Plugin: External Status Monitor Interface (V1.3, 24-Jan-2006)

[nielm]

This is a plugin for SageTV v2.1 (and later) that provide an external interface to retrieve the current status of SageTV -- what is playing, and what is recording. This can be used to drive a LCD panel, or taskbar icon.

IT IS USELESS BY ITSELF!, but works well with the LCDSmartie plugin by Anders

This plugin only provides the raw data and makes it available over a TCP socket. External applications will be needed to retreive and process the information.

More information here, including download/install instructions.

Please post any links to external applications here, and add them to the wiki pages...

History:

7-Dec-2004: V1.0
10-Jan-2005: V1.1: Add support for multiple clients, network timeouts and data cache
16-Jan-2005: V1.1: Corrected uploaded V1.1 zipfile
15-Feb-2005: V1.2: Corrected numbering and whitespace problem with multiple tuners
24-Jan-2006: V1.3: Fixed for Sage 4.1+. Use JAR files for packaging.

[ChrisAllenFiz]

Originally Posted by nielm

This is a plugin for SageTV that provide an external interface to retrieve the current status of SageTV -- what is playing, and what is recording. This can be used to drive a LCD panel, or taskbar icon.

IT IS USELESS BY ITSELF!

This plugin only provides the raw data and makes it available over a TCP socket. External applications will be needed to retreive and process the information.

More information here, including download/install instructions.

Please post any links to external applications here, and add them to the wiki pages...

NeilM, you are a plugin genius! If only I had space in my case for a VFD (Maybe I`ll go external)
Once again, thanks for your efforts anyway

Chris

[AndyS]

Wow - cool stuff Neil!

Now I can get some feedback of Sage's current status into my automation system

Andy.

[shameiz]

Hey Neil,

Awesome piece of work. I was going to start playing with this but when I connect no updates are shown. It does show me my capture card but nothing else. Here is a sample output

now_playing_type: nothing
now_playing_show:
now_playing_episode:
now_playing_artist:
now_playing_channel:
now_playing_starttime:
now_playing_endtime:
now_playing_currpos:
now_playing_state: stopped
num_recording_devs: 1
recording_1_dev: Hauppauge WinT
recording_1_show:
recording_1_episode:
recording_1_chan:
recording_1_starttime:
recording_1_endtime:

This is while a recorded show is being played. Any thoughts?

[DynamoBen]

I'm experiencing the same problem. When I'm playing a show I get no indication via telnet. Also is there any way to allow multiple connections to this app? The reason being is if someone sets up an LCD and a tray app elsewhere on their network, they will be making multiple requests to the server. Currently if you have the LCD you can't do any type of tray app.

[nielm]

Couple of extra points -- its for SageTV v2.1+
And if you are running the service, this should be configured in SageClient.properties... (the service does not know whats playing where!)

Multiple connections can come later - its a little extra work, but not much!

[DynamoBen]

Cool it was the service that was screwing things up. Thanks!

[broderp]

what other applications are needed for this to work? How does it interface with this little program? (Setup?)

[DynamoBen]

To test it all you need to do is open a telnet connection. At this point there is talk of creating a plug in for an LCD. I would like to see a tray app so all the PCs on my network get info about what is occuring on the server.

[shameiz]

Ok so I should be working but I was bored. So here's a quick hackjob for inspiration for all you hardcore coders.

<hack job>

I have attached a perl script which creates a file called current.info in my sage directory. It polls Neil's service every few seconds.

I have setup smartie to do the following:

$File("C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\current.info",2) where 2 is the line number to print.

So it's a start. Not sure how to get LCD to only print when a file exists. That way the program can be changed to only have the file exist while valid values are being written. </hack job>

Obviously you'll need perl loaded on your machine. Anyway, should be really easy to do in java and C. You can also run this perl script as a service on windows boot ... somehow!

[broderp]

Originally Posted by shameiz

Ok so I should be working but I was bored. So here's a quick hackjob for inspiration for all you hardcore coders.

<hack job>

I have attached a perl script which creates a file called current.info in my sage directory. It polls Neil's service every few seconds.

I have setup smartie to do the following:

$File("C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies\SageTV\current.info",2) where 2 is the line number to print.

So it's a start. Not sure how to get LCD to only print when a file exists. That way the program can be changed to only have the file exist while valid values are being written. </hack job>

Obviously you'll need perl loaded on your machine. Anyway, should be really easy to do in java and C. You can also run this perl script as a service on windows boot ... somehow!

I can see this going right over my head......oops...there it goes... I guess I wont be using this for a while. It was a nice idea

[Methius]

Great work!
I'll try and get it running once I finish work on my powermanagement.
(Doesn't seem to want to work correctly even though my htpc supports s3 suspend :S)

again.. BIG THANK YOU

Ps. For the current pos tab, we will need the perl script to update the file every time the tcp outputs new data or poll it every second.

[CyRex]

Unless someone beats me to it, I was planning on coding a small app that will provide a system tray icon that will give information when you hover over it, and also provide .txt file outputs of the data in a variety of formats. The two formats I was going to start with would be compatible with 1) LCD Smartie and 2) jaLCD.

I tried wiring up a spare LCD I had sitting around last night, but those small wires are a real pain in the arse to solder together, so I gave up... (Plus its hard to solder when you're in the garage shivering...) I figure I can at least write the app and then have someone with an LCD test that aspect, although LCD Smartie has the output simulation windows anyway.

Can anyone else think of any features they would be interested in? I'm open for suggestions, and now that I have my Sage box running smoothly (fingers crossed) I am looking for another project to get started on...

[DynamoBen]

The tray software:

I would also like the tray to do an OSD pop up that tells me when a program is starting to record and pop up again when it has ended. The pop up would only last about 8 secs or so then fade out.

It would be awesome if the user could set screen postion, overscan, display interval, fade interval, text transparency, font type, font color, outline text, and test the OSD. I understand this is a lot but might be worth doing.

Please let me know if you want greater detail on any of these things. This is something I am very interested in.

NOTE: Lets not forget that this tray app will need to have an area where the user can determine which port to communicate on.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by DynamoBen

It would be awesome if the user could set screen postion, overscan, display interval, fade interval, text transparency, font type, font color, outline text, and test the OSD. I understand this is a lot but might be worth doing.

Sounds like Girder's XP osd
In which case it may be possible to do something with Girder, timers, LUA scripts and LUA sockets...
I might have a play when I find a moment!

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by nielm

Sounds like Girder's XP osd
In which case it may be possible to do something with Girder, timers, LUA scripts and LUA sockets...
I might have a play when I find a moment!

For those that use Girder, I'm working on extending LCDMaster to incorporate this new functionality.

Thanks nielm!

Jere

[DynamoBen]

I don't like girder for two reasons:

1) its far too complicated to use

2) its not free

What I'm describing is actually a mirror image of callerID sentry. I really think the app should be standalone.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by DynamoBen

I don't like girder for two reasons:

1) its far too complicated to use

2) its not free

What I'm describing is actually a mirror image of callerID sentry. I really think the app should be standalone.

I agree with this. Girder is not really the app that should handle this duty. A simple small tray app that connects to the tcp socket is all that is needed.

course if that is what I want then I should write the damn thing myself huh?

[CyRex]

So you want the popup that tells when recordings start/stop, etc to come up on your TV when viewing Sage as opposed to another computer on the network?

I think I will end up using the app on my other computer so I am able to see what Sage is currently recording without having to turn on the TV, etc.

The version that I'm doing right now is just the basics. I'll try and get that working first, then I can add to that as I get more time and more ideas. Right now it has a small popup window that rises from the bottom right corner of the screen and shows the recording / playing information. It can also be set to pop up for a few seconds whenever a new recording starts.

[MixTracks]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

For those that use Girder, I'm working on extending LCDMaster to incorporate this new functionality.

Thanks nielm!

Jere

GREAT! Thanks for working on this, I was just thinking about that. Keep us updated!