Movie Listings and Trailers Coming Soon...

[RedCoat999]

Go baby! Go!

[aperry]

Weekly update:

I made some pretty good progress this week. The config screens are pretty much complete (a couple of minor tweaks, additions, subtractions, etc. will still be needed). The main thing I am struggling with, config-wise, is that when I download updated theater information, it does not seem to be reloading the data file correctly. I'm sure it's something simple, just frustrating at this point.

I started working on the Movie List screen. I have it displaying a list of movies with thumbnails of the movie posters showing on the screen. I'm having a problem with the screen not redrawing itself as I navigate that screen, so things are overlaying on each other. Again, probably a simple fix but a frustrating problem.

Next steps:

Get the last couple of things done in the config screens.
Finish getting the movie list screen working
Do the theater list screen (should be easy once movie list is done)
Do the movie details screen (or screens)

Issues:

The items I described above.
Since downloading of the information, especially trailers, can take a long time (15 minutes or so is not uncommon on a first load), I need to be able to kick this off in the background. To that end, I'd like to be able to display an icon, like the conflict icon, on every screen until it is done. That way you know an update is underway.
I also want to figure out a way to have the update kick off at a certain configurable time each day (so that you could have it run while you sleep for instance).

Notes:

It is very likely that trailer playback will not be available in this initial version, though the program will download the trailers if you have that option enabled in the config screens. Since the trailers are in MOV (Quicktime) format, and SageTV does not directly support playback of that format, I'm going to have to figure out some other way to play them back. Probably going to launch some external program like MPlayer to play them, but not totally sure at this point.

[kricker]

Originally Posted by aperry

...Probably going to launch some external program like MPlayer to play them, but not totally sure at this point.

If you use something like Mplayer or Media Player Classic, will we be able to stream the trailers, or will they have to be downloaded? I currently use Mplayer to play streaming trailers that the Meedio importer generates and it works great.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by kricker

If you use something like Mplayer or Media Player Classic, will we be able to stream the trailers, or will they have to be downloaded? I currently use Mplayer to play streaming trailers that the Meedio importer generates and it works great.

I'm currently thinking that MPlayer is the way I'm going to go, and as you correctly point out, it does support playback of streamed content. I also like that you have full playback capability through the command line, which works really nicely with Sage's Fork() function, from what I can tell.

I'm probably going to need to include a place for users to put in MPlayer command line switches, a simple text area for you to type in some options, since there is no way I'm going down the road of creating Sage screens to allowing you to set all the 928374293845756 settings that MPlayer has, at least not yet. Each of the users will need to figure out what combination works best for them. No need to be scared though, because generally, some sort of playback is possible without setting any switches. MPlayer is simply awesome.

My REAL hope is that SageTV will put in support for MOV, but I doubt we'll see that...

[kricker]

yeah Mplayer works pretty good, the only down side I see in there is no 10ft gui for it. Also, sometimes the rewind and fast forward functions can freak it out with streaming content.

Current builds of Mplayer for windows.
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php

Media Player classic works well too, also allowing commandline switches. But, it uses way more CPU than Mplayer does at the moment, so for a low-end system you can't use it to playback HD trailers.

[Humanzee]

Would the use of Mplayer premempt those folks who use FSE? Switching applications while FSE is enabled doesn't always have a fantastic result on Sage's stability.

[aperry]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Would the use of Mplayer premempt those folks who use FSE? Switching applications while FSE is enabled doesn't always have a fantastic result on Sage's stability.

I don't know. I have never gotten FSE to work at all, so it's a non-issue for me.

Basically, when I add in the trailer playback, we can see where we are at that point.

My main goal at this time is to try and get something out for folks to start playing around with, not terribly worried about trailer playback at this point, other than knowing that at some point, I want to add it in.

[Polypro]

Anybody want to post a quick "What To Download" tutorial for MPlayer?

P

[kricker]

-Polypro
mssg me, and I'll tell you what I know.

[key master]

APerry - looking forward to your plug-in. It looks really nice from your initial screen shots of how you plan to organize everything.

Just a note to anyone who lives in a country where Alan's plug-in does not yet download movie listings for - the underlining code to Alan's plug-in that grabs movie listings is open source which source is located here:

http://movietimes.home.comcast.net

Currently, I only have the Meedio source code there but once Alan and I test things out, there will be a "stand alone" command-line version available, too. It's written in VB.NET and anyone is welcome to write more country modules. Send them to me and I'll most likely include your code into the next release.

Thanks and good luck with everything aperry!

-Jim

Originally Posted by aperry

Just a heads up that I am working on putting together an STVI to allow viewing theater listings, info about particular movies, including trailers (NOTE THAT TRAILER SUPPORT IS VERY IFFY AT THIS POINT GIVEN THE LIMITED SUPPORT IN SAGE FOR QUICKTIME .MOV FORMAT). I'm in touch with the guy that wrote the Meedio Movie Showtimes plug-in. All I have to do is to put together some Sage screens that will allow you to do settings for it (like telling it your Zip code, theaters you are interested in, etc.) and it should start working for us.

Given that the Meedio program supports different countries, this one will likely support that as well...

[Humanzee]

Aperry,

If this is going to be dependant on an external player you should seriously consider adding a piggy back module for other functions than just movie listings and trailers. I.e. a video.google.com plugin or www.youtube.com or any streaming content really.

I guess the difficulty lies in the use of a external player that can support all the different formats.

[aperry]

That's a neat idea. Eventually, I may do something like you describe, but for now, movie listings and trailers is my life. And the easiest way I have of playing back the trailers at this time (given that SageTV does not support Quicktime playback) is to use something like MPlayer.

Keep in mind that this will probably be in beta for a long time, and will have several versions before I have a "release" version, so many things can change in that time...

[dblaine2]

you could try the video lan client (vlc). nielm already requires it for his webserver and works really well for streaming content.

[grooves12]

Anything new?

[Bohica]

It has been a while - but I was able to get Quicktime movies to play under sage. Look at Quicktime alternative and see if you can't get this to work. Not only did I get quicktime working, but a couple of quicktime HD formats as well. Search the forums as well. This would be the easiest solution as the software is free and you can present the video from within Sage...

**Edit** - I just did a search - seems like people have mixed success. I know I was able to get several types of file types to play - just dont remember which at this point. This is worth some effort on someones part if you plan on pulling the QT files...

[joe123]

What ever the outcome is, please make it work via the MediaMVP. Many of us only the the MVP to view SageTV stuff.

[aperry]

The MVP should be fine for looking at the listings and all that, but without built-in playback of Quicktime movies inside of Sage, I don't know if playback on the MVP will work. I don't have one, so I don't have any way of seeing if it will work on an MVP.

As far as progress goes, things are getting really close, all I have left to design is the movie details, and to figure out a few nagging bugs and things I don't like how they work inside of the config screens (like the files are not saving and updating quite the way I want).

Then the next BIG step will be to pull it all together into an STVI, not a trivial task from what I have read, but I'm sure I can get it going.

Again, don't plan on seeing anything trailer related in this release. But as we have discussed, some sort of trailer playback will follow shortly afterwards.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by aperry

As far as progress goes, things are getting really close, all I have left to design is the movie details, and to figure out a few nagging bugs and things I don't like how they work inside of the config screens (like the files are not saving and updating quite the way I want).
.

Hi Aperry.

This is just a suggestion. How about leaving some of the more problamatic stuff for a future release and relasing what you have? Maybe some will like it enough to contribute or help you with the other stuff.

Good job on taking the initiative by the way.

[aperry]

I will release it once you can actually have your changes saved when you update them in the config screens. I'd hate for someone to take the time to update stuff on those screens only to find out that their changes had not been saved. Most of it does save, there are just a couple of areas I need to get working. Shouldn't be hard, just figuring out where saves aren't happening and making them happen.

I really don't want to release this in its current state. As I said, it is really close (and even closer now that I have the Movie Details screen mostly working). Just bear with me a little longer, and I'll get it released.

Don't worry, I'm not going to hold this release off till things are perfect, there are just some basic functions that need to work before I feel it can go out.

The hard part at this point will be packaging everything into an STVI. Nielm has some nice tips, so it shouldn't be too hard, just figuring it out the first time will be a bit difficult...

[aperry]

STATUS UPDATE - April 30, 2006

All of the screens are working, some still have a few issues but I'll try and detail those once I get the beta released. I got the major issues ironed out, I believe. I'm in the process of trying out installing the STVI. I'm using Nielm's importer, and that seems to be making things easier.

And the big news...

I'm looking towards a mid-week (around May 3) beta release!!! I know it's been a long time coming, so just a little more patience.

I'll post a separate thread once it is ready, and we can discuss all the issues and stuff there.