Plex as a front end for Sage

[Jason]

Originally Posted by PiX64

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>

Happy Holidays to you as well! I have transitioned almost completely to PLEX as of now. I am using Sage as my backend recording and then let Plex grab the metadata. Sage still does it as well via BMT, but...

My only concern/issue is how I have to manually adjust he watched/unwatched status within Sage every couple of days to account for my viewing habits in Plex. Other than that (Ok... it a PITA...) I like Plex as a front end.

[panteragstk]

I'm getting more used to plex. I like it now that I've gotten to know how to customize certain things. I need to learn more, but it will never be a replacement for sage. If it could tune live tv I might change my tune (ba dum tiss).

[LehighBri]

PiX64 - in reading through this thread, just trying to understand where you are with this and what's left.

Any chance you can post on here your latest code as well as any instructions or tips? I helped tmiranda with the Boxee Box proof of concept a couple months ago and would love to help move the Plex proof of concept along as well (given that I am now using the latest Plex media center for Windows as my new HTPC front end)

At a minimum, I'm looking for a PoC that tries to pull in metadata for files that I recorded that Plex isn't able to recognize. I am NOT looking to implement live TV or a guide.. I merely just want access to ALL of my recordings via Plex (not just the ones that have the season and episode info in the file name).

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

PiX64 - in reading through this thread, just trying to understand where you are with this and what's left.

Any chance you can post on here your latest code as well as any instructions or tips? I helped tmiranda with the Boxee Box proof of concept a couple months ago and would love to help move the Plex proof of concept along as well (given that I am now using the latest Plex media center for Windows as my new HTPC front end)

At a minimum, I'm looking for a PoC that tries to pull in metadata for files that I recorded that Plex isn't able to recognize. I am NOT looking to implement live TV or a guide.. I merely just want access to ALL of my recordings via Plex (not just the ones that have the season and episode info in the file name).

I have been so busy that I have made 0 progress even over the days off these holidays. My proof of concept works, and I will be more than happy to email you the code directly. I still owe the code to another interested party. It isn't much but it is at least a start. if you PM your email address, i will include you ont he email i send out to the other interested party. I would LOVE some help on this as 1) i KNOW it is possible and know it will work well, 2) i have run into a time crunch with work and Life :-/

I will make time tonight to email the 2 of you the minimal amount of code i have, and a breakdown of what i know of the plex agent scripter so far.

[PiX64]

Also - I know i have been quite fickle over the past several weeks on where i want to focus my efforst, but i got an ipad2 for christmas from the in laws, and now with all the other mac products in my house, as well as much digging and pain and suffering with xbmc, i have settled on plex for the immediate future.

i will be focusing my efforts on the plex agent i started a few weeks back...when i have time. I will email you guys that pm'd me the code and break down later today.

~Mike

[wayner]

IMHO Plex really is looking like the winner in tis space right now. Too bad that they couldn't integrate the PVR functionality of Sage as then it would be pretty much perfect. Then we just need extenders that can play all file types.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by wayner

IMHO Plex really is looking like the winner in tis space right now. Too bad that they couldn't integrate the PVR functionality of Sage as then it would be pretty much perfect. Then we just need extenders that can play all file types.

While most "extenders" won't play all file types, won't plex transcode the ones that don't play?

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

While most "extenders" won't play all file types, won't plex transcode the ones that don't play?

Yes that's right. This is how they are able to make a roku client and an atv2 client, as well as iOS and android....

The transcode is built in to the server side of plex and of I remember right it is fffmpeg that they use

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Yes that's right. This is how they are able to make a roku client and an atv2 client, as well as iOS and android....

The transcode is built in to the server side of plex and of I remember right it is fffmpeg that they use

Yep. ffmpeg it is. How did that roku work out for you.

[Bacon2002]

Hi,

I am new to Plex, it looks impressive but a missed opportunity that it does not have the ability to watch live TV and schedule recordings etc.

It is only a thought (as I do not have any idea how it might be done) but if you guys are working on some sort of Plex solution and if you have the time then it might be worth looking at DVBLogic, maybe it could be a possibly solution for Plex's lack of its own live TV functionality, it's only an idea and of course I have no idea if it could be made to work.

I was using DVBLogic with SageTV in a similar way for a while with DVBLogic providing the tuners to SageTV, it worked well (I mainly used it as DVBLogic supports plugins that allow for encrytped channels) but in the new versions of DVBLogic they have moved to a different type of BDA drive and the new versions no longer work with SageTV.

David

[panteragstk]

The reason there isn't TV support the way sage has it is that it isn't a part of xbmc (yet) which plex is built off of. There is no pvr support, no guide data, nothing having to do with TV other than archived shows so to speak. If that part was someday implemented into plex, then I'd have no problem switching if something made sage unusable.

[wayner]

Live TV? NFW!

After using Sage for many years I have zero interest in ever watching LiveTV. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a solution to automatically import Sage recordings into Plex so that could be a solution. The biggest issue for me would then be watching shows that are still recording as this is often problematic.

[Torkild]

Originally Posted by wayner

Live TV? NFW!

After using Sage for many years I have zero interest in ever watching LiveTV. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a solution to automatically import Sage recordings into Plex so that could be a solution. The biggest issue for me would then be watching shows that are still recording as this is often problematic.

Great, so how you use your telly should decide the options others should have?

NFW!

[wayner]

No but I am guessing that most folks that have used a PVR for years have no interest in ever watching LiveTV again - I bet that my opinion on this issue intersects with the majority of folks on this forum. My children have no concept of LiveTV. The only reason that I can think of for watching LiveTV is sports and even that's far more efficiently watched in "near real-time" where you start watching an hour or so into a sporting event. North American sports are particularly well suited to PVRing since you can watch an event in 10-40% of real-time - in other words a hockey game which lasts 2.5 hours can be watched in 1 hour since there is only 60 mins of live action. NFL football and baseball are even shorter - an NFL game has 20 mins of action but takes 3.5 hours to play.

This is less true of UK sports like soccer and rugby. But I am a big rugby fan and I can watch an 80 minute rugby game in around 60 mins since there is lots of dead time around scrums, line-outs, kicks, etc.

LiveTV will be quite hard to add to non-PVR apps but adding most recorded shows is quite doable and has already been done for some apps like XBMC.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by wayner

Live TV? NFW!

After using Sage for many years I have zero interest in ever watching LiveTV. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a solution to automatically import Sage recordings into Plex so that could be a solution. The biggest issue for me would then be watching shows that are still recording as this is often problematic.

I'll be looking into this as well. If plex can play growing files, then setting plex scanners to detect new files (which I already possible). Could be the solution you are looking for wayner.... Baby steps though.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Yep. ffmpeg it is. How did that roku work out for you.

It worked pretty well. The roku had problems with 1080p content and a lot of buffering. Way more than acceptable for me. If I were going to get another client I would prolly. Build a smalll form factor net top or give the atv2 another go. I think I gave up on the atv2 to quickly and didn't use the forum to help smooth out my problems. Interface for plex on atv2 was far superior to roku, and grabbing info from your library was also a night and day difference between atv2 and roku...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

No but I am guessing that most folks that have used a PVR for years have no interest in ever watching LiveTV again - I bet that my opinion on this issue intersects with the majority of folks on this forum. My children have no concept of LiveTV. The only reason that I can think of for watching LiveTV is sports and even that's far more efficiently watched in "near real-time" where you start watching an hour or so into a sporting event. North American sports are particularly well suited to PVRing since you can watch an event in 10-40% of real-time - in other words a hockey game which lasts 2.5 hours can be watched in 1 hour since there is only 60 mins of live action. NFL football and baseball are even shorter - an NFL game has 20 mins of action but takes 3.5 hours to play.

This is less true of UK sports like soccer and rugby. But I am a big rugby fan and I can watch an 80 minute rugby game in around 60 mins since there is lots of dead time around scrums, line-outs, kicks, etc.

LiveTV will be quite hard to add to non-PVR apps but adding most recorded shows is quite doable and has already been done for some apps like XBMC.

Yes, DVR's add greatness to sports, because you can start watching late and catch up towards live (watching an NFL game in 1.5 hours is awesome), but I'm guessing the limitation here is that it can't watch a show at all while it's recording, which means you can't START watching the game until it's over. If plex can correctly handle a video who's length changes as it's being watched, then this is a non-issue. I don't know that that is the case.

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If plex can correctly handle a video who's length changes as it's being watched, then this is a non-issue. I don't know that that is the case.

I think a lot of of it depends on the specific devices ability to read the m3u8 playlist from pms. As the Apple extensions http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pan...e-streaming-07 become available this will become easier.

Martin

[tmiranda]

Warning. Totally OT post

Originally Posted by PiX64

If I were going to get another client I would prolly. Build a smalll form factor net top or give the atv2 another go.

When did people start using "prolly" instead of probably? The first few times I saw this I figured the person typing it was a bad speller, bad at grammar, or both Then I realized this was slang (hey what can I say, I'm slow to catch on.) Where did "prolly" come from and is it really that much easier to type than "probably"? Inquiring minds want to know.

[PiX64]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Warning. Totally OT post



When did people start using "prolly" instead of probably? The first few times I saw this I figured the person typing it was a bad speller, bad at grammar, or both Then I realized this was slang (hey what can I say, I'm slow to catch on.) Where did "prolly" come from and is it really that much easier to type than "probably"? Inquiring minds want to know.

Good question :-D

I don't really know where I picked it up