Playon Desktop

[tvmaster2]

Does anyone here use Playon Desktop for anything? Is there a way to interface with SageTV in some way, and / or does it have a useful purpose in the world of recording TV? I just got a push about a Lifetime Special, and wondered why, how and who uses it.
Thanks

[pjpjpjpj]

Everyone who used/uses PlayOn through Sage's UI has the "desktop" version - in other words, the software running on your server which allows Sage to access it. When you download the software, it comes with a desktop UI which is really user-friendly. I was confused about your post until I realized that PlayOn is slowly moving to the cloud where you really don't need a server to run it at all, and that most (non-Sage) PlayOn users these days probably don't need a desktop version!

The desktop UI allows you to navigate all the channels (and watch on the screen or start recording, er, downloading). You can easily set up "subscriptions" for your favorite shows (where any time a new episode shows up online, it automatically downloads). You can set up the downloading time to only happen at certain hours (i.e., overnight), set up how often it checks for new episodes, etc. I honestly haven't looked at whether you can do that on the mobile app... perhaps not, and that's why you mention the "desktop"?

While it's certainly easy through the Sage plugin to set a show here or there to record, the "subscriptions" in the desktop version are great - I set up whatever my kids' latest favorite cartoons are as subscriptions, and then create a custom menu item in Sage pointed at the folder where PlayOn saves them. Any time they want to watch that show, they navigate on the TV (we use extenders) to the folder, and there's any episode that has been available at any time since I created the subscription, automatically saved in that folder.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Everyone who used/uses PlayOn through Sage's UI has the "desktop" version - in other words, the software running on your server which allows Sage to access it. When you download the software, it comes with a desktop UI which is really user-friendly. I was confused about your post until I realized that PlayOn is slowly moving to the cloud where you really don't need a server to run it at all, and that most (non-Sage) PlayOn users these days probably don't need a desktop version!

The desktop UI allows you to navigate all the channels (and watch on the screen or start recording, er, downloading). You can easily set up "subscriptions" for your favorite shows (where any time a new episode shows up online, it automatically downloads). You can set up the downloading time to only happen at certain hours (i.e., overnight), set up how often it checks for new episodes, etc. I honestly haven't looked at whether you can do that on the mobile app... perhaps not, and that's why you mention the "desktop"?

While it's certainly easy through the Sage plugin to set a show here or there to record, the "subscriptions" in the desktop version are great - I set up whatever my kids' latest favorite cartoons are as subscriptions, and then create a custom menu item in Sage pointed at the folder where PlayOn saves them. Any time they want to watch that show, they navigate on the TV (we use extenders) to the folder, and there's any episode that has been available at any time since I created the subscription, automatically saved in that folder.

ok, it may have been the way they pushed the ad: “Playon Desktop Lifetime - $29.95”. I already have Lifetime, but the wording made me think there was something different about ‘desktop’. But, I’ve never really played with it much, hence my confusion (I bought the Lifetime during a different promo a couple of years ago, but don’t use it much). I’ll try and do what you suggest and see how it works

[VCRUser]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

While it's certainly easy through the Sage plugin to set a show here or there to record, the "subscriptions" in the desktop version are great - I set up whatever my kids' latest favorite cartoons are as subscriptions, and then create a custom menu item in Sage pointed at the folder where PlayOn saves them. .

I have PlayOn Desktop, but have yet to get the Sage PlugIn working. I installed it, but it doesn't see my PlayOn stuff except by setting the PlayOn folder as an imported video folder. I can see my PlayOn downloads that way, but gave up on the plugin.

I mainly use PlayOn for occasions when a recording fails for some reason, when I have recording conflicts that can't be resolved, or when I find about a show I want to record after it has aired. I also use it to record my Netflix & Amazon shows. I am aware of the new Cloud application, but while the Desktop version is available on a buy-once-use-always (at least as long as they support it), the Cloud version requires a payment for each download.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

I mainly use PlayOn for occasions when a recording fails for some reason, when I have recording conflicts that can't be resolved, or when I find about a show I want to record after it has aired. I also use it to record my Netflix & Amazon shows. I am aware of the new Cloud application, but while the Desktop version is available on a buy-once-use-always (at least as long as they support it), the Cloud version requires a payment for each download.

Along with my aforementioned kids' shows use (which comes and goes and is not really that often), this is exactly how we use it as well. When something gets fouled up in a recording (presidential address, local weather scare where they override the show with weather, occasional bad reception on the antenna for unknown reasons...), the first thing my wife does is hit PlayOn and find the archived episode.

The advantage of the Sage interface is that everything you stream (through it) can be saved permanently. If you haven't gotten it working, ask in the plugin thread, I'm sure someone can help.

[VCRUser]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

The advantage of the Sage interface is that everything you stream (through it) can be saved permanently. If you haven't gotten it working, ask in the plugin thread, I'm sure someone can help.

Sigh! I did that a few months ago and got nowhere. All the responses were vague and nothing worked. Can you suggest a specific thread that might be fruitful? Your comment, though, is the first I've seen of what the use of the plug-in would be: saving through Sage what I'm streaming through PlayOn. Maybe that was more useful befor PO had the ability to record, but I use PO only for recording, and control that via its own desktop interface or through the more limited mobile interface. If there were a way to get the recordings treated as TV recordings instead of as imported videos, that would be a plus. Theoretically I've heard that BMT was supposed to help with that sort of thing, but I could never find any useful explanations of how to make that work. I tried it briefly and gave up on it for lack of helpful documentation.

[btrcp2000]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

Sigh! I did that a few months ago and got nowhere. All the responses were vague and nothing worked. Can you suggest a specific thread that might be fruitful? Your comment, though, is the first I've seen of what the use of the plug-in would be: saving through Sage what I'm streaming through PlayOn. Maybe that was more useful befor PO had the ability to record, but I use PO only for recording, and control that via its own desktop interface or through the more limited mobile interface. If there were a way to get the recordings treated as TV recordings instead of as imported videos, that would be a plus. Theoretically I've heard that BMT was supposed to help with that sort of thing, but I could never find any useful explanations of how to make that work. I tried it briefly and gave up on it for lack of helpful documentation.

I am still fumbling with perfecting this as my UNRAID setup is still a little crashy for my own self-inflicted reasons, but I am able to tell Playon to record something, and Sage eventually picks it up during an import scan as a TV show not an import. See attached for where to find it in BMT.

AFAIK "Desktop" is just the windows GUI, but you get access to both the app and the windows GUI if you buy. I use the android app for quickie one-off recordings because you cannot set a "favorite" or tell it to record a whole season other than hitting each episode one by one. I use the windows GUI to schedule whole seasons or verify that something recorded successfully, because the mobile app doesn't report back. In a pinch I will use chrome remote desktop from my phone to schedule a season if im not near a PC.

Other things learned the hard way: Playon only does stereo, and just because your video card has HDMI does not mean it will work depending on the flavor of HDCP. You dont need anything fancy, but I did have to upgrade to a GT710 based on Playon support's feedback about the ancient POS card I had before. Also, the video card has to be plugged into something on the other end. I run it on a VM on a headless server and it kept complaining about HDCP until I plugged an HDMI cable from the video card to an old hdmi switch i had laying around. Switch doesn't output anywhere, but it makes the card think there is HDCP.

[stanger89]

So I'm here from my other thread (about cutting the cord...), I'm interested in DTV Now + Playon, it seems intriguing.

First question, has anyone tried running Playon in a VM? Their specs don't make it look like it would be a problem.

Second question: Is there a way to get just playon recordings imported as recordings, and not everything else classified as TV (I don't want my imports pulled in as recordings).

Any idea what happens if you subscribe to multiple shows that air at the same time?

How good is it at not losing the beginning/end of a show? I have padding on everything in Sage, is that an issue with Playon (specifically with DTV Now)?

[btrcp2000]

No reason it can't run in a VM, but I'm.still beating on it. I have gotten it to work once or twice in my UNRAID windows vm, but what I run into is that the VM rejects the video card eventually (code 43 for Nvidia and code 10 for amd). Playon requires its host to have a HDMI/hdcp capable video card, sonto answer your question I would say it works very sporadically, but in my case it appears to be a known UNRAID problem before playon even enters the mix. Have not spent much time on this yet, bigger fish to fry for me.

Not quite clear on your import question but I'll take a stab. I use bmt and gemstone to get tv shown as recordings, and movies as movies. Easy to do in both of those tools, and it doesn't matter whether sage or playon recorded it, because bmt will tell sage what it is, and gemstone can organize it however you want.

As for padding, playon is recording a stream that is technically playing inside a browser instance that is hidden from your computers desktop. it controls the start and stop so it doesn't miss anything, in fact it usually captures the things at the beginning including the "skip ad" button which you of course can't click because you are watching a recording, not streaming. It also adds a watermark of what ip and user id recorded the file and when. This is tacked on to the beginning and the end.

Also, since these are streams there are no conflicts. If you subscribe it will simply line everything up in a queue. I'm sure there is logic to how it makes the order, but it just records everything it finds one after another. In other words, if you tell it to record 8 episodes that are 1 hour each, it will be busy for 8 hours.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

No reason it can't run in a VM, but I'm.still beating on it. I have gotten it to work once or twice in my UNRAID windows vm, but what I run into is that the VM rejects the video card eventually (code 43 for Nvidia and code 10 for amd). Playon requires its host to have a HDMI/hdcp capable video card...

Interesting, they don't list that in their requirements, that's a bummer.

Not quite clear on your import question but I'll take a stab.

I would only want the Playon stuff pulled in as recordings, I don't want all my ripped TV pulled in as recordings.

[samgreco]

I tried for some time to figure out how to get PlayOn recordings to import as Sage recordings to no avail. I finally just created a separate flow in Gemstone.

But now I don't really use PlayOn anymore.

And I did try to use it in a VM and it always had issues.

[BobPhoenix]

Playon 4.3.63+ cannot record to a network drive - only local - I turned in a ticket when I tried it and that was MediaMall's response. I could swear I was doing it to a mapped drive several years before 4.3.63. But current version won't and like I said when I turned in a ticket they said you must record locally. It also would not work for me when I had my bare metal windows box running with the virtual nic that Virtual Box sets up. I had to disable that before Playon would record successfully on the bare metal windows. There may have been a way to make it work but networking is really not my thing and I could never figure out what I needed to do until I disabled the Virtual Box host nic. I setup a VM to try this but didn't have any locally attached drives so don't know if it works when I got my answer above.

[VCRUser]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

it kept complaining about HDCP until I plugged an HDMI cable from the video card to an old hdmi switch i had laying around. Switch doesn't output anywhere, but it makes the card think there is HDCP.

I use PlayOn without an HDMI card and it hasn't complained once. There is (or at least used to be) an "HD" option that cost a bit more and I never bothered with. Maybe that requires the HDMI & HDCP ?

[egeller]

I reviewed the thread, and have no suggestions to resolve any issues noted above.

However, I'd comment that I run Playon on a Windows 10 VM on Unraid. My recording drive is a network drive, configured as \\server\path, not a local drive to the VM. I have not had any issues getting Playon to work, except where an individual provider (like Xfinity or Amazon) will quit working and the Playon crew needs to update their software.

I do not recall doing anything special with the display driver on the Windows 10 VM, other than following the default instructions and taking the defaults. I have never seen an HDMI related error. The downside may be that I am only seeing 720p content via Playon.

The best use I make of Playon is for the premium channels, where my WMC setup fails to record something. I can usually grab an acceptable copy through Playon.

Regarding the question about subscribing to shows airing at the same time - Playon accesses the providers' web-based sites and acts as a browser user to download content (I think the SageTV UPnP interface intercepts it at this point). Therefore timing is not an issue for two shows on at the same time. However, if a network does not make the show available on-demand until the next day, Playon won't see the show until the next day.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by egeller

However, I'd comment that I run Playon on a Windows 10 VM on Unraid. My recording drive is a network drive, configured as \\server\path, not a local drive to the VM. I have not had any issues getting Playon to work, except where an individual provider (like Xfinity or Amazon) will quit working and the Playon crew needs to update their software.

Are you passing through a GPU?

Regarding the question about subscribing to shows airing at the same time - Playon accesses the providers' web-based sites and acts as a browser user to download content (I think the SageTV UPnP interface intercepts it at this point). Therefore timing is not an issue for two shows on at the same time. However, if a network does not make the show available on-demand until the next day, Playon won't see the show until the next day.

So, I'm asking in regard to DirecTV Now, which, in addition to VOD, offers live TV. The question was in regards to recording shows that are only available live, not through VOD. I'll have to look some more, when I was looking through Chrome, a few shows I was interested in weren't available VOD, only live. But they showed up in Playon and let me "subscribe" to them, so we'll see what happens.

[egeller]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Are you passing through a GPU?

No. Not to the Windows VM.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Playon and let me "subscribe" to them, so we'll see what happens.

I always took the subscribe functionality to be the same as SageTV's favorites. Playon will record them, if it finds them.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

....While it's certainly easy through the Sage plugin to set a show here or there to record, the "subscriptions" in the desktop version are great - I set up whatever my kids' latest favorite cartoons are as subscriptions, and then create a custom menu item in Sage pointed at the folder where PlayOn saves them. Any time they want to watch that show, they navigate on the TV (we use extenders) to the folder, and there's any episode that has been available at any time since I created the subscription, automatically saved in that folder.

Question about 'recording' shows via the SageTV Plugin: do videos, shorts, tv shows, movies, etc., have to play in real time before they are recorded to the drive, or are they 'downloaded' in a quicker fashion? Also, even though I set my download directory in the PlayOn Settings, things like YouTube videos seem to be downloading to a different folder. Any idea what I may be missing - i.e. there's independent ways to set download dirs.? When I select and save, for example, music videos from YouTube via the PlayOn Desktop settings app, the videos show up in the correct directory. But when selecting music videos in the SageTV PlayOn pluggin, the videos save to a different dir. That much I've figured out. AND, when saving via the PlayOn Desktop app, the videos are saved as mp4 files, but via the SageTV pluggin - .flv files.
Thoughts?

thanks

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Question about 'recording' shows via the SageTV Plugin: do videos, shorts, tv shows, movies, etc., have to play in real time before they are recorded to the drive, or are they 'downloaded' in a quicker fashion? Also, even though I set my download directory in the PlayOn Settings, things like YouTube videos seem to be downloading to a different folder. Any idea what I may be missing - i.e. there's independent ways to set download dirs.? When I select and save, for example, music videos from YouTube via the PlayOn Desktop settings app, the videos show up in the correct directory. But when selecting music videos in the SageTV PlayOn pluggin, the videos save to a different dir. That much I've figured out. AND, when saving via the PlayOn Desktop app, the videos are saved as mp4 files, but via the SageTV pluggin - .flv files.
Thoughts?

thanks

I assume you are asking about the UPNP plugin?

The plugin has its own settings in Sage for what directory to save recordings.

Any Playon recordings are done in real time (regardless of how you initiate them). Playon basically uses a hidden web browser to login to whatever site has the video and play it back through their web player, then captures the audio and video as it plays back in real time, along with any ads that might get inserted.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I assume you are asking about the UPNP plugin?

The plugin has its own settings in Sage for what directory to save recordings.

Any Playon recordings are done in real time (regardless of how you initiate them). Playon basically uses a hidden web browser to login to whatever site has the video and play it back through their web player, then captures the audio and video as it plays back in real time, along with any ads that might get inserted.

UPNP plug-in? I’m not sure. Is that the only one available in the SageTV plugin depository? And I couldn’t find how to change it’s directory settings. I’m sure there’s a way, I just can’t find it. I believe the self-help, Youtube guide video is a dead link.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

UPNP plug-in? I’m not sure. Is that the only one available in the SageTV plugin depository? And I couldn’t find how to change it’s directory settings. I’m sure there’s a way, I just can’t find it. I believe the self-help, Youtube guide video is a dead link.

I’m not home to look right now, but I think there may have been an older Playon plug-in for v7 of Sage.

The UPNP plugin was written by tmiranda the same person that wrote the YouTube plugin. Setups are similar for both plugins. IIRC you go to the Setup menu, select Plugins, then Installed plugins. Some of your plugins will have settings in that area that may not appear elsewhere.