Beta 6 - Deleting programs and a few other questions/bugs

[mike1961]

Hello - I can't recall but I thought in version 5 when watching a show one could always hit Options and then delete the show while they were watching it and it would then go back to the prior menu. This is not possible in 6.

Will we ever get a feature to "Watch show from beginning?" I always have select the Watched and/or clear it so that I can watch it from the start. Ideally, I would love to ALWAYS watch my imported shows from the start. Prior to version 6, I used GermSage with Nero Showtime media player to watch my mpeg4 files and of course it would always play from the beginning.

Last - a few possible bugs:

Sometimes it seems in version 6 it just sort of "hangs" and gets stuck when trying to go to a prior menu from the setup menu. I go to the task manager and SageTVClient shows 98% of resources being used for Sage so I have no idea what it is trying to do.

Once in a while the mpeg4 video/audio plays really slow and it's like it "catches up" and then plays real time after 20 seconds or so.

The multispeed continuous FF/Rew no longer works and the Smooth FF/Rew Sage commands have never worked with ANY decoder I have tried using including Sage Decoder, NVidia and Cyberlink. I'm thinking about using GermSage again at least for a while but I'm not sure what player to use because I would like to use one that has mpeg4 and mov compatibility as well as a wide variety of commands. But, that still won't resolve my problems with watching Sage recordings but only resolves imported videos and DVDs.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike

[blade]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Will we ever get a feature to "Watch show from beginning?" I always have select the Watched and/or clear it so that I can watch it from the start. Ideally, I would love to ALWAYS watch my imported shows from the start. Prior to version 6, I used GermSage with Nero Showtime media player to watch my mpeg4 files and of course it would always play from the beginning.

Version 5 always started imported videos from the beginning because it was unable to remember the last position. I would imagine more people would like to resume where they left off than start from the beginning each time.

As for recordings, they start from the beginning the first time they're watched and then resume where you left off. Once the show has been watched Sage will start at the beginning the next time you watch them. I guess I'm missing something, but why would you want to start from the beginning if you've already watched part of a recording?

[nielm]

Originally Posted by mike1961

The multispeed continuous FF/Rew no longer works
Any ideas/suggestions?

wait for a fix? (I am working on it and other plugins that need some changes)

As for deleting, in v5 it was:
Options->Detailed info -> options -> delete
or the delete command if you have it mapped to a remote key

Same in V6, except there is an STV bug for the delete command which means you have to say 'yes' twice.

And 'watch show from beginning' is a feature of my multi-function STOP plugin. (STOP-REW shortcut)

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by blade

As for recordings, they start from the beginning the first time they're watched and then resume where you left off. Once the show has been watched Sage will start at the beginning the next time you watch them. I guess I'm missing something, but why would you want to start from the beginning if you've already watched part of a recording?

Blade - I can understand it for Sage Recordings but I think it is a horrible feature for Imported Videos and I'll explain. This feature would be fine if there was a "Watch From Start" button but now it's two buttons because I have to click the watched button then click Watch (and open the advanced menu if it's not open...more steps). Anyways, A lot of times, I may just browse my imported videos late at night and I'll start watching a movie that I may have seen several times before. Sometimes I may just watch 20-30 minutes to "wind down" until I get really tired before falling asleep. Now, when I stop the movie I have to sit there, stop the movie and mark the movie Watched/not watched - whatever...so that the next person who watches the movie won't be seeing it from the middle somewhere....it's a real PITA. I'm not the only one who lives here watching imported videos. Sometimes I may just want to see part of my wedding or part of a slide show or some other imported video and then if I don't restart it, it's going to start where I left off when some other person views it. But, maybe someone else might then watch it later and they are wondering why it is not starting from the beginning...a real pain as far as I'm concerned. A simple button, watch from start would be nice.

I think it's fine to have the feature to start where you left off but creating more steps to watch from the beginning is a pain since when you watch the show you have no idea where it's going to start when you have several people who live with you. I can't imagine that I'm the only one with Sage who feels this way.

Mike

[mike1961]

Nielm - I just may use that Multi-Stop plugin because I'm constantly clicking the Watched status.

By the way - do you think the FF/Rew plugin will work better than the prior ones with NVidia and other decoders? It worked fairly well with the Sage decoder but I would like to avoid the Sage Decoder if I can. I noticed something VERY interesting the other day that I hadn't noticed before. The NVidia Decoder takes far less resources than the Sage Decoder. The NVidia seems to take around 10-12% while the Sage Decoders take about 40%; that is a huge difference.

(EDITED: I just installed the multi-stop plugin. It's perfect. It even conforms to not putting up the Delete option on my imported videos because that's the way I have it in the setup).

Thanks,
Mike

[nielm]

FF/REW plugin + NVidia: unlikely, as I don't have the nvidia decoder to test with
It is also unlikely to work well with MPEG-4 videos in Sage v6...

It may well be that Nvidia only allows seeks to Key-frames, and neither the plugin nor Sage has any idea where a key-frame is.

(in mpeg2 and mepg4 video compression, key-frames are 'whole' frames, also known as i-frames -- other frames (b- or p-frames) just contain differences relative to the previous-, or next-frame. Mpeg2 has keyframes about every 0.5 secs, with mpeg4 it can vary. )

[jbarr]

Mike,

I'm glad you tried the Multi-Stop plugin. It is an EXCELLENT plugin that adds functionality that, in my opionion, really should be "core" functionality. Like so many of nielm's plugins, it just makes using SageTV easier and more intuitive!

[blade]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Blade - I can understand it for Sage Recordings but I think it is a horrible feature for Imported Videos and I'll explain. This feature would be fine if there was a "Watch From Start" button but now it's two buttons because I have to click the watched button then click Watch (and open the advanced menu if it's not open...more steps). Anyways, A lot of times, I may just browse my imported videos late at night and I'll start watching a movie that I may have seen several times before. Sometimes I may just watch 20-30 minutes to "wind down" until I get really tired before falling asleep. Now, when I stop the movie I have to sit there, stop the movie and mark the movie Watched/not watched - whatever...so that the next person who watches the movie won't be seeing it from the middle somewhere....it's a real PITA. I'm not the only one who lives here watching imported videos. Sometimes I may just want to see part of my wedding or part of a slide show or some other imported video and then if I don't restart it, it's going to start where I left off when some other person views it. But, maybe someone else might then watch it later and they are wondering why it is not starting from the beginning...a real pain as far as I'm concerned. A simple button, watch from start would be nice.

I think it's fine to have the feature to start where you left off but creating more steps to watch from the beginning is a pain since when you watch the show you have no idea where it's going to start when you have several people who live with you. I can't imagine that I'm the only one with Sage who feels this way.

Mike

You may think it's horrible, but others want the feature. Personally I rarely watch videos more than once and starting where I left off is more useful to me. There was even a plugin written to add the feature to v5 so quite a few people desired the feature.

I wouldn't mind if they added a start at the beginning option, but I'm sure there are others that wouldn't like it because some already complain the menus are too cluttered. Bottom line is you'll never satisfy everyone.

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by nielm

FF/REW plugin + NVidia: unlikely, as I don't have the nvidia decoder to test with
It is also unlikely to work well with MPEG-4 videos in Sage v6...

Nielm - I can't explain it but I set my FF and Rew to 2 seconds and played an mpeg4 file and then just held down Ctrl-F so that it would repeat and the fast forward with NVidia decoders looked BETTER with mpeg4 videos than mpeg2 (much better). Not sure how that will affect your plug in but my understanding from what you said before is that in some way it simulates doing what I did.

Thanks again,
Mike

[mike1961]

[

Originally Posted by blade

You may think it's horrible, but others want the feature. Personally I rarely watch videos more than once and starting where I left off is more useful to me. There was even a plugin written to add the feature to v5 so quite a few people desired the feature.

I wouldn't mind if they added a start at the beginning option, but I'm sure there are others that wouldn't like it because some already complain the menus are too cluttered. Bottom line is you'll never satisfy everyone.

You may not watch videos more than once but my point was I have many others who live here and they may watch a show or part of it and then later I watch it and I have not seen it yet. So it's logical that I would want to watch it from the beginning. I can understand where others may feel the menus are a little cluttered which is probably why they now have an "advanced menu" button. Nielms - stop plugin will resolve the issue and make things easier. It was just a pain before because I have to either take an extra step to mark it as watced so it plays from the beginning or I'm watching it from the middle and then have take extra steps to watch it from the beginning. The multi-stop now makes it quick and easy to get to the beginning.

Thanks,
Mike

[nielm]

There is also a shortcut to 'rewind to begining' in the default STV: Time Scroll/REW2/Time Scroll...

Mike: Nividia decoders are not used for MPEG4

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by nielm

There is also a shortcut to 'rewind to begining' in the default STV: Time Scroll/REW2/Time Scroll...

Mike: Nividia decoders are not used for MPEG4

Whatever Sage is doing to play the mpeg4 files, scrolling forward by using the keyboard repeat looks better when playing mpeg4 files than mpeg2 files. I've never gotten the smooth FF/Rew to work with any decoders so if I were to set the FF/Rew to 2 seconds and just hold down the keyboard button or remote, it looks pretty good when playing mpeg4. So, I was thinking the multispeed FF/Rew is nice in that you don't have to hold down the remote button and it also allows for multi speed modes. Not sure how it will work with mpeg4 or mpeg2 but I'm hoping.

Mike

[jbarr]

Mike,

The problem with that is that it just doesn't go fast enough. The FF/REW Plugin let you choose multiple FF/REW speeds making navigating recordings like movies much easier.

I keep my REW/FF set at "60 seconds", FF2 to "30 seconds", and REW2 to "7 seconds". This mimics ReplayTV's 30 second "QuickSkip" and 7 second "Replay" buttons while giving be a quick way of FF/REW through a long recording.

[blade]

Originally Posted by mike1961

[

You may not watch videos more than once but my point was I have many others who live here and they may watch a show or part of it and then later I watch it and I have not seen it yet. So it's logical that I would want to watch it from the beginning. I can understand where others may feel the menus are a little cluttered which is probably why they now have an "advanced menu" button. Nielms - stop plugin will resolve the issue and make things easier. It was just a pain before because I have to either take an extra step to mark it as watced so it plays from the beginning or I'm watching it from the middle and then have take extra steps to watch it from the beginning. The multi-stop now makes it quick and easy to get to the beginning.

It takes you a couple of extra key presses to start at the beginning, but think of how many key presses it takes someone to skip forward to an hour or more into the movie to get back to where they were. You're only looking at it from your point of view. I completely understand that it adds a couple of presses for you, but it saves others many dozens.

[rickgillyon]

Okay, we get it, we all have different requirements!

You should ask Sage to add a property never_remember_position, which most of us can ignore, then you'll be happy...
(I'm talking to mike!)