Experiences - EPG and Power Scheduler

[edieter]

Hi,

About 3 weeks ago I started testing the tv-server. As I read the wiki I thought: Wow, this is exactly what I need!

I am using my computer most of the time as a normal PC. But sometimes I want to watch pictures, hear music, watch tv (DVB-S) from my sofa, record tv movies and watch them later or convert them for my PDA. One of the most important things for me was that I can simply program the recording of a movie, switch mp off (me and especially my wife also uses the computer for other things) and switch the PC off to save energy. The PC then should automatically start for recording and switch off afterwards, if it is not used in parallel. These were my requirements and I was looking also for commercial solutions already quite a while- without success. Also the old version of mp without a service was no solution for me. But now mp really is perfect!!! I bet you developers could be millionaires if you would make the installing process a bit simpler, extend the documentation, remove the last bugs and sell the piece of software – but of course I am happy that the software is free.

I did have some problems getting everything to work. To make it a bit simpler for others that might have the same problems I will describe my experiences in the following:

Installation
I already had mysql4 installed on my PC. Somewhere in the forum I read that mysql4 does not work together with mp. As I wanted to avoid installing mysql5 in parallel I tried using mysql4 – and it works fine! The only thing that one must know is the name of the service. Installing mysql5 it is named "mysql5" in default. One could expect that it is named "mysql4" when using mysql4 but there the default name is "mysql". So you should try this first. Installing mp also was no problem.

The two thing that really needed time where getting the EPG and the power scheduler to work properly.

EPG
I am using a DVB-S card (skystar2) und I live in Germany. In Germany we have two public providers of tv channels (ARD and ZDF) and several providers of private TV channels (SAT1, RTL, …). ARD and ZDF operate about 15 separate tv channels. As far as I found out, ARD sends the complete EPG for all channels operated by ARD on all channels. In addition, ARD also sends the EPG for all ZDF channels. But this EPG is only the program that is running at the specific moment. So what happens within mp: mp starts grabbing one ARD channel. It recognizes that also EPG data for ZDF channels is also available and does not scan the ZDF channels. The result is that the program guide of the ZDF channels is nearly empty. For me the problem could (nearly) be solved by using clickfinder for the 8 main channels in Germany (in combination with cf2xmltv; put cf2xmltv as a planned task in windows; use XMLTV-plugin in tvserver) and using EPG of DVB-S for the other channels. This combination now works for me ok But for some channels I still don’t have EPG data. A solution could be quite easy from my point of view: If EPG data of one channel that is not directly scanned only contains very little information a direct scan of this channel should be done.
I also noticed problems starting watching tv during EPG grabbing. Sometimes the picture freezes. To avoid this I set the EPG “Refresh every” to 1400 minutes and use the EPG wakeup settings to start my computer once a day during a time were I don’t watch tv. That works fine for me.

Power Scheduler
This was my biggest problem. The first setup was simple. But 1 out of 2 times I (or power scheduler) woke up my PC form standby the tvserver did not work properly anymore. So I thought I stop and restart the tvserver every time the pc switches on. But stopping the tvserver with “net stop tvservice” or via “reinitialize service on wakeup” in the plugin causes problems 1 out of 2 times (the tvservice crashes and causes dw20.exe to run with 100% CPU for nearly a minute; during that time the tvserver can not be restarted). So this also did not work properly. What helped is to directly kill the task tvservice after startup. I found two ways to do this:
taskkill -f /IM tvservice.exe (taskkill comes directly with windowsxp) or
pcwkill /f TvService.exe (pcwkill can be downloaded in the internet)
So I wrote a batch file where I kill the task, wait 2 seconds and then restart the tvservice (via “net start tvservice”). The script can be called by the power scheduler. Put it in the field “run before stand by / after wake up”. Now the next problem was that I did not want to run the batch file when the PC is switched off. I discovered that the power scheduler calls the batch file with a parameter (I did not find any documentation about this). During wakeup the parameter is “wakeup”, during standby the parameter is “standby”. If you know this, a solution is simple. A script could look like this:

IF "%1"=="wakeup" GOTO wakeup
GOTO ende
:wakeup
taskkill -f /IM tvservice.exe
c:\tools\sleep 2
net start tvservice
:ende

By the way: In the forum I found that some people use "hibernate trigger" to restart the tvservice. This did not work for me as hibernate trigger does not recognize if my pc is switched on via a planned task by power scheduler. It does recognize this as soon I move my mouse and it does recognize it, if I switch on my pc via remote control or via power button. I don’t know why.

My last problem was that my imon remote control also sometimes does not work after wakeup. This problem can be solved by killing the task and restart it. So this has nothing to do with mp but anyhow - it was a problem for my mp system. Unfortunately it is not possible to restart the imon process in the script called by power scheduler (I still don’t know why, but it doesn’t work also if I call a separate process via start). So I use hibernate trigger now to restart the imon process. It took me hours to figure all this out, but now the system really works perfectly!

Then I had several problems watching tv directly. Nearly all these problems are solved since I changed to the SVN build 15317 and the new ts filter from frodo! Great work!!!

Upgrading Database
What was not very nice is the reset of the database when installing the new SVN build. I would really appreciate if the database could be upgraded. As I did not want to lose all my tv settings I re-imported the data of the old database manually. This is pretty simple with mysql. Just dump the database before you run the update:

"C:\Programme\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin\mysqldump" tvlibrary > c:\tvlibrary.sql

Open the file with a ASCII-Editor and remove the sections where the tables and are created. This part is not very difficult as the sql-file contains comments. Then, after the new database is created, reimport via:

"C:\Programme\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1\bin\mysql" -h localhost -e"source c:\tvlibrary.sql " tvlibrary -u root

Only the tables that were changed cannot be imported (in this build the table "tuningdetail". For this table I used MS-Access as a frontend for mysql (via mysql-odbc-driver) and copied the table content (there are probably other ways, but this was quite simple for me). Everything worked fine afterwards. The complete procedure only took about 15 minutes so I can really recommend this. Setting up the tvserver again would have taken me at least 2 hours as DVB-S has several 100 channels!

Convert movies for pda
This has nothing to do with mp but it is really quite simple so I put it here. If you have recorded DVB-S tv via mp you receive an ts file. In most cases the recorded movie contains commercials so I use projectX to cut them out. In projectX you can set a post process command. I set it to the following:
"C:\Programme\projectX\launch.exe" open "C:\Programme\projectX\topda.bat" ?2
The launch program can be downloaded from the internet. There are probably other programs doing similar things.
The script topda.bat only contains one line:

start /Low C:\Programme\eRightSoft\SUPER\mencoder\mencoder.ex e %1 -audiofile %2 -o %1.avi -oac lavc -ofps 25 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:aspect=4/3:vbitrate=336:acodec=mp3:abitrate=64:trell -af resample=22050 -vf scale=320:240

Of course you need to install the freeware software "super" (which contains mencoder) or only "mencoder" first. I tested quite a while to figure out good settings. The result (for the 320x240 screen on my pda) is shown above.
If everything is set, it only takes a few minutes to cut out commercial and start the converting process. Note: If you have a similar single seat setup like me, you of course must put mencoder in the list of processes that avoid power scheduler to go to sleep…

So, I hope this helps someone out there. Comments are of course welcome!

Regards
Dieter

[SweetHome]

viewed over 400 times and no comment on this?!

....


Thx for your experience as I am undergoing similar processes these days.
As I am not that good at script writing (I'm a GUI-bee ) could you please supply your scripts or explain them for "dummies".
for example: "c:\tools\sleep 2" I don't understand.
I guess these are the 2 seconds of pause?!
Which sleep tool is required for this?

Would be nice, as I cannot use Powerscheduler at TV03 and Plugin in MP at the moment due to freezing.
(by the way, I've also a single seat setup MP 0.2.3 + SVN + TV03 on XP SP2)

[chemelli]

what a complete post. Thanks for all info provided.

Simone

[Paranoid Delusion]

Power Scheduler

Now that section really interested me, maybe you could talk to Bavarian, who maintains Powerscheduler to have something like that incorporated, would be nice to have no more failed recordings, might even solve some usb card problems.

Thanks

[moviebuff03]

What a great email! I too have been having probs with TV Server.

However, I have one question about the batch file script. The line c:\tools\sleep 2. I am unsure of what file it is running or what file I need???

Can you explain to me in 'dummies' terms so that I can try this on my PC.

Thanks

[SweetHome]

I figured it out.

Its the sleep.exe which is part of Windows server 2003 resource kit - at least I found it there!
put the sleep.exe in the directory in which you want it to have.
and call it c:\sleep 2 for 2 seconds pause or c:\sleep 5 for 5 sec.

works perfect.

[moviebuff03]

Thanks SweetHome. I have been to Microsoft's site and downloaded the resource pack. Will give it a bash.

Cheers!

[moviebuff03]

Hi,
I'm still having a few problems with powerscheduling if you someone would care to read this and possibly offer any advice, I would be very grateful as it seems this is the last BIG remaining issue with TVServer (SVN 16597)

I took Edieter's advice and created the script and entered the filename into powerscheduler. It seems that the PVR will power down, but will not wake up! If I manually power it up, it will start recording as scheduled.

I read on microsoft's website that parameters are used with a backslash eg "taskkill /f /im notepad.exe". However in the script, it is listed as "taskkill -f /IM tvservice.exe" What do the different parameters mean? If I use it as the first example, it appears not to go into standby or wakeup, but if I use Edieter's example it goes into standby, but doesn't wake up.

I have powerscheduler set as shutdown after 5 minutes and wakeup up for various wakeup events. Is there a better setting and should I set powerscheduler from within MP or just the TVServer app? Btw, I have NOT set re-initialise on wakeup, as it appears to screw with my tv cards and then I get 0kb files. Changing the setting in MP for powerscheduler to go to standby at least allows the system to go into suspend, but still doesn't wake up for a recording!

Just taken a look at the logs:
2007-12-15 14:41:46.000741 [Info.][MPMain]: -- OnTimerCall --
2007-12-15 14:41:46.000741 [Info.][MPMain]: - Recorder.IsAnyCardRecording() = False
2007-12-15 14:41:46.000741 [Info.][MPMain]: - Recorder.IsRadio() = False
2007-12-15 14:41:46.000741 [Info.][MPMain]: - g_Player.Playing = False
2007-12-15 14:41:46.010756 [Info.][MPMain]: - Database Update = False
2007-12-15 14:41:46.010756 [Info.][MPMain]: - ShutDown Time = 15/12/2007 14:42:15
2007-12-15 14:41:46.010756 [Info.][MPMain]: - WakeUp Time = 31/12/9999 23:59:59
2007-12-15 14:41:46.010756 [Info.][MPMain]: PowerScheduler.SetWakeUpTime: Plugin: PowerScheduler, Time: 31/12/9999 23:58:59
2007-12-15 14:41:46.010756 [Info.][MPMain]: PowerScheduler.SetWakeUpTime: WakeUp Timer deactivated (no valid Time found)
2007-12-15 14:41:48.233952 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:41:48.384168 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.033927 [Info.][MPMain]: -- OnTimerCall --
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - Recorder.IsAnyCardRecording() = False
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - Recorder.IsRadio() = False
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - g_Player.Playing = False
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - Database Update = False
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - ShutDown Time = 15/12/2007 14:42:15
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: - WakeUp Time = 31/12/9999 23:59:59
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: PowerScheduler.SetWakeUpTime: Plugin: PowerScheduler, Time: 31/12/9999 23:58:59
2007-12-15 14:42:16.043941 [Info.][MPMain]: PowerScheduler.SetWakeUpTime: WakeUp Timer deactivated (no valid Time found)
2007-12-15 14:42:16.053956 [Info.][MPMain]: PowerScheduler: Suspend system -> WakeUp at 31/12/9999 23:59:59
2007-12-15 14:42:16.053956 [Info.][MPMain]: Utils: Suspend system
2007-12-15 14:42:16.053956 [Debug][MPMain]: PSClientPlugin: Delegating shutdown request to tvserver: Suspend
2007-12-15 14:42:16.184143 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.344373 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.434503 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.454532 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.544661 [Debug][16]: PSClientPlugin: found next wakeup time 31/12/9999 23:58:59 by PowerScheduler
2007-12-15 14:42:16.664834 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: WM_POWERBROADCAST: 0
2007-12-15 14:42:16.674848 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Windows is requesting hibernate mode
2007-12-15 14:42:17.075043 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: WM_POWERBROADCAST: 4
2007-12-15 14:42:17.075043 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Windows is hibernating
2007-12-15 14:42:17.075043 [Debug][MPMain]: Main: SaveLastActiveModule - enabled False
2007-12-15 14:42:17.075043 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Stopping playback
2007-12-15 14:42:17.085057 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Stopping recorder
2007-12-15 14:42:17.085057 [Info.][MPMain]: Recorder: stop
2007-12-15 14:42:17.565748 [Info.][9]: Commandprocessor: Stopping all tuners
2007-12-15 14:42:17.565748 [Info.][9]: Commandprocessor: Stopped
2007-12-15 14:42:17.585777 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: Stopping AutoPlay
2007-12-15 14:42:17.595792 [Info.][MPMain]: Main: OnSuspend - Done

It seems that MP/TV Server doesn't know when to wake up "PowerScheduler.SetWakeUpTime: Plugin: PowerScheduler, Time: 31/12/9999 23:58:59"

Thanks so much in advance for anyone's input!!
Darren

[moviebuff03]

Ok, I've solved my problem it seems. I needed to set powerscheduler for the client/server plugin (changing the 'stay on' setting), MP and TV Server and now the PVR shuts down and wakes up when required!

The other problem was that while the EPG grabber was enabled, it prevented the TV Server from idling and therefore going into standby. As I use the WEBEPG import process, I don't need the grabber.