STV: Cayars17 Ultimate STV (Release 17 - Jan 18)

[duddarr]

In preparation for a DVD Burn, I must transfer my video file to burn to Video Library (Archived) in order find the "add to TV list" found on the extreme left vertical column. Shouldn't I be able to find the "add to TV list" in the TV recordings. It ("add to TV list") just isn't listed as one of the choices in the TV recordings menu. Someone else had this same problem a few weeks back. Will this be fixed or has it been fixed for the next 17B test?

[Cayars]

It's there on the "normal" TV Recordings page too. You might just need to scroll down to find it.

[pciccone]

Originally Posted by Cayars

You can setup the external players seperately for Music, Video & DVD. Each can be turned on or off. To use anything other than WMP you need to edit the "***.cmd" file in the external directory under cayars.

No, thats not the issue.

DVD player is DISABLED, yet it will still spawn WMP for a DVD (VIDEO_TS) file (incorrectly I might add). - thats why I posted the message
But in my view, DVD player is for "DVDs" in the drive (actual media). This is a VIDEO_TS directory on a HD (not a DVD). So, it falls under the video player I think.

Also, even if DVD player was enabled, it should only spawn the player if the "only spawn if not internal" is disabled which in my case its enabled. Know what I mean?

So, its actually two problems. External player should not have been called at all since the internal player handles it just fine. And, DVD player is not being used for VIDEO_TS directories, I think the "video player" option is instead.

Did I make things worse by trying to re-exaplin it?

So, in my world to sum it up:

- If I enable external video player then I can play back WMV files no problem but not DVD videos on the HD since it incorrectly spawns WMP

- If I disable external video player then I can playback DVDs on the HD in the media library, but not WMP (WMV) files any longer.

- The external DVD player option seems to only be available for "Play DVD" functions (I think).

I am fairly confident this is a "true bug"

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by pciccone

No, thats not the issue.

DVD player is DISABLED, yet it will still spawn WMP for a DVD (VIDEO_TS) file (incorrectly I might add). - thats why I posted the message
But in my view, DVD player is for "DVDs" in the drive (actual media). This is a VIDEO_TS directory on a HD (not a DVD). So, it falls under the video player I think.

Nope, if it looks like a DVD to sage, it will/should be treated as a ripped DVD. I don't understand why it's using the external DVD player however if you have this setting disabled. I haven't seen this on my systems but I'll have to check with a ripped disc.

Also, even if DVD player was enabled, it should only spawn the player if the "only spawn if not internal" is disabled which in my case its enabled. Know what I mean?

Actually no, but I might need to clarify the "Non-Native" setting in the config options. This setting is only used for Music and Video but not for DVD.

So, its actually two problems. External player should not have been called at all since the internal player handles it just fine. And, DVD player is not being used for VIDEO_TS directories, I think the "video player" option is instead.

Did I make things worse by trying to re-exaplin it?

So, in my world to sum it up:

- If I enable external video player then I can play back WMV files no problem but not DVD videos on the HD since it incorrectly spawns WMP

- If I disable external video player then I can playback DVDs on the HD in the media library, but not WMP (WMV) files any longer.

- The external DVD player option seems to only be available for "Play DVD" functions (I think).

I am fairly confident this is a "true bug"

Sound like it, this "might" be fixed in 17B so I'll try and get this out today and you can re-test it.

[Deano]

Anyone....I need a bit of help. I'm trying to use PowerDVD for the DVD player in Sage (using the Cayars STV). I have edited the CMD file to launch the player, but it won't default to fullscreen. I have check the configure box in PowerDVD to launch in full screen, but it still starts in a window. Is there some command line statement I need to use? I tried the "/fullscreen" and that had no effect.

[aberson]

Cayers

I saw your thread about 17beta fixing the end of file issue with the "mega deletion" - awesome!

I have a few feature requests or suggestions. I know these are a lot of work - so I just want to be clear that I'm not begging for these, they're just some ideas I had that would make sage and your STV's even better. If these have been previously suggested - I didn't see em, but it's kinda hard to read 100+ pages of this thread!

Thanks for all the hard work so far!

(wow, lotsa exclamation points
anyway, on to the suggestions:


1. 30 minute Timeslots
I noticed you have Howard Stern in your screen shots - I'd love to be able to record the 2-2:30 (or 11-11:30) airing without recording the 2nd airing, which is usually a repeat [but I think E! doens't release the proper guide data and they are all repeats]. With the 1 hour timeslots as they are right now, that's not doable. Any chance for 30 minute slots?


2. EPG matching Recording Schedule
Right now the EPG reflects your manual and favorite recordings (and maybe IR's), but it doesn't reflect your SCHEDULED recordings. In other words, if you scroll through a particular time, you might see multiple things with a white "favorites" outline, but you do not see any indication of which one it plans to record. Is there any way to make it so we can also be able to tell which show it plans to record? Maybe make the outline of the episode red-dashed if it's going to record - so a solid red line for manual, a dotted red/white line for favorite that will record, a dotted red/grey line for an IR that will record, etc.

In mythTV it tells you why a favorite isn't being recorded. So, if you implemented the above, and I noticed that my favorite had a solid white line insead of a red/white line, maybe there'd be a way to display why? Maybe an icon similar to the one that tells you what's currently recording? It could be the first letter or first 3 letters of: Previously recorded, Repeat, Future recording, Conflict. (Right now, repeats wouldn't even have the white outline to start with because they aren't considered part of the favorite... it would be nice to see that there's a repeat episode of a favorite, but that might be more trouble than it's worth)


3. "What else is on?"
In the Program Info or Recording Details screen, could there be a shortcut to the EPG (or something similar), already set for the time of that recording, so you can see what else is on at that time? For example, viewing the program info for the 11pm airing of Howard Stern would also show what else is on at 11pm. Implementing request #2 above along with this would make a lot of sense - you could see if something's already being recorded at that time before you decide to hit "record". Maybe also in the Recording Details screen, if there is a conflict for that recording it could show a shortcut that jumps to the conflict resolution screen for that conflict.


4. "Record One"
MythTv has a feature where you can say "record one episode of" a show or movie, and it will try to find one any single airing, with no conflicts. If there are conflicts, it will tell you. Right now, I think the only way to do that in Sage would be to add the show/movie as a favorite, with a limit of 1 show, and disable auto-delete - it should find multiple airings of the same movie and record just one. Would there be any way to add something in an STV to do this as a manual recording? One semi-automatic way would be: in the "additional airings" screen of a show, it could indicate which additional episodes conflict with currently scheduled recordings - maybe with a "C" or "!" icon? In conjunction with suggestion #3 for a "what else is on at this time", you could easily see what's supposed to be recorded at that time. However, the automatic way would be much nicer.

Thanks!
Adam

[aberson]

Can somebody please explain to me what

"Commercial Skip Delay"
and
"Commercial Skip Offset"

do?


Thanks
Adam

[broderp]

It's probably been like this all along but...

When I go home at night, most shows I recorded have been COM SKIPPED and it seems to be fairly accurate.

Some of the later shows are not, I suppose SAGE hasn't gotten around to them yet. When I watch them, I can "right click" and bring up the info screen.. from here I can select COM SKIP and it starts the comskip feature. \

In the past, after 6-12 minutes (depending on the length of teh show, a window would pop up. It said "com skip has completed in XXXX minutes!".

Now days I get the same pop up window, but it says "com skipped FAILED"

I try to restart the operation again, but it does not appear to let me.

Is there a way to reset the comskip status of a file? Or once messed up, forget about it? I'm not sure why it stopped working either. I have added NOTHING nor have I removed anything.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by aberson

Can somebody please explain to me what

"Commercial Skip Delay"
and
"Commercial Skip Offset"

do?


Thanks
Adam

How fast the OSD reacts to the Comskip data before it jumps in the timeline. If you want it to be "spot" on with the comskip data just set them both to 0.

[abasu2003]

broderp,

I would make sure that comskip actually failed, because depending on the version you have, that pass/fail flag might be messed up.

However, if it did fail, i think all you have to do is delete the txt file associated with that show and it shoudl start over. What's odd is that if it truly failed, I don't think it's supposed to write a txt file to begin with.

i would stop the show after you get the pop up dialog and then restart it to see if it loads the comskip data or it is actually failed.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by broderp

It's probably been like this all along but...

When I go home at night, most shows I recorded have been COM SKIPPED and it seems to be fairly accurate.

Some of the later shows are not, I suppose SAGE hasn't gotten around to them yet. When I watch them, I can "right click" and bring up the info screen.. from here I can select COM SKIP and it starts the comskip feature. \

In the past, after 6-12 minutes (depending on the length of teh show, a window would pop up. It said "com skip has completed in XXXX minutes!".

Now days I get the same pop up window, but it says "com skipped FAILED"

I try to restart the operation again, but it does not appear to let me.

Is there a way to reset the comskip status of a file? Or once messed up, forget about it? I'm not sure why it stopped working either. I have added NOTHING nor have I removed anything.

I'm going to add this feature to the next release to remove the files so ComSkip can process them again.

[Cayars]

[QUOTE=aberson]Cayers

I saw your thread about 17beta fixing the end of file issue with the "mega deletion" - awesome!

I have a few feature requests or suggestions. I know these are a lot of work - so I just want to be clear that I'm not begging for these, they're just some ideas I had that would make sage and your STV's even better. If these have been previously suggested - I didn't see em, but it's kinda hard to read 100+ pages of this thread!

Thanks for all the hard work so far!

(wow, lotsa exclamation points
anyway, on to the suggestions:


1. 30 minute Timeslots
I noticed you have Howard Stern in your screen shots - I'd love to be able to record the 2-2:30 (or 11-11:30) airing without recording the 2nd airing, which is usually a repeat [but I think E! doens't release the proper guide data and they are all repeats]. With the 1 hour timeslots as they are right now, that's not doable. Any chance for 30 minute slots?
[quote]
Funny that you mention it because I WAS going to do this for the same show/timeslot issue you mentioned. BUT then I noticed that E now gives proper EPG data to Zap2It. If you look at the EPG the shows are now marked correctly as First Run or Re-Run. So now you can pick the 11 or 2 AM timslot and FirstRun and be done with it.

2. EPG matching Recording Schedule
Right now the EPG reflects your manual and favorite recordings (and maybe IR's), but it doesn't reflect your SCHEDULED recordings. In other words, if you scroll through a particular time, you might see multiple things with a white "favorites" outline, but you do not see any indication of which one it plans to record. Is there any way to make it so we can also be able to tell which show it plans to record? Maybe make the outline of the episode red-dashed if it's going to record - so a solid red line for manual, a dotted red/white line for favorite that will record, a dotted red/grey line for an IR that will record, etc.

I'd love to do this but the information isn't available in Studio so I can't do it. Best I can tell you is learn to use the conflict resolution screen and maybe the Schedule by Capture Device screen to get by.

In mythTV it tells you why a favorite isn't being recorded. So, if you implemented the above, and I noticed that my favorite had a solid white line insead of a red/white line, maybe there'd be a way to display why? Maybe an icon similar to the one that tells you what's currently recording? It could be the first letter or first 3 letters of: Previously recorded, Repeat, Future recording, Conflict. (Right now, repeats wouldn't even have the white outline to start with because they aren't considered part of the favorite... it would be nice to see that there's a repeat episode of a favorite, but that might be more trouble than it's worth)

This might be doable but I'm not sure I can do it.

3. "What else is on?"
In the Program Info or Recording Details screen, could there be a shortcut to the EPG (or something similar), already set for the time of that recording, so you can see what else is on at that time? For example, viewing the program info for the 11pm airing of Howard Stern would also show what else is on at 11pm. Implementing request #2 above along with this would make a lot of sense - you could see if something's already being recorded at that time before you decide to hit "record". Maybe also in the Recording Details screen, if there is a conflict for that recording it could show a shortcut that jumps to the conflict resolution screen for that conflict.

I don't quite understand what you're asking on this one. To me it would seem if you want to see what else is on you would use the TV Guiide or if in the OSD you could use the mini-guide.

Could you explain more on this one?

4. "Record One"
MythTv has a feature where you can say "record one episode of" a show or movie, and it will try to find one any single airing, with no conflicts. If there are conflicts, it will tell you. Right now, I think the only way to do that in Sage would be to add the show/movie as a favorite, with a limit of 1 show, and disable auto-delete - it should find multiple airings of the same movie and record just one. Would there be any way to add something in an STV to do this as a manual recording? One semi-automatic way would be: in the "additional airings" screen of a show, it could indicate which additional episodes conflict with currently scheduled recordings - maybe with a "C" or "!" icon? In conjunction with suggestion #3 for a "what else is on at this time", you could easily see what's supposed to be recorded at that time. However, the automatic way would be much nicer.

The only way I can think of this would be to create a favorite pretty much as you already mentioned for it. I don't think I'd go with a manual recording because they "over ride" all other recording and if there is a conflict the manual recording would be the show to get recorded.

I don't know if there would be a "clean" method to keep track of real favorites versus this type of favorite.

Thanks!
Adam

[dvd_maniac]

No, thats not the issue.
DVD player is DISABLED, yet it will still spawn WMP for a DVD (VIDEO_TS) file (incorrectly I might add). - thats why I posted the message
But in my view, DVD player is for "DVDs" in the drive (actual media). This is a VIDEO_TS directory on a HD (not a DVD). So, it falls under the video player I think.

I thought ripped DVDs had to be in ISO format for Play DVD to work, that would call either internal or external DVD player right?

If it's not in ISO format than it doesn't know what to do and therefore calls the External Video player command.
I have never ripped a dvd or played an image in Sage so I'm not sure if I am talking out my &^% or not. Just guessing.

[Cayars]

No refer to the standard SageTV manual for DVD playback from HDD.

[jzaman]

Originally Posted by Deano

Anyone....I need a bit of help. I'm trying to use PowerDVD for the DVD player in Sage (using the Cayars STV). I have edited the CMD file to launch the player, but it won't default to fullscreen. I have check the configure box in PowerDVD to launch in full screen, but it still starts in a window. Is there some command line statement I need to use? I tried the "/fullscreen" and that had no effect.

It defaults to how you set it up in Windows. I don't supply any command line options except %1 ("c:\program files\cyberlink\powerdvd\powerdvd.exe" %1). I am using powerdvd 6 and I enable full screen, etc. in configuration, video and it always plays in full screen. I had to go to an external program to select the audio stream I require and also more importantly for playback quality. Are you executing mps or video_ts vobs? In my case, I run mpgs exclusively.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

I'm having some problems with my SAGE box, so I am not sure if this is an STV issue, or just my PC wiggin' out. When I hit STOP while watching a program I get a noticeable pause before it takes me back to the recordings screen (Malore's in my case). Also it takes me back to the recordings screen, but still does not have the show I was watching highlighted, instead it goes to the top of the list of shows - which as someone mentioned before can be confusing when trying to delete shows, because you already saw that episode.

Can anyone confirm that these problems exist and it's not just my PC?

Just an FYI, I tried doing an Back/Exit and then Stop, since that ToxMox said that is how you guys fixed this problem. This routine gave me the same results - see problem 2.

It actually does a stop then back. I have noticed on my client machine pressing the stop has a delay vs my server which doesn't. I plan on improving this code and also eventually take care of the selected show being in the right place etc. I'd do it if I knew exactly how but it will take me some time so don't go banging on my door for this fix but I will eventually solve it.

[tdalton]

Earlier today I installed Cayars16 and by the way it's beautiful! I can't seem to find DVDRIP.BAT though? I did find and edit DVDRIP.CMD but can't fidn DVDRIP.BAT anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
TD

[Cayars]

You found the right file. Edit the "cmd" file. I don't use a "bat" file.

[aberson]

Originally Posted by Cayars

I don't quite understand what you're asking on this one. To me it would seem if you want to see what else is on you would use the TV Guiide or if in the OSD you could use the mini-guide.

Could you explain more on this one?

Sure -
What I'm basically asking for is a quick way to jump to the TV guide while you're viewing the detailed info for a show...

For example, let's say you go to "Search for programs to record" and you search for MythBusters. It brings up a listing of all the airings of MythBusters. You select one that's on at 3pm Tomorrow, and after reading the description you decide you want to record it. But you want to see if anything else is being recorded at 3pm Tomorrow that would be overriden by the manual recording you're about to make, so first you want to check the TV Guide for 3pm tomorrow.

What I'm asking for is a shortcut in the "Program Information" screen that let's you jump right to the TV Guide already set to 3pm tomorrow. And while you're at it, you could have a shortcut to the "Recording Schedules" screen, already scrolled to 3PM Tomorrow (or the closest recording). [It would be cool if it only displayed the shortcut to Recording Schedules if something else is already scheduled to record - basically telling you that if you record mythbusters, it's gonna conflict with something else]

Adam

[Booboo]

Hi All..
I am using Cayars16 with Sage 2.1 and I am very impressed with the way it works. Just a couple quick questions:
1. I have all of my movies catalogued in DVD Profiler. Is there anyway to used the data from collection.xml file to get access to the summary, genre, etc instead of copying the info into an info.my file for each movie? (I believe SageMC uses a centralised collection.xml this way I was wondering if there was any way to do the same in this STV).

2. In the Video Library (Imported) section, I have each vieo in its own directory. For example, the movie Office Space would be M:\Office Space\Officesp.avi When I check the IMDB button, it searhces for "Office Space Officesp and sometimes does not retrieve the movie. Is there any way to use just the filename or just the folder name?

Thanks for your help.