Importing Recordings

[Paranoid Delusion]

Being able to PULL in old TV recordings from previous installs, has been requested from as far back as i can remember, whether dvr-ms files or newer mpeg\ts.

Alway's the advice literally is change to mpeg\divx\xvid and either put it in folder Movies if a film and use imdb to get info, or if a general entertainment tv episodes use the TVseries plugin to get info.

Whichever way you do it, it means human action to get the information back for these files and not restore the old deleted database info.

Maybe a full database backup option in config would be nice as well (know there are individual backups, but if you missed one you would be pissed off), and how many times has anyone seen "unable to access database, need to create new" or something to that effect on a svn update.

I do not think anyone could easily automate this, otherwise it would have been done a long time ago.

[level20peon]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Delusion

Maybe a full database backup option in config would be nice as well (know there are individual backups, but if you missed one you would be pissed off), and how many times has anyone seen "unable to access database, need to create new" or something to that effect on a svn update.

I created kind of a workaround for this issue here.

Originally Posted by Paranoid Delusion

I do not think anyone could easily automate this, otherwise it would have been done a long time ago.

This should be easy to do though. You just have to grab the "recordingFolder" out of the table "card" and import the files from this folder and import them into the "recording" table.
However there are some informations not stored while doing a recording at this moment. So NOW it would only be possible to import

1. The file location
2. The name of the recorded program
2. Original start-time of the recorded program including date
3. Genre
4. Channel Name

Missing: (This could be exported to the xml file which currently is created during a recording anyway)

1. Actual start and stop time of the recording
2. Server-ID where the show was recorded


Bottom line is: It is possible to automate this with a single click but I am no .net programmer, so this has to be done by somebody else, since I won't write an external program which cannot be integrated in MediaPortal natively. This would be double work.


-level20peon

[snakeman65]

Is this still something that people would like? If so I have just written a program that gets the meta-data from mce recorded dvr-ms files and creates an xml for gb-pvr to import. It wouldn't be too much to get this importing into mps sql database instead. The only problem I can forsee is that I am currently relying on a wealth of meta-data that mce attaches to its dvr-ms files, for other programs this may well not be the case and i'll have to get the information from elsewhere or leave it out I'll look into it though.

Let me know if anybody is interested and i'll get to work!

[Paranoid Delusion]

Would anyone be interested.

YES THEY WOULD.

Apologies for the capitals but a easy way of reimporting old files\data back into MP has been a dream by many.

So if you think you can do it, i for one, think it would be great.

[snakeman65]

Well, I already have the .net and sql experience required. It just depends what meta-data mp needs and if the data is available. It is definately there in mce's dvr-ms recordings, as for other formats, we'll see. It may be that I either have to makeup the missing data or prompt for it. Is there any specific format you would like to see importable?

Nice to see someone enthusiastic for once! I posted my previously mentioned tool a couple of days ago to the gb-pvr forums and haven't had a single reply!

[Marcusb]

hey snakeman,
With the TV server method (the new TV engine v3) the recordings are stored as a .TS file but an XML file with all details is also created.

It would be excellent if you could migrate this from MCE to use for MP

[rekenaar]

I agree - I am also interested. Also using TV3. Good luck with the project and don't hessitate to ask when you need us to test.

Thank you.

[snakeman65]

Ok, I can definately do something with the ts/xml files. I'll get started this evening when I get home from work! First things first, install mediaportal!!

[snakeman65]

Just to prove my worth, here is the first beta of my Recordings Importer! Please bear in mind that this is a very early beta and as such has lots of things missing. It shouldn't break your system but don't blame me if it does! BACKUP your database first.

This does not yet have TS/XML Support. At present it only deals with dvr-ms, this is coming soon, very soon. It uses default content for a few of the fields (namely, the genre is "imported recordings", channel is 1, keepuntil is 0, keepuntil date is 01/01/2000 12:00:00, timeswatched is 0, idserver is 1 and stoptime is 0). Not being a longtime MP user I don't know what some of these fields do so if someone could furnish me with this information it would be most helpful. The ones i'm a little stumped on are stoptime and the values that should go into keepuntil.

Also, does mediaportal not have a subtitle/episode title function?

I have only tested this on recordings from windows media center. As dvr-ms is a standard, the meta-data *should* be the same for other programs but I don't yet know.

Let me know what you think if you do test it. This is really more to prove that I can backup my words until I actually finish the tool.

oh and BACKUP your database first

Chris

[snakeman65]

Well, i've had a busy day! Please see attached version 1.0 of recordings importer. Now with recursive directory support and full ts/xml support.

If you have any feedback, bug reports, suggestions, improvements, etc feel free to post them in this thread. If you find the program useful, please let me know!

Also, please bear in mind that i'm an asp.net developer by trade, windows applications aint my thing, in fact, this is my first!

Oh, and backup your database before you use this!

Chris

Originally Posted by Paranoid Delusion

I do not think anyone could easily automate this, otherwise it would have been done a long time ago.

Oh yeah?