NextPVR Forums

With a new HTPC being built, I've been expanding my use of NPVR from just a recorder to a full system, and I have appreciated all the work done, not just by sub, but by many plug-in and utility creators - my thanks to the makers of ImageGrabLite, TV Listings, MusicMonkey, SubMenu, System, and Movies (hope I didn't forget anyone). With the help of these people, I have things running pretty close to the way I want them to look.

There were a couple of things that I wanted to do, that I didn't see anyone had done, so I put them together myself. As they currently exist, they are rough, simple things, since only I need to be able to mess with them. I had thoughts of cleaning things up a bit, and offering it here, but frankly I have no idea if anyone at all would be interested, and didn't want to go to the effort just to see no one much cared about the same things I had. So, I thought I would post here what I've done, and see if anyone else was interested.

One thing I like about the Titan TV listings available online is the ability to put together a list of favorite programs. Then you can apply filters to the listings, to show only favorites, or new shows, or favorites that are new. I didn't see any way to do the same with NPVR, so I came up with the best approximation I could. I add to the genre listings for each program, adding in a genre "New" for programs that the EPG indicates are new, and "Favorite New" for new programs that are on my favorites list. I can then use the built-in genre coloring to highlight those in the listings, making it clear at a glance what I want - or might want - to record.

So, like I said, not a big thing, and no idea whether anyone else would be interested. I figure a lot of people probably do recurring recordings, but I like to schedule most things every day in order to have more control over where it goes, so I like to be able to see this stuff. Anyway, if you might be interested, you can let me know here on the board, or in a private message, and if I get any interest I'll try to put something together in a prettier package than what it is now (text files, scripts, manual editing of database files, etc).

Thanks.

I'd be interested. I, also, never use recurring recordings.

If you need help, I have lots of scripting experience. If you are doing it yourself, I recommend looking into AutoIT v3. It is a very useful piece of freeware.

I like the idea of being able to see new show's in the guide without having to had junk to the name. I think my utility genreLite http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...enre-Maker optionally adds New as a genre. How to you save the favourite list? For my own use this got me thinking I wouldn't mind seeing a quick list of new prime time shows for the week listed in Searchlite and flagging favourites would even be better. It would also help me with series premieres which aren't favourites let, and I like to record a few episodes before watching so I don't invest too much time on cancelled series.

Martin

mvallevand Wrote:I like the idea of being able to see new show's in the guide without having to had junk to the name. I think my utility genreLite http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...enre-Maker optionally adds New as a genre. How to you save the favourite list? For my own use this got me thinking I wouldn't mind seeing a quick list of new prime time shows for the week listed in Searchlite and flagging favourites would even be better. It would also help me with series premieres which aren't favourites let, and I like to record a few episodes before watching so I don't invest too much time on cancelled series.

Martin

I save the favorites in a separate sqlite database, which I use after an EPG update to add a "Favorites New" genre to the list in the NPVR database.

ElihuRozen Wrote:I'd be interested. I, also, never use recurring recordings.

If you need help, I have lots of scripting experience. If you are doing it yourself, I recommend looking into AutoIT v3. It is a very useful piece of freeware.

Part of this has been done with AutoHotKey, so very similar to AutoIT, I believe.

Not seeing much in the way of interest, but if you would like, I could get you a simplified version (put your favorites in a text file, need to download sqlite3.exe if you don't already have it, etc) that you are welcome to have.

Let me know.

ttfitz Wrote:... , but if you would like, I could get you a simplified version (put your favorites in a text file, need to download sqlite3.exe if you don't already have it, etc) that you are welcome to have.

Let me know.

Yes, I would like.

Thanks

ElihuRozen Wrote:Yes, I would like.

Thanks

Sorry this took so long, I got distracted, and wanted to clean it up a little bit.

Okay, so first, a little information. I made a few decisions based on how I wanted to view the listings, which can effect how the colorings work, in two areas in particular.

Best I can tell, NPVR treats the default for a show in the EPG as "new"; that is, unless it says otherwise, a show is marked in the database as new. So if Casablanca, for example, is playing on Turner Classic Movies and doesn't have "new" or "previously-shown" entry, it treats it as new. I only wanted to highlight items which were actually new, so this will only highlight items that have the "new" tag in the xmltv file. If you wanted to have this applied to everything NPVR treats as new, I can give you some changes that should work.

Second, it appears that for genre coloring, NPVR assigns a color to the first genre listed that there is a color set for. So, for example, tonight's basketball tournament games have there categories being "Basketball, Sports" and if you have colors defined for both, it will be colored with the "Basketball" color. Keeping this in mind, I have set priorities for the added genres to my preference, which is that "Favorite New" is most important, followed by "Favorite" (those on the favorite list that aren't new broadcasts), then the originals, with "New" being last. So the basketball game in the example would become (assuming it's on favorites) "Favorite New, Favorite, Basketball, Sports, New".

Okay, with that out of the way, here's the directions. Take the attached file and unzip it in the NPVR data directory (c:\users\public\npvr on my computer). This should put two files in the Scripts subdirectory ("AddNewGenre.exe" and "AddFavorites.exe") and three files in the data directory ("favorites.txt","favs.db3", and "insertfavs.sql"). You will also need to download sqlite3.exe (http://www.sqlite.org/2013/sqlite-shell-...071600.zip) if you don't already have it installed.

Edit the "favorites.txt" file, putting your favorite shows in the file, one per line. The name should match the name in the EPG exactly.

In your UpdateEPG.bat file, you'll need to add the following after your epg download:

C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\AddNewGenre "xmltv-file-location"

For example, C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\AddNewGenre "c:\users\public\NPVR\epg\xmltv.xml"

In your PostUpdateEPG.bat file, you'll need to add the following:

c:\users\public\NPVR\Scripts\AddFavorites "npvr-data-directory" "sqlite3-locations"

For example, c:\users\public\NPVR\Scripts\AddFavorites "c:\users\public\npvr" "c:\users\public\npvr\sqlite3.exe"

Then after NPVR has updated the EPG listings, you should have three new genres defined, "New", "Favorite", and "Favorite New", that you can define colors for from the "misc2" setting screen.

Hopefully this is understandable, if not let me know and I can try again.

Hi Tim

If I am running Windows 7 - 32-bit, shoud I be able to execute AddFavorites.exe and AddNewGenre.exe? I get the following:

Quote:This version of C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts\AddFavorites.exe is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher.

ElihuRozen Wrote:Hi Tim

If I am running Windows 7 - 32-bit, shoud I be able to execute AddFavorites.exe and AddNewGenre.exe? I get the following:

Sorry, that was compiled with 64-bit. Try this one and let me know how it goes.

Hi Tim,

I got it working. Nothing is getting marked with New or Favorite New, but I use TV Listings & that marks the new ones for me. It probably has something to do with my using MC2XML to download from Schedules Direct and then running an xml transform I got from someone on here (I think pBS).

My turn to offer some small utilities. One is QueryPending.bat. It uses sqllite3 to do a couple of database queries and display anything that is currently recording or pending. It lists the title, time, channel and tuner for each program. By default it pauses since I have it as a shortcut on my desktop. It takes an optional argument to not pause, which I use in my PostUpdateEPG.bat to generate a pending.log like sub used to do for us. The second utility is LogRoller. It rolls log files by renaming them. For example, renaming pending.log to pending-1.log after renaming pending-1.log to pending-2.log. When it gets to 5, it deletes the oldest. It rolls based on age and/or size.