official Sagetv thread or sub-forum?g

We'd be happy to set up a board on our forum if there's enough interest. We've been working on compatibility with Sage lately.

Here's the new SageTV board on our forum:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=24

I'm getting a 403 error on their forum...I hope it's temporary.

Thanks for the link.

I don't really know what you are concerned about. From what I've seen over on the Sage forums, people have been pretty much free to discuss whatever they want. There's problem threads with people receiving help/suggestions from other users all over over there.

-Suntan

Jim, thanks for taking an interest in Sage users. Is there any guidance as to what SageTV capabilities you hope to support within J. River? I looked around in your new forum but didn't really see anything in the way of a "current features" or a "to-do" list.

-Suntan

Here's the current status.

MC will import Sage files and apply a few tags based on the file names. This uses a feature we call Carnac.

MC plays all files without problems, as far as I know.

MC can skip commercials if they were previously processed by Sage.

Developer babgvant has created a tool called MigrateSageTVtoJMC for metadata.

MC17 can tune a Set Top Box now.

(This post by nwboater is a nice summary of the status from Mrs. nwboater's point of view.)

Our EPG was updated to a grid style in MC17.

We're working on Cablecard with Ceton, but I don't know yet how long it will take.

I realize that the extenders are an important piece of the puzzle. Our own development has been focused on supporting Xbox, PS3, and DLNA devices. You could use a Samsung TV or Blu-ray player now, for instance.

MC can use an Android tablet as a playback device now. Also as a remote control for MC. Our Android app is called Gizmo.

You're in the Twin Cities. Why don't you stop by for a quick tour?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/

Loads fine for me.

-Suntan

Interesting. So could a person running MC on their server, use Gizmo on a phone/tablet to select 24/96 FLAC audio files to decode and play, full quality, on a PS3, output as multichannel PCM via HDMI? That is the one function that is currently a little clunky with a SageTV extender controlled by the TaSageTV android app.

Where in the Cities are you guys?

-Suntan

In DLNA, we can convert, and MC can read the FLAC you have, but I'm not sure about 24 bit PCM output. We'll check.

At the corner of North First St and Second Ave North, near the Federal Reserve.

Any specific models of Samsung? I have a BDP 2500 Blu-Ray Player and a LN-650 LCD T.V. Both have ethernet connections, but are older models now.

I asked Bob, our developer for DLNA. He says the 6500 works really well. I don't know about yours. You could search for Samsung on our network board here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=7.0

But you can also just try it to see what you learn. The trial version is free. Read about "Media Network" on our wiki to learn more about setup.

Thanks. I'll check it out..

No conversion. Everything must play native. That's a deal breaker for me personally.

Even with a quad-core server I'll not go back to the days of transcoding.

If DLNA is the future, why does it have to suck so badly?



Downtown huh, that's a bit of a drive as I'm at the very south edge of Lakeville.

-Suntan

If you have multi-channel FLAC and you want to play 24bit PCM, that's a conversion. It's lossess though. PCM is close to WAV.

We spent a little time on this yesterday. We may get it going in a few days.

DLNA is a joke, and a poor excuse for accessing media intended for the wanna be players who cant be bothered to implement proper media sharing/handling.

DLNA is actually pretty cool when it works, but the standard and its implementation are a little rough sometimes.

Define "proper media sharing".

I would agree. DLNA is what it is. The issue is that the vast majority of products that implement it, only implement the bare minimum such as to allow them to stick a DLNA sticker on their box, resulting in endless hassles when a person actually wants to use it for much more.

As far as converting the FLAC to uncompressed PCM before sending it to the player, that may be fine. Maybe. The issue I have with converting FLAC to PCM at the PC is not in quality degradation, which shouldn’t happen, but in requiring CPU time to do the conversion. I know it should be minor for audio (and in reality perhaps it would be completely unnoticed) but it still requires the PC to do the conversion, which offers the chance for it to get borked up if the PC is also doing other things. As it stands today, I have yet to suffer any “server side” bottlenecks when the audio/video is strictly being read off the HDD and shuttled out the door to the NIC.

Perhaps things have changed and this is no longer a problem, but at the same time, it is quite frequent where others in the house are relying on the “server” pc to serve media while I am using it to do rather intensive activities like Photoshop and Vegas Pro NLE editing.

That said, I wouldn’t switch over to a system that expected to transcode video codecs to *another* video codec before sending it out to the player. Not a chance. I’ve gotten too spoiled by the sage extenders.


The media is stored at a server, as it is. Either as it was packaged in the original video/audio codec in the native ATSC/QAM stream, as it is in the original MPEG/AVC/VC1 codecs used at the time the person ripped the DVD/BR discs, as it is in the original codec straight from the home camcorder/NLE editor or even as it is at the time they downloaded it from the net.

The media then gets sent via the LAN to the player, as it is (see above) for the player to decode/playback natively at the display.

Repackaging into alternative containers on the fly (mkv<->m2ts, TS<->PS, etc.) is ok, …but frowned upon.

-Suntan

I agree, with a minor exception for conversion. Conversion is essential for some device support. Some devices only support MPEG2, for example. Streaming across the Internet to your phone is another. It allows things like watching the end of a movie in bed on an Android tablet.

Yes, for mobile products outside the house, transcoding for the sake of placeshifting is a necessary evil. That said, I've played with a number of them and they are all flaky as heck. Inside the house, today's mobile products have the ability to playback pretty much all known codecs used. Certainly next gen products (coming out in weeks) will be able to.

Anyway, I fully understand going with DLNA to make it feasible to hop onto the equipment of other vendors throughout the house. ...until you guys get around to making your own hardware clients that is.

-Suntan

I think the solution, these days, is to implement a media server separate to your main power house PC. I have a small low-power set-up on 24/7 for serving media (doesn't currently transcode - but that's because I don't need to) and a separate powerful PC (which is only on when I need it to be) for processor intensive stuff.

In fact these days I suspect audio transcoding - FLAC->WAV etc. - could probably be done by some of the smaller ARM-based Plugtop "PC" server devices ? I know that Squeezebox's server can be run on PogoPlugs and some DDWRT routers these days for instance.

No offence, but that's been the proposed solution for nearly a decade. Even so, I've had more success using dedicated hardware players that handle full, native playback at the display than I ever had in trying to monkey with transcoding on dedicated media PCs.

Believe me, I've tried it every combination of ways you could think of.

As for going back to a dedicated PC just for media, no thanks. The benefits of piggybacking the minimal server functions onto my main desktop PC far outweigh the "ability" to transcode on a dedicated PC to me.

-Suntan

then that device is broken/inferior... (not counting tablets/placeshifting/low bandwidth over internet type devices)
any plans on coming out with your own device? (one that actually supports common codec...)
or at least custom firmware that auto boots to some jriver MC homescreen?
ie an actual replacement for the HD300...

Suntan also asked about that.

We'd like to offer an audio/video extender, but it has been difficult to find a manufacturer to work with. Anyone reading who has an interest, please write me. I'm jimh at jriver.

We offered an audio only version for a while. It was the JRiver Id (rhymes with "hid"). We just weren't able to get the manufacturer to work closely enough on it to do what we wanted.

I'd like to do one that just plugged into an outlet and used Powerline Ethernet for the connection. Something very small.

A dedicated media player like a WD TV Live + NAS works perfectly. all via DLNA, no transcoding.

We think this may be working now, in build 17.0.48 (not yet public). The PS3 appears to be playing the file, but the TV it's connected to produces no sound.

If you could test when the build becomes available on our MC17 board, it would be helpful.

I'm jimh at jriver if you need help.

how is the UI on that?
one of the great things about sage, what got me to switch to it in the first place, was that the UI of the extender was whatever you wanted it to be... any UI mod/theme available for a HTPC running Sage also worked/looked the same on an extender...
does the WDTV support JRiver themes/UI mod/whatever Jriver calls it?
if so, you wouldn't happen to have a screen shot of that would you? I would like to see what is possible with Jriver/WDTV.

Hey all - I am still learning all of this so bear with me... I recently got an HTPC and plan on getting either the HD HR Prime or Ceton InfiniTv cable card .... What is the benefit of sagetv over just using WMC? Is SageTV accessable via WMC? Thanks again!