through a set of displays showing some basic diagnostic info:
- Time, day, date (same display as when inside Sage)
- Active window title
- Basic set of bar graphs showing current CPU load, RAM, and recording disk space
- SageTV recording screen (if SageTV is recording)