Client Lock-down

[teknubic]

I'm toying with the idea of putting a client in the guest bedroom for when friends / relatives visit. What's stopping me is the thought that they'll finish watching my favorite show making it eligible for deletion without my knowlege or consent. Then when I settle in to watch it, it's long been deleted and now 14 hours of 'paid advertising' is in its place. *shudder*

Is there any way to allow shows to be watched but not 'marked' from a certain client? Same with modifying favorites or live TV interrupt requests.

[InsertHere]

If Sage doesn't have a way to do this, maybe you could use NTFS permissions to Deny deletes/writes on your server machine's Sage directories, and specify the Sage Client PC or the logon account it uses as the account to Deny.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by teknubic

Is there any way to allow shows to be watched but not 'marked' from a certain client? Same with modifying favorites or live TV interrupt requests.

This is not available in the default STV... and marking a show as watched when it is over isn't part of the STV; that is part of the core. For an STV to override that, it would have to mark the show as not watched after it has stopped playing.

- Andy

[nielm]

there is a custom STV for 2.2.8 with security features that may be what you want... (check the customisations link in my .sig, or the sticky in the customisation forums)

[teknubic]

I didn't think to search for 'security'.

Originally Posted by DigiCasa Instructions

Restricted – This user has restricted access to the SageTV system.
--cut--
Cannot set the “Watched” flag (except in the case where this user actually watches the show in question)

Close ...
I think I'll put this on the back burner for now.
Thanks, everyone.

[dagar]

yeah, myself and others have been pinging on this for months (probably a year) you mean you don't want your kids, folks, inlaws, etc dorking up your system?

[acrowe]

I just only give visitors etc access to my direct cable stuff when I'm not there

[RedR]

Heya,

I spose it’s too much to ask visitors/guest not to delete anything they watch. But in that case, least at my house I just don't give them access to my TV/system, least when I am in doubt that they'll listen and respect my request.

Now on the flip side, least far as a larger scale delivery of a system that SageTV can support, security on a user or MAC address would be awesome. It doesn't have to be complicated, just something that allows you to pick a MAC address and check off the abilities in Sage you want them to have. To start delete would be enough, but I can also see this growing into favorite selections/changes, live TV or not, allowing setup/config changes or not, even limiting playback of selected channels.
I for one am very unhappy with the parental controls strictly because it relies on the broadcaster to set the shows rating. Sometimes this is not set correctly, or at all thus allowing someone to view a show that should normally require a code to view. It’s a very nice feature and a good start, but IMO to reliant on someone else to keep things secure.

Thanks,
RedR

[dagar]

it's a fat finger thing as much as anything else FWIW Meedio has this functionality, at least at a rudamentary level

[RedR]

True, and their are many other products out their that do all sorts of things. I think the key here is Sage handles it, for its the best place for such a feature. Sides, I think we all in some form or another use practical tools that apply when it applies. I dont think this is the case here.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by RedR

Heya,

I spose it’s too much to ask visitors/guest not to delete anything they watch. But in that case, least at my house I just don't give them access to my TV/system, least when I am in doubt that they'll listen and respect my request.

Its not asking them not to delete, it is the fact that Sage marks watched anytihing that that may view, even if I haven't. Then, Sage may delete the show automatically to make space. Or else, Sage will remember that the show was watched and never record it again unless the watched tag is cleared.

And for the guys who use IR, they get to have fun correcting all the new 'suggestion' for shows that they never watched, the guest did

[lovingHDTV]

Sounds like in this case you do not want a Sage client, but instead a connected media player? This will only provide the ability to play already recorded media, not touch IR, watched settings, or delete anything.

The MVP would work great for this, and even easier to setup.

[Mahoney]

Frankly it'd be nice to turn off the auto-Watched feature. It makes excellent sense *if* we all had endless hard disk space, because then we'd only delete things we really never wanted to watch again. But over here in the real world I don't want to keep every episode of the Good Life just in case I feel like watching them again some time; but if I've set the Good Life as a favourite in Sage then when an episode I've watched and deleted comes up again 2 years later I might well want to watch it again.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mahoney

Frankly it'd be nice to turn off the auto-Watched feature. It makes excellent sense *if* we all had endless hard disk space, because then we'd only delete things we really never wanted to watch again. But over here in the real world I don't want to keep every episode of the Good Life just in case I feel like watching them again some time; but if I've set the Good Life as a favourite in Sage then when an episode I've watched and deleted comes up again 2 years later I might well want to watch it again.

v3 allows you to clear the watched status of your favorites. I have shows that I like to watch multiple times as well. I just let the watched feature do it's job then later on if I want to start watching the old shows again I'll just clear the status of the favorite.

[teknubic]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

The MVP would work great for this, and even easier to setup.

Explain please. I looked into the MVP and the plugin. From what I understood from my brief research, the plugin makes an MVP a client. Do you use it in the way that I described above?

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

Sounds like in this case you do not want a Sage client, but instead a connected media player? This will only provide the ability to play already recorded media, not touch IR, watched settings, or delete anything.

The MVP would work great for this, and even easier to setup.

Not true. I change IR settings, watched, like/don't like, etc and delete recordings all the time with my MVP. Frankly that's one of the great things about it for me, I can use it just like I'm sitting at the Sage machine except I have to do the stuff with the remote instead of the keyboard/mouse.

You may be able to lock those things out with settings in the sageclient properties, but if so I haven't bothered to look since I'm the only one using the MVP Client and I want those features.

[lovingHDTV]

If you don't want to have the MVP have access to change anything/everything in Sage, don't use the plugin. Instead use the software that comes with it, point to the sage video directories and watch shows. This give complete access to the taped shows, but no control.

The plugin was written specifically so that users could use the MVP as a full client. What is being asked here is how watch shows recorded by Sage, but not as a client. This is the way the product was setup initially. Sorry if I did not make that clear.

The downside when the MVP is not a client (i.e. using the shipped software, not the plugin) you cannot delete, schedule, modify anything within Sage, . . . or maybe that is the upside in this case

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

The downside when the MVP is not a client (i.e. using the shipped software, not the plugin) you cannot delete, schedule, modify anything within Sage, . . . or maybe that is the upside in this case

For me the major drawback is that you can't get any show descriptions. So as you're scrolling through that video directory with 25 episodes of Battlestar Galactica you have no idea which is the one you want to see.

That's the main reason I use SageMVP in the bedroom fairly often, while I use my Roku Photobridge in the living room very rarely to view Sage files. The Roku works exactly like the MVP software when navigating/selecting Sage (or any other) media. "Ok, now which one of these 3 screens of BattleStar Galactica files is the one I haven't seen?"

[teknubic]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

The plugin was written specifically so that users could use the MVP as a full client. What is being asked here is how watch shows recorded by Sage, but not as a client. This is the way the product was setup initially. Sorry if I did not make that clear.

No problem. I didn't read you literally enough. I'll spin by my local RadioShacks and see if I can't find an MVP on the cheap. Should I be looking for a specific model or feature?