A Couple of Customization Ideas....Where to start...

[robhix]

Here are a couple of things that I could really use within Sage. I am willing to try to do the programming myself, I just need to know where to start.

First, we have some TV series recorded for our boys. Sometimes they want to sit down and watch the shows. We keep them on Sage to ease the process of viewing them. The problem is they are in the imported video section. When we go to watch them, it always starts at the first program. I would like for the menu to provide me a "Watch In Random Order" option. So that I do not have this on every menu, I would like Sage to see if there is a file in the video directory names .randomize, or something like that to trigger the menu. Any ideas on this?

Second, I am going to start setting up out video library on external hard drives (I have not more space for internals). Since the transfer can sometime be slow, and since a lot of these videos are DIVX, the playback can be jumpy. I would like to set it up so that if the video file is on an external drive, it will first copy the program over to a local temporary directory and play it from there. Once again, any ideas?

I feel like these should be easy enough to implement. I am fairly proficient at Java if I need to integrate it with the Sage stuff.

Thanks for the help,
Rob Hix

[GKusnick]

Seems like you ought to be able to do #1 without customization using video playlists and the Shuffle playback mode.

#2 is certainly doable, but if your external drive doesn't have the throughput to play the file in real time, then wouldn't it take longer than real time to copy it over to an internal drive for playback?

As to where to start learning how to implement these, I'd suggest reading through the Studio manual, working the tutorials, looking at how things are done in the stock STV, and posting questions to the Studio section of the forum.

[robhix]

GKusnick,

Thanks for the shuffle idea. I am not that familiar with that side of sage as I am just now beginning to use it. That solves the problem beautifully.

Also, brain drain on my part with the hard drive. It was late at night and my brain was not working well.

Thanks again,
Rob Hix

[bcjenkins]

If you need external storage check out a NAS appliance or drop in an e-sata card if you have space.

B