This writing suggests that GBPVR Music Library handle Windows shortcuts to folders in the same way one would expect Windows shortcuts to work. This very minor change results in a powerful mechanism with which users may multiply categorize all their music. The explanation follows.

Mp3 ID tags, such as ID3v2 provide for a metadata description of ‘genre’. (Other music formats provide similar metadata tags.) However, the Genre tag as conceived and used is almost useless. Genre definitions aren’t uniform, and there are a limited number of genre types (at least as implemented by software such as Mp3tag). More importantly, it doesn’t reflect the multiple cross-indexing by which people would naturally consider organizing their music.

For example, imagine an album, which is Hawaiian slack-key guitar Christmas music. I might at different times be interested in a number of different categories (possibly with subcategories), in which I would want this album to found. I might want that album name to be shown when I look in any of the following categories which have meaning to the way I think about organizing my music:
• \Instrumental \Guitar
• \Christmas
• \Christmas\Instrumental
• \Regional\Hawaiian\Slack-Key
Obviously, a single Genre type cannot accomplish that.

I formerly used the My Music plugin (now abandoned). Back then I recommended this to reven (the plugin author). A few other users, when they saw the suggestion, realized the implications and supported the recommendation. I presumed the work to accomplish this (recognizing that an object (folder) is a shortcut, and then opening the target object) should be minimal and, in fact, reven had it implemented almost immediately.

I already had our music arranged, as a great many people do, as a folder for each artist, within which are the albums (folders) performed by that artist. This snapshot illustrates that.

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Once the My Music plugin supported the shortcuts, I created a parallel tree-structure of folders to represent my categorizations, as shown in the snapshot below. (There I use the word Genre just for brevity, but it means categorizations.) Note it shows 3 shortcuts to albums existing under category \By Genre\Instrumental\Slack-key Guitar.

One of those albums is a Christmas album, and the identical shortcut appears under \By Genre\Christmas\Hawaiian because I assigned multiple categories to that album. [My shortcut names prefix the album name with the artist because it’s useful. I.e., you may mind multiple albums under a category new-age, but may feel at the moment prefer to hear ones by artist X rather than artist Y. All of that is just personal preference and immaterial to this proposal.] It just so happens the albums shown in the example don’t have a single artist and reside under an ‘artist folder’ called Various Artists. I.e., don’t ascribe any particular significance to the ‘Various Artists’ shown in the snapshot.

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If Music Library simply supported shortcuts to album folders (i.e., seeing the shortcut, fetching the real album folder and its artwork), then I could follow this directory tree to see and play these 3 albums. Today, with Music Library, I can follow down the \By Genre directory tree, but when it gets to the bottom of the branch within which are shortcuts to folders, it shows nothing.

I hope all of that is clear. Please let me know if not.

I will tell you that this system worked wonderfully. The music library is too big (and our feeble brains don’t remember artist names), so being able to access by category fitting the mood, occasion, or holiday, makes life much simpler. My wife got so attached to it that now, without the My Music plugin which supported this, she is strong-arming me to just buy a multi-CD CD player (which would frost me when we have all the music on our hard drive).


CREATING THE SHORTCUTS:

To provide all this power, the ONLY thing that would have to be provided within GBPVR Music Library is handling of shortcuts to folders. The rest of the work -- that of actually defining the tree-structured categories, and creation of the shortcuts themselves -- is up to the user. I created some automation to do the hard stuff and would gladly change or generalize it as appropriate and make it available to others. For my own use, I automatically created a list of paths to all album folders in the By Artist directory tree. At the bottom level of the path of each folder, the folder name is the album name. Then for each album in the list, I appended (with a simple parseable syntax) the one or more categories under which I wanted each album to appear. I then created a Windows PowerShell script which reads the list, and for each album’s categories, creates any portion of the \By Genre directory tree that doesn’t already exist, and creates in the right category folders the shortcuts to the album. Running this script builds everything.

Using a single list, as I did, was very simple. However, the category information might instead, for example, be in a categories.db hidden file within each album/folder. Or, it could similarly be unique parseable text within the Comments or Keywords metadata in the album art .jpg file. If there were something of a consensus in favor of some such other method, rather than an edited list as I used, I would gladly change the automation appropriately and share it.

Additional Thoughts:

It might be argued that there may be tracks within a single album which could be categorized differently than the entire album, and therefore shortcut processing should be done for not just folders, but for music files as well. I don’t think that’s worth doing (I haven’t thought through the consequences), and just implementing shortcuts for album folders certainly covers 99+% of the need. [Besides, I want to minimize your (Sub’s) effort to maximize the chance of your agreeing. ]

This isn't strictly a GBPVR question, but it's the source of the video so I'll give it a shot. I use GBPVR to record shows, but my preferred playback method is my DVD/DivX set top player (Philips). I generally use medium quality settings on GBPVR because my TV is low def. Audio and video playback within GBPVR is fine - no synch issues. However, when I transcode the output to DivX or XviD the audio goes out of synch (when viewed either through a PC-based player or on disc with the set top player). I used the latest version of the DivX converter and it has the synch problem. Last night I tried AutoGK and made the output XviD and had the same synch issues. I have not tried a batch conversion through GBPVR nor have I tried to create a DVD from the GBPVR source files.

I'm using v1.1.5 of GBPVR and my system is an Intel quad core with 2GB so that shouldn't be the cause of the problem. Any ideas?

When I start PVRX2 I get a system memory error. As far as I know this is not an error specific to the application. The history is this.
I started getting the error message (see attachment) with pvrx2 and usbmate.exe. I ran a memory checker and fixed the hardware problem but I still got the error messages. Knowing it was not a valid error I "repaired" Win XP Home and managed to get rid of the message for usbmate but I can't seem to get rid of the one linked to pvrx2. The program is still usable on the PC as long as I leave the error message window intact, as clicking on the OK or continue buttons closes the app. All actions via the TV end of the system are OK. Whilst the system is still usable the error message is annoying and I would appreciate any help in finding it's source and removing it.
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Hi, it's me again :x

I decided to get adventurous and try and set up a networked (100mbps wired) client. The client connects to the db and gets the EPG listings etc, and lists of what's been recorded, but when I try to play these back, I get the following error in pvrx2.exe.log:

Guys,

Literally, from leftovers (few friends also contributed) I assembled a working PC to be GBPVR stand alone box for my family room TV. The TV set is 5 y.o. 32” Sony CRT (4:3) ,NTSC, that supports 480p or 720p and 1080i formats. I have also HD cable box, (that almost never used as Hi-Def), just regular channels. Cable box connected via RF cable and works great for us. For occasional HD I used HDMI-to-DVI (TV side) cable, but image always has 2 black fields on bottom and upper side as well as two additional side strips if I was watching programs in 4:3 AR. I disconnected TSB from TV and connected PC directly to TV using computer’s DVI-2-DVI cable. I was able to see most of the Windows’ display, but I have those upper and bottom black strips that cover part of desktop image. And it doesn’t matter what resolution I pick on graphic card image on TV becomes smaller or bigger, but those 2 stripes get resized with the image of desktop and covering taskbar with start button and upper side with menus, etc…
Can you give me a clue, where to start? I’m not talking about GBPVR application yet, I just want to use my TV as a monitor and see full Windows’ desktop image.
My graphic card is XFX GeForce 6200 with the latest drivers. The card’s bracket is cut to adapt to low profile case, so it has only DVI output and S-video output (VGA connector is removed). BTW, I tried to connect TV using S-video cable, but card gives no output on S-video connector. Is S-video needs to be enabled some place in settings?

Thanks in advance,
Vlad

I selected the Skin plugin when running PVRX2.exe from GB-PVR 1.1.5 and it crashed. What data can I supply to help debug the problem?

Build 69 of EWA has been released. You can download it here or on the wiki.

This upgrade requires GBPVR 99.12 or higher to work.

Post any issues in the EWA Support Sub-Forum.

Date: 2007-12-01 Build Number: 69 Changes:

• UncleJohnsBand: Corrected auto-record duplicate recording issue.
  
• UncleJohnsBand: CSS Changes:
  • Moved Statistics back to top with rest of the navigation tabs.
  
  
• UncleJohnsBand: CSS Notes:
  • CSS Note: CSS screens are now optimized for screens with 1024x768 resolution or higher. Lower resolution will just cause more scrolling on some screens.
  • CSS Note: Theme colors are for contrast only.....this is not an actual theme color scheme.
  • CSS Note: Please post feedback/bugs in the EWA CSS Guide sticky thread located in the EWA support forum.
  • CSS Note: I am now working on the last screen conversion to CSS. Following its completion I will begin on a real theme.

Build 69 of EWA has been released. You can download it here or on the wiki.

This upgrade requires GBPVR 99.12 or higher to work.

Date: 2007-12-01 Build Number: 69 Changes:

• UncleJohnsBand: Corrected auto-record duplicate recording issue.
  
• UncleJohnsBand: CSS Changes:
  • Moved Statistics back to top with rest of the navigation tabs.
  
  
• UncleJohnsBand: CSS Notes:
  • CSS Note: CSS screens are now optimized for screens with 1024x768 resolution or higher. Lower resolution will just cause more scrolling on some screens.
  • CSS Note: Theme colors are for contrast only.....this is not an actual theme color scheme.
  • CSS Note: Please post feedback/bugs in the EWA CSS Guide sticky thread located in the EWA support forum.
  • CSS Note: I am now working on the last screen conversion to CSS. Following its completion I will begin on a real theme.

Alright, I hate to ask a question that probably has an easy answer somewhere that I could've found myself, but... I've tried to figure it out for about 20 hours and I finally give up Can someone please help me, or at least say "hey moron - the answer is right here: (link)"

I've got my GBPVR set up and running well (thanks for providing such a GREAT program). But I'm getting my signal from the STB and have been trying to set up my IR Blaster to control the STB, but am getting nothing

I am using the ADS Tech PTV-305/MCE-3000, which came with an MCE remote closely resembling the MCE 2005 v2a remote discussed in the GBPVR wiki:



My STB is a Motorola CT2224, and I have read from other forums where exactly the IR receiver is on the STB.

I have the remote's IR receiver plugged into a USB port and it works fine to control the GBPVR program on my computer. However, nothing I do seems to make it at all inclined to send a signal to control the STB, and according to the remote wiki:

Quote:"Main buttons directly supported by GB-PVR. Can use HIP, EventGhost or Girder if further customisation is required."

What is the best way to get details of the LiveTV currently playing including, Program description, start time, end time? Channel Name and Number come through as an event notification, but I have not been able to get any GBPVRPublic methods or properties to get the other details. (Perhaps I'm using the wrong ones, or trying them the wrong way)

So I extract these details directly from the database. The problem is that I suspect that this might be the cause of some random pausing and stuttering during LiveTV playback, since I assume that the connection.Open() (see below) locks the database for exclusive access until connection.Close() is called and maybe PVRX2 is waiting to gain access too. For my code, this takes between 150-200mS, and is done every 30 seconds, since the program details will change at the end of a show, and I want to get the current information.