transfering recordings to different computer

[mariusvr]

Hi All,

As I understand it, all the television recordings , watched status, etc are stored in the wiz.bin file. This is encrypted and it is not possible to change or extract anything from this file.

I have some DivX recordings from my DVD collection. Is it possible for these to show up in the TV recordings? The imported library look does not really do it for me (preffer Malore recording style).

Is there a way to trick SageTV to accept the new movie files and list these under TV recordings.

Thanks,

Marius

[Menehune]

The simple answer-No. Shows that are not recoded by sage don't appear in the "sage recordings" or "sage archive" menus, they show up in the "imported videos" menu.

Slightly more complicated answer-Possibly, if you first record the dvds off the air so the epg data shows in the show's information, then if you replace the off-air recording with the divx ripped show, changing the divx filename to the exact name of the recorded show. For example it may be possible to replace a network broadcast (that you recorded with sage) of CSI with a rip of the episode from the DVD set, assuming you save the rip with the exact name that sage gave the recording when it recorded the show off air.

I have done the "file replacing" with shows that I have removed commercials, with good results. The time line still shows the original recording's length though so the time line is a little weird, but the characters, ratings, etc are still good.

Some stvs may have the potential to display more import video data, but I'm using plain sage with no stvs loaded.

[mariusvr]

That is what I was afraid for.

I guess my problem is that I don't like the layout of the imported videos screen. It would be soooo nice to have all my series on the left and then show the actual episodes on the right, similar to malore style TV recordings. It also does not track which episodes I have watched.

Weren't they going to sell licenses for SageTV studio? Or would this be something to ask the people that already have access to Studio.

Cheers,

Marius

[silkshadow]

I guess my problem is that I don't like the layout of the imported videos screen. It would be soooo nice to have all my series on the left and then show the actual episodes on the right, similar to malore style TV recordings. It also does not track which episodes I have watched.

I believe Nielm, the pugin master *bows*, has created a plugin for this. What it does is it puts your imported viedo with your recorded TV. I haven't used it myself as I don't import anything into Sage (Meedio handles that stuff) but I saw it yesterday while I was going through all the Sage plugins. Maybe that might fit your requirements?

[nielm]

Not quite - my plugin puts *archived* sage recordings (those you press 'Add to Library' on), and I have no idea if it works on malore's sage recordings view.

But the web server has an (experimental) screen where you can add/edit show info for a file... and if you add show info for an imported library file, it will appear as an archived recording, and with the other plugin, it might appear in the sage recordings view...

It will be a lot of work though...

[mariusvr]

Thanks Nielm for your reply.

The webserver looks great. And after modifying the data on an imported file, they show up as an archived recording. In my job, I work on data mining from the internet and creating automated queries (for medical research). Creating a script that will automate filling out the form on your webserver (using part of the filename or info.my file to look up the show information on the internet), won't be very difficult now I have a webpage that I can interface with.

However, I am using Cayars17 STV at the moment and he won't allow importing any modules. And I can not use your module, that let archived show show up as TV recordings. I could switch back to the standard STV, but then I won't have the nice malore style screen. If you can see my problem....


It would be an easy thing to do if you had studio I imagine, but that is only available to the selected few.

Cheers,

Marius

[ToxMox]

Here is a link to Cayars 18 with imports enabled:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...77&postcount=7

[mariusvr]

OK, the Cayar18 STV works with the import module from Nielm. The webserver also works to convert imported recordings to archived recordings. (Although archived recordings don't show up in the malore screen, even with the import module). However, I am happy to use the default TV recordings screen in the Cayar18 STV.

Now I am lazy and don't want to manually import all my own DVD collection, especially when I write a script in the same amount of time that does it all for me. ( I am have written in javascript, perl, http, java, VB and flash before) The Webserver provides me with an interface to SageTV. I have looked at the webremote http and believe that is also should be possible to write some javascript code for converting imported to archived recordings.

1. Identifying which files need to be imported
Putting the files in a specific directory would be easiest. The search function in the webserver does not have the option to search on directory. The alternative would be to include a unique TAG at the end of the filename to search for (and use the webserver to get a list of the files).

2. Extracting information for show name and title.
Easiest when filename contains this information separated by a "-" sign. (this is the way I have it at the moment). for instance: "South Park - S1E01 Cartman's Hate Crime.avi" The script can split up the filename into individual information fields for importing.

3. Updating Sage Database
I'll look into using the webserver to convert imported to archived recordings, similar to the webremote. The script can then update all files found in the import directory using a loop.

Question on EPG database:
As far as I know, the EPG database only has information for the next two weeks. Is there a way to look up the show ID for an episode that is not scheduled to appear within two weeks?

Any input will be appreciated,

Marius

[nielm]

Question on EPG database:
As far as I know, the EPG database only has information for the next two weeks. Is there a way to look up the show ID for an episode that is not scheduled to appear within two weeks?

Not really, unless you look it up on Zap2It's web site somehow...

The webserver uses internally generated EPGID's that do not clash with Zap2It's -- on the plus side this means that show information modified in the webserver will not get overwritten by an EPG update, but on the minus side, it also means that Sage will not see that you have watched a show, and will re-record it when it is next on...

That webserver edit show info page is something I plan to enhance... and the include archived import will be fixed for malore-style menus shortly!

[mariusvr]

There seems to be no logic behind the EPGID's (episodes from the same show have completely different ID's) , so the only option is to SageTV to generate a new show ID.

I had a closer look at your programming today. Nice work!

The best way to automate the import function, in my opinion, is to add an import function to the "<select name="command">" box on the search results page. That way it would utilize your existing programming and give control over which shows to convert.

The show name and episode title could be extracted from the filename. For instance create a directory with the show name and in this directory the filename will be the episode title. (H:\archive\southpark\Cartmans hate Crime.avi"

If it is OK with you, I'll have a play with your web-server code. (don't like to de-compile code without the authors permission).

Best Wishes,

Marius

[mariusvr]

P.S. (never tried de-compiling Java before, not sure if it even works that good). But I will understand it if you can not give access to the source code, because of license restrictions with Sage.

It has been a while since I programmed in Java and I like to take on a project once in a while to keep my skills active. Automating the import taks looks to tricky to me to handy with Javascript. Normally I would use Perl for this (great for this type of projects), but then other people won't we able to use any of my scripts without installing perl.

Cheers,

Marius

[nielm]

webserver source code is in souceforge CVS, linked at the bottom of the wiki page...

[mariusvr]

great. I have installed Java/netbeans and will try to load up the source code tonight. I also found this article on linking up to the CVS of sourceforge.

http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/sourceforge.html

Would this be the easiest way to duplicate your Java project?

I will create a new java class for the batch convert action, that way I won't interfere with your development of the server (you seem very active in making improvements).

Cheers,

Marius

[nielm]

Eclipse (Java IDE) has a very nice integrated CVS client, complete with intelligent diff/merge capability that shows you which functions/classes/variables have changed...

I am happy to integrate any improvements into the main webserver (given the usual set of caveats that they are of reasonable quality and relevant to sage!)..