SageTV and XBMC/BOXEE Integration

[bradvido]

Let me preface by saying that this is not a SageTV plugin.

It's a program I created to archive SageTV recorded TV Shows/Movies in a way that XBMC/Boxee can understand.

In my opinion, XBMC's user interface and video library is much nicer and polished than SageTV v7, so I prefer to use XBMC to watch my recorded TV and movies. This scripts allows you to do that.

Details:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=661756

[PLUCKYHD]

Wow nice that really fills one of the missing gaps in xbmc. Still can't do livetv but most don't need that anymore.

Question I am guessing the recording has to be finished first?

[madpoet]

Very nice! I've been watching my STV episodes on my BBox for a while now but they are fairly hard to understand from a title perspective I was looking at SJQ to maybe convert them or something. And I am DELIGHTED you included the .edl functions, that was one of the coolest things ever when I realized BB respected the comskipped Sage files

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Question I am guessing the recording has to be finished first?

Yes. The recording won't be archived until it is flagged as isCurrentlyRecording=false in Sage.

Originally Posted by madpoet

... And I am DELIGHTED you included the .edl functions, that was one of the coolest things ever when I realized BB respected the comskipped Sage files

Yes, by default the .edls are type 0, which cuts the content. If you want to change them to commercial skip, that option is available in the Config.xml.

Please let me know if you have installation troubles.
It's been working for me for about a month, but I'm sure somebody will uncover a problem I hadn't thought of

[ChaOConnor]

Thank you! I've been playing w/ XBMC on my Zotac box b/c Sage sometimes has trouble, this would make it even better!

[bradvido]

FYI, this have been updated this with a few bug fixes.

I should note to anyone wondering "why use XBMC when Sage can play the content just fine?"
One of the main reasons for me is that XBMC's hardware acceleration support works much better with my ION powered htpc. Not to mention that XBMC plays anything you throw at it (natively). Sage can't play my DVD and Blu-ray backups. XBMC does this no problem.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by bradvido

Sage can't play my DVD and Blu-ray backups. XBMC does this no problem.

Thats odd, Sage plays my DVD and BluRay backups just fine.

[bradvido]

My DVD's are full disk backups saved as .iso's. I haven't been able to figure out how to have Sage play them. Do you know a way?

My BluRay backups are just .mkv's of the main title, which sage will play, but I cant get it to play smoothly on my ION htpc's. I also cant get sage to read the BluRay subtitles.

I appreciate any help with Sage. I've been using XBMC for just short of a decade and only been using Sage for a month, so i'm a newbie here

[jaminben]

You can playback .iso's by installing Virtual Clone Drive unless you use Linux in which case I believe it just works. Your .mkv issues are probably due to a codec problem but seeing as I use extenders I can't really help there..... I do however have serveral 25Gb+ BluRay rips in .mkv format with embeded subtitles which play just fine with extenders.

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by jaminben

You can playback .iso's by installing Virtual Clone Drive unless you use Linux in which case I believe it just works. Your .mkv issues are probably due to a codec problem but seeing as I use extenders I can't really help there..... I do however have serveral 25Gb+ BluRay rips in .mkv format with embeded subtitles which play just fine with extenders.

Thanks for the info. I'll stick with XBMC's built in support for .isos for now, but I may dig into the .mkv playback issues.
The main problem is that I can't get Sage to use the ION for hardware accelerated playback. I've tried every renderer/codec combination, but no luck so far, just choppy playback for my 1080p h264 .mkv's.

Thanks again for the tips.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by bradvido

Thanks for the info. I'll stick with XBMC's built in support for .isos for now, but I may dig into the .mkv playback issues.
The main problem is that I can't get Sage to use the ION for hardware accelerated playback. I've tried every renderer/codec combination, but no luck so far, just choppy playback for my 1080p h264 .mkv's.

Thanks again for the tips.

The build in splitter doesn't play nice with all MKVs. Most have had pretty good luck installing the Haali splitter and disabling the internal splitter.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

The build in splitter doesn't play nice with all MKVs. Most have had pretty good luck installing the Haali splitter and disabling the internal splitter.

I've been using the internal splitter with mkv's and the coreavc codec works great.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I've been using the internal splitter with mkv's and the coreavc codec works great.

Then you've been lucky
I've got about 15 or 20, most with multiple audio tracks, that the default splitter chokes on but Haali deals with them just fine. I think it may have to do with the version of MKVtoolnix I used to mux them, but I haven't bothered to track it down.

[bradvido]

For anyone interested, this has been updated.
The most useful new feature allows you to add SageTV recordings to XBMC's library without having to modify, move, copy, or compress any SageTV files.
Many other new features too.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=87261

[Slack]

Well I wondered in here to see if there was any development on that old XBMC script that pulled info from the Sage server...and well. This seems like great approach. I had just been pointing XBMC to my recordings folder and watching them in my office as needed. Been looking for a way to bring XBMC into the living room on new hardware (have some old chipped consoles still doing it SD only of course)

From the XBMC thread...

Optionally creates a symbolic link with an XBMC-friendly name that points to the original recording (allows XBMC to use its library and SageTV to both access the same video without conflict.)

This is awesome! I can relocate an HD200 AND get XBMC in the living room without impacting other HD200s and/or PCs around the house.

Just gotta upgrade my Server. And get another Revo. And I though I would not have anything to do this weekend.

Again, Thanks - can't wait to try this out.

[bradvido]

Glad you think you'll find it useful. I have 4 XBMC HTPCs throughout my house (centralized with MySQL) and this script keeps my library up to the minute with my new TV recordings. Very useful for me

[Slack]

Stupid question 1)
From the config.xml...

The url of your sage server.
IMPORTANT: You must have the sagex web api plugin installed on your web server.
It can be installed at: Plugins/General/sagex-services - "SageTV Remote API Services"
Make sure you can access http://myserver:8080/sagex/api without authentication.
Remember the default port is 8080, so you will need to add :8080 to your server's name/ip

I take it that this is NOT NeilM's web server add on, and is part of Sage's stock install? I do not see the path listed on my Sage server's filesystem "Plugins/General/sagex.." I was attempting to configure and use SageXBMC before upgrading my server to v7.

EDIT/
Nevermind. I think it is neilm's plugin. although I changed the port I can get to the url without authentication. I get "Sage API - 6.5.15-6" I let you know if it works on this version (I'd rather not upgrade if I do not have to.)

[Slack]

Stupid Question 2)
I answered myself - couldn't get it to run. In your Run-x64.cmd I had to hard code the path adding the two spaces didn;t seem to get it done. On my machine (and likely others?) java is in...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin

Run-x64.cmd looks like...

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe" -jar "SageXBMC.jar"
pause

I added the spaces m'_'F & s'_'(, compiled.. but nithing happened until I hard coded "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin"
Stupid question 3)
In the config.xml would a filter of

<add extension="mpg" redirect="true"></add>

simply get everything that is .mpg? Or do need a wild card?

[bradvido]

Originally Posted by Slack

Stupid question 1)
EDIT/
Nevermind. I think it is neilm's plugin. although I changed the port I can get to the url without authentication. I get "Sage API - 6.5.15-6" I let you know if it works on this version (I'd rather not upgrade if I do not have to.)

I have never tested this on anything but SageTV v7. In fact, I've never used any previous versions of Sage, so I'm not sure about how to install the sagex api in v6. See here for details on sagex http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/down...do=file&id=255
In v7, it is isntalled under the General tab of theplugin broswer.

Originally Posted by Slack

Stupid Question 2)
I answered myself - couldn't get it to run. In your Run-x64.cmd I had to hard code the path adding the two spaces didn;t seem to get it done. On my machine (and likely others?) java is in...

C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin

Run-x64.cmd looks like...

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe" -jar "SageXBMC.jar"
pause

I added the spaces m'_'F & s'_'(, compiled.. but nithing happened until I hard coded "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin"

Yes, the run commands may have to be slightly modified to get your java path (depening on OS and architecture). I just provided a common path that should work on Win7 installed with Java6. %ProgramFiles(x86)% is a Windows shortcut to your x86 program files folder. Notice the '%'s surrounding it.

Originally Posted by Slack

Stupid question 3)
In the config.xml would a filter of

<add extension="mpg" redirect="true"></add>

simply get everything that is .mpg? Or do need a wild card?

Unfortunately, the blank showfilter will not match all .mpg's. The only wildcard available is ALL_MOVIES for movies.
However, I plan to add this more wildcarding in the next version. For now, you'll have to define a shorfilter for every show you want.
Keep in mind you probably don't want to wildcard all recordings anyway because not all shows can be looked up on TheTVDB. For example news programs and other less popular shows probably dont have up-to-date entries at TheTVDB (but you can add them if you want, that's the beauty of TheTVDB)
Let me know if you have more questions.

[Slack]

I get your point about the shortcut - not sure why it did not work on my system.

About adding shows that are not in TVDB such the local news etc...If the scraper finds no info it'll still add it to the library right? Just wont have any meta data?