Home Theater PC, part 5

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The Custom Menus

While I could have stayed with the standard HTPC software package SageTV®, I've chosen to spice it up. The "STV" interface modifications that are available can add many features. Cayars' STV (for SageTV v2.1, and which is based on Nielm's earlier STV for v2.0) has some custom menus, which they picked up from "Malore" (and gave credit to Malore), another of the SageTV® gurus. I haven't checked to see if they are the same or whether they have been further improved. These are pretty good. They are also editable by any user, not just one who has the SageTV Studio program

By default, there are three "Guide" selections, which the user can select and then edit from within SageTV. I've set these up to be "Select by Title," "Select by Channel," and "Select by Category." To change the selection basis (channel, title, etc.), right-click on that menu or use the corresponding button on a remote control. If you want to change the titles on the custom menua, you have to edit the file menus.xml to change these labels. That's no biggie.

These guides look at SageTV's entire 14 day program guide (provided by Zap2It, who I already used for TV schedule information). For example, if I want to see what is on the SciFi Channel, I can pick Select by Channel, pick the SciFi channel, and then I see the next two weeks' schedule in chronological order. Right-clicking lets me sort to a different order, too. I even have a choice between displaying by channel number and displaying by channel name.

Similarly, I can select shows by title or by category, which is provided as part of the Zap2It guide data. "Upcoming Movies" shows the movies that are coming on the premium channels; however, if you don't have HBO, etc., you can redefine which channels you want to be used.

Recording "Favorites"

The "Favorites" function is very powerful, allowing you to automatically record your favorite shows. In addition to the usual ability to set the default padding (extra time) at the beginning and end of the shows, you can specify the standard padding for each of your Favorites. My one issue with Favorites is that, in order to set up a Favorite, it has to be a show that is in the current schedule. I'd really like the ability to define a show as a Favorite based on the title, even though it is not in the current schedule.