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

[oajungen]

I am using this STV for about a week at this moment and I love it!
Unfortunately I am having troubles with this STV when I am using hibernate. When the computer start from hibernate to make a recording, the screen remains black. The computer is not hanging, because all other software is working fine. When I use the default STV everything is oke.

How can I solve this problem?

[bhageman]

I recently installed the Cayars STV and I noticed the performance of my computer plummetted. The system drive never stops spinning and there is suddenly a lag of anywhere from 20 seconds to over a minute between remote control commands. When I switch back to SageMC or OriginalV2, performance returns to previous levels.

FWIW, I don't care how many bells and whistles are added, I have yet to see an STV as elegant as Nielm. How difficult would be it be for someone with Studio to port Nielm over to 2.1 or 2.2 beta?

[rsagetv99]

Hey Carlo, will it be possible to record the streaming audio? I brought this up in another forum...

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=8630

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by bhageman

I recently installed the Cayars STV and I noticed the performance of my computer plummetted. The system drive never stops spinning and there is suddenly a lag of anywhere from 20 seconds to over a minute between remote control commands. When I switch back to SageMC or OriginalV2, performance returns to previous levels.

FWIW, I don't care how many bells and whistles are added, I have yet to see an STV as elegant as Nielm. How difficult would be it be for someone with Studio to port Nielm over to 2.1 or 2.2 beta?

Couple of questions for you.
Is ComSkip running (default) or did you turn it off? If it's running it will consume all the "spare" CPU cycles of your machine. Pretty much anything less then a 3GHz processor and you feel the difference IMHO. If this is the case a few key adjustments to when ComSkip runs will make a world of difference to you. So what are the ComSkip settings set to?

Have you ran Nielm's STV on 2.1 or 2.2 or are you comparing it to when you ran it on 2.0x? The reason I ask this is that I notice a serious differenence between 2.0.x and anything higher especially in the OSD. It's a "night and day" difference.

Frey just released 2.2.2 beta which gives a higher priority to video threads and it does help some but not enough.

With that said I too noticed slow downs in 2 spots in version 15. The first and worst was in the OSD. The second was in the Recording screens where you see a listing of all your shows. This screen could be just as bad as the OSD if you had video running in a window. This makes sense because there's a miniature OSD on that screen.

I've made some adjustments to the OSD for 16 and this running on 2.2.2 seems much better then 15 running on 2.2.1.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Hey Carlo, will it be possible to record the streaming audio? I brought this up in another forum...

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=8630

Not in the first version anyway.

[bhageman]

I've never run ComSkip and made sure it was disabled. I tried Nielm. With Nielm, I didn't have the CPU load problems but there seemed to be some minor glitches which I attributed to the fact that it wasn't written for 2.1+.

I'm running the latest 2.2 beta without any problems.

While using Cayars, I tried turning off a variety of the features and couldn't find anything specific that improved performance.

This is an older P3 box, so it could just be too much for it, but since the system is fine with the basic STV and SageMC, I was surprised that an STV alone would put that much more of a load on the CPU.

Thanks for the feedback.

Originally Posted by Cayars

Couple of questions for you.
Is ComSkip running (default) or did you turn it off?

Have you ran Nielm's STV on 2.1 or 2.2

Frey just released 2.2.2 beta which gives a higher priority to video threads and it does help some but not enough.

[Cayars]

That could be bhageman. There is a lot of extra stuff going on in the STV that doesn't happen with the original that's for sure. Just adding the dynamic menus alone causes one of my old P3 machines to not work well since the Java footprint is a little to high.

[mdmint]

Just wondering why 199hrs seems to be the max look ahead for space needed for sched recordings when EPG and scheduling is 2 weeks = 336hrs? When attempting to input number higher than 199 it reverts to the previous number. (Found 199hr limit through trial and error) Or is this a bug or problem with my installation or config? BTW, cool storage bar! I like the numeric and graphical representation of total, used and to be used space.

[Cayars]

Forgetting the technical side of things which I'll look at btw, why would you care how much recording you're going to be doing more then 8 days out?

I actually only like to know how much recording is happening in the next 2 days. I too have my EPG set at a higher number then the standard 3 days too.

[JUC]

Hey carlo, i finally got the DVDrip function to work correctly---i didn't realize that i had DVD decrypter running from my gordian knot folder...anyway, i have it outputting to the folder structure indicated in the .bat file:
C:\Program Files\DVD Decrypter\DVDdecrypter.exe" /MODE FILE /SRC D: /DEST C:\DVDs\[DISC_LABEL]\VIDEO_TS /FILES ALL /Start /Close

But, the name of the DVD is not showing up. It just has [Disc_Label] as the folder name. This normally wouldn't be a problem but if I want to rip consecutive DVD's it does not create a new folder. A box pops up asking me if I want to overwrite the previous files (which i don't want to do or i will lose the first rip), Or, i can choose not to overwrite (but then it just places double .vobs in the same folder)---which makes it impossible to differentiate between the two rips. Any thoughts on:
1. how i can get the DVD name to show up and
2. how i can rip consecutive DVD's

note: if i manually run DVD decrypter the name of the DVD will show up and i have no problem ripping consecutive DVD's.
Thanks and I'm really looking forward to your next release---DVD burning-(the only thing i have been waiting for other than CD ripping/burning)
JUC

[CyRex]

Some things I have noticed while using v15:

- Channel Up/Down no longer function as Page Up/Page Down when in the guide or viewing a list of recorded files. I remember it did this in the Original STV

- Sometimes when I press my TV button I am brought to my recorded shows list

- It is a crapshoot as to which menu I am brought to when I press the MENU button on my remote. In the Original I was brought to the Main Menu always.

I think there were some other random navigation things that I noticed, but I can't think of them right now.

[Cayars]

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on the progress of DVD burning and what to expect.

At present I haven't touched the STV side of things. This should not be to difficult however. What I envision for the STV is to have an additional button/menu in the detailed screen of a recording. You will use this to add a show/movie to a "burn list". After you select your movies/shows you will be able to start an external process that creates and burns the DVD. I still have to code this but it will be the last thing I do.

Once the STV has all the files ready it will pass these off to an external program that actually builds and burns the DVD. This is what I've been working on. Here is what it will do at present: (semi-technical)

At each step it will update a screen letting you know what it is working on. Each step normally takes from 1 to 5 minutes depending on the size of the mpg.

*) Creates a static DVD menu depending on the number of MPG files.
*) Optional: Cut commercials out of video using ComSkip data.
*) DeMux each MPG that will be on the destination DVD (break file up into video and audio files).
*) Calculate DVD size based on above files.
*) Compress Video portion of each mpg down if needed to fit on the DVD.
*) Mux the Video & Audio back together into a VOB file while adding DVD NAV packets.
*) Create proper DVD structure and break VOB files down into 1GB pieces.
*) Burn the DVD or create an ISO DVD file.

The STV file will allow you to set a temporary working directory. No external configurations should be needed for this to work.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Cayars

Forgetting the technical side of things which I'll look at btw, why would you care how much recording you're going to be doing more then 8 days out?

I actually only like to know how much recording is happening in the next 2 days. I too have my EPG set at a higher number then the standard 3 days too.

Why? Why! You wanna know why? You can't handle why! Why not?! Guess since EPG scheduling is provided "about" two weeks out I'd just like as much info as possible to match. Been scheduling a lot of Holiday movies and specials and it's kind interesting to see how much HD space being chewed up. Just checked, the next 199hrs needs 146.5GB with 579.6GB free.

BTW, I misspoke earlier. It doesn't numerically give total space, just graphically.

[Cayars]

[JUC]

any thoughts on my post above--#1350???

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by JUC

note: if i manually run DVD decrypter the name of the DVD will show up and i have no problem ripping consecutive DVD's.

How do you manually run DVD decrypter? Are you running it from the command line? If so, are you using the same command string that is called from the .bat file to do so?

I'd check that you have the latest version of DVDdecrypter...

[Cayars]

It's been tested on numerious computer running DVD Decrypter v3.5.1.0 and it works so you probably have an older version. Make sure you have the version mentioned above and if you still have a problem let us know.

[JUC]

I am guessing i have an older version then. I will see when I get home. Thanks
BTW--by manually running DVD decrypter, I meant actually starting up the program (clicking on the icon), then manually clicking Start.
Thanks
JUC

[abasu2003]

Originally Posted by Cayars

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on the progress of DVD burning and what to expect.

At present I haven't touched the STV side of things. This should not be to difficult however. What I envision for the STV is to have an additional button/menu in the detailed screen of a recording. You will use this to add a show/movie to a "burn list". After you select your movies/shows you will be able to start an external process that creates and burns the DVD. I still have to code this but it will be the last thing I do.

Once the STV has all the files ready it will pass these off to an external program that actually builds and burns the DVD. This is what I've been working on. Here is what it will do at present: (semi-technical)

At each step it will update a screen letting you know what it is working on. Each step normally takes from 1 to 5 minutes depending on the size of the mpg.

*) Creates a static DVD menu depending on the number of MPG files.
*) Optional: Cut commercials out of video using ComSkip data.
*) DeMux each MPG that will be on the destination DVD (break file up into video and audio files).
*) Calculate DVD size based on above files.
*) Compress Video portion of each mpg down if needed to fit on the DVD.
*) Mux the Video & Audio back together into a VOB file while adding DVD NAV packets.
*) Create proper DVD structure and break VOB files down into 1GB pieces.
*) Burn the DVD or create an ISO DVD file.

The STV file will allow you to set a temporary working directory. No external configurations should be needed for this to work.

thats pretty much everything. one thing I'd like to point out: It would technicalyl be possible to add 20 hrs of show to a DVD playlist (right?) because anything can be shrinked down. So, maybe make sure to include a way to see how much compression is being used.

[oajungen]

I am using this STV for about a week at this moment and I love it!
Unfortunately I am having troubles with this STV when I am using hibernate. When the computer start from hibernate to make a recording, the screen remains black. The computer is not hanging, because all other software is working fine. When I use the default STV everything is oke.

How can I solve this problem?