Connecting Digital Cable Box through FireWire

[carpeVideo]

Ok,

I know everyone is storming down the VLC path but I took another look at capDVHS,

no command line but an INI file. You can actually register multiple future recordings and they show up in the ini file like this:

Reserve01=2006/12/30 16:44:472006/12/30 17:44:470-101filename.ts

(I did this in the program and then took a gander at the INI)

So write a command file that changes the channel with channelw, inserts the reserve (or replaces some pre-placed text) into the .ini, have it run capDVHS, then give a kill command for capDVHs after the recording and replace the doctored .ini with a clean one, and boom you should have the capture.

Then if you are really aggressive post process the .ts to an MPEG, and comskip it.

I'll let you know if it works, it seems to manually.

(As an asided I think for those with a DVICO Fusion you could schedule it to record QAM HD using their scheduler tool with a single command (emulating TitanTV), if I can get that to work may be able to record two HD's simultaenously)


carpeV

DVICO fusion 5 - via softRecorder and s-video (video out of Motorola STBs to S-video can be set to progressive)
Firewire Capture - soon I hope

[carpeVideo]

Ok it works,

I used the external recorder plugin

Went to the web and got a windows version of sed (substitutes text in files), plus taskkill, because for some reason it wasnt on my machine.

Then created a bin directory where I dumped taskkill, sed, capDVHS and a cmd file I wrote.

Then I set up capDVHS to do a scheduled record, using that as a base I changed the dates to before today and after 2009 so when capDVHS is invoked it immediately records. Then put on the line for save directory [insert your recording video directory]/DIRREPLACE and where the filename is FILEREPLACE.

The command file takes 2 args from the external recorder, the filenamewithoutextension and directory args; make sure to put quotes around them in GBPVR so you get them as two args not a succession of 10 args.

The command file invokes sed to replace DIRREPLACE and FILEREPLACE with the args from external recorder, then runs capdvhs.

The post command simple uses taskkill to shut down capvhs.

Does anyone know if you make an additional filter to get the file from .TS to an mpeg on the fly can you view it in GBPVR on a timeshifted basis?

carpeV

[McHero]

Interesting work going on here! Looks like I'll have to dig-up my firewire cable!

[goti]

Yes, it looks like carpevideo has been busy working on this but I have just about lost interest. I am so close but it is not looking good. If we could just find a way to make sure VLC gets closed "gracefully" I think we would be homefree.

VLC seems to very reliable and consistent when it is opened and closed via commands from the command prompt. Issuing a "vlc vlc:quit" command seems to be all we need to close it "cleanly" but the fact that the external recorder kills the process in its own way before we get the chance seems to be the road block.

[carpeVideo]

As I said I have it working scheduling recordings with capDVHS which is pretty nice as is, but it is a .TS so you can't play/timeshift directly in GB-PVR (the grail). With my DVICO card I think I could schedule a QAM recording as well but I need the external recorder to output a start time and duration.

I also have a working graph that dumps to an mpeg file (thanks to the sageTv site), so I sent and email to the creator of playgrf to see if he can make a small mod to make it work with only an output file (it may already I'll test soon) if that is the case I'll post the link to the graph page and it should be ready to go with playgrf (not VLC) doing recording and timeshifting.

CarpeV

[sub]

As I said I have it working scheduling recordings with capDVHS which is pretty nice as is, but it is a .TS so you can't play/timeshift directly in GB-PVR (the grail).

You wont be able to timeshift the file, but you should be able to play it just fine in GB-PVR if you have HDTV Pump installed: http://dvbportal.dyn1.de/download.php?fi...-1.0.7.zip

[ubu]

Yes, it looks like carpevideo has been busy working on this but I have just about lost interest. I am so close but it is not looking good. If we could just find a way to make sure VLC gets closed "gracefully" I think we would be homefree.

VLC seems to very reliable and consistent when it is opened and closed via commands from the command prompt. Issuing a "vlc vlc:quit" command seems to be all we need to close it "cleanly" but the fact that the external recorder kills the process in its own way before we get the chance seems to be the road block.

It sounds like VLC is not closing its connection to the firewire source correctly when it's process is terminated (like the "kill" command issued by External Recorder). For UbuStream, since the source is a stream, this not a problem since the connection to the stream source is simply dropped. I can only suggest googling for some utility that would re-initialize the firewire source or (as I've already suggested) searching the VideoLAN forums to see if there's some workaround for this bug.

External Recorder can't issue the "vlc:quit" command instead of killing the vlc process since it is a generic plugin that can't assume which application you are using for recording/transcoding. However, there's nothing to stop you downloading the source and modifying it to do this so you would have your own "custom" version of External Recorder.

[ubu]

Does anyone know if you make an additional filter to get the file from .TS to an mpeg on the fly can you view it in GBPVR on a timeshifted basis?

You've probably figured out by now that VLC can transcode to a PS mpeg2 file (which is what GB-PVR requires). I believe you could also use mencoder or ffmpeg. In response to your post (and your PM to me) here's a brain-dump of what I know about using the External Recorder plugin.

My UbuStream plugin uses the External Recorder plugin for watching web streams in timeshift mode (and for recording via GB-PVR). When GB-PVR switched to .Net 2.0, I converted External Recorder because its author, normanr, didn't have the time to do it. So, while I'm familiar with the code, I don't "own" External Recorder and I'm not really in a position to modify it.

External Recorder presents itself as a standard GB-PVR capture source so, if the recording application you use plays by the rules, GB-PVR will treat it just the same as if it was a capture source for (for instance) a TV capture card.

When you select a channel that you have associated with the capture source in "preview" mode it will simply run the app you have specified as the preview executable, so that's probably not useful for what you are trying to achieve. However, when you select the channnel in "timeshift" mode (or schedule a recording for that channel) it will run the recording executable you have specified and will replace the {fullname} string in your recording parameters with the path and name that GB-PVR provides. So when you watch a channel in timeshift mode, the recording program (VLC or whatever) will place its output in the specified file in GB-PVR's cache directory so that GB-PVR knows where to look for it when it plays it back with its video player.

So you have to make sure you're using the {fullname} replaceable parm correctly and also that your output is in ps mpeg2 format. Here's an example of a VLC command line generated by External Recorder when using UbuStream's channel mode.

Code:

mms://media-wm.cac.washington.edu/ResearchTV%20Live%20(HIGH) :sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=1024,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2,audio-sync}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ps,dst="C:\gbpvrCache\Research TV2007-01-01-03-01-26-218.mpg"}}

The duration of the recording is controlled by GB-PVR. For timeshift mode, the recording executable will continue recording until the user exits from the video player (or switches channels) when GB-PVR will tell External Recorder to kill the recorder app. For explicit recording, it will use the duration that the user specified when creating a manual recording or, if it's a scheduled recording via the TV Guide, it will use the duration of the "program" (for UbuStream this is a "dummy" XMLTV EPG entry that UbuStream users can generate, specifying whatever arbitrary duration they wish).

External Recorder doesn't actually know the duration of the recording. It simply starts and stops the recording app when GB-PVR tells it to. GB-PVR just uses the duration that the user specifies.

Essentially, you need to decide who is scheduling the recordings. If you want GB-PVR to schedule the recordings, you could set up the External Recorder capture source to use Zap2it or XMLTV for the EPG for your DVICO channels. If you want to use the tray app for scheduling, you could use VLC commands (or equivalent for the recording/transcoding app you're using) to control the duration (using the program duration from the TitanTV EPG you're using). Or you could take a look at the source for External Recorder to see if there's some way you could modify it to work with your tray app scheduler.

For timeshift mode playback, I wouldn't think you'd need to know the duration since GB-PVR is taking care of stopping your recorder when you stop watching the channel.

The UbuStream wiki pages have some background info that may be helpful to you (especially the sections to do with using UbuStream in channel mode).

[carpeVideo]

Thanks for the great info (and coding) sub and UBU, it helps a lot.

Goti - I think I have you answer for VLC, its really simple (though I haven't tested it yet to be honest). Instead of starting VLC directly from GBPVR start a command script that starts VLC in the background. Then GBPVR will kill the script not VLC. Then use a second script run by GBPVR for your graceful close of VLC. Please post them so we don't have to rewrite :-)

[McHero]

Stayed home from work today and had some free time so I thought that I would connect my Motorola DCT3416 I to my XP machine. Followed the "DCT64xx Firewire capture and HD/SD to DVD guide" and was able to get the Motorola AV/C Panel Device (DCT-6412) installed. It's stored under Imaging devices in device manager. The other two devices that my XP box see when the 3416 is connected, AV/C Panel and Unknown Device are disabled as per the instructions.

I can't seem to get CapDVHS.exe to "see" the Motorola box. The instructions suggest unplugging the Motorola box, waiting a few seconds & then re-connecting. Not working for me.

Looks like we are in uncharted territory here!

Thought I was going to have to purchase a 2nd drive but since I can't see the Motorola box yet I'll just sit back & watch this thread.