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

[JUC]

I am in no hurry to get my hands on 18 (if i were, i would have donated). I would feel bad for those that donated and did not receive the link to 18, only to have it publicly released. So I would say definately get the people who paid for version 18 the link ASAP. Then once that is squared away, release it to the public in some time. I am currently satisfied with SageMC for now but was hoping Cayars 18's final version would be the best thing since sliced bread...that may not be the case anymore since development has stopped. Anyway, hope someone will continue this development as well as pick up on SageMC. Who knows, maybe development has stopped because the authors know of some crazy plans by Sage to reconfigure everything in v3...you never know, stranger things have happened.
JUC

[ajuhawk]

I really wouldn't mind continuing some of Cayars projects... unfortunately he never put any of the code out there, so I don't know that anyone has access to it. Particularly I'd like to finish the External Commercial Skip program. I haven't tried Jere_Jones DirMon, so maybe it does everything and the program Cayars was working on is a mute point... Anyway, I also wouldn't mind working on the STV, but, alas, I don't have the tools for that.

Here's hoping Cayars shows back up sometime soon.

[big boi]

also hoping cayars is well. the only 2 other times i saw someone disappear in such drastic from a forum was when someone got arrested for selling stolen seagate hard drives (some of which were sold to me ) the other was when the forum member died in a bike accident. anywho, i hope the best for someone who contributed a lot to the forum.

as for v 18. there is something that has been killing me for a while now- trying to maintain show info and developing a good recording and archiving strategy (since i can't run my TV to the server where i store all my recordings). i see now after some forum searching that cayars included a function that exports show info to an XML file for every recording in version 18. so to be honest i'd really like to have that 1 stupid little bit of functionality.

if someone knows of another STV that includes this capability, or how i can create a batch file to do this i'd be grateful.

[JasonJoel]

Although I love Sage, and use it literally daily....

I hope this bites Frey right in the *SS. Serves them right for never releasing Studio in the first place. If they did we wouldn't be dependant on just a handful of people to develop.

And to play devil's advocate... If they didn't release Studio because it is difficult to use for end users... And if Studio is really that hard to develop in, then shame on Frey for not making a more extensible interface that handles plugins, etc better. All the rest of the industry is doing that...

I am just SO tired of the development pace of Sage TV. Nothing from Frey - for MONTHS (essentially - I don't count the point releases that added next to nothing). No studio, no new features, nothing. It is just getting really old hearing all of the excuses why we can't have the development tools all of the other PVR apps are getting.

Lets hope v3.0 adds this for the 'rest of us' end users. Otherwise within the year it will be probably a mute point - the competition will pass Sage and it will fall into obscurity. They are almost past it now. Only one or two versions away (if that far), in my opinion.

Jason

[MTuckman]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

Although I love Sage, and use it literally daily....

I hope this bites Frey right in the *SS. Serves them right for never releasing Studio in the first place. If they did we wouldn't be dependant on just a handful of people to develop.

And to play devil's advocate... If they didn't release Studio because it is difficult to use for end users... And if Studio is really that hard to develop in, then shame on Frey for not making a more extensible interface that handles plugins, etc better. All the rest of the industry is doing that...

I am just SO tired of the development pace of Sage TV. Nothing from Frey - for MONTHS (essentially - I don't count the point releases that added next to nothing). No studio, no new features, nothing. It is just getting really old hearing all of the excuses why we can't have the development tools all of the other PVR apps are getting.

Lets hope v3.0 adds this for the 'rest of us' end users. Otherwise within the year it will be probably a mute point - the competition will pass Sage and it will fall into obscurity. They are almost past it now. Only one or two versions away (if that far), in my opinion.

Jason

I am equally frustrated by this whole thing. I have looked at the other Tuner/PVR solutions, and so far SageTV seems the most stable and it provides some of the best interface options I have seen.

Most of the other products out there offer "skins" that do little more than change the look of the interface. They do offer add-ins, more than Sage has, but in the end I am looking for a more integrated solution.

Studio obviously offers the ability to make significant changes in the actual functionality within the interface. The best example of this is the Meekel STV, which has what I think is the best time/progress bar in a PVR I have ever seen. With the program information embedded within the bar and the ability to move forward and back through the schedule, it far extends the existing time/progress bar. That one feature tells me a lot about the power of Studio.

But... At the end of the day, Studio has little use if the user community as a whole does not have access to it.

Either Frey has something up their sleeves with V3, and they don't want users to waste their time developing STV's that will be incompatible. Or they are working on selling Studio to integrators for significant cash. Or... There is SERIOUS issues with Studio and the STV's that are developed and we are lucky to have anything.

Cayars just dropping out does not bode well for SageTV. He was the premier developer of functionality, although SageMC/16x9, Meekers, MCEXCON are much more advanced in their interfaces. But has anyone seen anything really new in months? Why are those that are still active not providing anything new?

V3... We just wait and see... In the meantime, I think I will continue to evaluate the other options. Just in case...

My $2.02...

[glbrown]

Originally Posted by big boi

as for v 18. there is something that has been killing me for a while now- trying to maintain show info and developing a good recording and archiving strategy...

if someone knows of another STV that includes this capability, or how i can create a batch file to do this i'd be grateful.

Look at gbburn. This is a combination of mods to the archive command, vbscript, and a DVD burner application. I'll admit it's bailing wire and bubble gum but it saves a lot of time and preserves all the EPG info. If you want to archive TV, this is the quickest and easiest way to do it.

-gary-

[big boi]

thanks a lot glbrown. i'll look into that tonight.

as for the ffrustrations people are having, it's a murky area. if you release studio to everyone there are going to be 317 custom STVs floating around, 90% of which have not been tested and debugged properly. trust me, you do not want me screwing with sage studio and releasing anything here on the boards. i like having fewer choices and i think it is better for all of us.

on the other hand, why doesn't sage hire some of these geniuses like cayars, nielm, salsbt, or mlbdude and put them to work FT on their "hobbyist" projects. christ, if we had that sage would download recipes from food shows you've watched or recorded so you don't have to do it manually later and it would control when my coffee maker starts brewing my coffee in the morning based on an algorithm that lets me sleep longer if i was up late logged onto the sage machine.

as it stands though, sage still lacks features that it seems frey should have implemented by now. my XML issue for example. the data is already downloaded and displayed in sage. it can't require more than 15 minutes of developer effort to build XML exports into the program can it? what about CCs?

i have to say the default STV for sage is pretty plain jane. frankly if it weren't for the custom STVs available i'm not sure i'd even use sage. it is the user community that puts the bells and whistles on and sets this product apart from the rest, and as we've seen with cayars disappearance that user community can be somewhat unstable. the only way to stabilize it and protect frey from falling apart is to employ some of these people to work on this full time.

[Wheemer]

Did anybody else notice the download links are not working anymore?

[big boi]

nslookup returns "non-existent domain" for me when i look for www.vinceanido.com. the files aren't just down, the whole domain has vanished. this is honestly one of the strangest things i've ever seen.

[Wheemer]

I thought the webhosting was done by crashless... so maybe he's changing domains or something.

[big boi]

glbrown <realizing this is YOUR stuff finally>, so you provide a lot of good functionality in there. i have a couple questions though. first of all, in reading your documentation it seems that using the STV you provided and hitting "archive" for a show will create the XML EPG info file in the same directory that the mpg is located, correct?

also, i often have to adjust the VRD projects because the comskip info is not so good on some recordings. on some it's perfect, but on others, not so good. anyway, your stuff wil automatically run the VRD commercial cutting and i'm just wondering if there is a way to do it manually and then do the automatic burning you provide. basically, i can't quite tell at first glance how intertwined the VRD and DVD burning functions are. if they are totally seperate (you can run one and not the other), then that's good.

in any case, i'm going to look through your docs some more. i might see if i can take out the DVD burning all together and put in its place a function that simply copies all the XML and MPG files toa UNC path or mapped drive.

anyway, thanks a lot for the link. this should help a lot.

[Opus4]

This post is easier/faster than trying to move the previous post out of this huge thread:

Please use STV: gbOptions STV to discuss that STV. Thanks.

- Andy

[Crashless]

Sorry about the download link. My registrar messed things up. It should be fine now.

I tried to change registrars, and my new one said the transfer was successful, but when I checked my email this morning - it obviously wasn't. The new company had no record of the transfer at all! Angry and desperate, I had to crawl back to my old provider and have them turn things back on.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Please don't take this as a sign I'm taking off too. I'm here to stay baby.

[Wheemer]

I suppose it may take some time to get going again... I just tried it and still nothing.

[Crashless]

Yeah, still propagating (sp?) probably... sorry about this.

[Opus4]

It has been available since I tried a little earlier today -- maybe you just need to refresh?

- Andy

[davephan]

I have been using Cayars 17 for quite awhile and it seems to function pretty well... The Cayars STV substantially improved the SageTV product.

It's unfortunate that the Cayars STV may no longer be supported. I believe that it would be a much better situation if it was known if the Cayars STV would be supported or not supported, rather than being in limbo.

I suspect that the development may have been too consuming, or perhaps some other problem occurred in Mr Ayar's life. Again, it would be nice to have some finality regarding the future for the Cayars STV. I believe that the STV has probably grown beyond the ability for one person to maintain as a largely unpaid project (very low pay compared to the number of hours consumed).

If Cayars is no longer supported, perhaps Frey Technologies could use some of the improvements in a general release, perhaps purchasing the source code.

If Frey Technologies does not want to incorporate the STV improvements, perhaps individuals could form a STV developers group. The STV developers group could help each other create a replacement STV for the Cayars STV. The source code could be public domain to help the STV outlive the original STV developers. Perhaps with a group effort, an STV could be created and maintained that is equal to, and eventually better than the current Cayars STV.

Dave

[bgorrell]

Organized, joint development would be SageTV's saving grace. As others mentioned, having 300 different STVs won't help. On the other hand, something along the lines of Mozilla's level of organization has the potential for a complete revolution! Frey needs to release Studio to the public and we need to start a joint project to incorporate all requested features. I'm sure the developers here aren't so vain as to insist on keeping independent projects instead of contributing to a greater good.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by bgorrell

As others mentioned, having 300 different STVs won't help.

I don't think this would happen.
If there are 250 STVs that nobody wants to use because other 10/5/2 (?) will be much better, then the range of STVs will be purged.

[buzzerbee]

usage question:
if I create a timed recording I get this attached error. It creates the timed recording no matter which option I select- there is no conflict in the recording schedule. This error screen happens every time but as I said, it's in the schedule.
It doesn't happen in the original stv- no errors.

Also, when I press 'Compress' in 'Recording Detail', it takes over 30 min for a 1 min timed recording, and then I pressed cancel, so I don't think it's working. Am I supposed to have some other app installed to make it work? Thanks