Comskip for Sage Linux..... :)

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by dshields

Please tell me Wine is not the only way to get commercial skip on Linux. There is no way I am installing wine on my sagetv server. (Nothing against Wine, and I'm running it on another computer...)

Then your other choice is run comskip from a Windows PC. Those are your choices. If you have Wine running on another PC then run comskip there and map the recordings directory to it.

Gerry

[dshields]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Then your other choice is run comskip from a Windows PC. Those are your choices. If you have Wine running on another PC then run comskip there and map the recordings directory to it.

Gerry

Thank you. I appreciate knowing the facts. I guess my other choice is to run MythTV. I went with SageTV on Linux because it includes the EPG with no subscription fee, but this comskip issue might tip me toward MythTV. Running comskip under wine is just something I do not want to do. That's just me. I do not want a solution that depends on Windows/Wine in any way. (If I had wanted that, I would have just continued to run SageTV on my Windows server.)

[bcjenkins]

That's interesting. If you want a native Linux solution install and run Myth commflag. You can run it on independent files. Personally, I have never found an installer for a standalone version so you have to install the full Myth package.

I run Wine on a headless server without X installed if it matters.

B

[dshields]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

That's interesting. If you want a native Linux solution install and run Myth commflag. You can run it on independent files. Personally, I have never found an installer for a standalone version so you have to install the full Myth package.

I run Wine on a headless server without X installed if it matters.

B

Thanks. Those are both good ideas. I would not mind installing MythTV just for its commflag, if that option would work. (I have zero experience with MythTV so far.)

And if I had to use Wine, running it on a headless server might be less objectionable due to the absence of a web browser and other desktop apps. However, it is still something I am not in favor of, primarily because it forces me to think about additional security questions. (I am familiar with the basic arguments in favor or Wine security, but the fact is that I do not even want to have to understand this subject in greater detail. I would prefer to just not install Wine on a system that I plan to leave fairly unsecured. My SageTV server might even be outside my firewall... I might want the media files accessible from my Nokia N900, for example.)

[loonsailor]

I don't know anything about wine security issues (maybe I should?) but I can tell you that sage/wine/comskip works very well.

My sage box is behind a firewall, and only three ports are forwarded it, all on "nonstandard" ports exposed to the outside world - the weird placeshifter port, http (which reaches only the sage web interface) and ssh. So, I'm not sure what security issues wine would create, since I'm not sure how it could even be reached.

I played with myth about a year ago and never managed to get it working well, though I think that part of that is because I was using an underpowered atom-based machine at the time. I remember channel mapping, in particular, being a real pain. Has it improved? In contrast, sage has been quite trouble-free for me. The biggest reason I use sage, though, is the hd200 extender. It works flawlessly, is tiny and silent, uses almost no power and even my wife loves it. I don't think there's any myth equivalent to it.

[chip33az]

I use both MythTV (via Mythbuntu) and SageTV.

I had installed SageTV at my mom's house with 3 TV's, an older version of Ubuntu (never bothered to upgrade) and 3 Media MVPs. This setup works fantastic.

At the apartment we're in, I had SageTV, but wasn't getting the performance I wanted on a very underpowered server. I upgraded the server, popped in a video card and put Mythbuntu on it. Very easy to do. I'm just having some minor issues with playback that is really annoying me (and the WAF). Tomorrow I'm planning on heading back to SageTV on a fresh install of ArchLinux and possibly run ComSkip as well.

Using both, I can tell you they both have great features that I wish the other would use.

Since this is a comskip topic, MythTV does a great job out of the box with this. Since it is built into MythTV, it is very easy to enable and you can also tell it what you want to run comskip on. For example, on our local PBS station I have removed it from running comskip since there are no commercials. My wife enjoys a show on VH1 and the commercials so I set it up not to run comskip on that show.

The two items I don't like about MythTV. 1 - I have a small PC in the living room. The wife doesn't mind, but it just drives me a little batty. I know I could build another frontend with an Atom processor, but the SageTV extenders are nicer (my opinion). 2 - Connecting to the TV was a hassle. I admit I have an older TV without S-Video or HDMI, so getting the server to connect to it correct was about a 1 hour job. This was to size, resize and manipulate the screen.

Sorry I ventured a little off topic. If you have questions about MythTV, usage, setup, etc. let me know. I haven't played with the new .22 version as it hasn't been released yet.