SageTV 2.1 thoughts

[kny3twalker]

hey this bad boy will work with standby ?

and VMR9 seems much smoother
not perfect but so much better

and love the service

WOW

music still huh

but how do I get a picture for a video ?

is it similiar to some other old way

and you can apparently switch to old STVs but not back to the original

also in the music section
I see my capture cards in the song by title list and if I play one I here liveTV

so weird

Channel changing not as smooth especially when switching to STB channels

use to be perfect for STBs

what does the UI decoration do ?

just crashed the UI part trying to access the nvDVD task bar icon
when rendering in VMR9

picture a little more grainy
will try lowering the quality level for analogue cable

oh and what happen to other menu options like mlbdude's advanced vertical and horizonital sage recordings

still no grouping on achieved shows as well

also something so that if the show is achieved that sageTV will not record it again even though it is a favorite

for some reason the recording qualities have all dropped the GB/hour thing
but my highest quality setting until you choose it

all other settings I made are fine

and I like not seeing the GB/hr carp

[kny3twalker]

back button in picture library does not work

[edbmdave]

First:
Thanks for incorporating the best of what MLBDude did. I loved the video folders and images and do now. Also thanks for bringing over the option to hide the file extensions.

Thanks for fixing the screen saver for us Plasma users.

Thanks for fixing the mouse navigation of DVD menus with VMR9 enabled.

Thanks for adding support for cards with native DIVX encoding

Thanks for the SageTV Service

I see why you held off on putting out Studio. Thanks for that. (seriously) I really like the option to import modular sections into Sages. ie. weather, rss, etc.. YEAH!!!!

Thanks

Now for the other comments:

It appears that I now am using up about another 50MB of ram when running the service and the SageTV user interface at the same time. So the memory requires have bumped when running the UI, but look like they are lower when it is not running.

Given this shows Beta and RC4 I am very disappointed in the Music Jukebox. I have to think that as an RC you have finished feature incorporation. I really think the Music Jukebox is WAY TOO weak. A very simple change and one that would really make it work the way I want and need to use it would be allow me to play an album without making a playlist. In the Music by Album actions, add, play album. Also have Random and Repeat option be context oriented so that if I am playing a playlist it is randomly played and repeated, or if playing and album the same applied. Please consider fixing this in this release.

For the Video Library, I am glad you added playlists, but really need to give us the same ability to manage multiple playlists for video just like music, not just the one VIDEO PLAYLIST. Please flesh this out just a little more. I would love to be able to create a couple playlists for my daughter and wife of series of programs for them to pick and let play.

Now that you added categories, can you please expand that. to allow for sub categories? I would like to capture all Sci-fi that are Movies, or all Movies that are Sci-Fi, etc...
I really can't do that now.

Last I would really like a visualization that activates a photo slide show when music is playing. So I can relax, listen to music and have nice pictures showing...



Again Thanks. Please consider these suggestions. I think they flesh out the base product and really build on the world class PVR you provide to create a very compitent Home Entertainment System.

Regards
edbmDave.

[kny3twalker]

for some reason the recording qualities have all dropped the GB/hour thing
but my highest quality setting until you choose it

all other settings I made are fine

and I like not seeing the GB/hr carp

ok sorry to quote myself
BUT I have updated the FAQ on the properties I added

so they are the correct format for 2.1

sorry to any newbies that use them for 2.0 but they will still work
but now formatted for 2.1

Robert

[edbmdave]

I am getting horrible Screen artifacts with overlay mode. Double selection bars, menu ghosts.

Settings:
Video / Video Render : Overlay
DVD / DVD Video Render : Overlay
Advanced / 3D Acceleration : Disabled
Advanced / Overlay Color Keying : Disabled


Also I have the SageTV service running, and when I start the SageTV UI it shows SageTV Service Initializing. Is this just a mis-statement or is it really starting again?

Also I now see both a SageTV.Properties and a SageClient.Properties. Which is used when??? They both look like they have current timestamps. The STV appears to be defined in the SageClient.Properties. Is the SageTV.Properties only good for the service? If so what is mirrored between the two and when should we change what in which? After the SageClient.Properties is created which is updated when you make changes via setup?

[nielm]

As mentioned elsewhere, when running in service mode, the service uses SageTV.properties, and the UI uses sageclient.properties...

(Log a fault report for the overlay problems)

[ukmgranger]

Just been having a quick play with 2.1!
It really messed things up for me. My composite input from my freeview box is very odd. The picture goes black and white and the audio is modulating (kinda' sounds like bubbles). this goes away after restoring 2.0 and a reboot.
Also, if I select the 2.1 stv (using nielms at the mo) all of the options on the right in the detailed setup disappear.

Dumb question alert!
what exactly does the service do?
will I see any benefit with a non networked machine?

[Lucas]

Running as a service means that the backend logic, eg. the recording, scheduling and any behind the screen processing is started as a Windows Service as soon as the machine boots.

This effectively means that you don't have to sign-on for the recordings to occur.

Practically, if you are away from home and power goes off, as soon as it comes on the PC could boot, starting the service with it and thus our recordings get recorded.

ALSO, for those of us who experience the UI hanging while fast forwarding or rewinding, necessitating a SageTV forced stop, which often means interrupting a recording in progress, this allows us to probably just kill the client without affecting the recording. (That is if one can get Task Manager to pop up).

[mls]

Tried the new 2.1 Client on the machine I was using as a client with an ATI remote. Something is royally messed up there since the ATI plug-in worked fine with 2.0, but with 2.1 half the buttons don't work right (or at all).

For example, the FW/RW buttons now change channels up/down. The full screen button min/maximizes the SageTV window instead of changing to full screen.

No idea why it's so messed up with the ATI remote. Seems to work ok on the server though with the Hauppauge remote.

Also, as kny pointed out, if you change to any other STV you can't change back to the original at all again with either the server or client software.

Although the CC does sorta work (and not supported by Frey), it doesn't work in the most important mode, Overlay with Color Keying (manual says so also). So, no points gained there.

Now to see if they fixed the ONLY real problem I had with 2.0... the bug with it running as a server under Win98. Will be a day or two until I can test that out.

Since I wasn't having any problems otherwise with 2.0 (except for that record button deal that is supposedly fixed now, unimportant since I disabled that button anyway)... and I don't have much use for some of the other new added features... at this point looks like more broke than was fixed for my use. Better luck next time maybe.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by ukmgranger

what exactly does the service do?
will I see any benefit with a non networked machine?

more reliability... ability to kill the UI when it gets stuck without interrupting recordings, and with 'service recovery' enabled, when the recording engine crashes (never happened to me yet, but...) windows will automagically restart it...

[edbmdave]

Originally Posted by nielm

As mentioned elsewhere, when running in service mode, the service uses SageTV.properties, and the UI uses sageclient.properties...

(Log a fault report for the overlay problems)

I had made that assumption but the real question is what entries need to be in which .properties. To take it further what entries in the Sage.Properties are looked at by the service, and what Properties in the SageClient.Properties are used by the client. What entries need to be in both. so that when I change something I know which of the two files I need to update it in and if I have to update it in both or not.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by edbmdave

Also I have the SageTV service running, and when I start the SageTV UI it shows SageTV Service Initializing. Is this just a mis-statement or is it really starting again?

The service takes a bit to get going (30s maybe?) just like Sage used to, so if you start the pseudo client (SageTV) before the service is ready it pops up that message.

[ukmgranger]

Is anyone else having any problems with the composite i/p on their PVR250 using Sage2.1?

[edbmdave]

Has anyone been able to get a seperate SageClient to connect to the SageTV (running as a service) when the UI is not running on the server. I have tried with the service running both as Local and as a dedicated user.

I can connect from a SageClient to the server only when the UI portion is loaded on the server.

Anyone else?

[cord]

I've connected with a 2.1 client when the UI's not running on the server. It worked well enough that I gave it no significant thought.

Other than firing it up once to test it, I doubt I'll ever run the UI on the server, since that's a headless box in the closet. I do all my viewing with clients.

[JasonJoel]

I did. However, I had to add the port to my firewall in WinXP SP2... I already had it opened for the sage program, however if you are now using the service it isn't the same EXE so the firewall opening doesn't happen...

So I opened up the port explicitly on the server, and everything is great.

Might be something to check.

Jason Bottjen

Originally Posted by edbmdave

Has anyone been able to get a seperate SageClient to connect to the SageTV (running as a service) when the UI is not running on the server. I have tried with the service running both as Local and as a dedicated user.

I can connect from a SageClient to the server only when the UI portion is loaded on the server.

Anyone else?

[kny3twalker]

also in the music section
I see my capture cards in the song by title list and if I play one I here liveTV

so weird

I finally figured this one out

I am able to get radio
but I cannot tune channels

is this some type of very poor radio hint for 2.1(non RC)?

[abasu2003]

I just wanted to get a better feel for 2.1. How "advanced" is the modulation right now? Can a user at this moment use RSS and weather suites from nielm's STV's? How well do the customized STV's (nielm's, mlbdude's, malore's) work with 2.1?

[kny3twalker]

I doubt you will see any difference other than running as a service if you use an old STV

also sorry to dominate this topic but

overlay no longer has blue backgrounds
yet at the same time VMR7
looks much better as well in this release

and the blue color of the menus looks excellent

I hope most of you will at least try out the "default render"

I wish they will add back the blue background color for overlay and darken the VMR9 blue
it is pretty light and makes it difficult to read the text

[kny3twalker]

I am getting horrible Screen artifacts with overlay mode. Double selection bars, menu ghosts.

Settings:
Video / Video Render : Overlay
DVD / DVD Video Render : Overlay
Advanced / 3D Acceleration : Disabled
Advanced / Overlay Color Keying : Disabled

edbmdave

you should probably enable color keying if using overlay
the blue backgrounds for overlay have been removed or try out the default render if you will not use the clear menus for overlay

my post above this addressed this as well

try out VMR9 again as well
it seems to be much improved in color of picture and performance