Boxee Box as an extender? (xbmc perhaps?)

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by Jason

*IF* Boxee carries over it's XBMC heritage in this area, then it should...

Yes, from what I've read Boxee should pick up the edl files automatically, which would be great.

[PiX64]

So I was thinking about this since we started this project, and only 1 issue comes to mind off the bat with comskip. While boxee might support it natively, im pretty comfident that will be from boxee import directories only.

The sage boxee app doesn't utilize the boxee import directories. It uses http api calls to get everything it needs from the sage server including the network or local machine location of the sage media (i.e. recordings) when the user wants to play a sage recording, it will simply grab the info it needs, and then pass the file information (location) to the boxee mediaplayer.

Now with that being said, im not sure at this point if there is a way to send additional information to the boxee media plyaer such as "hey there is an edl file you can use for playing this file back and it is located at "1.1.1.1\...."

If there isn't "native" support in the media player for comskip, then we may have to come up with our own way to support the edl/txt comskip files.

Comskip is definitely on all of our lists to get working, so don't worry about support not being there just yet..

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by PiX64

So I was thinking about this since we started this project, and only 1 issue comes to mind off the bat with comskip. While boxee might support it natively, im pretty comfident that will be from boxee import directories only.

The sage boxee app doesn't utilize the boxee import directories. It uses http api calls to get everything it needs from the sage server including the network or local machine location of the sage media (i.e. recordings) when the user wants to play a sage recording, it will simply grab the info it needs, and then pass the file information (location) to the boxee mediaplayer.

Now with that being said, im not sure at this point if there is a way to send additional information to the boxee media plyaer such as "hey there is an edl file you can use for playing this file back and it is located at "1.1.1.1\...."

If there isn't "native" support in the media player for comskip, then we may have to come up with our own way to support the edl/txt comskip files.

Comskip is definitely on all of our lists to get working, so don't worry about support not being there just yet..

But Slugger says he already has this working if it's based on the RSS feed.

Well, I've taken the basic hello world app and simply modified the RSS feed that it uses and replaced it with an RSS feed of all my SageTV recordings. It works. It presents the full list of all my recordings, with the metadata I included in the RSS feed, and I can click on any of them and play back the video. It also seems to automatically find my edl files and use them to skip commercials as well.

He used the basic example "hello world" app. If it worked for one Boxee app it should work for another.

Gerry

[PiX64]

The direction of the API is a little different than using just the stnadard boxee RSS feeds.

I will touch base with slugger again on this. He did a ton of work on the API this weekend, i unfortunately wasn't able to...

I know it will work in the case of the RSS feed since there is a boxee xml type element which you can specify that.

I didn't mean to say it wasn't possible, just that it may not be ootb supported necessarily.

We will get it working for sure, but there may be some things that need to happen in the api in order to utilize it.

[tmiranda]

I can't test if the .edl files are recognized right now because in my setup the Sage recordings use local drive letters and not UNC paths. If anybody has a setup that uses UNC paths as recording directories, or they want to install Boxee on their Sage server, they can test it right now.

Just load up the app that's in the repository and press enter on any of the recordings and the "play" dialog will appear. Let it play and let us know what happens

Tom

[gplasky]

I'll test it when I get home.

Gerry

[PiX64]

I just tried to test it via logmein (im not at home) and I am still having issues getting my recordings list to populate...

sage server = x.x.x.xort
username = username
password = password
unc =

i left unc blank cause i wasn't sure what to put in there at this point

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by gplasky

But Slugger says he already has this working if it's based on the RSS feed.


He used the basic example "hello world" app. If it worked for one Boxee app it should work for another.

Gerry

If Boxee is feed an smb:// file path to play then it will automatically find the edl file in the same directory, if it exists, and use it. This is what I saw while playing with the original hello world app.

Originally Posted by PiX64

I just tried to test it via logmein (im not at home) and I am still having issues getting my recordings list to populate...

sage server = x.x.x.xort
username = username
password = password
unc =

i left unc blank cause i wasn't sure what to put in there at this point

Grab the latest sage.py from svn, it has some fixes. Also, in at least one of the xml files in svn, Tom has the hostname, id and pwd hardcoded for his own server and that has to be corrected in order for the app to work.

[PiX64]

Tom - Is sluggers comment above still accurate?

I thought you mentioned on the google group that the settings screen was working and I should only use that to enter sage server info.

what is the format of the UNC varialbe in the settings?

\\sagepvr\ in my case or sagepvr or something completely different?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by PiX64

Tom - Is sluggers comment above still accurate?

I thought you mentioned on the google group that the settings screen was working and I should only use that to enter sage server info.

what is the format of the UNC varialbe in the settings?

\\sagepvr\ in my case or sagepvr or something completely different?

It is... I grabbed everything from svn early this morning before starting work and tried to run it. I had to fix the hardcoded server/id/pwd in at least one file (I think just one) and then I had to make some fixes to sage.py (which are now in svn). Fix the hardcoded server settings in that one file and grab the latest sage.py and it runs.

Don't worry about the UNC settings, it's not being used anyway and I think we're changing how that's going to work anyway. Right now the playlist refers to local file paths if Sage is using local file paths. Once we decide on the UNC settings page and get those settings stored and usable then sage.py can be updated to remap the file paths to smb:// URLs. When that's done, boxee auto discovers the edl files and applies them during playback.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Let it play and let us know what happens

Tom

Well, I cannot say that .edl files are working right now... I tested a few recordings (that had .edl data files) and none worked.

I will say that it plays quite nicely... However (and I know it's a work in progress...) that the file sorting/nesting is 'not quite there'...

Here are a few screen caps... One of which shows the actual final render and the other is the file selection (sans folders/nesting...)

[willplaice]

hi guys...

what you've done over a few days sounds great....

would there be some fairly idiot proof instructions as to how to load what you've done so far into either the windows or ubunto boxee software ?

i had al look at the svn but i guess i'm not up to it without a few more pointers.

Will

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Jason

Well, I cannot say that .edl files are working right now... I tested a few recordings (that had .edl data files) and none worked.

I will say that it plays quite nicely... However (and I know it's a work in progress...) that the file sorting/nesting is 'not quite there'...

Here are a few screen caps... One of which shows the actual final render and the other is the file selection (sans folders/nesting...)

It's all test code. Both sides present the same info, no sorting at all.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Slugger

It is... I grabbed everything from svn early this morning before starting work and tried to run it. I had to fix the hardcoded server/id/pwd in at least one file (I think just one) and then I had to make some fixes to sage.py (which are now in svn). Fix the hardcoded server settings in that one file and grab the latest sage.py and it runs.

I thought I changed that, maybe not.

This is all VERY VERY early stuff.

Slugger - I'll respond to the google group posts when I get home. My company blocks google and most other "social netowrking" sites.

Tom

[Jason]

Originally Posted by PiX64

U can try it and let us all know :-)

Will do! I picked up a 40gb ATV1 for $40... Once I get it home, unlocked and load up Boxee, I will let you know!

I have high hopes for this... A $40 extender (albeit only 720p...) is great!

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

A couple of screenshots. The AR is messed up because this was captured on a 4x3 screen.

Not really too much to look at right now. Slugger is working on python code that will allow me to display recordings. After that I'll work on getting them to play.

If this works as slick as it looks then I would probably replace my hd300's for boxee boxes. Then I would have native netflix support along with a variety of other online content.

[wayner]

Will this Boxee Box app work the same on PCs as well as on the Boxee Box hardware? I would hate to see you guys do all of this hard work and then see Boxee totally change their technology, or even sell out to Google.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by wayner

Will this Boxee Box app work the same on PCs as well as on the Boxee Box hardware? I would hate to see you guys do all of this hard work and then see Boxee totally change their technology, or even sell out to Google.

In theory, yes. I don't have my boxee box yet so still just developing this on my laptop. Playback of H.264 is a little suspect on my laptop, but it's not the most powerful machine. You'll have to ask Tom how perf is on the boxee box. We just got network playback of the Sage media library working as of about 25 minutes ago so I expect Tom will be able to test it out on a boxee box as early as tomorrow.

[PiX64]

So far all the testing I have been doing while helping the project out as much as my time allows for, I have been successfully able to run the app and have all said features working on (Ubuntu 64 bit (1 small issue im working through), Ubuntu 32bit, Windows (xp and 7))

All signs seem to point to yes it will work on all isntances of boxee at this point. its hard to say for sure this early on but we are doing our best to make it work for as many boxee platforms as possible.

[tmiranda]

We had a big step forward last night and we can now play video!

So far all of my development and testing has been done using the PC version of Boxee. In theory it all should work the same on any platform (Box, PC, Linux, Mac) but from my browsing on the Boxee forums there are many differences between platforms. I will try to test it out on my box tonight, but work is busy today so that may not happen. (And tomorrow night is "date night" so it won't happen tomorrow.)

For those of you with a box and plan on trying this out - make sure you get the "development certificate" or it won't work. Let me know if you don't know how to do that and I'll post instructions, it's painless but you need to have the box in your hands because the process requires a MAC and serial number.