Plex as a front end for Sage

[wayner]

And why I have overpaid to have an inventory of HD200s and 300s.

[PiX64]

i can't bring myself to pay those prices. its ridiculous!

The sad thing for me is that as positive as i want to be, I feel that i KNOW there is no way our existing systems will in any way integrate with the new GoogleTV. we will all be forced to jump ship and buy into whatever google is cooking over there.

When that happens and is official next year some time or 2013 (whenever they decide to give us some info) I will most likely be making a slow transition to mythtv or something of the like.

I hope im wrong, i really do but i don't think i am unfortunately. :-/

[wayner]

I don't see GoogleTV being all that attractive. For the foreseeable future I want a PVR solution and that doesn't leave many choices for backend recording. For front end clients there are new solutions becoming available, such as Plex, that will likely be able to access the onine content and other stuff that isn't PVRed.

The prices for HD200s haven't been bad and I like the HD-200 as much as the HD-300 in some ways. I paid SageTV $200 for my original HD200s and they can be had for that price on eBay if you are attentive.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by PiX64

i can't bring myself to pay those prices. its ridiculous!

The sad thing for me is that as positive as i want to be, I feel that i KNOW there is no way our existing systems will in any way integrate with the new GoogleTV. we will all be forced to jump ship and buy into whatever google is cooking over there.

When that happens and is official next year some time or 2013 (whenever they decide to give us some info) I will most likely be making a slow transition to mythtv or something of the like.

I hope im wrong, i really do but i don't think i am unfortunately. :-/

SO why use GoogleTV? I'm honestly curious about this, if you've already got a sagetv ecosystem, what does GoogleTV offer you?

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

SO why use GoogleTV? I'm honestly curious about this, if you've already got a sagetv ecosystem, what does GoogleTV offer you?

i agree. i won't be using gtv at all!

sage will eventually die at some point, or ill need to expand or what have you, so i just want to investigate alternatives...

[wayner]

Sage can still record 1080i TV from OTA and from STBs (via an HD-PVR or Collosus) without DRM and that will not go away (unless component outputs get shut off at some time). It is hard to see what will be able to replace Sage - at least when it comes to recording functionality. The UI will become stale and date, assuming 3rd party UI development stops, but the backend will still be there and we can use other stuff as the front-end.

[jarredduq]

Originally Posted by wayner

Sage can still record 1080i TV from OTA and from STBs (via an HD-PVR or Collosus) without DRM and that will not go away (unless component outputs get shut off at some time). It is hard to see what will be able to replace Sage - at least when it comes to recording functionality. The UI will become stale and date, assuming 3rd party UI development stops, but the backend will still be there and we can use other stuff as the front-end.

Even if component outputs get turned off, there is a solution. I have an older HDTV with no HDMI inputs, and wanted to hook up a Boxee box, which only has HDMI inputs.

I purchased an HDMI to component converter box on Ebay for $30. It works great! This could also be used to connect an HDMI-only STB to a HD-PVR.

[darcilicious]

I purchased an HDMI to component converter box on Ebay for $30. It works great!

Just curious, can you use Netflix and/or Vudu with that setup? (You can test Vudu via trailers/previews for free)

[phelme]

Originally Posted by jarredduq

...I have an older HDTV with no HDMI inputs, and wanted to hook up a Boxee box, which only has HDMI inputs.

I purchased an HDMI to component converter box on Ebay for $30. It works great! This could also be used to connect an HDMI-only STB to a HD-PVR.

You're not alone. Here it is 2011 and somehow I still have nothing in my AV systems with HDMI inputs.

[jarredduq]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Just curious, can you use Netflix and/or Vudu with that setup? (You can test Vudu via trailers/previews for free)

It supports HDCP, so Netflix works fine. I've also tried it with an Apple TV2, and it works as well.

The link to the unit is: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-5-RCA-C...item2313f50836

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by wayner

Sage can still record 1080i TV from OTA and from STBs (via an HD-PVR or Collosus) without DRM and that will not go away (unless component outputs get shut off at some time). It is hard to see what will be able to replace Sage - at least when it comes to recording functionality. The UI will become stale and date, assuming 3rd party UI development stops, but the backend will still be there and we can use other stuff as the front-end.

agreed, however waht is the real benefit of keeping sage just for a backend? we already set it up? our favorites? nothing to major imo

[dinki]

Any guesses on an ETA for an alpha version of your Plex agent?

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by dinki

Any guesses on an ETA for an alpha version of your Plex agent?

I have some days off coming up here for the holidays. Wifey got a little mad at me the other day cause I was spending so much time on it and not helping her out with the kiddo :-)

that being said, I still have time to work on it after the little man goes to bed at 7:00 so....no sorry i don't :-) next chance i will get to work on it is sunday. I will be sure to keep you all posted though on my progress. Anyone that is interested in helping, has some super jedi python skills like Slugger or just wants to learn python as they go like me, please don't hesitate to speak up and we can work together!

[PiX64]

so a quick note on roku player

The other day when i was testing i was using the Dark Knight which has some huge 1080p imax screens in it. it woudl play for about 20 second then pause and buffer for a while. Well today i started running plex on my quad core 64 bit windows 7 machine in my office so that i coudl watch the cpu core activity and the mem ussage.

Turns out that encoding 1 stream takes about 38% of my cpu coreand about 500 MB of ram.

I was still seeing issues with the conversion to roku and constant pausing. What I did to fix it which has for the past 25 minutes been working without a problem was this

I started the movie, and let roku do its initial buffer. I then hit pause to see what the server side would do. Well it turns out that when you pause a stream the conversion will continue and just buffer up the converted video. so i let it stay paused for about 1.5 - 2 minutes in order to give my server a chance to buffer up some converted video...

now i haven't had a single pause or buffer in 25 minutes.

I have the tv roku setting set to 720p since its a 1080i tv, and i have roku plex conversion set to 8 Mbps 1080p.

sweet!

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by PiX64

so a quick note on roku player

The other day when i was testing i was using the Dark Knight which has some huge 1080p imax screens in it. it woudl play for about 20 second then pause and buffer for a while. Well today i started running plex on my quad core 64 bit windows 7 machine in my office so that i coudl watch the cpu core activity and the mem ussage.

Turns out that encoding 1 stream takes about 38% of my cpu coreand about 500 MB of ram.

I was still seeing issues with the conversion to roku and constant pausing. What I did to fix it which has for the past 25 minutes been working without a problem was this

I started the movie, and let roku do its initial buffer. I then hit pause to see what the server side would do. Well it turns out that when you pause a stream the conversion will continue and just buffer up the converted video. so i let it stay paused for about 1.5 - 2 minutes in order to give my server a chance to buffer up some converted video...

now i haven't had a single pause or buffer in 25 minutes.

I have the tv roku setting set to 720p since its a 1080i tv, and i have roku plex conversion set to 8 Mbps 1080p.

sweet!

Lied again! man this think is finicky...i think it may be going back as well :-)

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jarredduq

It supports HDCP, so Netflix works fine. I've also tried it with an Apple TV2, and it works as well.

The link to the unit is: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-5-RCA-C...item2313f50836

Here is the same item from monoprice. Backordered and a little more expensive then the eBay listing tho.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Lied again! man this think is finicky...i think it may be going back as well :-)

Have you tried plugging it in with an actual ethernet cable? I wonder if that would make a difference.

EDIT: There is an "unofficial" linux client now for plex.

[wayner]

@Pix64 - How is it going? I am really starting to like Plex in a lot of ways - having clients on all sorts of devices, including iPad and other mobile devices, is great. My issue right now is that I don't have the bulk of my TV shows in Plex as they don't follow the required naming convention. Most new shows are going in but it looks like one-off TV shows like specials and sports don't show up. I recorded some of the Christmas Specials on Sage but these do not show up on Plex.

It would have been nice if Sage was still around and working on mobile clients as well. As we have been discussing in this thread - Sage is still really hard to beat and it has been dead for over six months.

[panteragstk]

I've got plex set up now and I like it, but it will never be where sage already is for me. For mobile devices it is awesome, but I don't think it could replace my clients. Especially since it will never be able to do live tv. (will it?)

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by wayner

@Pix64 - How is it going? I am really starting to like Plex in a lot of ways - having clients on all sorts of devices, including iPad and other mobile devices, is great. My issue right now is that I don't have the bulk of my TV shows in Plex as they don't follow the required naming convention. Most new shows are going in but it looks like one-off TV shows like specials and sports don't show up. I recorded some of the Christmas Specials on Sage but these do not show up on Plex.

It would have been nice if Sage was still around and working on mobile clients as well. As we have been discussing in this thread - Sage is still really hard to beat and it has been dead for over six months.

Hey - sorry all for not being on lately. I just got put on 2 projects at my new job, and have been swamped with work. That and the holidays, as well as taking care of the kiddo has left me 0 time to do anything else. I have not forgotten about, or given up on the Plex/XBMC agent for BMT. I have one interested person that has reached out to me in email, and I still owe him the code that i have completely so far, and a run down on how the Plex agent scripting works. I plan on finishing this project, and will devote as much time as i can over the holidays. No promises.

Hope everyone has a great holiday season, whatever you may be celebrating!

<cheers>

</cheers>