SageTV Roku channel?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by PiX64

U thinking a boxee box app?

Not really. I wanted to try one out because I'm interested in streaming various items that are not available in Sage. I'm also interested in seeing how Navi-X works on it so I can improve the Navi-X plugin I'm developing for Sage.

I had a fleeting thought about an app to make the Box into a Sage extender but I think that would be a gigantic undertaking.

[PiX64]

Yeah...

I was really serious about the roku app for sage, but the more i looked into roku and the limitations i was really turned off. The only way i want to spend the time and effort developing something to use sagex apis and the infrastructure setup by stuckless(bmt), and jreichen/neilm on the web interfaces is if I can make it into and actual replacement of sorts.

What i am looking for is to create something we could run phoenix on (i know we would have to rebuild it since phoneix is an STV replacement) But something we could run a phoenix like gui, and use the sagex apis web infrastructure to make a sudo client of sorts. Its gotta be fully functional in my mind in order to be worth it.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Yeah...

I was really serious about the roku app for sage, but the more i looked into roku and the limitations i was really turned off. The only way i want to spend the time and effort developing something to use sagex apis and the infrastructure setup by stuckless(bmt), and jreichen/neilm on the web interfaces is if I can make it into and actual replacement of sorts.

What i am looking for is to create something we could run phoenix on (i know we would have to rebuild it since phoneix is an STV replacement) But something we could run a phoenix like gui, and use the sagex apis web infrastructure to make a sudo client of sorts. Its gotta be fully functional in my mind in order to be worth it.

For the Boxee Box I was thinking more along the lines of an app that would read the STV XML and run that (using the sagex and web stuff as you pointed out.) Then the app could run any STV (plus STVi's) the user wanted to.

This is all wishful thinking because the scope would be way too large for me to cope with.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

For the Boxee Box I was thinking more along the lines of an app that would read the STV XML and run that (using the sagex and web stuff as you pointed out.) Then the app could run any STV (plus STVi's) the user wanted to.

This is all wishful thinking because the scope would be way too large for me to cope with.

Do you know if that is even possible with a boxee box? Im willing to help out, even co-architect / develop this thing if it has the functionality and such that we are all looking for.

[PiX64]

I wonder if we will even need to use the webui and the mobile webui framework to do this. I don't remember exactly what is available in the sagex apis, but theoretically if there was an api that returned the location of a media file stored in sage, we could use whatever we wanted to playback the media.. Biggest issue then would be a phoneix like ui that could run on its own rather than inside of sage container.

We should talk to bialio and stuckless in a private group chat about the possibility of maybe taking some of the jars off of the sage server and using that to somehow create a standalone phoneix ui app that could run on any pc...

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Do you know if that is even possible with a boxee box? Im willing to help out, even co-architect / develop this thing if it has the functionality and such that we are all looking for.

No idea. My box arrives today - one day early, thank you NewEgg. I've started browsing here: http://developer.boxee.tv/Applications

There is a lot of info to wade through so I'm not sure yet. I think Boxee is based on XBMC so python plays a big role. (If I understand things correctly apps are just a combination of python to do things and XML to display things).

[reggie14]

I'd love to see a review of the Boxee Box from the perspective of a Sage user. I'd also be interested to hear how well it could replace an extender as a media streamer.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

No idea. My box arrives today - one day early, thank you NewEgg. I've started browsing here: http://developer.boxee.tv/Applications

There is a lot of info to wade through so I'm not sure yet. I think Boxee is based on XBMC so python plays a big role. (If I understand things correctly apps are just a combination of python to do things and XML to display things).

NICE... ill take a look at this when i get home and see whats there. I wonder if doing an xml driven ui would allow us to do some of things i am thinknig about. My first thought is no, but i know little to nothing about boxee at this point.

[hoep]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I just ordered a Boxee Box which seemed to me to be the best option. It should arrive Tuesday so I'll know soon enough if I'm right or not.

I also would be highly interested in the boxee box.. Installed the soft and could not make it work esp. on the recording side. Would be highly interested if you would point me in the right direction there, as my sagetv backend is rock solid, and i would like to keep it as long as possible.

[Fuzzy]

Everything would have to run ON the boxee box, and interact with Sage via API calls through the sagex API. I would be slooow, but theoretically COULD be done *dulpicating pretty much anything that could be done in the SageTV UI. Afterall, the XML STV files are not much more than a navigable series of sage API calls, and UI elements. It would involve a LOT of parsing, catching the UI elements and mapping them to the appropriate boxee objects, and sending everything else to the sagex api. Again, a BIG undertaking, and would have been unnecessary if the Placeshifter UI protocol was available (Hint Hint Jeff).

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Everything would have to run ON the boxee box, and interact with Sage via API calls through the sagex API. I would be slooow, but theoretically COULD be done *dulpicating pretty much anything that could be done in the SageTV UI. Afterall, the XML STV files are not much more than a navigable series of sage API calls, and UI elements. It would involve a LOT of parsing, catching the UI elements and mapping them to the appropriate boxee objects, and sending everything else to the sagex api. Again, a BIG undertaking, and would have been unnecessary if the Placeshifter UI protocol was available (Hint Hint Jeff).

Why would it have to run On te boxee box? Could it run on a client pc withthe boxee software??

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Why would it have to run On te boxee box? Could it run on a client pc withthe boxee software??

Well, it could run on a PC as well, and then just send screen update commands to the boxee box. Still wouldn't be all that quick. SageTV already has this pseudo built-in, with the OSDPlugin and InputPlugin classes. It will call a command whenever it changes something on the UI, but this is basically a duplicating of the UI running ON the client itself. It also ends up being limited to a single remote UI per client.

[tmiranda]

IMHO Fuzzy is correct, the code has to run on the Boxee Box as an app. The app would have to read the STV XML, "translate" that to Boxee XML (and python) and then display the results. It's probably do-able but will take a lot of time. That's why I said it would be a large undertaking.

BTW - My BB arrived and my initial impression of the device is very positive.

It was dead easy to install and setup and it had no issue connecting to my (password protected) wireless network and accessing my smb shares. It's now busy scanning my music, photos, and ripped movies.

The UI is not super flashy, but it's appealing and the graphics look very good at 1080p. It is also very responsive. The only time you notice any delay is when it has to fetch things from the web.

It was very easy to install third party apps. I installed Navi-X in about 2 minutes. The hardest part was typing in the "repository" url and that's only because I misspelled it the first time.

The little remote is excellent. The front has just two buttons and navigation keys and the back has a full keyboard that is very easy to use.

I played a few videos from the web and the quality was not bad at all. I'm not a videophile or audiophile so those with champagne tastes will probably have higher standards.

Yes, I'm impressed so far.

[nebulink]

The only thing I would change on the Boxee remote would be to backlight the keys.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by nebulink

The only thing I would change on the Boxee remote would be to backlight the keys.

Well my 9 year old son snatched the remote now I can't get it out of his hands

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Well, it could run on a PC as well, and then just send screen update commands to the boxee box. Still wouldn't be all that quick. SageTV already has this pseudo built-in, with the OSDPlugin and InputPlugin classes. It will call a command whenever it changes something on the UI, but this is basically a duplicating of the UI running ON the client itself. It also ends up being limited to a single remote UI per client.

Im failing to understand why i need a boxee box at all. I can run boxee on my client pc now without an issue. Why would one not be able to theoretically build a sage boxee app that could be installed on any pc running boxee or on any running boxee box?

[Fuzzy]

I'm pretty sure the point here with the roku channel was to get a makeshift sagetv extender, using currently available hardware. Yes, of course you could just build a PC client instead.

[PiX64]

Right so That is what we started talking about yes. I posted on how i didn't like the restrictions on the roku ui and other limitations i saw in reading the developer documentation, so i started throwing around ideas about making a full extender replacement maybe with something like xbmc or something of the like.

tmiranda said he was getting aboxee box and dwas going to start playing around with the idea of making a boxee box app. which is where this convo was going, at least between me and tmiranda.

I was confused and thought you were saying that the only way to build a boxee box app was to actually build it to run on the boxee box..

sorry my misunderstanding.

[tmiranda]

Sorry, I took the thread totall OT.

[hoep]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Sorry, I took the thread totall OT.

Maybe, but the direction was great!