STV: SageMC 16x9 Version 6.x (latest dev build)

[kricker]

Originally Posted by ikarus79m

How does SageMC handle "padding" ? I know that in the standard STV my shows would start at 0:00 and if I had padding set I could reverse into -0:01 etc...

This doesn't seem to be the way with SageMC anymore. Even if I have padding set on a show I can never reverse beyond 0:00.

Could someone explain this to me?

Thank you.

In SageMC I believe start padding of 1 is what you had in the Standard STV of -1. SageMC just uses positive numbers that relate to the padding type either start or end.

[popechild]

Originally Posted by flachbar

All of you having problems with the dynamic menus: can you doublecheck that

2) you have the correct version of nielm_sagemenureader.jar in the JARs directory (10/24/06, 32,094 bytes)

Dirk

That was it. The size on mine was different, so I found the new one in the new "full" install zip you put together and it works now!

If a bunch of people end up having this problem, it might be worth sticking that .jar into the download...

Thanks again!!

[ikarus79m]

Originally Posted by kricker

In SageMC I believe start padding of 1 is what you had in the Standard STV of -1. SageMC just uses positive numbers that relate to the padding type either start or end.

I actually meant when playing back files, not while scheduling the recording.
Before i could rewind back into the padding, now the file just starts playing back at the very beginning.

Philipp

[JDizzy]

On the prior release of MC, while watching Live TV, you could press the stop button, exit and no video would be playing...there was actually a screen in the little video window (bottom left) that said 'Stopped'.

Now, if you stop, it immediately loads up the station that is playing on the tuner and begins playing. Is there a way to stop it?

The reason behind it is that Showanalyzer (through Dirmon), which will scan anything playing on the TV (which takes a bit of CPU)....and, I am running EP's compression through Dirmon also and the queue gets stacked up waiting for the TV to end before starting the next task (compressing my recorded show)

Also, no use having things running if not needed....

-JD

[popechild]

Okay, so now that I've got dynamic menus working, I'm noticing something that seems odd. If I add a new menu item to the main page, and then save, it takes me back to the main menu but my new item is not there. I have to go back into DM and re-load the current .xml in order to see it. Alternately, if I do some other action, like delete a menu item, I see whatever previous changes have been made as well.

Is there any way to "refresh" the menu as soon as you make a change? Or at least as soon as you re-save the .xml? Because currently I'm having to re-load the same file over and over to see each change. I feel like I must be missing something really simple...

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by JDizzy

On the prior release of MC, while watching Live TV, you could press the stop button, exit and no video would be playing...there was actually a screen in the little video window (bottom left) that said 'Stopped'.

Now, if you stop, it immediately loads up the station that is playing on the tuner and begins playing. Is there a way to stop it?

The reason behind it is that Showanalyzer (through Dirmon), which will scan anything playing on the TV (which takes a bit of CPU)....and, I am running EP's compression through Dirmon also and the queue gets stacked up waiting for the TV to end before starting the next task (compressing my recorded show)

Also, no use having things running if not needed....

-JD

Hi JD,

this is actually not a SageMC specific setting ... Go to Detailed Setup / Multimedia / Video Menu Options and change "Always" to "If Active". Since you say that this didnt happen in the previous SageMC version - did yoy import any other STVis after upgrading ?

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by popechild

Okay, so now that I've got dynamic menus working, I'm noticing something that seems odd. If I add a new menu item to the main page, and then save, it takes me back to the main menu but my new item is not there. I have to go back into DM and re-load the current .xml in order to see it. Alternately, if I do some other action, like delete a menu item, I see whatever previous changes have been made as well.

Is there any way to "refresh" the menu as soon as you make a change? Or at least as soon as you re-save the .xml? Because currently I'm having to re-load the same file over and over to see each change. I feel like I must be missing something really simple...

It is supposed to show any changes right away, without needing to reload, and works perfectly fine for me. Anyone else seeing this ?

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by ikarus79m

I actually meant when playing back files, not while scheduling the recording.
Before i could rewind back into the padding, now the file just starts playing back at the very beginning.

Philipp

Hi Phillip,

I think what Karl is saying is that if you recorded a show with a -1 setting (like you used to in the default STV), the show does actually record one minute later, and that's why you wouldn't be able to rewind ...

If this is not the case, than this is strange, becasue it's supposed to work, and it does for me ...

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by popechild

That was it. The size on mine was different, so I found the new one in the new "full" install zip you put together and it works now!

If a bunch of people end up having this problem, it might be worth sticking that .jar into the download...

Thanks again!!

Yeah, you are right. This JAR file was included in prior SageMC versions, so I figured anyone not using the full package should already have it, but people may upgrade from an earlier version, or simply might have missed to extract it previously.

I now added it to the dev STV download as well, thanks for the heads-up !


Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by kricker

Video library
When I browse to an item in the imported video library and view the details: using the skip buttons to browse the next or previous item results in the title not changing. The filename below it changes and pressing play will play the right file, it is just the title that does not update.

Thinks I found the issue. Do you use .my files ? If so, can you confirm that if you start with viewing the detail of a video *without* a .my file this does not happen ?


Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by kricker

Default main menu with dynamic submenus???

If you use the standard SageMC main menu, the 'My Menu' item will allow you define submenus (which are dynamic menus again)

Icons on the submenus screen?? Again that confuses me. Sorry.

Indeed, all these menus are really confusing ...

I meant that for any dynamic menu item (not only on the main menu, but also on submenus) you can assign an icon file (the one which pops up on the right side). Prior to SageMC 6.3.0 you needed to edit the menu.xml file and set the "icon" property manually (although it was not used by SageMC), now you can do this within the options dialog (and now it gets used by SageMC). My question was simply if you are using icons in any (non-main) submenus

Also how does one edit the menu that pop out to the side of a main menu option? (I would call those submenus) Or is this what you are referrring to above? So many menus and names...things are a bit confusing.

You can't ...
These are all hardcoded, and there is no esay way to make this generic.

Dirk

[JUC]

First off--great stuff in the new build! THanks,
now for the questions.

To date--i haven't been using the dynamic menus so they are a little confusing for me now. Is there a way to add the compression screen to the My TV menu? Or can you only customize the main menu screen? Nothing happens when I try to bring up the dynamic menus when in MY TV...

Alternatively, i would prefer to just keep using the regular menus and use studio to add the compression screen to My TV. I've been following these instructions posted by Morgan111 but since they are not exactly for this i'm having some issues (this was for adding movie theaters to My Videos:

1. With SageTv running, open Stuidio (Cntrl-Shift-F12)
2. Scroll down to the menu page definition of "Video Library Folder View"
3. Expand it, find "Menu Container" (first widget), and expand it too.
4. Riight click on "Menu Container" and select New Child -> Item
5. The new button is now at the bottom of the list as "UNTITLED", change
it to "Movie Theaters" or "Theater Times" or whatever you want the
button to say.
6. Scroll up, find "MovieTimes Main", click on it and do a copy (Cntrl-C)
7. Go back down to "Video Library Folder View" and click on the item you
created in steps 4 and 5
8. Do a Paste Reference, under the Edit menu (Cntrl-Shift-V does not
always work right for me). "MovieTimes Main" should appear in italics there
now.
9. Save your changes (in current file or new)
10. Close Studio


What would i change to add the Compression screen to My TV?

Finally!--yes, i'm almost done--anyone care to post some good dynamic menu files?? Might give me some good ideas.
Thanks,
Juc

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by JUC

To date--i haven't been using the dynamic menus so they are a little confusing for me now. Is there a way to add the compression screen to the My TV menu? Or can you only customize the main menu screen? Nothing happens when I try to bring up the dynamic menus when in MY TV...

Yes, the dynamic menus are only meant to customize the main menu structure by linking menu buttons to menu screens. By defining submenus, you can create an arbitrarily deep custom menu structure. Menu screens like "My TV" can only be customized with Studio.

Alternatively, i would prefer to just keep using the regular menus and use studio to add the compression screen to My TV. I've been following these instructions posted by Morgan111 but since they are not exactly for this i'm having some issues (this was for adding movie theaters to My Videos:

What would i change to add the Compression screen to My TV?

I'll look at this later on ...

Finally!--yes, i'm almost done--anyone care to post some good dynamic menu files?? Might give me some good ideas.

Did you try out the default "sagemc_menu.xml" included in the download ? It contains the most common SageMC main menu items, and a submenu 'My Menu" with some additional screens (Google Video, Video Conversions, etc). This would be a good starting point ...

Dirk

[JUC]

Thanks dirk,

yes-i've fooled around a little with the defaul menu....not bad. i guess i need to take some time and just do it. If you have time to look at those studio instructions it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Juc

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by flachbar

I proudly present: SageMC 6.3.0

-enhanced file browser dialog to first show directories and then files

THANK YOU!!! Love this simple change!

[JDizzy]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Hi JD,

this is actually not a SageMC specific setting ... Go to Detailed Setup / Multimedia / Video Menu Options and change "Always" to "If Active". Since you say that this didnt happen in the previous SageMC version - did yoy import any other STVis after upgrading ?

Dirk

The other 2 STVi that I am running is Movietimes and Web Radio. (oh, and now the DVD burning STVi)
Funny because I think prior to MC 6.3 I had this set to Always and it behaved differently (which wasn't correct).

Thanks for your time, changing the above setting fixed this issue.
-JD

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by JDizzy

Funny because I think prior to MC 6.3 I had this set to Always and it behaved differently (which wasn't correct).

Ahh, you are right, I *did* make a change in 6.3.0 to accomodate those who want to use the "always" feature ...


Dirk

[Hyperbaric]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Weird, I'm running service mode without problem.
Can you post a debug log ?

Dirk

Sure.

Also, I've attached my current properties files in case that sheds some light on the issue (renamed to txt files to allow uploading, of course.)

In addition, one ther thing I've noticed is that under MC the guide only shows movies colour highlighted. Default STV shows everything OK, so I think the guide data is fine. Any ideas?

Many thanks.


Edit: Hmm, also can't import the "sagemc_menu.xml" - "yes / no" dialogue just hangs there. I've followed the instructions in this thread.. so perhaps it is a symptom of the problem above?

[clmolnar]

Great update Dirk. No problems so far, and I am finally trying to make the switch to the dynamic main menus! The iTV theme import seems to still work, so that makes me happy too!

However, I have one question on the encoding properties in SageMC. I might just be missing the setting somewhere, but I did not notice how to set what happens to the mpeg2 files after the encoding is complete. Is there a setting to auto-delete the old mpeg2 files? I thought this had been mentioned when the 6.0 beta was initially released, but like I said, I'm probably just not seeing the option.

This is probably the wrong place, but someone with more experience with the SageTV transcoding might know the answer. Is an encoded show treated just like the original recording in the "Recorded Shows" menu? In other words, if I transcode all of my shows to mpeg4 deinterlaced high quality and then delete all of the original mpeg2 files, will SageTV recogize the transcoded files as being the original mpeg2 files for cataloging purposes in the wiz.bin file? And will these shows retain the same show information properties as the originals? Or do the transcoded files now show up as imported videos?

Thanks,

Carl

[JDizzy]

First off, love the change to layout of music section and various enhancements.

Prior to v6.3 update I was using Winamp as default player for music files. I had access to the Milkdrop visualzations.

I can see that I am still running music through Winamp but visuals have defaulted to albumart floating around screen (which I also like very much )...
I looked through the Sage config file for this area and noticed a few changes have been made.

Is the Milkdrop still available (it would be cool to have access to several visualizations themes) or do I need to check through Winamp and see if my default vizualization has been changed? (I can live w/o it though)...
-JD