STV Import: Comskip Playback for Default STV (v1.5.4 30/August/2008 for SageTV 5/6)

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by eruji

for some reason i dont see the CS icon show up for some of my recordings. It seems that all the comskip txt files i have on recordings on my Z: drive show up and work correctly, but all the recordings on my V: drive dont show the icon in the recordings menu and dont have any markers on the timeline when i play the file.

It's simple really. The CS icon (and therefore skipping) will only show up if the edl/txt file exists in the exact same path as the video file is in the Sage server database.

Are they local drives?
Is it a Client/Server setup?

John

[eruji]

okay, this is a client server setup.

the server is a headless machine, do all the watching from the client.

The Z and the V drive are located on the server. On the client they are mapped network drives.

The txt mpg and log file have exactly the same filename and are all in the same directory for example:


This does not work:

V:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-China-2486057-0.mpg
V:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-China-2486057-0.txt

This does work:

Z:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-Tuscany-2470115-0.mpg
Z:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-Tuscany-2470115-0.txt

doesnt make much sense right?

Ive had this setup for years, and have had comskip working for quite a few months. It stopped working when i upgraded to 6.2. Not sure whats going on. I changed back to the original stv, then downloaded the latest version of the STVI and same problem.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by eruji

This does not work:

V:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-China-2486057-0.mpg
V:\Media\SageTV\AnthonyBourdainNoReservations-China-2486057-0.txt

So on the server and the client, the location where the files are is V:\Media\SageTV\ ?

John

[eruji]

ah, figured it out.

i have the z drive mapped on the client but not the v.

mapped the v and it works..

i added the drive the same time i upgraded to 6.2.


After you made that last comment it kinda hit me..

Thanks for all your help. the comskip feature is one of the best things in SageTV

[LJSSageUser]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

LJSSageUser, the JAR files don't have anything to do with the actual skipping, but are required for importing the STVi. They only need to be in the JARS directory.

Is there any data in the edl/txt files that are being created?

John

Yes, there was data in all the edl/txt files, but I solved the problem without ever finding out what caused it. I uninstalled, downloaded, and reinstalled the latest Java Runtime, restarted SageTV, and, bingo, everything worked. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/imag.../boldlblue.gif


Thanks for the response

[Big Jeff]

Has anyone gotten this to work with the MAC Client??? Mac Placeshifter works fine, but thats because it draws most of its settings from the server.

I was able to move the JAR into the package contents of the Sage application then copied the other files into the /Library/Application Support/SageTV/Data/STVs directory.

Import the stvi file. All goes well. Restart Sage Client. Restarts fine. All the options show up just fine, but no go. No CS icon or when playing doesn't skip commercials.

Now I don't normally have an alias to my Vrive on the sage server on my Mac.

Is there any properties files or some file I need to edit to make this work ok?

Thanks..
Jeff

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Big Jeff

Import the stvi file. All goes well. Restart Sage Client. Restarts fine. All the options show up just fine, but no go. No CS icon or when playing doesn't skip commercials.

Now I don't normally have an alias to my V: Drive on the sage server on my Mac.

The client needs direct access to the .edl/.txt file on the server. Are you having Sage record to the V: Drive on the server? if so, then you would need to map V: on the client to the V: drive on the server.

Otherwise, you could set up Sage to use UNC drive mapping to record the shows, and the client could use UNC to get the .edl/.txt file without any V; mapper. SO, you'd share the recording folder on the server and tell Sage to record to \\ServerName\RecordingFolder , change names to suit your setup.

edit: It sounds like you were able to import it in ok since you say you see the options, its just that the client doesn't have access to the comskip file.

[Big Jeff]

Yep STVI imported in just fine and I see all the options.

UNC paths don't work the same for the mac... For example; path to my windows shared directory from my mac

cifs://networkname;XX@servername/sharename/

UNC paths on Windows look like

\\servername\sharename.

So they don't translate out on a Mac...

[ke6guj]

Ok then, sounds like your gonna have to do something to be able to let the client find the comskip files.

If UNC pathing won't work, can you map the V: drve on the server to a mapped V: drive on the client. YOu need to share the root of the server's V: drive and map the client's V: drive to that share. That way the path will be the same on both and then comskip should work. Can you do that on a MAC? I need to start playing around one to get comfortable. Maybe on my next computer, I set it up to dual-boot OSX and Vista.

[Big Jeff]

Short Answer: No. Mac's drive structure is totally different from Windows.

[ke6guj]

sound like you may be out of luck then. YOu understand how it work? Sage saves the recording to the V: drive. then, when the client goes to play the file, the server tells the client, "I saved it at V:\recordings\tvshow.mpg", the client then tries to get the recording at its own V:\recordings\tvshow.mpg, if it can't, then the server streams it to the client. Since the server told the client that the recording is at V:\recordings\tvshow.mpg, the client's comskip plugin tries to load V:\recordings\tvshow.edl or .txt for the comskip files, but since you don't have a V: drive, you can't get the comskip files. The server won't stream that over. That is why if you map the root of the server's V: drive to a mapped V: drive on the client, the client would find the files at it's own V:\recordings\ folder and all is well.


With UNC mapping, the server saves the file to \\server\recordings\tvshow.mpg and the client normally gets the file directly. THen, the client looks inthe \\server\recordings\ folder for the matching .edl/.txt file.

I saw this mentioned,

Originally Posted by Narflex

NOTE: Streaming hard disk DVDs from a Windows server to a Mac client requires that UNC paths are used on the server to import the DVD folders.

Are you sure that the Mac client can't understand UNC paths?

[Big Jeff]

Yep I understand how UNC works. There has to be some translation setting somewhere in Sage properties or something that makes that conversion. I can play tv and vids just fine normally. So If go into (ON THE MAC CLIENT) Detailed Setup:general:Video recording directories, when I browse I see A: C: D: V: etc... I just choose my TV directory on the V drive and I'm set. I can even browse the network, and choose the drive that way, but it gets screwed up in the translation.

It looks like I am choosing a SMB://servername/share but when I hit SELECT CURRENT

it then throws an invalid directory and suddeny the path is now
C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\smb:\servername\share

and it is then considered invalid..

[ke6guj]

I dunno, maybe try to add in the recording directory on the server's UI and see if it works there.

Can you watch network shared imported videos on the mac?

At this point, I'm out of ideas. Maybe another fellow Mac user may be able to chime in.

[bcjenkins]

Jeff,

The nice thing about OS X is that it is unix and we can make any folder be a directory to anything we want.

Open terminal and type

sudo mkdir /v\:\\tv\\

then you need to mount your smb share to that directory

mount -t smbfs //user:password@server.ip.add.ress/share /v\:\\tv\\

Now when SageTV says to playback a file from v:\tv your mac client should be able to translate. Turn on debug logging and see where the path is pointing to for file playback on the Mac.

B

PS I have a Mac, but my server is LINUX not windows. So this is all untested :-) However, I can tell you that I faced a similar challenge with my LINUX server sending /var/media/tv/file.mpg and my Windows clients not being able to make use of it until I upgraded my client OS to Vista and was able to use symlinks.

[JREkiwi]

New version available for download

(1.4.9)
- Removed restriction of only working on .mpg .avi .ts (should work on any video file that has a comskip file)
- Fix file naming so should now work on linux

John

[craigdthom]

To manually run ShowAnalyzer ... is there another file we must include to string the command line options???

I see the comskip.cmd file that runs comskip.exe with the various options ...

Also ... Is there a listing of the commnad line format for ShowAnalyzer?

Thanks
Craig

[craigdthom]

I was able to find the ShowAnalyzer commandline options "ShowAnalyzer.exe-h"


I have added this line to the comskip.cmd file and I can now manually run ShowAnalyzer.
"C:\Program Files\Dragon Global\ShowAnalyzer\ShowAnalyzer.exe" %1

I am having a problem with CPU usage (100% usage)...and for the life of me I can not get the trottlelimit option to work with the command string above

Please help

-Craig

[craigdthom]

Got it ... Throttling limits are in the SACONFIG.exe file

[JREkiwi]

Added a new test version to the first post

(1.5.0)
- Support for SageTV 6.3.1

John

[setherd]

the new one seems to work fine with the beta 6.3.1 for me