External Recording Manager

[KingArgyle]

The External Recording Manger is going to be a utility that can run after the Episode Guide gets updated. It will allow for Priority scheduling of recordings. This way it'll try to make sure that the recordings that you want to happen when their are conflicts actually get precedence. Also, it will verify the episode schedule against the recording schedule, and if a show is no longer appears in the episode guide at the time specified in the scheduled programs listing, then it will cancel and try to reschedule it for a later date.

More info, and discussion can be found here:

http://gbpvr.com/cgi-bin....;t=2747

[KingArgyle]

Merry X-Mas and Happy New Year.

The first Alpha version of the External Recording Manger with Priority settings is ready for testing. NOTE: Please backup your GBPVR database before running this program, as you may lose recordings that you wanted to keep. It still has some bugs. This release is just to get some feed back.

You can find the program in the Developers forum, under the External Recording Manager thread. Should be in the second page of the thread. Please post all comments in the Developers forum.

Thanks.

[KingArgyle]

Version 0.0.2 available in the Developers Forum.

Scheduling is now much more accurate with new logic to detect conflicts and priority recordings.

[KingArgyle]

Version 0.0.3 Alpha available in Developers Forum:

* Fixed multiple recordings showing up for the same time slot when priorities have changed.
* Can now include Episode Titles with Apostrophe's in the name: (i.e. A Dog's Life)
* Added some statistical information before recordings are scheduled, showing number of potential recordings.
* If no Potential Recordings are found for a Priority Recording, it is removed from the list for that run only.
* Total number of potential recordings are displayed.

[KingArgyle]

Update v0.0.5 Log 01/02/2005:

* The XSD has been updated. You will need to replace the existing XSD with the one from the ZIP file
as it adds new elements for Configuration and Recording Padding.
* Added Configuration section to PriorityRecordings.xml file. This is a mandatory element and must
contain MissingRecordingPriority, and Conflict elements.
* MissingRecordingPriority = either 0 for highest priority, or 9999 for lowest priority. Tell the
scheduler how to treat recordings it doesn't know about (i.e. aren't in the PriorityRecordings.xml
file.) This option is currently not checked by the program.
* Conflict - Values are Keep or Delete. Tells the recording manager what to do with Conflicts that
it encounters while scheduling. Specify Keep if you want all conflicts to be readded to the scheduler
for manual resolution or Delete if you want the program to get rid of all conflicts (i.e. delete them).
* Added optional Padding element to the Recordings section. If specified it must have PrePadding and
PostPadding elements. These are numeric values in number of minutes to add Padding for recording.
If not specified, the defaults are 0. If you specify the padding element, you MUST specify the
pre and post padding options.
* The external recording manager now reads and uses the CaptureSource, and Quality elements. Quality is
based of the GBPVR quality Settings of High, Medium, Low, Custom1, and Custom2.

[KingArgyle]

Version 0.1.0 Beta

Implements Channel Restriction, time Restriction, Gets GBPVR directory from Registry information. Also, can now set how manually scheduled programs are treated either 0 for highest priority or 9999 for lowest priority.

New XSD and XML tags. Take a look at the sample XML for how to use the new features. Also read the ReadMe.txt for other changes I may have left out. Includes a sample PostProcessing.bat and a sample PostUpdateEPG.bat file.

Available in the Developers Forum.

[shfaxx]

Any future thoughts to adding this as a plug-in and allowing all this to be accessed via the GUI? I realize this is the early stages, just want to see where this is going.

Keep up the excellent work folks.

[KingArgyle]

Short answer: Yes and No.

What I mean, is that I personally am not going to do this, except for the Web Admin (mainly because I don't use GBPVR beyond it's recording ability). 100% of my recording Management is done through the web admin and editing the PriorityRecordings.xml file. Now with that said, I am going to try and structure all the management of the PriorityRecordings.xml file into a set of classes that could be called by either the Web Admin or another Plugin that wants to provide management for this. I will also be releasing the source code so that others may work on it and expand it for their needs. I'm nearing the completion of the feature set I want, and at that time will release the source.

So with the Interface classes, XRecord, GBPVR, and Video Archiver could technically become the setup managers for this utillity. If you want any of the plugins to support the External Recording Manager, ask the Plugin's developer to add support and I'll gladly work with them.

[KingArgyle]

Beta Update:

* Fixes an obscure bug in Conflict resolution where sometimes GBPVR wasn't returning the program object.

* Fixes a bug in channel restriction. Sometimes a program was not getting restricted by channels correctly.

* Fixes scheduletime restriction. Program was checking current time instead of Program Start Time.

There is a slight possibility with the keep method of seeing multiple Conflicts for the same program.

New Feature:

* Ability to restrict recordings to certain days of week. This uses a new Element group under the Recordings element:
<LimitDays>
<DaysOfWeek>Monday</DaysOfWeek>
<DaysOfWeek>Wednesday</DaysOfWeek>
</LimitDays>

This goes before the ScheduleTime element, and the Padding element. You can specify up to 7 DaysOfWeek elements for a particular recording. The program checks to see if the Program Start Time falls on one of the Days, and if it does, it schedules it otherwise it doesn't. LimtDays is an optional element, and if not included assumes that the program can be recorded any day of the week.

This along with the ScheduleTime restriction element should give you fairly robust control on when your programs are recorded

[KingArgyle]

Status of the External Recording Manager.

Well, I've taken this about as far as I can right now. I just recently accepted an offer for an XML Architect position, that will be taking up much of my free time (lots of studying for me to do on the project management aspect). Anyways, I've asked Jrock to take over putting the finishing touches on the manager. It does about 99% of what I set out to get it to do. Once it is feature complete, I'm sure that he'll share his final changes with the group, as well as the source that goes with the manager.

Sub also has a copy of the source as it stands now, so it isn't lost. I'll still be helping out with the code from time to time, but for me, it's working about as well as I need it too, and is at a good point in which I can pass it off to be finalized.