HDR-FOX T2 to HDHomeRun, my journey

[MymsMan]

I use PLEX running on a Raspberry Pi, it works really well, bit of a faff moving stuff from win10 machine tp pi, but could probably be automated

There is a windows plex server so since dvrontime and ad breaker both require windows it would seem logical to run plex there as well.
Unfortunately it seems that my Buffalo LS220D NAS server doesn't have a Plex server
My LG TV has a Plex client app but doesn't have a Kodi app so I couldn't use that without yet another box attached to the TV and network.

I was able to set up Plex on my pc pointing to the library on my PC but I need to look at the scanning settings.
It is is OK where there is series and episode info

but is no good for my BBC new folder where there are many files from different date but all S00E00 - it only shows one episode

even worse is my Movies folder (mainly exported from humax so the have so .nfo sidefiles)

I have no idea where it is getting the (wrong) episode and series info from - each file is a different film

Any suggestions what the scan settings should be?

 

[sceptic]

I don't think I ever got to work without using credentials even if the folder is set for "everyone"

Yes after doing some reading last night I suspected this might be the case and after reading your post I confirmed it works just fine now with a username/password. Thanks for the tips.

 

[sceptic]

@MymsMan If you don't have NFO files then I'd assume it must be trying to get the info it needs from the filename for the scraper. I am already renaming and classifying all my DvrOnTime content into a more Kodi/Plex friendly way to help improve scraping and to supplement any missing data where I can identify/deduce it. I'm working on a similar mechanism for my Humax content as well, extracting details from the HMT files and synopsis, looking for it on OMDB and then attempting to classifying it as a Movie, TV Show or Single recording, renaming it and creating an NFO file etc. I'll share it on here when it's a bit further developed for anyone who is interested.

 

[erne]

I decommissioned one of my T2's this week and replaced it with a 2nd Quatro tuner. At some point I'll get around to doing some >4 tuner testing with DvrOnTime...

I have 2 quad tuners - had a bit of fun with TVHeadend trying to see how many shows i could record on my nas at the same time using both tuners - it was over 15
see this thread (6) Opinions on HDHomeRun? | hummy.tv
I have not had success on reinstalling DvrOnTime - I had and early build installed but somehow cant install the latest to have a play with so will be interested to hear your testing results

 

[sceptic]

I have not had success on reinstalling DvrOnTime

So far so good, although I have not set out to stress test this specifically... So far for me, DvrOnTime has been very reliable despite me hammering it for recording.

I had and early build installed but somehow cant install the latest to have a play with so will be interested to hear your testing results

Do you recall what the issue was exactly? If you share the details hopefully someone might be able to assist so you can do some further testing for yourself.

I have 2 quad tuners - had a bit of fun with TVHeadend trying to see how many shows i could record on my nas at the same time using both tuners - it was over 15

Yes I remember your post I don't believe that DvrOnTime supports >1 channel recording per tuner, so 8 would be the maximum for our current setups, but that's a limit I am extremely unlikely to ever hit

 

[sceptic]

Can't believe the prices on 2nd hand Quatro's at the moment. Just watched one sell for >£250

 

[dearleuk]

What if any, power saving settings on the windows machine running DvrOnTime are people using?

 

[MymsMan]

What if any, power saving settings on the windows machine running DvrOnTime are people using?

I needed to disable all sleep settings on the windows box and arrange for a wired LAN connection

 

[dearleuk]

I needed to disable all sleep settings on the windows box and arrange for a wired LAN connection

Thank you. Mine were initially disabled too, after enabling them recently, got lots of failed recordings

 

[lc200]

What if any, power saving settings on the windows machine running DvrOnTime are people using?

I did look into supporting suspend to RAM so that DvrOnTime would wake the PC and put it to sleep again. One main issue was wake by a schedule saw the PC going to sleep again within minutes with no way to keep it awake by the application or any available APIs. The only solution was a registry setting to extend the unattended wake from sleep timer so it didn't go back to sleep for many hours.

If you are using sleep options then currently DvrOnTime will not work correctly.

 

[dearleuk]

I did look into supporting suspend to RAM so that DvrOnTime would wake the PC and put it to sleep again. One main issue was wake by a schedule saw the PC going to sleep again within minutes with no way to keep it awake by the application or any available APIs. The only solution was a registry setting to extend the unattended wake from sleep timer so it didn't go back to sleep for many hours.

If you are using sleep options then currently DvrOnTime will not work correctly.

Good to have it confirmed, thank you

 

[lc200]

Good to have it confirmed, thank you

Of course you can use things like hard-drive power management (to spin down any drives) and have any attached monitor turned off, all that works fine. Just things like Sleep (aka suspend-to-ram) and hibernate will not work as DvrOnTime doesn't have the means to wake the machine. If it is something people would find useful I can take a look again.

 

[prpr]

One main issue was wake by a schedule saw the PC going to sleep again within minutes with no way to keep it awake by the application or any available APIs.

I use this to defeat the very annoying constant-going-to-sleep-if-you-leave-it-alone-for-15s on corporate laptop:
SetThreadExecutionState(ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED | ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED | ES_CONTINUOUS);
and just ES_CONTINUOUS to go back to normal.

 

[lc200]

I use this to defeat the very annoying constant-going-to-sleep-if-you-leave-it-alone-for-15s on corporate laptop:
SetThreadExecutionState(ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED | ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED | ES_CONTINUOUS);
and just ES_CONTINUOUS to go back to normal.

Yes that works, however problem being it is ignored if the PC has been woken from sleep by a timer and is in unattended mode. I suspect for safety and to stop apps draining laptop batteries or doing bad things Windows ignores any keep awake requests when in unattended mode and goes back to sleep in a few minutes. Android does a similar thing these days, you have to fight against power management all the time, especially for anything needing to happen at a user defined time.

 

[sceptic]

.... If it is something people would find useful I can take a look again.

It would be a nice option if you could support it, especially with the way things are going energy price wise.

 

[dearleuk]

@dearleuk As promised I have attached the script I use to file/organise DVROnTime recordings. Hopefully you will find it useful, from the readme...

What does it do?

1. It attempts to categorise recordings as Movies, TV Series or Single Episodes and file them accordingly into 3 main subdirectories.
2. It names the files in a Kodi friendly way, which can be customised via the script with minimal coding, and are in the right order when files are sorted by name.
3. It uses the Episode NFO files of DVROnTime to achieve this, extracting information via Regular expressions from the guide text (plot) and not relying on what DVROntime has or has not extracted itself...
4. It can optionally use OMDB lookups to help identify/classify and to create better NFO files.
5. It can be run non destructively (no arguments) which generates a report of what it would do without moving any files or with an additional /file argument, where recordings are classified and moved into directories.
6. It can be run locally on the DVROnTime server machine or remotely if you setup a share to your DVROnTime recordings directory (using a UNC or network drives)
7. When filing all files are moved from the DVROntime recordings location to the filing location(s). After all files in a subdirectory directory of DVROntime have been filed the empty sub directory is removed from the DVROnTime recordings directory.
8. No backups are taken. If a move fails for some reason (like lack of space) the script should stop at that point and abort.

What are the requirements?

1. The script needs to be customised for your environment before it can be used
2. It only works if you have the Episode NFO data file option ticked as it uses the information in those NFO files to extract all the programme info for classification and filing.
3. If you want to take advantage of the OMDB lookups for Movies/TV Series you need to register for a free (with a daily limit restriction) developer key (see customisation section)
4. It's written in VbScript and only runs under the CScript engine (i.e. command line output).

Disclaimers (you have been warned!!!)

1. The script was knocked up from various bits of other scripts to do a job and has had limited testing with my recordings to date. Use it at your own risk and please make sure you run it non destructively first and check the output thoroughly before attempting to file anything!!!!
2. It can only work with the supplied guide data which often has errors/inconsistencies, on occasions it will mis-classify a recording so its not possible to get it right 100% of the time :-(
3. The script was made to meet my requirements (mainly movies), which are not necessarily yours! If you don't like something you have the script source so you can tweak it as you desire
4. There is only minimal error handling so doing something silly in the configuration will likely result in errors.

Example usage - From a CMD (command line window), assuming the script subdirectory is the current directory.

1. cscript dvrontime_filer.vbs (generates a report to the CMD window terminal)
2. cscript dvrontime_filer.vbs >dvrontime_filer_report.txt (generates a report to a dvrontime_filer_report.txt file which can be viewed via notepad etc)
3. cscript dvrontime_filer.vbs >dvrontime_filer_report.txt 2>dvrontime_filer_errors.txt (generates a report to a dvrontime_filer_report.txt file and any errors to dvrontime_filer_errors.txt which can be viewed via notepad etc)
4. cscript dvrontime_filer.vbs /file (generates a report to the CMD window and files recordings accordingly)
5. cscript dvrontime_filer.vbs /file >dvrontime_filer_report.txt (generates a report to a dvrontime_filer_report.txt file and files recordings accordingly)

Example output

Example of a normal movie.

Movie (Found on OMDB) : \\nuc-pc\dvrontime\The Meg 0 28/12/2021 21:00:02 44
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\The Meg\The Meg 28-12-2021 S0E0.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_Movies\The Meg (2018).m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\the meg\the meg 28-12-2021 s0e0.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_Movies\The Meg (2018).nfo

Example of a split movie (I hate you C5!)

Movie (Found on OMDB) : \\nuc-pc\dvrontime\King Arthur Legend of the Sword 1 27/12/2021 21:04:51 45
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\King Arthur Legend of the Sword\King Arthur Legend of the Sword 27-12-2021 S0E0.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Movies\King Arthur Legend of the Sword (2017) part1.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\king arthur legend of the sword\king arthur legend of the sword 27-12-2021 s0e0.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Movies\King Arthur Legend of the Sword (2017) part1.nfo
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\King Arthur Legend of the Sword\King Arthur Legend of the Sword 27-12-2021 1 S0E0.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Movies\King Arthur Legend of the Sword (2017) part2.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\king arthur legend of the sword\king arthur legend of the sword 27-12-2021 1 s0e0.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Movies\King Arthur Legend of the Sword (2017) part2.nfo

Example of a Single episode

Single Episode : \\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Spitting Image Christmas Special 0 24/12/2021 22:03:43 48
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Spitting Image Christmas Special\Spitting Image Christmas Special 24-12-2021 S0E0.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Single_Recordings\Spitting Image Christmas Special 202112241003.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\spitting image christmas special\spitting image christmas special 24-12-2021 s0e0.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\Single_Recordings\Spitting Image Christmas Special 202112241003.nfo

Example of a full TV series

TV Series (Found on OMDB) : Stephen \\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Stephen 0 13/09/2021 20:00:07 150 3 3 2021 1
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Stephen\Stephen 30-08-2021 S1E1.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e01.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\stephen\stephen 30-08-2021 s1e1.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e01.nfo
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Stephen\Stephen 06-09-2021 S1E2.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e02.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\stephen\stephen 06-09-2021 s1e2.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e02.nfo
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\Stephen\Stephen 13-09-2021 S1E3.m2ts --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e03.m2ts
\\nuc-pc\dvrontime\stephen\stephen 13-09-2021 s1e3.nfo --> \\NUC-PC\DvrOnTime\_TVSeries\Stephen (2021)\Series 01\Stephen (2021) s01e03.nfo

Finally got around to having a look at this, thanks again.

This is me been thick, but if I have some files like:

McDonald and Dodds 03-07-2022 1900 S3E3.nfo

McDonald and Dodds 03-07-2022 1900 S3E3_CUT.ts

McDonald and Dodds 10-07-2022 1900 S3E4.nfo

McDonald and Dodds 10-07-2022 1900 S3E4_CUT.ts

What command do I issue to get:

McDonald and Dodds S03E03.nfo

McDonald and Dodds S03E03.ts

McDonald and Dodds S03E04.nfo

McDonald and Dodds S03E04.ts

Thank you

 

[sceptic]

@dearleuk It does not really work like that. If you modify the script to point to DVROnTime recordings home directory and then run it with no arguments it will then attempt to classify the recordings and file them in a Kodi friendly non-destructively. If that looks ok then run it again with the extra /file argument and the recordings will then be filed. That said, looking at your example I think the extra _CUT bits in the video filenames may confuse it as ISTR it expects the basefilename to be identical for the NFO and .[m2]TS files...

 

[dearleuk]

@dearleuk It does not really work like that. If you modify the script to point to DVROnTime recordings home directory and then run it with no arguments it will then attempt to classify the recordings and file them in a Kodi friendly non-destructively. If that looks ok then run it again with the extra /file argument and the recordings will then be filed. That said, looking at your example I think the extra _CUT bits in the video filenames may confuse it as ISTR it expects the basefilename to be identical for the NFO and .[m2]TS files...

Ah, okay. Thanks for getting back to me. I'll stick with filebot for the time being

 

[peterpi]

I'm downloading the software and instructions so I'll give it a try. I do have three always on PC's, but with the cost of electricity now, I'm going to be powering two down when not in use. What sort of spec PC is needed to run the software as I've got GIGABYTE GB-BXBT-2807 that is doing nothing, I wonder if it'll be up to the job?

Thanks Pete.

 

[Black Cloud]

I'm downloading the software and instructions so I'll give it a try. I do have three always on PC's, but with the cost of electricity now, I'm going to be powering two down when not in use. What sort of spec PC is needed to run the software as I've got GIGABYTE GB-BXBT-2807 that is doing nothing, I wonder if it'll be up to the job?

All I know is that you need at least Windows 8 because the database doesn't work with anything less. Other than that, I don't think there is anything to stress your PC. The interface is a web page and the recorded data rate is really low in PC terms, even with HD. Simply put, the PC just gives the network tuner instructions and then waits for recording data to arrive from the network. At least, that's what I think happens.

PS. I have a Fitlet (a 12 volt PC that fits in a car's glove box) with vintage Win 8.1. It's old and slow and does the job without any trouble. No, it's not doing it from the car!