New Tool:Help turn GB-PVR into client / server

[Hayden]

A few people seem to be having trouble setting up GB-PVR in client server mode using the method described here

There are 2 main problems to solve with the client/server mode:

1) There can only be one GB-PVR database, so you have to point the client(s) at the server database

2) Recordings:
The recording service on the server needs to know where to store the files it's recording. The Clients need to know where the recordings are so that it can pick them up to view them.

The location has to be common and accessible to both server and clients.

Solving Issue 1 is fairly easy, you can edit the config.xml on the clients and provide a unc path for the access database (see below)

Issue 2 is a bit harder, the previous post tried to solve it by making both the server and client point to a unc path, as a network share didn't work.

While it works, it seems a bit silly to make the server work through the network stack when all the drives are actually local.

New Method:
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If you created a seperate partition, or installed another drive on your server machine and gave it a drive letter that was not in use on any of your client machines (for example G: ) you could set your recording directory to G:\blah\blah and share the G drive on your server as \\server\GB-PVRDrive.

On your client machines, map \\server\GB-PVRDrive as G: and then both client and server have a common path to the recordings. If this is the case, you can skip the next bit and just go to the client setup.

What if you only have one drive in your server
--------------------------------------------
If you only have one drive in your server machine and you don't want to partition it, I came up with another method. By using the SUBST command, you can create a virtual drive letter for your recordings drive. The only issue is that the SUBST command is only local to the session, and the recording service running under the 'local system' account couldn't pick it up.

I created a new service that can run the SUBST command under the local system account and bounce the GB-PVR recording service so that the recording service can pick up the virtual drive.

Install the Virtual Drive Service on the Server
-------------------------------------------
The tool is located here http://www.hoontune.com/files/gb-pvr_vds.zip

Better instructions are now further down here

On your server machine, download the zip file, extract and run the setup.exe. A Dialog will pop up asking which drive letter you want to use, select on that is not used on either your server or client(s) e.g. G: and click save.

The service will now start up, and re-start the GB-PVR Recording Service.

If you open My Computer you should see this new drive letter show up.

Now is the time to stop GB-PVR, the Recording Service and the Tray application. Make a backup of your gb-pvr database and your config.xml

In the directory where you installed the Virtual Drive Service (C:\Program Files\HoonTune\GB-PVR Virtual Drive Service by default) is a program called 'GB-PVR VDS Server Config.exe' run this application to change the file path to your existing recordings from C:\ to G:\ (or whatever drive letter you selected for the Virtual Drive Service)

Click Continue, and it will tell you how many recordings it changed click OK and it will explain what other changes you should make. Click Close.

Open the config.xml file in the GB-PVR directory with notepad and find <AutoRemoveMissingRecordings> and change true to false.

You can also change the <RecordingsDirectory>to point to your new drive G: instead of C:, or you can save the file and do it with the GB-PVR config application, whatever suits you best.

Make sure you save the file and then you can restart GB-PVR and the Recording Service and make sure they are working OK.

When you're happy that they are working OK create a share on the C: drive call it something like GB-PVRDrive

Last step is to create a hole in any firewall you are running for TCP port 7968

I'll put the details for configuring the client in the next post.

As always, I've done this to help people out but there are no guarantees, back everything up if you don't want to lose it

[gEd]

On my server, I have my single drive split into c and d. however, my laptop also has a d drive.

so am i right in saying that i can change drive letter d (in windows disk admin) to g, run GB-PVR VDS Server Config.exe to update my recordings from d to g, share g and map drive g from my laptop to this share?

I really appreciate your time on this Hayden as I have been meaning to get around to this for ages. Last time I tried, I lost all my recordings....

[sgilani]

Last time I tried, I lost all my recordings....

Just make doubly sure that you have AutoRemoveMissingRecordings set to false, and you don't have to worry about trashing the database.

[gEd]

Just make doubly sure that you have AutoRemoveMissingRecordings set to false, and you don't have to worry about trashing the database.

I realise that now - anyway, I thought you were working 24x7 on the streaming "plugin" :-)

[Hayden]

On my server, I have my single drive split into c and d. however, my laptop also has a d drive.

so am i right in saying that i can change drive letter d (in windows disk admin) to g, run GB-PVR VDS Server Config.exe to update my recordings from d to g, share g and map drive g from my laptop to this share?

yep that's it exactly

I really appreciate your time on this Hayden as I have been meaning to get around to this for ages. Last time I tried, I lost all my recordings....

as said, check and double check the AutoRemoveMissingRecordings setting and it should be fine

the install file is now at http://www.hoontune.com/files/gb-pvr_vds.zip

[Hayden]

You have any pictures of what all of this looks like when configuring it?

Before Starting
--------------
Stop the GB-PVR Recording Service
Backup the GB-PVR database and config.xml

Open the config.xml file in the GB-PVR directory with notepad and find <AutoRemoveMissingRecordings> and change true to false.


How to Install
-------------

Unzip the file http://www.hoontune.com/files/gb-pvr_vds.zip and run the setup.exe

Make a note of the install location



and click next a few times, the service will install and start.
Since this is the first time it has run it will prompt you for a drive letter to use as a virtual drive letter for your recordings disk.



If you have your recordings on a physically seperate disk for example D: you can change the drive letter to one that is free on your clients (example G: ) by using the Windows Disk Management tool. If you wish to do this instead of creating a virtual drive letter then just click 'Cancel'. Start -> Control Panel - > Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools - > Computer Management -> Disk Management. Find your disk and right click on it, and choose the option to change the drive letter. Be aware that if you have any programs etc stored on this disk, you may break them.

Otherwise choose a letter from the list and click 'Save'. The service will start and bounce the GB-PVR Recording Service. Your new drive letter should show up in explorer (My Computer)

Change the location of existing recordings in GB-PVR access database
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Stop the GB-PVR Recording Service again

Open Explorer and find the directory where you installed the service c:\program files\HoonTune\GB-PVR Virtual Drive Service by default

Double click to run 'GB-PVR VDS Server Config.exe' and it will bring up either one of the screens below



If you didn't run the Virtual Drive Service in the previous step you will have to choose the new drive letter from the drop down box (see blue box), it is selected for you if you setup the service (see green box).

To change the location for the existing recordings in the GB-PVR database click continue.

A popup will tell you how many records it changed and then the following screen will appear



Click close

Make final changes to server
---------------------------
Open the config.xml file in the GB-PVR directory with notepad and make sure the <AutoRemoveMissingRecordings> is set to false.

You can also change the <RecordingsDirectory>to point to your new drive G: instead of C:, or you can save the file and do it with the GB-PVR config application, whatever suits you best.

Make sure you save the file and then you can restart GB-PVR and the Recording Service and make sure they are working OK.

When you're happy that they are working OK create a share on the C: drive call it something like GB-PVRDrive

Last step is to create a hole in any firewall you are running for TCP port 7968

Start -> Control Panel -> Security Centre -> Windows Firewall

Add the TCP port 7968 as an exception (or turn it off)



Now you can start configuring the client




For those not using the Virtual Drive Service
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If you have changed your physical drive and just used this tool to change the recordings location in the gbpvr.mdb database you can now uninstall the program using control panel -> add /remove programs. If you don't, eveytime you start up the Virtual Drive Service will prompt you for a drive letter.

[Hayden]

Installing a Client machine
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Map a drive to the Server
-------------------------

You need to be able to access the gbpvr.mdb database and the recordings directory of the server

In the Server setup above did we created a share on the recordings drive (most likely C: ) called something like GB-PVRDrive

On the client you need to map that server share to the same drive letter you used on the server

Open My Computer -> Tools -> Map Network Drive...

Drive: G: (or the drive letter you chose)
Folder: \\servername\GB-PVRDrive (either enter this or click the Browse button to find it)

Make sure you click the 'Reconnect at logon button'

If your gbpvr installation on your server is not on the same drive, you will need a to map another network drive to it's location. The drive letter you use is not important, you can even skip this step altogether and use a unc path to the database in your config.xml file if you want to.



Install the same version of GB-PVR onto your client
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Install the same version of GB-PVR as the server is running. You should install the same decoders/muxes etc for consistency, (you obviously don't need the capture card drivers).


When the config tool starts up, change your recordings directory to the directory on the mapped drive ( G:\blah\blah ) so it's identical to that of the server. If you want to add other directories for video archive or music etc you can either do it now or later.

untick the 'Live preview mode if possible' check box in the Misc tab and click OK


Disable the Recording Service
-----------------------------

You won't need the recording service running on the client, so you can disable it.


Start -> Control Panel - > Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools - > Services

Find 'GB-PVR Recording Service' and double click to open it. Click the 'Stop' button and change the 'Startup Type:' to Disabled


Remove the GB-PVR tray application from the Startup group
---------------------------------------------------------

Stop the GB-PVR tray application and remove it from the Startup group. Start -> All Programs -> Startup find it and hit 'Delete' key to remove it


Edit the config.xml
-------------------

open the local config.xml file

search for <RecordingServiceLocation>
change tcp://localhost to tcp://192.168.1.2 or the ip address of your server. you may be able to use the machine name, but I haven't tried it

search for <DatabaseConnectionString>
Change the DataSource=".\gbpvr.mdb" to DataSource="G:\Program Files\devnz\gbpvr\gbpvr.mdb" or the mapped drive and location of the database on your server.


search for <AutoRemoveMissingRecordings>
and change the value to false

Turn off firewall
---------------

Start -> Control Panel -> Security Centre -> Windows Firewall

Add the TCP port 7968 as an exception (or turn it off)

Test the client
---------------

You can now run your client and view a recording, and try to watch Live TV. The Live TV creates a lot of network throughput, and if you're not running a wired network you may get a lot of stuttering

There is a way to fix this which involves de-registering the gbpvrparser.ax file

according to sub:

The one major difference between the Microsoft demultiplexer and GB-PVR parser, is the GB-PVR parser regularly seeks to the end of the file and re-reads the timing information to determine how long the stream is. This is done so your can ff/rw/seek within the video file whilst it is still recording. This will most likely account for some of the additional traffic you see while playing a video which is still recording.

If you want to try this open a command window, change to the gbpvr folder and run
regsvr32 /u GBPVRParser.ax

You can always reverse it by running
regsvr32 GBPVRParser.ax


Hayden

[pBS]

the huge drawback of un-registering gbpvrparser.ax is that you also lose ff/rw ability...tho i notice the timeline at the top works fine...interesting..
with the ms parser,you can only pause and stop, even with finished recordings! to me a big problem...
if you want to be able to use ff/rw and don't mind a little lower quality, try setting the live-tv recording profile to 352x480 and around 2500k, mine works fine over the wired network, and looks surprisingly good quality..
only could get around 2200k with wireless 101 connection. but it worked..
this problem Doesn't affect finished recordings,so you only need to set the timeshift profile lower... your recordings once finished, play with really low net usage no matter the bitrate..wish there were some way to fix that 'sides a gigabit net..
[also turn up your network card's buffers to max,it really helps]

i ran into this problem of moving the recording dir a while back, and all i did was just export the recordings in config, and search/replaced the path with new one in notepad, and re-import...no prob... [but leave the removemissingrecordings alone so it will delete old references]
but good work..hopefully it'll clear some confusion..

[wharrad]

Someone please help! I know there are a lot of people trying to get this working and wish for their questions to be answered.

Well, I have a client / server system setup. However, everything works with the exception of timeshift on the client.

When I click Live TV, it states I should wait for timeshifting to start... then after around 20 seconds it goes back to the main menu.

The recording service starts up on the server and creates a file and it goes into the database.

Can anyone please help, I've been without tv for a couple of months and I'm missing the news (sad I know)!



Here's some more information...

Server

Dual Opteron 248 (bought for this very system)
2GB RAM
Nova-T (909 - using correct BDA drivers)
Windows XP Pro SP2 Net 1.1
120GB Drive for GBPVR as drive T:

Client

1.1Ghz Pentium M
512MB RAM
Windows XP Pro SP2 Net 1.1
30GB Hard Disk


Either running Gigabit or Wireless-G LAN - both fail.


I have tried a number of different codecs - hoping to use Cyberlink as I've bought the full software and run an Epia (wish I hope to use in future).

I've read every post on the subject and searched google endlessly, but can't find an answer.


Thank you

[Hayden]

Clear your client logs, try again and post your logs and we'll see if we can work it out