SageTV Recordings > Roku

[stuckless]

The approach I took, a long time ago, was to use plex on Roku. I even wrote a sagetv channel that served up views using the vfs. The streaming was biggest challenge, and added a VLC streamer specifically for that purpose. It did work, but, not great. And to be honest, streaming was the biggest challenge even when I was doing the Android apps. It wasn't until I ported/wrote the SageTV miniclient and implemented the streaming datasources from SageTV video playback became rock solid.

I thought about doing a brightscript version, but, I didn't have any interest in learning it. And then along came Android, which is java based, and fit better with my skills.

I often wonder how much life Roku has left. Don't me wrong, I liked Roku (I own 3 of them), but I wonder with AppleTV and AndroidTV if they'll remain relevant.

Good work on this, I'm sure others will be very interested... while I question how long Roku will be relevant, for today, it's still pretty relevant.

Originally Posted by mwittl

Well, when I first approached this, I was thinking it was 100% do-able...that is, have the Roku application talking directly to the SageTV server where all transcoding would take place. My experiments with Roku consuming transcoded media from Sage were a bust. None of it would play.

For it to work without the middleware transcoding, one of two approaches would work. The easiest (I'm always a fan of easy) would be a rework of the SageTV Web server sagex plugin to rework their code (sagex media api) to use FFMpeg rather than VLC for transcoding. I tried everything I could think of, but the VLC transcoding is not at all liked by Roku. Also, it would be advisable if the plugin was reworked in such a way to use the latest versions of FFMpeg, along with the ability for a user to configure the FFMpeg transcoding parameters to suit their usage. I spent a lot of time finding the right parameters to use to get a high quality viewing experience at minimal bandwidth and without taxing the server too much.

The second approach...which is way more intense...would be to write a separate ROKU plugin and have it do all the heavy lifting. While the separate plugin would probably be more efficient, the existing Sage Web interface to the Sagex api's is more than adequate if they were reworked.

Keep in mind, all I want to do is view my recordings....I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel by writing a full-blown Roku/SageTV client. All I want to do is have my granddaughter be able to watch Mickey Mouse and Paw Patrol on my Roku's!! Right now, she's a happy camper!!

[wayner]

Originally Posted by stuckless

...I often wonder how much life Roku has left. Don't me wrong, I liked Roku (I own 3 of them), but I wonder with AppleTV and AndroidTV if they'll remain relevant....

I would add FireTV to the above list as well as it looks like the home media space may be turning into a three way battle for the mass market between Apple, Google and Amazon.

That is the case with media players and also connected speakers, assuming that Apple ever gets their product out the door. And increasingly these devices, either speakers or media players or both, will act as a hub for Home Automation systems.

So the independent hardware makers, like Roku may get squeezed out. It will be interesting to see if the independent streaming media companies, like Netflix and Spotify, will also get squeezed out.

[hb4]

I think MCEBuddy could work for transcoding. I have it remove commercials, rename, rewrite, and create/place in directories for Emby in the middle of the night for my HDHR Prime recordings. Emby has a Roku app that will play my recordings remotely. I don't need it to transcode since Emby/Roku handle TS and MP4 just fine.

It would be nice to have a SageTV Roku app that would play them as soon as they're recorded with the commercials removed.

[mwittl]

All I know is I'm in awe of guys like Stuckless and the developers that have done all the remarkable and excellent coding for SageTV....which in my humble opinion, is still the best damn software to hit the market....like EVER!

We all like the tech stuff and solving problems...our customers (wives, sons, daughters and grandchildren) are the ones we use as excuses to come up with solutions. So, however long a platform may or may not be around....if that's what our 'customers' want to watch on today...that's what I'll be trying to provide a solution for! Win-win....the granddaughter is happy and grandpa is a hero for providing it!! In the end it's about actually 'watching' a show, not about how we arrange the 1's and 0's to get there....our 'customers' could care less!

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by mwittl

All I know is I'm in awe of guys like Stuckless and the developers that have done all the remarkable and excellent coding for SageTV....which in my humble opinion, is still the best damn software to hit the market....like EVER!

We all like the tech stuff and solving problems...our customers (wives, sons, daughters and grandchildren) are the ones we use as excuses to come up with solutions. So, however long a platform may or may not be around....if that's what our 'customers' want to watch on today...that's what I'll be trying to provide a solution for! Win-win....the granddaughter is happy and grandpa is a hero for providing it!! In the end it's about actually 'watching' a show, not about how we arrange the 1's and 0's to get there....our 'customers' could care less!

I couldn't agree more.

Does Roku support OpenGL and sockets? If so, and when you are done this, you might want to look creating an actual miniclient for Roku. It's not trivial, but, it's not too hard either.

Also, internally, sagetv uses ffmpeg for streaming and it does have an experimental httpls streamer as well. Just wondering if your needing to use an external transcoding server was born out of a limitation of sagetv's ffmpeg, or, just that you wanted/needed it to be separate from sagetv. Do you intend to open source your streamer at some point? (not that you have to)

[mwittl]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I couldn't agree more.

Does Roku support OpenGL and sockets? If so, and when you are done this, you might want to look creating an actual miniclient for Roku. It's not trivial, but, it's not too hard either.

Also, internally, sagetv uses ffmpeg for streaming and it does have an experimental httpls streamer as well. Just wondering if your needing to use an external transcoding server was born out of a limitation of sagetv's ffmpeg, or, just that you wanted/needed it to be separate from sagetv. Do you intend to open source your streamer at some point? (not that you have to)

While I haven't yet used sockets in brightscript, the documentation would seem to suggest that it can use TCP sockets. See:

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/roStreamSocket

Regarding OpenGL, most of the Roku devices seem to support it, but I don't know enough about it to see how you program for it. See this link and search for OpenGL:

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdk...eloper+Program

A mini-client would be awesome, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start! But it might be fun to give it a go with some direction!

The middleware FFMpeg solution I used was created for 2 reasons. First, brightscript makes extensive use of http for serving up content so the most obvious (to me) way to get at the Sage recordings was to use the existing sagex api's through the web server plugin. The transcoding coming from sage using that route was being provided by VLC in one of the web server plugin servlets. Using only http, I didn't see how to get at the FFMpeg in the actual Sage application. Additionally, the newer FFMpeg releases are way, way better at real-time transcoding than older versions. I found the latest releases (with the right parameters) to have a much higher quality and much less intensive CPU rate when transcoding video for a HD client. Basically, I did what I was comfortable doing, without screwing up my base Sage installation....which would really have me in the dog house with my customers.... At some point, I plan on making this available to others.

[bcjenkins]

I could see a need for a newer FFMPeg which supports newer containers and codecs. Not to mention HW accelerated enc and dec.

[tierpath]

Hey, any more progress?

[jeffoffline]

bumping this in the event anyone is still thinking about a Roku app for SageTV... apparently Roku TV's can play MPEG-2 just fine. I'm not sure about the external boxes but transcoding is definitely not needed on my TCL C803 https://my.hdhomerun.com/instructions/tv-dlna/ I tested this and can watch OTA TV just fine.

[syrel]

Just found this thread, and it looks exciting. Is your software available to download anywhere? And is it possible to use without transcoding if on a local network?

cheers

syrel

[Galaxysurfer]

I know I personally would be interested in a roku app with direct ties to sagetv over going the plex route. Keep up the great work! I wish I had coding skills.

[frontlinegeek]

And I am interested in anything that goes on with this too.

To Stuckless' question/concern on longevity, the answer is simple. Roku is a single point solution. The only real annoyance with it is the RF remote and the need to have someone make an app for it. Otherwise, it does YT, Netflix and Amazon as well as all the other things. There are many TVs out there that don't have all of the smart features and people are not going to replace a whole TV just to get them. So as far as I am concerned, yes, it will be around for a while. They are the only neutral party out there. Google and Amazon hate each other and most people don't actually buy Apple products at the scale that people think outside of the iPhone.

I have several V2 and one V1 Chromecast and one Roku. Since Amazon finally got their app out for Canada, I have been using it and I really like it. Even with the two mentioned annoyances. If I could add SageTV to this, well that would be absolutely awesome.

[brandypuff]

I just bought a RUKU Ultra and am trying to figure out what the benefits it has over the apps built into my LG OLED before i send it back. I thought if an app was available on to view my SagetV recorded content, it would be useful as an extender.

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by brandypuff

I just bought a RUKU Ultra and am trying to figure out what the benefits it has over the apps built into my LG OLED before i send it back. I thought if an app was available on to view my SagetV recorded content, it would be useful as an extender.

I don't know. I have a Vizio (PQ-65) TV and ROKU is not one of the built-in Apps. However, PLEX is and I can access the SageTV files from there. I, also, have the PLEX app installed in my ROKU Ultra(s) and can access the SageTV files from there. I have never done that, however, since SageTV is so much the better "player." (TBH, I never have used the apps in the TV.)

In any event, my guess is the advantage would be that the Ultra gives one access to 4K HDR video (away from SageTV, obviously) and it is voice controlled.

[SHS]

Just head a up Roku adding MPEG-2 decoding in ver 9 update
In case you didn't know that last MPEG-2 patent expired a long with MP3 and AC3 some time ago.

[ranger]

Do you have a link for Roku adding MPEG-2 support. I'd like to read up on it, but didn't see it in their release notes for OS 9.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by ranger

Do you have a link for Roku adding MPEG-2 support. I'd like to read up on it, but didn't see it in their release notes for OS 9.

https://forums.roku.com/

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by mwittl

While I haven't yet used sockets in brightscript, the documentation would seem to suggest that it can use TCP sockets. See:

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/roStreamSocket

Regarding OpenGL, most of the Roku devices seem to support it, but I don't know enough about it to see how you program for it. See this link and search for OpenGL:

https://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdk...eloper+Program

A mini-client would be awesome, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start! But it might be fun to give it a go with some direction!

The middleware FFMpeg solution I used was created for 2 reasons. First, brightscript makes extensive use of http for serving up content so the most obvious (to me) way to get at the Sage recordings was to use the existing sagex api's through the web server plugin. The transcoding coming from sage using that route was being provided by VLC in one of the web server plugin servlets. Using only http, I didn't see how to get at the FFMpeg in the actual Sage application. Additionally, the newer FFMpeg releases are way, way better at real-time transcoding than older versions. I found the latest releases (with the right parameters) to have a much higher quality and much less intensive CPU rate when transcoding video for a HD client. Basically, I did what I was comfortable doing, without screwing up my base Sage installation....which would really have me in the dog house with my customers.... At some point, I plan on making this available to others.

As it's been 18 months since your last log entry, I guess this Roku project you were working on has been abandoned? That would have been so great - I wish I had a brain for coding

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by SHS

Just head a up Roku adding MPEG-2 decoding in ver 9 update
In case you didn't know that last MPEG-2 patent expired a long with MP3 and AC3 some time ago.

Has anyone opened the Sage miniclient on a Roku and played MPEG-2 video recorded from OTA (with no conversions, just the native OTA recording in MPEG-2)?

If not in Roku, what about MiBox? Or anything else? I notice some cheap Chinese Android TV boxes say they have MPEG-2 but I have to wonder.

I have a lot of OTA recordings and also watch live TV OTA (sports). I would like to move on from HD300s and have a single box at each TV if there's a miniclient solution that allows me to watch my Sage-recorded OTA MPEG-2. I'm open to any of them.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Has anyone opened the Sage miniclient on a Roku and played MPEG-2 video recorded from OTA (with no conversions, just the native OTA recording in MPEG-2)?

If not in Roku, what about MiBox? Or anything else? I notice some cheap Chinese Android TV boxes say they have MPEG-2 but I have to wonder.

I have a lot of OTA recordings and also watch live TV OTA (sports). I would like to move on from HD300s and have a single box at each TV if there's a miniclient solution that allows me to watch my Sage-recorded OTA MPEG-2. I'm open to any of them.

Can you install the Sage MiniClient on a Roku?