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

[MeInMaui]

Hi Dirk,

The category selection is working now with the new jar file. Thanks. Now I have one more small issue with the automatic series genre icon generation. I have a series that only has cover art for 2 of the 5 videos (they are several Bob the Builder DVD's). When I set up the series as subgenre, the generated icon does not have a cover art graphic. Is there any way we could specify the graphic to be used in such an instance? Thanks.

Mike

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by domc

Is there anyway to make the google video smaller in size? Something like half the size. The quality of the video really sucks. Anything in the Sage properties files that we could change maybe?

I figure a smaller window/size would make the quality somewhat better. I know, the quality is that of the google video users but I think it can be viewed better on a larger tv with a smaller video picture size.

Yeah, this bothered me too.

Something like this ?






This new screen can be disabled in the SageMC options.

Note: if you return to this screen by pressing 'Stop' in the fullscreen OSD screen, Sage will start to play LiveTV in the window. I haven't figured out a way to avoid this yet, but it looks like a Sage bug to me...

Dirk

[geogecko]

Any reason why the top rated search fails to show anything on the google videos?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Note: if you return to this screen by pressing 'Stop' in the fullscreen OSD screen, Sage will start to play LiveTV in the window. I haven't figured out a way to avoid this yet, but it looks like a Sage bug to me...

That's not a bug -- you've got an active video widget w/o any media playing. When that happens, live TV is started, as mentioned on p. 43 of the v6 Studio manual. (No, it isn't new for v6.)

Originally Posted by geogecko

Any reason why the top rated search fails to show anything on the google videos?

Yeah -- it seems that sometimes the Google RSS feed contains illegal characters. I have no idea why.

- Andy

[rtengvad]

Hi Dirk
This is the first time I try SageMC. I have to say Im very impressed.

I'm currently using SageMC on my MVP and I might have found a few small bugs:

1) Playing a transcoded DVD the fast forward and rewind buttons in the upper right corner doesn't work.

2) The delete show command does not delete my shows

3) In the music section, “view by artist” also organize including the composer tag. The result is that you two many artists. Ex Joe cocker who has newer written a song him self is now listed 20 times.

rtengvad

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by Opus4

That's not a bug -- you've got an active video widget w/o any media playing. When that happens, live TV is started, as mentioned on p. 43 of the v6 Studio manual. (No, it isn't new for v6.)
- Andy

Yeah, guess I jumped to conclusions, must have missed this part in the manual ... Easy enough to fix

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Hi Dirk
This is the first time I try SageMC. I have to say Im very impressed.

I'm currently using SageMC on my MVP and I might have found a few small bugs:

1) Playing a transcoded DVD the fast forward and rewind buttons in the upper right corner doesn't work.

2) The delete show command does not delete my shows

3) In the music section, “view by artist” also organize including the composer tag. The result is that you two many artists. Ex Joe cocker who has newer written a song him self is now listed 20 times.

rtengvad

Hi rtengvad,

did you check if all the above works with the default STV ?

Dirk

[sundansx]

flachbar,
Did you base your edl support off of my import? If so, did you run into the bug I am looking at relating to the forked autocomskip thread dying during playback (this effectively stops auto-comskipping). If so, how did you fix it? I have described what I thought the issue was due to in another thead:

"When several buttons are pushed (and maybe a 'display info' thrown in there) sage throws a "BeforeMenuUnload()" event that is picked up by a comskip hook. This hook stops the comskip thread. It leaves the comskip attribute enabled, so it is not similar to the previous "comskip disabled" bug from before. I'm not sure why the "BeforeMenuUload()" event is happening. The Studio Manual says:

"Called during a menu transition, before the current menu has been unloaded. Note that the menu does not exit until this hook's action chain completes."

I think that fixing this sporatic call will fix the comskip edl stvi bug. I will try to think of a workaround until then. If any of the SageTV experts have anything to add to this, that would be helpful, as I am not quite sure if this hook should be firing at all during this time. I can get it to happen on two of my systems if I press several ffwd2's a custom4 and 5 or so and maybe a info button. I havent been able to nail down a exact button sequence to get it to happen, so if anyone can do that, it would be helpful. Maybe I can submit a bug to Narflex if we think sage is not working properly, but I didn't want to do that yet."
thanks.

[JonTom]

Okay, I've updated to the newest(ish) version of the flachbar SageMC and wow. Colour me impressed!

Question: with the old version I used, I had the stop button bound so that it brought up some options for the current video (aspect ratio, comskip on/off, and a few others). This binding still brings up the same menu, however the comskip on/off toggle is missing. Where can I find it? Can I add it back here?

I did notice that left/right navigates through the comskips, so if I have a bad commercial detected, it is easy enough to skip back and continue watching. But can I turn off auto-comskip?

[JonTom]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Auto-comskip configuration

Added the functionality to disable auto-comskip for a specific show (based on show title). You can access this feature (Enable/Disable Auto-comskip) from the options menu of a selected airing in any recording list, or from the options menu in the Program Info menu

Okay, I see that this has been moved to here, and is now show specific. That will work nicely I suspect!

ah, right, I added a zip file with an additional goodie in the download. If I remember correctly it's an STV, almost identical to v6.13, but you need SageTV 6.0 for this. I think the only difference is that I added one lame menu screen (you can link to it with the dynamic menus), what's it called, 'Google' or something ...

Can anyone explain/point to how to do this and what is needed beyond SageMC and v6? Do I need to load additional plugins/stvi/etc?

Thanks,

[domc]

I'm getting an error for sagemc and V6 about not be able to and anything to MY MENU. It can't find /sagetv/menu.xml. So I downloaded the menu.zip that I found in this thread and now I get an XML Parse error. Am I doing something wrong?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by JonTom

Can anyone explain/point to how to do this and what is needed beyond SageMC and v6? Do I need to load additional plugins/stvi/etc?

Thanks,

First, you need to load the SageMC_169_SageTV60beta.xml as your main STV. It should have already been placed in your STVs/SageTV3 folder just like the normal SageMC_169.xml file. No other plugins or stvi imports needed.

Then, if you want the Google menu in the main menu you can do this:

Originally Posted by ke6guj

I linked to the google videos via the Custom Menu options in the main menu. If you bring up 'options' in the the main menu, you can enable up to 3 custom menus. then in SageMC options in the setup area, you can name the custom menu and then specify the menu screen to access, 'google video menu'.

Works just fine, custom menus are an easy way to add menus without Studio or dynamic menus. I just wish there were more than 3.

or, if you would like them to be in a sub-menu, then you can do this:

Originally Posted by JUC

Ya-you need to do it through studio. Here are instructions i got from Morgan111 a while ago that work great. I used them to add the google videos to the my videos screen. works great except i am having problems with google videos (see a few posts above)

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

[popechild]

Originally Posted by Jason

I have been fairly busy at work... I will try and get the installer updated... I still have to setup the 'rest' of MeInMaui's packages as well...

On another note... Java 1.6 does not 'play' nice with Sage... there are a few issues...

-Jason

I love that you've put this installer together - right now it can be quite confusing for someone new to SageMC to figure out exactly how to install it, what's needed/what's not needed, how to add which optional graphics/icons, etc. So Thank You!

A few additional ideas:
1) Right now there's no way (that I can tell) to see what version of the various packages the installer contains. Even if it's just in your sig (or preferably wherever it's downloaded from) it would be nice to see which version of MC is currently included, and what else is in it (graphics packages with their version numbers, etc.).

2) Not sure what you or Dirk will think about this, but I wonder if at some point this should just become the standard installation package that's downloaded from the SageMC download link? Then when Dirk updates the STV, he could just replace the file in your install package and make that the new download. That way people will be able to make use of the work you've put into it (and the ease of use) without having to know to look for it in the first place...

Also, this just may be a problem on my end, but my typically stable wireless connection drops every single time I try to start downloading the install package from that filefront site. So getting in onto the Sage download site may help (at least me) in that respect as well.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by domc

I'm getting an error for sagemc and V6 about not be able to and anything to MY MENU. It can't find /sagetv/menu.xml. So I downloaded the menu.zip that I found in this thread and now I get an XML Parse error. Am I doing something wrong?

Initially there is no menu.xml file. The first time you go into 'My Menu' bring up the options menu and select 'save menu definition file'. Go back to the main menu then open 'My Menu' again. This time select 'Reload Menu Definition File' (or something like that). Then everything should start working. You can continue to add menu items. Just be sure to save the menu definition file when you are done or all changes will be lost. Oh, and get rid of the menu file you downloaded first. Hope this helps.

Aloha,
Mike

[geogecko]

Dirk.

I've been ROFLOL at some funny Google videos, and I'm sure you are aware of this, but instead of going back to the main menu after stopping a video, it would be nice to just be taken back to the list of videos I was looking at, versus having to redownload the list again...unless of course this is bound by the same "stopping" after you are finished watching a TV show...didn't think about that until now.

[Opus4]

The default STV uses a new method to return Back to the menu where playback started, if it is still the previous menu. Perhaps that code addition would be useful.

- Andy

[geogecko]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The default STV uses a new method to return Back to the menu where playback started, if it is still the previous menu. Perhaps that code addition would be useful.

- Andy

Could that be why I am experiencing almost instant response when I stop a video from playing, and get the options menu?! Just before updating to V6, this always seemed to vary from being instant, to 4-5 seconds...

If so, that's awesome. I have not noticed it taking any longer than about 1-2 seconds since I installed V6 yesterday.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The default STV uses a new method to return Back to the menu where playback started, if it is still the previous menu. Perhaps that code addition would be useful.

- Andy

SageMC already has a configurable option to either return to the Main Menu or to the last menu after playback, but I'll have a look at the default STV code, might be better than what's currently there ...

Dirk

[geogecko]

I'm interested in that new feature, #19. It looks almost like I might be able to define some sort of folder, and have SageTV automatically convert some recordings in a compressed, or smaller format, such as, for archiving on DVD.

That would require one less step for me in doing that (currently, I have to use AutoGK for this task), but I just wonder how much CPU that's going to take, since AutoGK can take hours on just one recording...

Should be interesting. I haven't messed around with the default STV yet, to check out the new features...

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by JonTom

Question: with the old version I used, I had the stop button bound so that it brought up some options for the current video (aspect ratio, comskip on/off, and a few others). This binding still brings up the same menu, however the comskip on/off toggle is missing. Where can I find it? Can I add it back here?

This is weird, because this option has not been removed:

Okay, I see that this has been moved to here, and is now show specific. That will work nicely I suspect!

But this is a different functionality which has been added, not moved. The enabled/disable comskip in the OSD options menu is only in effect for the current playback, and will get reset to the global setting on the next show. The show-specific settings are persistent and will get saved into a file, so that whenever you watch a show with the same title the specific setting gets applied.

Dirk