Some recordings created but not available after transcoding

[htewam]

I want to try to iron out this issue BEFORE I upgrade to the latest 1.4.7 so that I'm not juggling too many problems. I haven't had much time lately to pursue this but was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

I am trying to refine postprocessing.bat to handle some .ts -> .mpg transcoding (for MVP) and find that Gbpvr 1.3.11 is recording recurring files but that SOME (no discernable pattern yet) transcodes result in "valid" .mpg files being produced but NO corresponding entry being available in Gbpvr. So now I have a disk filled with lots of recurring recordings -- seemingly transcoded correctly -- but I can't view them.

Thoughts/Questions:

A) If some application called from postprocessing.bat sets an return/exit code, is this honored by GBPVR in some way? Specifically, if a non-zero exit code was seen by Gbpvr, does it fail to update the database? I know that some of the ffmpeg transcodes are seeing "errors" in the transcode but it appears to finish. I was wondering if an exit code "thrown" here might get carried up the chain as an exit code when postprocessing.bat completes -- and Gbpvr might not update the database under this condition.

B) Does anyone have a quick way to "import" my recorded but seemingly ignored files other than hand-generating a new recording-dump.xml?

Configuration details --

I am using Gbpvr 1.3.11 configured with an HVR-1600 (Digital) capture card to record from Comcast with Clear QAM channels.

Because I am a MVP user, I have been using ffmpeg to transcode from the recorded .ts files over to .mpg. This has been problematic but I am making progress by tinkering with PostProcessing.bat to give me the right order of ffmpeg transcode (for .ts files only), followed by Comskip.

[sub]

A) If some application called from postprocessing.bat sets an return/exit code, is this honored by GBPVR in some way?

GB-PVR doesnt look for any result code from postprocessing.bat. It just runs it.

Specifically, if a non-zero exit code was seen by Gbpvr, does it fail to update the database? I know that some of the ffmpeg transcodes are seeing "errors" in the transcode but it appears to finish. I was wondering if an exit code "thrown" here might get carried up the chain as an exit code when postprocessing.bat completes -- and Gbpvr might not update the database under this condition.

Its important to note that postprocessing.bat is not related to transcoding as far as GB-PVR is concerned. It just runs this batch file at the end of recording and thats the end of if. It doesnt know what the user is going to do in that batch file. There is no database updates that happen as a result of running postprocessing.bat.

[steeb]

B) Does anyone have a quick way to "import" my recorded but seemingly ignored files other than hand-generating a new recording-dump.xml?

Yes, the very brilliant (IMHO) VidImport

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Utility/VidImport

should do the trick for you.

I would be interested to know how you get on with transcoding .ts to .mpg because I tried and failed so have resorted back to Cyberlink .mpg for my BDA Multiplexer.

Cheers

Steeb

[Jaggy]

I had the exact same thing happen when I was converting .ts recordings to .mpg. It sometimes knows the mpg is there & sometimes it doesn't, it's really strange.

Finally I changed autoremovemissingrecordings in the config.xml to false to stop it happening

<AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>false</AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>

[pBS]

do you have <CheckForRenamedRecordings>true</CheckForRenamedRecordings>
and "update database to point to converted file" checkedin conifg? tho i think that one only works when using built-in transcoder...
not sure if either one works in your case tho...

oh and you can check the errorlevel inside the postprocessing.bat and not delete if error...
or just update the db yourself from there...

Code:

sqlite3.exe "gbpvr.db3" "UPDATE recording_schedule SET filename = '%newpath%' where filename like '%oldpath%' ;"

[htewam]

So I tried Jaggy's suggestion and it seems to work... although I'm scratching my head as to why… since I don't see any evidence that there are "mssing recordings". Up to this point, I had been relying on Gbpvr finding the transcoded .mpg file even though its recorded as a .ts … this seems to work for 80% of my recordings. With Jaggy's suggested fix/work-around I seem to be seeing ALL of the recordings.

pBS -- I don't have access to the config.xml right now but I will check tonight… I would have thought that if <CheckForRenamedRecordings> wasn't set correctly, that I would consistently NOT see the recordings that I transcode… but instead it seems hit or miss. Per Sub's post, it would look like errorlevel shouldn't be an issue since he says that Gbpvr ignores the setting.

Steeb -- Thanks for you pointing me to the "very brilliant" VidImport … I will try this in the next couple of days. As to your comment about transcoding, I found that I get better result using a more recent version of ffmpeg (Version 0.5 built on Mar 16, 2009) and the following line for postprocessing.bat:

".\Third Party\ffmpeg\ffmpeg-0.5.exe" -y -i %1 -target ntsc-svcd -fflags +genpts "%~dpn1.mpg" >>"%~dpn1".pp.log 2>&1

I am still having trouble with Comskip timelines despite the -fflags +genpts options for ffmpeg… there are some posts that imply that this option is not working correctly in recent builds… I am considering trying out mencoder instead.

[gEd]

I've almost finished working on a postprocessing.bat (based on one created by javawiz I think) that transcodes .ts to mpeg using videoredo which in my experience has always produced perfect mpegs (in fact it is very useful for fixing broken timelines and glitches). It does cost money tho.

My method also relies on gbpvr finding the mpeg instead of .ts file. I might try pBS's SQL update to tidy things up a little.