Online Content...

[joelinkup]

Hello...
I have been a SageTV user from the beginning... Please be patient as I am not a young fellow any more... Age 70... I like to watch ONLINE TV using my Sage Boxes..... I go to the Online menu and then select the category and then the show... Been doing this for years... As time has gone by there have been so many changes in TWIT & Revision3 shows so that now there are very few left... However, on the Internet using a PC... or with a Roku (a friend has one)... etc... all these shows are out there and even more new ones... they have just changed, what I will call, the LINK within SageTV to watch them... Is there ANY way I can add a new link... modify a link... to the selection of ONLINE TV that I can watch on my SageTV system... I know NOTHING about how to do this... and I know nothing about how to even get the program information if it is possible to add it... If you can help I would be much appreciative... Thanks a lot...

[Fuzzy]

Your best option instead is to get PlayOn, and use the SageTV PlayOn plugin.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Your best option instead is to get PlayOn, and use the SageTV PlayOn plugin.

On sale right now for $39.99 lifetime. It gets cheaper than that occasionally, but still a good price for a lifetime deal.

However, a fair question for joelinkup is whether his PC can handle PlayOn. Lots of Sage people have beastly servers, but that's not really necessary (especially if you only watch with extenders), so it's possible that a Sage user couldn't run PlayOn without a hardware upgrade.

Joe, what are the specs on your server?

[Boolah]

You can do this directly in SageTV, but it's not easy and can be a real PITA to maintain (perhaps this is something that can be simplified once STV becomes open source?). You probably should take Fuzzy's suggestion and use PlayOn to deal with this. But in case you or anyone else is interested, here's how to do it...

In this example, I'll add the YouTube feed for This Week in Enterprise Tech (TWiET).

1. Edit the file %PROGRAMFILES (X86)%\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV7\OnlineVideos\CustomOnlineVideoLinks.properties.
2. Scroll down to section 2 of the file and look for the line which starts "xPodcastCustom/CustomCategories=". This line contains a list of all custom shows in the format Show1,Show2,Show3,...,ShowN.
3. Append a unique name for the show you want to add to the end of this line. I'll use TWiET for this example.
4. Scroll down to section 3 of the file and add a new line in this format: <Unique Name of Show Given Above>/URLContext=<RSS Feed for the show>. The edited line should look like this:
   
   TWiET/URLContext=http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/ThisWeekInEnterprise/uploads?alt=rss&v=2&client=ytapi-youtube-profile
   
   
5. Save the file.
6. Edit the file %PROGRAMFILES (X86)%\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV7\OnlineVideos\CustomOnlineVideoUIText.properties. This file takes care of the graphical representation in SageTV of the show you're adding.
7. Scroll all the way to the end of this file and add three lines in the format:
   
   Category/<Unique Name of Show>/ThumbURL=<URL to icon for show>
   Category/<Unique Name of Show>/LongName=<Long name of show>
   Category/<Unique Name of Show>/ShortName=<Short name of show>
   
   
   The ThumbURL is the URL to the icon you want to show up in SageTV for the show. The Long/ShortName lines simply hold the long and short names for the show (which can be the same). So the three lines you should add will look like this:
   
   Category/TWiET/ThumbURL=http://twit.tv/files/imagecache/coverart-feed/coverart/enterprise.jpg
   Category/TWiET/LongName=This Week in Enterprise Tech
   Category/TWiET/ShortName=TWiET
   
   
8. Save the file.
9. In SageTV, go to your Online Videos and then Custom Links. You should now see your new show. Selecting it should show you all available episodes and selecting an episode should start playing it.

You do not need to shut down SageTV (or the service) when editing these files, but you will need to exit to the main menu in SageTV and go back into the Online Videos to see any changes that you make. Hope that helps!

NOTE: One thing to watch out for is SageTV does not handle HTTPS links (for RSS feeds or image thumbnails). So make sure you add HTTP links only!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Boolah

You can do this directly in SageTV, but it's not easy and can be a real PITA to maintain (perhaps this is something that can be simplified once STV becomes open source?).

The STVs have always been "open". You've been able to do whatever you want to them since what, SageTV 4 or something?

[UgaData]

Check the plugins,

I seem to remember seeing a plugin for either TWIT feeds or Revision3 feeds.

I've not used it and I don't know if it is up-to-date.

Yes, it is possible to update the online options for Sage, as mentioned in a previous post by Boolah, but it ain't the easiest.

here's the thread - in SageTV Customizations:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32735

Hhmm ... ,If I remember to do so .... I could upload my online custom file with the Twit and Revison3 feeds, But I haven't updated them in awhile and certainly I never had them all.

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, there have been plugins over the years for various streaming channels and such, but like all similar things, they have a tendency to break every now and then when the provider changes things. That's why i think PlayOn is the best option, as there is a much larger group of people finding and fixing these things when the break.

[joelinkup]

Isn't this community of SageTV people the most fantastic forum in the universe... And, this SageTV stuff is just FANTASTIC... We have 3 boxes... Living Room... Family Room... Basement... and I have a simple PC in the basement with a Hauppauge OTA card in it... WORKS 100% PERFECT for YEARS... The only PlugIn I have is the weather... Never played with PlugIns... I looked and could not find one for PlayOn... Please provide a link to it... But, I did see this PlugIn stuff is pretty fancy... Lots of toys there... And, I just happen to have a PlayOn lifetime license that I bought years ago... NEVER used it... Don't even know HOW to use it... I assume I would need to install the PlayOn software onto my Sage Server... and then install the PlayOn PlugIn onto my Sage Server and then via the SageTV box menu it would somehow find it and allow me to use it... In the macro sense am I understanding what needs to be done????... That said... I sure do like the idea of keeping Sage virgin (ahhh... a long lost word for an OLD man) and adding content the long way... So, Please give me the link to the Sage PlayOn Plug In... and Please confirm that I am understanding the macro aspects of getting it going... I will work to learn the details... and I will also be playing around with the manual method which I like because it does not add anything extra into the Sage software... You people here are OVER THE TOP... I don't really know what to say... I guess we are ALL still together and still using our SageTV boxes... Amazing... Just amazing to me that this project was dropped by Google... but perhaps I am missing something... THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR HELP... REALLY THANKS...

[pjpjpjpj]

The PlayOn plugin is only for v7. Are you on v7? If so, it's in the plugin repository. You just choose it and select "install", and it installs (on a side note, there are a lot of great plugins that add to your Sage experience that require no more than choosing "install" and no other setup whatsoever, you really ought to look into that!)

You would need to have PlayOn installed and already running on your server PC (it's very easy to set up). Again, verify your server specs against their minimum requirements.

Once you install the plugin in Sage, it will add a menu item to your main UI. Select it and move right and you will get a list of preset categories that EP (the dev who created it) threw in. But if you move to the bottom of that list to "Browse PlayOn", that brings you to the list of every channel you have installed. You can then click into any of them and find content.

Also note that if you do this, there are tons of channels on the PlayOn website that you can download/add to your selection. All you do is plop the files you download into a subfolder within the "Mediamall" folder (that's the company that makes playon, and the folder where everything gets saved when you install it). Same thing with finding "scripts" (which behave the same as channels), there are several websites out there with user-written scripts which get you access to both archived and live streaming content, you just download those files and save them in the "scripts" folder.

Don't forget to restart PlayOn after you download/add new channels, and you might need to restart Sage once after you have the plugin installed (if it doesn't do that for you automatically).

[Fuzzy]

The PlayOn plugin is a UI MOD plugin. If you use extenders, it will just have a single 'Install' button. If you are using PC Clients, you would have 'install on server' and 'install on client' buttons. You want to install them on the client (the server doesn't even need it, as it runs completely in the UI). It works great, but is only SD in sage (for now - hopefully we can make a minor tweak to make it work in HD once we get the source code opened up). Depending on your server hardware, you may not be able to handle the HD transcoding anyway.

[UgaData]

I have my custom online feeds, it has some of the Twit and Revision 3 feeds in it.

These properties files can be added to the <install dir>\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3\OnlineVideos directory and then used to customize the online video feeds.

Depending on the version of SageTV your running, you made need to substitute "SageTV7" for "SageTV3". The above quote is from the forum sticky thread in SageTV Customizations.

I checked and most of the feeds still work. The only one I found that didn't was under "TWIT Feeds" for "Frame Rate"

[joelinkup]

To UgaData...
Let me see if I understand... I unzip the 2 Property Files you sent and place them on my server where you indicated changing to SageTV7 which I am running... Then I guess I am done... I go into the SageTV Menu on an HD200 and the Internet Content will now have a lot of TWIT and Revision7 programs there... I am hoping for Hak5 to be there and lots of other stuff... Do I have it??? Is this that simple??? Thanks...

[UgaData]

Famous Last Words "Yeah, sure, it just that easy!"

Kidding aside, it should be. At worst it may need a restart of the server, but I think you just need to return to the Home screen to refresh the UI and pick-up the new online feeds.

Yeah and Hak5 isn't in there. You should see more feeds from TWIT and Revision 3 but not everything. But, you should be able to add the Hak5 feed and any other feed you want. The feeds I was using are from TWIT and Revision 3 directly not the Youtube feeds.

I don't use extenders, so I can't speak directly as to how it works with extenders. However, you see it on the server, and I think once you see them on the server, you should see them on the extenders.

You should at least peruse the Forum sticky about changing the online feeds under SageTV Customizations.

*** OK there are 2 forum stickies about this topic. basically they are the same but one is updated for SagTV 7.0 and found under SagTV v7 Customizations *****

[UgaData]

Uhhhh ... those famous last words ....

I looked a bit closer .... even though the feeds (that are there) work, they appear to be old. I think the TWIT feeds are in better shape than the Revision 3. I didn't know they stopped making Tekzilla

I apologize, you will be probably be a bit disappointed with the few Rev 3 feeds I used to watch. I haven't used the online feeds in at least 6 months.

[UgaData]

OK, I fixed and updated the feeds for the REV 3 feeds. I also split the TWIT and REV 3 feeds into their own set of online video feeds and removed all the instructions from the template files. This doesn't really change how the feeds are displayed in SageTV or how they are used.

I posted them in the following forum thread:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...064#post571064

[joelinkup]

UgaData & All Others...
First... UgaData... YIKES... You went and did ALL THIS because I wanted a solution to getting new OnLine Content... Sure, this is helpful information for ALL but I feel it was directed only at me as I asked the question... THANK YOU SO MUCH... I will give it a try... Oh Yeah...

ALL OTHERS...
THANK YOU ALL for the effort and information you gave to me... I will be playing around with ALL the possible solutions... I REALLY APPRECIATE THE HELP... This forum reminds me of when I was a kid on the farm and we just shook hands over the fence and got the JOB DONE without all the categorizing of people and debating over who is acceptable and who is not... Anyway, your help is SINCERELY APPRECIATED...

[UgaData]

A new set of TWIT & REV3 custom online video files have been uploaded. Go to the thread below. The TWIT feed are now up-to-date.


http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...77&postcount=5

[hemicuda]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but...

I'm on v7; using the v5 STV because the UI is more familiar and seems to work better for us. Never could get the Phoenix/Gem UI's to behave properly for some reason.

Anyway, I have a local URL that I'd like to be able to stream (not record) to the extenders via Sage. It's not an RSS so I haven't looked at those threads. A login/password is required to view the feed. Can this be done simply?