Android MiniClient 1.4.0

[stuckless]

There is a new release on Bintray and Google Play. I've abandoned Amazon since the last 3 releases that I've submitted there have been denied for no reason. So, Amazon is dead to me.

This is a significant release in that it adds several features.

1. The UI rendering engine has been rewritten. When I first started out creating the client, I didn't know OpenGL (still don't really), so I used a UI Library to do all the rendering. This worked well, as it still used opengl under the hood. This UI Library is no longer being actively developed, so, I decided to simply rewrite the UI engine using OpenGL ES 2.0 directly. You can still enabled the "old" rendering engine from the settings, but, by default it will start using the new UI engine. By default, it will render at the same resolution as the HD300 (1280x720) and then upscale, to fit the TV size. You can tell it to render at native resolution (in the settings) if you want. Doing this can possibly be slightly slower and will consume MUCH more memory on the Android device. (I currently have a 1080p TV and tell it to render at native resolutions).

2. In a previous release key repeats were added. ie, press and hold down, would start navigating down and periodically sending a 'down' key press. You can now configure the delay and rate of the repeats in the settings.

3. Key presses will emit a sound effect (much like the standard android UI). This can be turned off in the settings.

4. An option was added to exit the MiniClient if it goes into standby mode. This is good from a memory cleanup point of view. ie, sagetv goes into screensaver and it will simply exit to the home screen.

5. There were a number of 'smart remote' features added. Smart Remote is something that is enabled by default in the settings and is aimed at making the SageTV UI usable with a 5 button remote. I only use the Shield remote.
- In the Plugin List right and left will navigate the tabs. Long press left will open the right options menu. (it slides out from right to left).
- Anywhere an long press 'back' will go home (main menu)
- In the Guide. Long press right/left will navigate to the next/prev day. Holding it will repeat it at a rate of about 1/2 second. So, if you press and hold right it will just start skipping days every half second.

NOTE: There is a 1.4.1 release the fixes a display issue on MiBox.

[btrcp2000]

Just a quick note of thanks for continuing to do this. Is there somewhere we can throw money at you?

[gclayto]

I sideloaded this onto my firetv and checked the version number. It still says 1.3. Did you forget to update the version info?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by gclayto

I sideloaded this onto my firetv and checked the version number. It still says 1.3. Did you forget to update the version info?

Does it say, 1.3.0? Mine shows 1.4.0. And it did upload to the bintray 1.4.0 release area, so, i would think that it should show 1.4.0 in the settings as well.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by btrcp2000

Just a quick note of thanks for continuing to do this. Is there somewhere we can throw money at you?

I appreciate the sentiment, but not necessary. The initial Indigogo round raised more than enough.

[gclayto]

It said 1.3 in the app version in Firetv app information after the install.

It was not working properly, did not display the menus. I did a uninstall - install and clear data. rebooted the firetv and installed 1.4. I was getting all sorts of strange gui display problems mostly weird scaling issues. Sometimes very small gui elements sometimes very large. Completely unusable. I went back to the version in the amazon appstore and it works as expected. I guess I'm stuck with that one..
It's a shame the minicleint has been running very good on the Fire TV HD up to this time.
Thank you for all of your hard work it is very much appreciated.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by gclayto

It said 1.3 in the app version in Firetv app information after the install.

It was not working properly, did not display the menus. I did a uninstall - install and clear data. rebooted the firetv and installed 1.4. I was getting all sorts of strange gui display problems mostly weird scaling issues. Sometimes very small gui elements sometimes very large. Completely unusable. I went back to the version in the amazon appstore and it works as expected. I guess I'm stuck with that one..
It's a shame the minicleint has been running very good on the Fire TV HD up to this time.
Thank you for all of your hard work it is very much appreciated.

In version 1.4, there was an option in the Settings to use the "old" rendering engine (in the settings it's configured to use OpenGL, if you turn that off, it will use the old UI rendering engine). But before doing that, you might want to enable "Native" resolution as well and see if that fixes the rendering issues.

It could be that by using OpenGL directly, then, this is not compatible with Amazon FireTV. I've only tested this on my Shield and Emulators.

[waylo]

Appreciate all the work you're still putting into this project!

I think the 'forward_del" assignment on my keyboard has been updated for the delete key, that works great now on this version as intended!

Insert is still not recognized though. Is that by design?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by waylo

Appreciate all the work you're still putting into this project!

I think the 'forward_del" assignment on my keyboard has been updated for the delete key, that works great now on this version as intended!

Insert is still not recognized though. Is that by design?

It's by design in the sense that I'm not sure what SageTV action should happen here. ie, when you hit delete it will delete something, but when you hit insert, what should happen?

[nyplayer]

Sideloaded it in my FireTV Stick 4K works great ... thanks stuckless. The only thing I had to disable is AVC hardware decoder in IJK because some of my Comcast Channels were blank ... but that fixed the issue.

[waylo]

Originally Posted by stuckless

It's by design in the sense that I'm not sure what SageTV action should happen here. ie, when you hit delete it will delete something, but when you hit insert, what should happen?

Insert is not assigned by default, but I have personally assigned it to Guide. Seems a good use of a button not otherwise used on the SageTV keyboard.

I guess my question is then can you allow the button to be recognized by the miniclient without having to assign it to any function natively?

[stuckless]

FYI. I found the "black screen" on my MiBox... I was able to fix it, should I should have an update (1.4.1) out later tonight.

[stuckless]

So the 1.4.1 should now work on the MiBox, and likely will work on the Amazon Fire devices that were previously showing a blank or other issues.

Turns out that some devices didn't like some of the GL calls that I was making, even though, they are valid and supported on the Shield and the Emulator.

[gclayto]

Sweet, I installed 1.4.1 and all of the issues are now fixed.

Thank You! Stuckless

[peterjb]

Thank you very much for the update.. As I've just migrated the family to the Android miniclient over the weekend its very timely.. It's speed increase is very noticeable and sweet even on my very slow MiBox...

One question that I do have is I seem to have run into an issue.. When I now go to the program guide and select and watch a 'Live' TV show, then hit back to go to the program guide. The video no longer renders in the preview window above the guide - All I see now is the Channel Logo.. This behaviour is the same on both the MiBox and Shield devices I have.. Previous versions did continue to show the current video in the window. I've re-checked that my sagetv client settings on multiple android devices and they are all set to show preview video in the menus.

Cheers

Peter

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by peterjb

Thank you very much for the update.. As I've just migrated the family to the Android miniclient over the weekend its very timely.. It's speed increase is very noticeable and sweet even on my very slow MiBox...

One question that I do have is I seem to have run into an issue.. When I now go to the program guide and select and watch a 'Live' TV show, then hit back to go to the program guide. The video no longer renders in the preview window above the guide - All I see now is the Channel Logo.. This behaviour is the same on both the MiBox and Shield devices I have.. Previous versions did continue to show the current video in the window. I've re-checked that my sagetv client settings on multiple android devices and they are all set to show preview video in the menus.

Cheers

Peter

Yeah, so this is my fault It always annoyed me that when I hit the back button when watching a video, it would keep the video playing, so in the smart remote, when you hit the back button, it will stop the video. I can change that. It just never occurred to me that people would want the video to keep playing.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Yeah, so this is my fault It always annoyed me that when I hit the back button when watching a video, it would keep the video playing, so in the smart remote, when you hit the back button, it will stop the video. I can change that. It just never occurred to me that people would want the video to keep playing.

I prefer it the way you've done it, my family otherwise leave stuff recording all day..

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by peterjb

One question that I do have is I seem to have run into an issue.. When I now go to the program guide and select and watch a 'Live' TV show, then hit back to go to the program guide. The video no longer renders in the preview window above the guide - All I see now is the Channel Logo.

Originally Posted by waylo

Insert is not assigned by default, but I have personally assigned it to Guide. Seems a good use of a button not otherwise used on the SageTV keyboard.

Both of these are addressed in v1.4.2. BTW, the insert is mapped to NONE by default, but you can map it to whatever you need/want in the settings.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I prefer it the way you've done it, my family otherwise leave stuff recording all day..

I've decided to revert it, since, normally sagetv behaved this way. I was just trying to be "smart", but in order to support both ways I'd need to add more configuration settings.

[Telecore]

I may have found a problem with this new version (1.4.2) - first of all thanks for developing this - when trying to playback a recording that is in progress (in this case the Today show on NBC), the playback doesn't work properly with Exoplayer. It does work with ijkplayer and playback of live tv channels by selecting a channel from the guide seems to work OK (I tested several channels both 1080i, 720p), but for some reason, playback of this show that has been recording for an hour or so doesn't work - it is hard to describe, but the playback is jerky and seems like it is too fast like it is coming out in bursts. I am testing this on my older 2015 Nvidia Shield. I have seen this playback problem before, but it seemed to go away on more recent versions of the miniclient. In fact, recent versions of the miniclient seemed to have good av-sync with 5.1 sound using Exoplayer. This could be just an Exoplayer issue. Is anyone else seeing this problem?