Recording Engine as a service (1 Viewer)

[venger]

Hi all,

Just thought I revisit this age-old question (well.. maybe not age-old ):

Should MP recording engine be a service?

I have been trialing GBPVR for the past week (*ducks for cover*) and have found that when you do get TV recording working.. it simply *works*.. all the time.. even when you are surfing the net, watching videos, watching TV that is also being recorded, listening to music, whatever...
(1) The recording service is a lean mean recording machine.
(2) When the frontend crashes/has a problem (as you do) the recording service is not affected.

Whereas with MP, I find that my recordings tend to stutter due to: listening to music (with Visualization on), checking TV guide.
Sometimes my MP dies while watching video (it happens) - and I have to frantically try and restart it - hoping that i don't miss out too much of my recording

So I can't help but wonder if the service approach provides a more robust solution (?).

Oops.. sorry for the long post.. thanks for your patience

 

[Steve Warner]

I'm going to toss my hat into the ring and say that I'd really like to see a dedicated recording service for the TV module. Having spent the majority of my HTPC time using GotTV embedded in the MyHTPC software, I can attest to many frustrating experiences related directly to the TV service being tied to the main program. Meedio and its beta TV module suffered the same problems. When I switched to the BeyondTV trial, I was amazed at what an ingenious idea it was to run the scheduler/recorder as a separate task from the viewer. In my opinion, this is the greatest strength of BeyondTV. And as Venger pointed out, GB-PVR does this too. While GB-PVR is seriously lacking in many other aspects, its TV functions are well thought out and quite solid.

I've had too many experiences where the main HTPC app locks up for some reason or another and it requires a forced shut-down of the software. In these cases, embeded TV modules always go with it, effectively cancelling or disrupting any concurrent recordings. These problems were resolved in an elegant manner by GB-PVR and BeyondTV. It would be a joy to see that level of stability added to the existing features of MP's outstanding TV module.

 

[MrSensitive]

I too would like to see a service based recording engine.

@MrMario:
Your arguments do make sense, but you already go trough the trouble for stopping and starting the MCE recording services when starting / stopping MP.
so there are ways to make this completely transparent, even for the beginners.


leaving MP running 24/7 is also my goal, but sometimes this just doesn't happen.

 

[Dazzyb2K3]

@ venger:

Gotta admit I would tend to agree here. I've also used GBPVR (how groovy is the mini epg!) and the seperate recording service worked very nicely - it saved my bacon a couple of times when the front was not running/crashed - in fact i can't remember it ever missing a recording. I certainly had a lot more confidence in this method although I can understand the reasons for wanting to leave it unchanged.

Interesting debate.

 

[jkwarras]

I'll also like this recording service, and going a little further a general MP service (optional, for people not running MP 24/24). With this last option, people will also be able to turn on/off via remote like cyberlink's Powercinema.

 

[Jagual]

If the recording service cannot be implemented, how about having MP create a Windows scheduled task when a recording is scheduled. A simple task that launches MP one minute before the start time of the recording. That way, you don't need a recording service or MP running to get your recordings. Showshifter does this, although I don't use Showshifter anymore because MP is FAR superior.

 

[ASiDiE]

I would also like a feature like this. Right now, because there is no way of getting the satellites that I am hitting to work with MP... I am using My theatre to record all my programs. This works out really well. I have all my shows being recorded in the background and it's hardly using any CPU cycles. I then just monitor the directory I record into with MP and day by day... the shows appear. This works pretty well but I would always want a built in solution.

 

[Khris]

If the recording service cannot be implemented, how about having MP create a Windows scheduled task when a recording is scheduled. A simple task that launches MP one minute before the start time of the recording. That way, you don't need a recording service or MP running to get your recordings. Showshifter does this, although I don't use Showshifter anymore because MP is FAR superior.

I think this is an EXCELLENT short term solution to make sure scheduled programs aren't missed if MP isn't running!

 

[Prinz]

Hi,

If the recording service cannot be implemented, how about having MP create a Windows scheduled task when a recording is scheduled. A simple task that launches MP one minute before the start time of the recording.

The PVRScheduler do it in this way. In addition the Scheduler have much more features.

Prinz

 

[spotty]

Webscheduler

Integrating MP with Webscheduler is another option. WS is very reliable, runs as a service and handles powering the computer when needed.
The integration MP & WS (especially power On/Off commands) would be great.