Project: Oxygen

[Slugger]

Ok, so here's what I'm working on right now...

http://code.google.com/p/sagetv-addo.../ProjectOxygen

If it's something you might want to use then, keeping the anti-goals discussed in mind, I'd be interested in some feedback/feature ideas, etc. And if it's not something you'd use, is there a reason why? (After the first person throws in a 'it doesn't do live tv', please refrain from a series of +1/me too replies )

[Fuzzy]

It's something I thought about a long time ago (year or so?), and tested it out. Instead of playlists, I used symlinks. I actually made it for Orb to stream to my android phone, but it worked for media streamers as well. It created a SeriesName/s00e00-EpisodeTitle.mpg folder structure with links to the actual sage recordings. Was transparent to Orb's server, and playback worked pretty well. You could actually go further with this and create the UPnP service yourself, and just virtualize the folders (you know, with VFS)...

[Slugger]

I was actually thinking UPnP and actually wrote a UPnP MediaServer:1 device plugin for Sage, making the SageTV server a UPnP media server device, but the UPnP streaming just wasn't up to par... never could keep up with my H.264 Colossus recordings - not because I didn't have the bandwidth on the LAN, but because UPnP MediaRenderer devices that I tested with (HD200 standalone and XBMC) seem to feel it's fine to stream the content over HTTP in 128KB chunks, but 128KB/request of an H.264 recording from Colossus just isn't fast enough to prevent massive and repeated buffering. If the renderers simply requested 1.5-2MB per chunk from the HTTP server, which the server could easily provide (to multiple clients simultaneously), then it'd have worked beautifully. But they don't and I have zero interest in providing transcoding services as part of the UPnP device implementation so that was the end of UPnP.

My initial implementation of Oxygen used symlinks, but Windows doesn't support them (at least prior to Vista) and samba shares simply refuse to expose symlinks pointing to files on different physical devices. This means you have to either have all of the recordings local on a Linux box in order for the symlinks to show over SMB or run this plugin/app on multiple hosts. Or you export the symlinks via NFS. Either solution is limiting or at least limiting the average user's ability to use the plugin.

Using playlists means I can run the plugin on any Sage server (i.e. WinXP+ and Linux) and it will work fine over any SMB share without restriction and any user should be able to easily set it up.

[thomaszoo]

I occasionally do watch live tv, but it is the exception and not the rule. All the "management" stuff I can easily do elsewhere. Most of my watching is done on one tv. The rest are just for convenience. But a "must have" feature for me is comskip support. So if it can work with WD Live, that would be great!

Wayne

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I occasionally do watch live tv, but it is the exception and not the rule. All the "management" stuff I can easily do elsewhere. Most of my watching is done on one tv. The rest are just for convenience. But a "must have" feature for me is comskip support. So if it can work with WD Live, that would be great!

Wayne

My research tells me the WDTV doesn't deal with edl files at all. I'll confirm when I actually test the device, but it's looking like only the Boxee device has a chance of supporting comskip playback.

[mayamaniac]

I think if you can find a compact mini PC such as a Zotac, Shuttle, Jetway, Acer, etc, that runs SageTV Client perfectly with all codecs configured to play everything smoothly, output to HDMI 1080P, and has a working IR/RF remote, then that would be a better replacement for the HD300. Maybe even make an installer so that it installs everything (codecs, plugins, etc) on that specific mini PC with that specific hardware. And make it boot directly to SageTV only, and it sleeps and wakes perfectly too. And if the price is around $300 or less, I think you will have a lot of people buying it as extender replacements.

As for the SageTV Client license, if you have a fully functional mini PC acting as a client that rivals the HD300, and anyone can buy it and configure it to work perfectly, then I think, we as a collective voice, can convince Jeff to make a special client exe to bypass the license or give us some sort of method to legally run SageTV Clients mini PCs as extender replacements. And if we all voice our request, I think Jeff will listen.

[tmiranda]

Slugger,

I like the idea, it's straight forward, functional, and portable. I have a Boxee Box and will be happy to do some testing.

The manual metadata process on the BB sounds strange so hopefully something can be done about that.

Tom

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I think if you can find a compact mini PC such as a Zotac, Shuttle, Jetway, Acer, etc, that runs SageTV Client perfectly with all codecs configured to play everything smoothly, output to HDMI 1080P, and has a working IR/RF remote, then that would be a better replacement for the HD300. Maybe even make an installer so that it installs everything (codecs, plugins, etc) on that specific mini PC with that specific hardware. And make it boot directly to SageTV only, and it sleeps and wakes perfectly too. And if the price is around $300 or less, I think you will have a lot of people buying it as extender replacements.

As for the SageTV Client license, if you have a fully functional mini PC acting as a client that rivals the HD300, and anyone can buy it and configure it to work perfectly, then I think, we as a collective voice, can convince Jeff to make a special client exe to bypass the license or give us some sort of method to legally run SageTV Clients mini PCs as extender replacements. And if we all voice our request, I think Jeff will listen.

That's a lot of ifs... an interesting take but a lot of ifs. But as I say in the wiki, an analysis of my usage shows all I really need/want is a relatively cheap device that can play my recordings and a way to keep the watch status of those recordings synced and updated within wiz.bin. Considering I can get my hands on these types of devices for at least 33% less than the tiny PC client you've specified above (Boxee Box = $189, WDTV Live HD = $109), that is a much more attractive option (at least to me).

Also, don't forget Jeff no longer has a say in the availability of client licenses. Does he have some influence? Most definitely, but not as much as we'd like otherwise wouldn't you think we'd have those licenses in our hands by now? Clearly, Google has said no (or someone's said no, maybe even Jeff himself).

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Slugger,

I like the idea, it's straight forward, functional, and portable. I have a Boxee Box and will be happy to do some testing.

The manual metadata process on the BB sounds strange so hopefully something can be done about that.

Tom

Yeah, I didn't dig too much into the metadata issues other than a brief test in Boxee and XBMC. I'm more worried about getting playback and watched status syncing properly then when I'm satisfied with that I'll start to investigate "bonus" features, which I'm considering metadata to be in that category right now.

[mzup]

I have a Roku box using Plex Server as my back end to view my videos. It's a bit combursome to navigate thru all the menus to get to what I want to watch. I would like to see something more resembling Sage TV Interface.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by mzup

I have a Roku box using Plex Server as my back end to view my videos. It's a bit combursome to navigate thru all the menus to get to what I want to watch. I would like to see something more resembling Sage TV Interface.

More resembling the Sage interface how? I'm only talking about navigating recordings and choosing something to play. Remember, I'm not even trying to create a Sage UI experience here - these devices just don't lend themselves to it without losing one's sanity.

If we focus just on navigating the recordings to play, which is all I'm trying to accomplish here, then what would you like to see it do? Or better put, how would you want the recordings organized for display? I think right now I've done it pretty much like the Sage UI... root folder contains each program title, click on a title and you get the season folders, click on a season and you get the episodes for that season. Then pick an episode playlist and play it back on your device.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Slugger

If we focus just on navigating the recordings to play, which is all I'm trying to accomplish here, then what would you like to see it do? Or better put, how would you want the recordings organized for display?

Here's what I'd suggest:

Instead of putting the program titles directly under the root, allow the option to have several different "profile" folders in which recordings can be filtered and sorted according to different criteria. So my wife could have a folder hierarchy that organizes her shows the way she likes them, and I can have a separate folder hierarchy for mine.

The idea here is to replicate (however crudely) the ability of different clients to have different view settings in their respective .properties files.

For the rest of it, I agree with your priorities. Ease of browsing and syncing of watched status are primary; comskip, fanart, and so on are not deal-breakers for me. I do all my management using Placeshifter or SageTV Client; couch-based management is simply not a requirement.

[cncb]

Just a note on the new WDTV Live SMP box since I recently tried it out (and returned it). It is very painful to watch TV recordings due to no jump forward/backward capability to skip through commercials. You have to use fast forward and rewind which is a total mess since the display and timeline don't seem to "keep up" with the actual position so it is rare that you actually will be able to stop it in the desired spot.

[Fuzzy]

I'm still thinking that leveraging your already extensive VFS would be the way to go. Gotta be a way to use it's organization system to do whatever customization people might want.

[mzup]

Originally Posted by Slugger

More resembling the Sage interface how? I'm only talking about navigating recordings and choosing something to play. Remember, I'm not even trying to create a Sage UI experience here - these devices just don't lend themselves to it without losing one's sanity.

If we focus just on navigating the recordings to play, which is all I'm trying to accomplish here, then what would you like to see it do? Or better put, how would you want the recordings organized for display? I think right now I've done it pretty much like the Sage UI... root folder contains each program title, click on a title and you get the season folders, click on a season and you get the episodes for that season. Then pick an episode playlist and play it back on your device.

That is pretty much what I would like to see. Just a folder structure of PProgram titles then episodes within that. Roku's Plex client has this but it just doesn't look pretty. Guess I'm just spoiled with Sage.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I'm still thinking that leveraging your already extensive VFS would be the way to go. Gotta be a way to use it's organization system to do whatever customization people might want.

Generating a virtual view of your recordings really isn't an issue, the issue is having an arbitrary device be able to use the view. The closest standard available to achieve this is UPnP MediaServer devices. If you could just feed the UPnP renderer a network path to a file on the LAN and then it'd go figure out the best/optimal way to play it then that'd be great, but it's all based on streaming that link via HTTP and higher bitrate H.264 recordings always caused an issue with the various UPnP clients I tested with (because I actually did write the UPnP server plugin for Sage as my first attempt at soliving this issue).

With no other standard of retrieving and using a VFS (that I know of), there really isn't much I can do other than provide some kind of indirect link to the underlying media files, which is what I'm now doing via playlists.

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Slugger,

I like the idea, it's straight forward, functional, and portable. I have a Boxee Box and will be happy to do some testing.

The manual metadata process on the BB sounds strange so hopefully something can be done about that.

Tom

I'd be happy to do some testing on the Boxee Box as well, of course

Re: Boxee's identifying/scanning process -- I suspect that by default, the automated scanning process just doesn't support .m3u filetypes but for some odd reason that's basically overlooked in the code in the manual process (e.g. it doesn't look at file extensions).

[LehighBri]

Sounds like a fantastic idea. I personally helped with both the boxee plugin and plex plugin and definitely think there has to be a better way ad oxygen seems to align to my needs as well.

Slugger - when do you think you'll have some code to share? Now that I'm done playing with plex for now, I've been using the new Xbmc Eden beta and love it, thus am very interested in helping.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Generating a virtual view of your recordings really isn't an issue, the issue is having an arbitrary device be able to use the view. The closest standard available to achieve this is UPnP MediaServer devices. If you could just feed the UPnP renderer a network path to a file on the LAN and then it'd go figure out the best/optimal way to play it then that'd be great, but it's all based on streaming that link via HTTP and higher bitrate H.264 recordings always caused an issue with the various UPnP clients I tested with (because I actually did write the UPnP server plugin for Sage as my first attempt at soliving this issue).

With no other standard of retrieving and using a VFS (that I know of), there really isn't much I can do other than provide some kind of indirect link to the underlying media files, which is what I'm now doing via playlists.

All you really need to do is create the folder structure based on the VFS results, and point whatever UPnP or other streaming server to that folder structure. Leave the heavy lifting to whatever 3rd party server works for your device.

[PiX64]

I agree with Brian! Sounds like a fantastic idea and would def be willing to help out. Sean worked on something similiar a while back, maybe he can chime in on his big hurdles.