Vidimport

[keith_leitch]

Thank you very much for preparing this. Unfortunately, I cannot get it to run without only producing the following error:

"Unhandled Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at videoImport.Program.Main(String[] args)

I am running Windows XP Home (32 bit)

I have tried it with an .avi file, using exactly the same arguments as the previous version (which works fine). Here's to a simple fix!

[carpeVideo]

What is the command line you are using?

[keith_leitch]

What is the command line you are using?

"C:\Program Files\Devnz\GBPVR\VidImport.exe" "V:\Recordings\Online TV_20100919_07000730.flv"

(then another file with an avi extension, when that didn't work).

I have also just tried VIDIMPORT with no parameters (to produce the list of suggestions). It resulted in the same error message.

[carpeVideo]

Try this one - there was an issue with the new code to look for the NPVR dir when there is only gbpvr installed

[keith_leitch]

Try this one - there was an issue with the new code to look for the NPVR dir when there is only gbpvr installed

Thank you again. This now seems to work as you have indicated. Being enabled to import flv files will make a big difference to my system, once I do some of my own programming.

I do not have NPVR installed, so I cannot test any of that functionality.

One minor suggestion before this goes to the wiki: I've noticed that, when a file does not conform to the GBPVR naming standard, VidImport stamps it with the date it was created, but always with a time of 1AM - 2AM. Can I suggest that you also use the time that the file was created, in order to keep downloads in order? I've found that setting the start and end time to be exactly the same causes no problems.

Great work on this. I'll get back soon with some questions about metadata...I can never seem to get it to work.

[keith_leitch]

Here are my experiences with trying to import the GBPVR metadata. I have:

- renamed a Recordings file generated by GBPVR
- renamed a Recordings file that had been imported into the database
- copied a Recordings file that had been imported into the database
- copied a Recordings file generated by GBPVR

In none of these cases did vidimport regenerate any of the recordings details, except for the title, time and date that were part of the filename syntax. How do I port existing metadata across to a new file before importing it?

[keith_leitch]

How do I port existing metadata across to a new file before importing it?

I've played a bit more with this. Absolutely none of my GBPVR recordings have any metadata attached to them. I wonder what I could be doing to kill it? Is there a configuration switch somewhere that I've missed?

The only way I was able to attach metadata was to edit the metadata.xml file using notepad, then paste in and edit an entry from recordings-dump.xml. Once I had done so, renaming the file retained the metadata, but copy, xcopy, etc., all left it behind. Does anyone know how to a) ensure my files are saved with metadata attached, and, b) extract that data and attach it to a new file (so I can use the correct .FLV extension)?

[carpeVideo]

Is your filesystem NTFS? I believe that is the only one that supports alternate file streams (the metadata) so if you are using Fat32 or moving to a NAS or fileserver with
a non-NTFS filesystem it would kill it

[keith_leitch]

Is your filesystem NTFS? I believe that is the only one that supports alternate file streams (the metadata) so if you are using Fat32 or moving to a NAS or fileserver with
a non-NTFS filesystem it would kill it

Definitely NTFS. The files I checked are on the same local machine that they were created.

Curiously, I created some new files that do have the metadata. I will try to sniff out more clues today. In the meantime, does anyone know how to copy metadata from one file to another? The only way I've been able to access it is through Notepad (not "type", not "more"...)

[keith_leitch]

Can I suggest that you also use the time that the file was created

I have another minor suggestions. I was playing with some imports, and I noticed that any GBPVR files that are "interrupted" do not import with metadata. This may be unavoidable, but they also import with incorrect time codes.

An example is:

NCIS_20100919_08300930.ts
NCIS_20100919_08300930-1.ts
NCIS_20100919_08300930-2.ts

The first of these imports correctly, but the second and third import as 1:00 AM - 2:00 AM.

My suggestion is to treat the GBPVR syntax as a prefix: If it is detected, use it to determine the timestamp after discarding any stub. In fact, this could be used to control date-and-timestamps, while still creating episode lookups. For example, I can imagine a filename like:

NCIS_20100919_08300930s05e17.ts