Boxee Box as an extender? (xbmc perhaps?)

[bkavanaugh]

I've got mine working now, after spending some time tinkering with it this morning. Here's what my setup is and what I did:

1. Windows Active Directory domain, with a Win2008 R2 domain controller
2. SageTV server running on a Windows 7 computer in the domain
3. Boxee Box connected to my network wirelessly and using the network's DNS/DHCP server

The Boxee Box could see the various network computers by name without issue, so after trying specifying things by IP address, I put them back to accessing by name.

I installed the latest Boxee Box beta firmware. That got the box seeing the shares (after entering a domain account), but not being able to add them.

I ended up enabling the domain Guest account and giving it read rights to the SageTV server computer. On that machine, I edited the share permissions to give the Guest account read access to each share, and to the directories themselves.

I entered the mapping information (using \\SERVERNAME\Share, not \\IPADDRESS\SHARE) in the Boxee SageTV extender, though I'm not sure that was actually necessary.

Thanks everyone for your help! It's great having Sage TV accessible on the Boxee box now!

[darcilicious]

Thanks so much for following up (and for your perseverance!) This

I ended up enabling the domain Guest account and giving it read rights to the SageTV server computer. On that machine, I edited the share permissions to give the Guest account read access to each share, and to the directories themselves.

seems to be key.

I'm working on the documentation today and this will definitely help, thanks again!

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

Shares all had guest listed as okay to access, but directories that were shared listed "everyone" has having access privileges, but didn't list "guest".

Added guest to permissions list on the directories. I think that did it.

However, in my sometimes gunshot approach I also changed the sharing mode on the box to homegroup sharing, which I believe makes it a little more permissive and shared the directories through media center as well.

This is more good info, I'll include it in the updated documentation, thanks!

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Darci, Any chance this will help the issue we're seeing with live TV?

I doubt it but I have a recording kicking off in 25 minutes and will start testing then...

[darcilicious]

Re: Live TV playback -- not looking good. I might have a chance to downgrade v1.1.4 and see if it works there. If so, I'll update to the latest beta and file a bug. If not, I'll shoot myself because I know I did a good job of testing this earlier and it worked fine

[darcilicious]

Documentation has been updated -- as always, open to feedback and suggestions!

(I'll probably add the steps and screen shots for adding the repository to the Boxee software version later today).

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Re: Live TV playback -- not looking good. I might have a chance to downgrade v1.1.4 and see if it works there. If so, I'll update to the latest beta and file a bug. If not, I'll shoot myself because I know I did a good job of testing this earlier and it worked fine

I did change the code around a lot so it still may be I've broken something. I did at one point revert to an older version of the app and that didn't work either so it's more likely something broke on Boxee's side of the equation.

If you remember the version that you tested try rolling back to that to see if it works.

[darcilicious]

Heh See my post in the Boxee forum and (I left the same as a comment in the issue tracker).

[Bagal]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I just looked a bit more at the code that translates the paths. In Setup->Boxee->UNC Mappings try putting in ServerName,xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where "ServerName" is your actual server name and the xxx's are the server's IP address.

I've been having similar problems to everyone else on this thread with the Box and network permissions, which I'm slowly working through but at one point I tried your suggestion above and noticed that the mapping wasn't being applied in the log file.

I don't have access to the log right now, but it went along the lines of:
-MediaPathMapper: loading map 'servername'->'ip address'
-MediaPathMapper: mapping path '//servername/SageTV recordings/blah blah.ts' to '//servername/SageTV recordings/blah blah.ts'

I also tried setting the mapping to '//servername,//ip address' but that didn't make any difference.

[Deacon Crusher]

so, I have access to my files just fine now.

However, I have 4 recording sources, ATSC, QAM, HDPVR-H264, Cable Card via sagedtc and a ceton.

recordings made with any of the first 3 playback fine.

So far I haven't found a recording made with the other setup that will play back.

Info on recordings that fail to playback generally says files are mpeg-ts files.

What else would be useful?

thanks

[darcilicious]

Can you play those files on a PC with VLC or other player?

If so, google, download, install, and run "media info lite" on one of those files and post it to the Boxee forums (Boxee Box help section).

[Deacon Crusher]

Expected the answer to be yes, but after testing the answer is now. They play fine on all sage extenders, but not outside of Sage, odd.

I guess I'll check in with bobvgant and see if he's got any idea what format these files are and why they aren't playable outside of sage.

Thanks

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Can you play those files on a PC with VLC or other player?

If so, google, download, install, and run "media info lite" on one of those files and post it to the Boxee forums (Boxee Box help section).

[darcilicious]

Haven't been following the whole sagedct/cablecard thing but I see "cablecard" and I think "DRM" -- could that be the issue?

[Deacon Crusher]

Well the Sagedct util that lets you use cablecard tuners (Ceton, SD and Haupp) with Sage only works with shows that are marked Copy Freely so I'd hope/assume that this means that they are playable anywhere since they play inside Sage and Sage doesn't support any DRM that I'm aware of.

I've asked the dev. via the SageDCT string in the forum and we'll see what we get. If the answer is no way then this will turn the boxee app into a much less useful item for me as hooking up the CC to sage has been a huge boon.

Thanks

Originally Posted by darcilicious

Haven't been following the whole sagedct/cablecard thing but I see "cablecard" and I think "DRM" -- could that be the issue?

[Deacon Crusher]

And here's the answer and a follow up question from me.


Would running the files through videoredo fix the issue?

Thanks

Originally Posted by babgvant

For now, it is a "you're stuck with it" thing. SageTV modified the demuxer to deal with some of the oddities in the TS files, other apps would have to do the same unless the packets are rewritten to cleanup the tables.

[Deacon Crusher]

Andy (bobvgant) said yes, videoredo should fix.

I just ran a test and doing a quickstreamfix from within video redo on one of the files in question, a process that takes about 90 seconds, fixed the file and it now plays inside vlc and I'm sure will play in boxee/sage.

So, now I've got to decide if I want to setup a job that runs on all CC recordings to do a quickstreamfix on them.

You may want to add a note in the docs regarding this.

Is it worth me gathering info and posting on boxee forum or will this just not be something they'll fix?

Thanks

[darcilicious]

Is it worth me gathering info and posting on boxee forum or will this just not be something they'll fix?

To get the Boxee devs to look at this issue, register at http://jira.boxee.tv, create an issue and attach a small sample file if possible and/or debug logs... And then we'll just have to wait and see...

[BobbyDing]

Maybe this is old news to some, but I see where DVBLogic has made a Boxee app for watching Live TV (see link) on the Box using DVBLogics network tuner software.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/d...ng-to-the-box/

[jarredduq]

Will it be possible to implement comskip in the future? Thanks for all of your hard work for even making this client possible!

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jarredduq

Will it be possible to implement comskip in the future? Thanks for all of your hard work for even making this client possible!

Boxee already supports comskip, so if your video has an .edl file the commercials will be auto-skipped.

Right now there is no way to disable auto-skipping, that's something on the "to do" list.