Vidimport

[keith_leitch]

Absolutely none of my GBPVR recordings have any metadata attached to them.

OK, I was wrong. The files launched directly by the DVB-T tuner have metadata attached. I was confused, because the majority of my files are streamed in response to code that I launch through Graphrecorder. SOME of these (but very, very few) have metadata attached.

As I am replacing most of these files with transcodes partway through the procedure, it makes sense that most of them would not have metadata. This means that I could really, really use a nice tool that reads metadata from one file, then rewrites it to another.

Oddly, some of the Graphrecorder-launched files that are NOT being replaced with transcodes also lack metadata. This is the part of the mystery that I haven't solved.

[carpeVideo]

No tool is needed just a redirect


more< file1:metadata.xml >file2:metadata.xml

[keith_leitch]

Here are my findings, if anyone is following this:

It is possible to use the TYPE command with a > pipe to insert metadata into a file. For example:

type file.xml >recording.mpg:metadata.xml

This works even if a file is being written by another process (e.g. being recorded). However, I haven't found any way, other than notepad and wordpad, to read or duplicate existing metadata. I downloaded and tried the Wiz tool, but, although it claims to be finding metadata, it seems to change the format entirely into one that vidimport does not recognise.

GBPVR must write the metadata after the recording process has finished, as there is nothing in my files during a recording. If the recording ends without any interference from my system, then the metadata is present: however, if I have hardlinked or otherwise manually replaced the contents of a recording file, the metadata is removed.

I tried exporting a recordings-dump during a recording, with the intention of parsing out the details of the show in progress, inserting them as metadata into my flv file (in progress) and using vidimport on that file. However, the show details do not export until the recording is completed, which is too late for my purposes. I need to find another way to read a specific show out of the db3 database, or at least to export the entire thing, including recordings in progress, to an xml file for parsing.

[carpeVideo]

more< file1:metadata.xml

will read it as well

[keith_leitch]

Thanks. This is helpful, except that I still need to find the entry as soon as the file starts recording. It must be somewhere!

[carpeVideo]

Then you may have to go directly to the database and recreate it from there.

[keith_leitch]

Then you may have to go directly to the database and recreate it from there.

I think you are right. Can you recommend any simple SQL extraction tools that would do the trick in a batch file?

I appreciate the help that you've offered. I have succeeded in reporgramming my processes to restamp each original file with metadata after it finishes recording, and I view this as a big improvement.

[keith_leitch]

Can you recommend any simple SQL extraction tools that would do the trick in a batch file?

CV, thanks again for all your help. I discovered SQLite last night, and this is on its way to solving the last of my problems. Your updates to Vidimport allow me to easily include flv files launched from GraphRecorder in my database, and now I have a batch file to retrieve show information based on filename, and return it as metadata so that I can stamp it onto other files..

I am now starting to have some dangerous thoughts. As I've mentioned, I would like GBPVR to view the FLV file as the main recording from that tuner, for timeshifting purposes (as well as general tidiness). What do you think would happen if I just altered the filename in the database before the .mpg file appears? Would it pick up the .flv file instead? Is this something I should try to ask Sub?

[keith_leitch]

This is going to sound crazy, but I have tested very thoroughly.

When I use the Showname_sXXeXX.ext syntax (or any other syntax), Vidimport succesfully retrieves episode descriptions ONLY for shows with titles of four characters or less. Any titles longer than that result in a Not.Found entry.

I have tried this successfully with NCIS_s1e1, NCIS_s3e12, Monk_s6e1, Monk_s6e13, Monk_s8e1, Hung_s1e1, Big_s1e1, Big_s1e2, RBT_s1e1, TMZ_s1e1 and others.

The following have all failed to retrieve data: Smallville_s1e1, Smallville_s10e1, Smallville_s80e12, Stargate Universe_s1e1, Friends_s1e1, Becker_s1e1 and others...even five-character titles seem too much for it. I have successfully tried the same searches directly on the TVRAGE website through my browser.

Any data that is retrieved must be coming from TVRage, as I've noticed that the TVDB is "out of business."

[carpeVideo]

I don't see the behavior you describe but I do see it missing some descriptions. Try this version and you may want to delete your showfile.

Also theTVDB seems to still be going strong.