Right Info Image

[mbowling]

I installed Gemstone a couple weeks ago. Most everything looks good and is working great. One issue I'm having is with the Recorded TV listing's "Right Info Image". I record a couple news shows each day. The Right Info Image has not changed for these shows since the first night they were recorded in Gemstone. The image is not fanart, but a thumbnail of the recorded show. I turned on the image in Options > Customize > Common Options > Right Info Image. How can I get the image to update each time a TV show is recorded?

[Fuzzy]

That news program may have 'incomplete' guide data, so it ends up with the same showid in sage every time it is recorded (instead of a new ID for each day). In this case, it likely sees that there is already a thumbnail generated for that show in the generatedthumbnails folder, and doesn't grab a new one. I'm not sure of a way to alter that, short of improving the guide data (I think slugger's EPG plugin either has, or may someday have, some added scripting capability, that could help with these particular types of problems) - but that would be quite a bit of setup work JUST to get a new thumbnail for the news show.

[mbowling]

Thanks for the info Fuzzy. I looked through the generatedthumbnails folder and the Right Info Images that I'm seeing in Gemstone are not there. There are new thumbnail images created today for the two news shows, but Gemstone is not displaying them.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by mbowling

Thanks for the info Fuzzy. I looked through the generatedthumbnails folder and the Right Info Images that I'm seeing in Gemstone are not there. There are new thumbnail images created today for the two news shows, but Gemstone is not displaying them.

One of the Gemstone guys will have to check it out then. I still think it's likely a showID issue, but perhaps is a result of gemstone 'cacheing' the image that sage creates.

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by mbowling

I installed Gemstone a couple weeks ago. Most everything looks good and is working great. One issue I'm having is with the Recorded TV listing's "Right Info Image". I record a couple news shows each day. The Right Info Image has not changed for these shows since the first night they were recorded in Gemstone. The image is not fanart, but a thumbnail of the recorded show. I turned on the image in Options > Customize > Common Options > Right Info Image. How can I get the image to update each time a TV show is recorded?

2 suggestions.

First, try to use the new Gemstone Flows for TV... that's where we are spending our time and efforts and issues raised in the Flows will get handled sooner.

Second...try out the new Gemstone Flows ...oops ... ok... open an issue on the issues site and we will try to dig into it... but as it is in the older Diamond/Sage TV Recordings code no promises how fast we will get to it.

k

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

2 suggestions.

First, try to use the new Gemstone Flows for TV... that's where we are spending our time and efforts and issues raised in the Flows will get handled sooner.

Second...try out the new Gemstone Flows ...oops ... ok... open an issue on the issues site and we will try to dig into it... but as it is in the older Diamond/Sage TV Recordings code no promises how fast we will get to it.

k

I would like to try the Gemstone Flows for TV, but I'm not sure how to add and configure a flow. Is this done from Flow Manager? What do I do when I'm in Flow Manager. Is there any documentation on how to add and configure a flow?

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by mbowling

I would like to try the Gemstone Flows for TV, but I'm not sure how to add and configure a flow. Is this done from Flow Manager? What do I do when I'm in Flow Manager. Is there any documentation on how to add and configure a flow?

Start with the FAQ and specifically this one about Flows.

And then feel free to ask other questions.

k

[mbowling]

Ok, I see the flows in the Videos section. However, I don't have any videos, I only use recorded TV. How do I use a flow in the recorded TV menu section?

[Fuzzy]

As far as gemstone is concerned (and really, sage in general), everything is a 'MediaFile'. There is just a few way sage determines the difference - but gemstone treats everything as the same database, just a matter of filtering out the ones you want. For you, you can start with a basic flow, like Base TV, and then filter it down from there.

I find of all the current flows, the 'Sage' flow is the best for TV, as it best utilizes Fanart banners. If your shows have consistant episode based fanart on tvdb.org, then you can even combine a couple different views. I am experimenting with using the Sage flow (banner based) for level one of the TV Shows, so it's a list of shows by title, then level two switches to the FanArt view (which shows the episode based image for each episode). Works well for my kids, who aren't yet the best readers.

[Dargason]

There's some good information here, as well: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59150

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by Dargason

There's some good information here, as well: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59150

The step-by-step directions in this thread are excellent! I would have never understood how to configure a flow without this information. I like the flows, but I'm still on the fence about using them. I just want a simple list of shows with the option to adjust the font size of the show title text and show description text. Fanart isn't really necessary.

The Sage flow seems to be the closest thing to the standard Recorded TV menu. However, the show description text on the right side of the screen is small and I can barely read it. I can't seem to find a setting to increase the font size. Can the show description font size be increased?

Also in the Sage flow, when there is only one episode of a show, it takes three clicks of the remote to play the show. Can a show be played by pushing the remote control play button one time?

Back to my original problem about the Right Info Image never changing on the news shows. This is still occurring in the Sage flow when I navigate to the episode level. I'd like to replace the thumbnail image with a generic network image. Where is the image stored for Gemstone?

[jusjoken]

At this point you can not control the font size...perhaps we will add that option.

Try turning on Play Options in the options. With that on you just press play and the next episode is offered by default...play again just plays it.

For the right image..perhaps post an example screen and some details of what you see and expect.

k

[Fuzzy]

The logic for what is displayed in that right info pane is incredably complicated. It is essentially a long flowchart, that checks every possible thing that MIGHT be appropriate, and uses that. In general, it appears the order checked is as follows:

Preview Window if currently playing something.
Album Art if music
Gemstone Cached image (this is likely what you are getting stuck with)
Sage Generated Thumbnail (from GetThumbnail(MediaFile) API call)

The Gemstone cached image is likely where you are getting it at, and it again, goes through many of the same checks (episode specific image, thumbnail, etc). For speed, it just returns a cached image from the last time it was called for the same media reference, which may be identical in your case.

In the end, I'm not sure there is currently an easy way to override this behavior with gemstone installed, short of manually editing the file found in the SageTV\GeneratedThumbnails folder. You will likely have to restart sage for the new image to take effect, as it itself has some memory based caching of these images.

[jusjoken]

For the right info panel in flows as well as the gemstone call in the info in recordings we are working on improving the handling on tv airings as we know it has some flaws in picking the "best" image to display. This may or may not make it into the next release and may or may not solve this specific issue..just thought I'd let you know.

k

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

For the right info panel in flows as well as the gemstone call in the info in recordings we are working on improving the handling on tv airings as we know it has some flaws in picking the "best" image to display. This may or may not make it into the next release and may or may not solve this specific issue..just thought I'd let you know.

k

After looking through the STV last night, it seems like there is a LOT of redundant checks going on. It might be worth removing the checks in the default UI and point just to the gemstone logic (which actually seems relatively complete). This particular issue he's having is because the show in question is missing guide data, and every day it has the same ID, so it see's that a thumbnail already exists, and just uses that.

[mbowling]

Thanks for looking into that Fuzzy and jusjoken, I appreciate the help.

Another thing I like about the Gemstone Sage flow is that the recorded TV shows and imported Hulu shows from the Playon plugin are all in the same menu list. This is great! However, I'm also seeing my archived TV shows in the Sage flow. Can the archived shows be hidden?

[Fuzzy]

That would be difficult to set up from the UI. Couple reasons:
1. there is no 'Archived' filter item currently in Gemstone.
2. imported videos, i believe, always report as 'archived'.

It could probably be done by directly editing the XML used for creating a given flow, but that's a bit more work. You'd have to start off with all tv shows, then remove only those that are RECORDINGS AND ARCHIVED.

[jusjoken]

And we have it on the list to add an archived filter. We can ensure that it always ignores the imported items when filtering recordings. This is a change that we need to coordinate with the Phoenix core too.

k