Sage and uPnP idea for a client extender

[macsupergeek]

There have been several threads started about creating/devising a means of replacing the HD200 and HD300 units with a boxee or some other unit so that we can have new extenders or alternatives in case they go down. I like the idea of pulling the web page from mobile web for http live streaming, but not all devices can do live streaming and/or have a web browser capability. So I was wondering if we could reach more devices by instead organizing and presenting better uPnP data that way any player, including most all of these new internet connected tvs, and many of these other WD devices and heck even the avellink player, could playback media as long as it was in a compatible transcoded format like mp4 or avi. I mean I already do this with playon to some extent on my wii, but if the files showed up exactly like what the sage menu presented in list form, that might be nice, no? Couldn't BMT and the webserver be modified to accomplish this? Or am I just off base with how much trouble this would be?

[gplasky]

I think you're way off base. You would need to have the SageTV server present itself as a Upnp server. (which it doesn't do today.) If you did it would present itself like your PC (if Upnp is enabled) does to the HD300/200/100. All you would get is folders and file names. You won't get the SageUI. Right now the Sage Boxee project is your best bet to get a psuedo Sage interface to play files and possibly some control of the Sage server regarding epg, favorites, etc. Those other devices you mention can already playback your Sage recordings if you can give them a path to the recordings. But what you don't get is the SageUI.

Gerry

[macsupergeek]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I think you're way off base. You would need to have the SageTV server present itself as a Upnp server. (which it doesn't do today.) If you did it would present itself like your PC (if Upnp is enabled) does to the HD300/200/100. All you would get is folders and file names. You won't get the SageUI. Right now the Sage Boxee project is your best bet to get a psuedo Sage interface to play files and possibly some control of the Sage server regarding epg, favorites, etc. Those other devices you mention can already playback your Sage recordings if you can give them a path to the recordings. But what you don't get is the SageUI.

Gerry

I know you don't get the sageui -- so let me clarify, I just was wondering if there was a way using what is currently out there with a few tweaks to present upnp as sage lists it, because if it was presented the same and in a universal way ie upnp, then you don't set yourself for obsolescence like the HD200/300, what happens if boxee goes away in a year, back to square one. If the core is sagetv media center and the core will "always" be there then an extension from the core should present itself as universally as possible so that in this case any upnp device could then pickup and play. So in this case if I turn on a upnp device and I am presented with all my recorded shows in alpha order nested in neat folders and then i open one of those folders and play a file that is presented in a nice way, I think that would have more far reaching value than replicating the sageui.

[Fonceur]

In order to get a SageTV UPnP/DLNA server, basically you would need to create a new plugin from scratch, or based on the Sage web server or SageTCPServer... It would take more than mere tweaks...

For the client part, typically they can already browse the local network, so they don't really gain much, except maybe the metadata...

[ranger]

There are already a few upnp servers out there that might fit the need. I have been toying around with Serviio as it supplies program metadata along with the file name.

[Fuzzy]

I made a symlink creator a year ago or so that i never really finished. It's in the download section (called SageRemap). It grabs the recording list from the web server, and creates a folder tree grouping a bunch of symlinks to the recordings by series. It's rough, has some bugs, but it works at least for pointing a readable, navigable list of recordings to something like Orb (or should work for any other UPnP server, like WMP for instance).

Like I said, it is quite rough, though I suppose at this stage of the game I should attempt to polish it up. Honestly, I was thinking of switchign over and using the phoenix virtual folder system, and just creating the symlinks from that - but I haven't even looked any further than the idea.