NextPVR 2.03 vs. GB-PVR 1.4.7; very long paths in GB-PVR

[next]

NextPVR 2.03 vs. GB-PVR 1.4.7
As NextPVR 2.0.3 is out of Beta and GB-PVR 1.4.7 doesn't get any new code I tried to switch to NextPVR, even if I'm nearly happy with GB-PVR.

The following is based on experience with GB-PVR on XP and 7 (32) and on tests with NextPVR on 7.

Unfortunately, after my tests I still clearly prefer GB to Next.
This could partly change over time. Reasons for this estimation include:
- habituation to new handling
- customization of new program
- different style of new program with no possibility to customize (taste of programmer)
- maturity
- output file format

To give some details: Channel switching in Live TV mode, keys for switching between full screen and normal screen, bad looking fonts in scaled screens (i.e. windows), missing visual feedback of running Recording Service, handling and presentation of manual recordings, a lot of options that pop up only when mouse is over them.
And the output file format of recordings. At the moment this is the most important reason.
In two areas I found Next to better GB: the separation of program files and program data, and the handling of long paths (to pick up below).

As I use analog TV exclusively I'm used to .mpg files, which are program streams, I assume.
Because I watch all videos from outside of the PVR and with VLC media player I have the same problem as Nistrod with .ts files (http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post405759). I can acknowledge that the viewer in NextPVR shows the duration of the recordings correctly. This problem even made me look for an alternative viewer for my usual video viewing and found MPC Home Cinema to be quite good. E.g. it shows the duration of the .ts files in question, is fast and shows a lot of formats. But to have preferably only one player for most viewing tasks I still find VLC better.

Assumedly I will stay with analog TV for some time to come. And GB has quite a lot of what I need. So why should I switch to Next at all?
There is one problem with GB I didn't find a solution for that would be solved with Next.

Very long paths in GB-PVR
I don't know if this problem is handled in the forum elsewhere. I don't know how I could search for it.
Sometimes I had empty recordings with GB on XP and an error message indicating that GB couldn't recover. So subsequent recordings got lost also. Then the system had to be restarted (manually) to get GB working again.
This happend with shows that had very long subtitles in the XMLTV file, probably when the overall path length of the recording file exceeded 255, with a pattern like this:
[drive:]\GBPVR\title-very_long_subtitle\title-very_long_subtitle.mpg

Somewhere I read that there was an option to strip the directory part of the recording. But I'd like to keep it.
From then I just did the recordings I know would be problematic manually and the rest in the usual way.

Is there a way to make GB handle shows with very long subtitles, e.g. by augmenting the maximum path length considerably or by silently cutting the subtitle if it would cause a too long path name?

- next

PS: I'm happy that "NextPVR" seemingly has won the name war over "g3pvr" and other affected, contrived and mannered products of the marketing and PR departements...

[martint123]

I think your long dir+filename problem is due to your EPG source or some processing of it?
You say

[drive:]\GBPVR\title-very_long_subtitle\title-very_long_subtitle.mpg

[/quote] whereas my filenames are

[drive:]\GBPVR\title\title.mpg

with the subtitle kept in the database alone and displayed only within GBPVR.

Possibly you are adding the extra length to the name for use with an external player and I suspect with XP there is no way round the long name problem???

[mvallevand]

The solution for Nistrod's sample is simple, post-processing of analog hardware SD captures to mpg via ffmpeg is trivial and reliable, but at the same time for NPVR use it is totally unnecessary.

However your requirement is to play files with VLC, which has nothing at all to do with GBPVR vs NPVR, so ultimately your concerns about mpeg-ts should be taken up with VLC, but it has so many problems, you are unlikely to get listened to.

As for the long names, I agree with martin123 I think you may be part of this problem too. Program names and "subtitles" from XMLTV are designed to fit and be read on printed newspaper and electronic on-screen guides. Extremely long names at the source should be relatively rare.

Martin

[next]

I don't see where I could have configured GB myself to include or exclude subtitles.
Anyhow, to have at least a part of the subtitle included is very helpful.
The shows with the long subtitles are recurring expert talks with a common (main) title and differing subtitles. To discern the recordings by file name at least a part of the subtitle should be included.

I did not test Next on XP, and I'm not sure if I tested the long filename problem with GB on 7.
... and now, as I'm looking for an example with a total pathname length > 255 of Next, I can't find one in the archive. So I can not recall why I was so sure that Next would work in contrast to GB.
Actually, I even have to question my assumption of the 255 characters limit because I found an example done with GB (probably 1.4.7) on XP with a total path length of 256 (including drive letter, ":", 3 "\" and the suffix ".mpg"). But on the same day I lost a recording which would have had an even longer name.
As you can imagine it is not so easy to test the exact maximum file length systematically and it is frustrating to just wait for the next unrecoverable error with real data.

So, at the moment, I even don't know if Next would solve the long path name problem.
And even not considering the output file format I still have other reasons to prefer GB over Next.
Some I mentioned already, while speising in <http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?49192-Why-are-you-not-using-NextPVR-%28yet%29&p=402457#post402457> reminded me of further ones: "switch between analog audio channels (dual audio broadcasts), then the missing teletext". Teletext does not work completely reliably but at least a bit, and I am still hoping to find a way to improve it.

[sub]

I'm not aware of GBPVR using the subtitle in the path name either. I just checked the code, and it just uses the title for the directory name. Are you use it's not being done by your xmltv file source? ie, it's <title> tage also contains the subtitle?

[sub]

To give some details: Channel switching in Live TV mode, keys for switching between full screen and normal screen, bad looking fonts in scaled screens (i.e. windows), missing visual feedback of running Recording Service, handling and presentation of manual recordings

I'm not sure what you mean by any of these. For the most part, the things you've listed here work exactly the same in both GBPVR and NPVR. You'd have to give more detail if you wanted me to understand what you're unhappy about.

Some I mentioned already, while speising in <http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?49192-Why-are-you-not-using-NextPVR-%28yet%29&p=402457#post402457> reminded me of further ones: "switch between analog audio channels (dual audio broadcasts), then the missing teletext".

Sorry, I have no plan to add support in NPVR for switching between analog dual channel audio streams, or analog teletext. Analog is a thing of the past, and I've added the basic record/play covers needs for the majority of users, but these other really niche features require too much effort and time. I cant justify that when I've still got so much work to do in other areas that benefit a much broader user base. Teletext on digital is on my to do list though.

On the other hand, NPVR leaves GBPVR for dead when it comes to support of multiple audio channels on digital recordings, and the ability to switch between them, along with DVB Subtitles etc. GBPVR was always very poor at this type of stuff.

No one is making you move to NPVR, and you can stick with GBPVR if it better suits your needs.

[next]

Just as a first reply: There was no offence intended at all!
I'm completely aware that it is my own responsabilty and freedom to choose. And I'm equally aware that you (sub) have good reasons for your priorities.
I'm just trying to get the most possible out of an already very useful piece of software.
And for that I consciously chose the GB support forum and not that for Next.

For the rest I need time to investigate carefully.
Side note: Some details are hard to pin point and describe even if it seems to be clear intuitively that "there is something". Reading in the forum, e.g. I found that in some area it could be something as "small" as the switch from a vertical to a horizontal orientation of the layout.

Second side note: Every time I finished my message and tried to "Preview Post" I was blocked. And sometimes "Submit Reply" didn't work either. Going back, reloading and trying again did not help. I had to copy my text, log out, relog in, copy the text back and submit.
Well, in the worst case "Reload" dismissed the text immediately - luckily I had copied it already...

[sub]

Second side note: Every time I finished my message and tried to "Preview Post" I was blocked. And sometimes "Submit Reply" didn't work either. Going back, reloading and trying again did not help. I had to copy my text, log out, relog in, copy the text back and submit.

Sorry, I dont know. The forum software has always been very reliably for me, and I've not encountered that problem.

[next]

I must be a timeout issue plus misleading advice.
Please consider that I'm not an English speaker. It took me quite a long time to write the articles above. You are certainly a lot faster!
Still: When the software says, after a timeout: "go back and reload", it should behave nicely... I also experienced the case where I went back, reloaded, tried to re-submit, logged in again and than, at the next try, got an error message like "you are logged in twice"...

You are right about the path problem!
When the path became awfully long, all was in the title tag of the xmltv source.
In the meantime the xmltv grabber stopped to work because of a change on the page it grabbed from, then it was rewrittten, and now it outputs the show data with title and sub-title contents separately.
Because I did not think of this change I assumed GB would combine the two fields. And because I archived the xmltv files I could check the former format.
So I can use normal recording immediately! The recurring shows won't be distingishable by name but it is still better than having to use manual recording.

[next]

To give some details: Channel switching in Live TV mode, keys for switching between full screen and normal screen, bad looking fonts in scaled screens (i.e. windows), missing visual feedback of running Recording Service, handling and presentation of manual recordings, a lot of options that pop up only when mouse is over them.

Channel switching, from Ch 1 to 2, key presses:
GB: Up
Next: Up, Up, Enter

Full screen/max. window - scaled window changes:
GB: no real full screen, just maximized window. Going back with mouse, previous position and size of window get restored reliably. Some times mouse cursor disappears.
Next: real full screen without window frame. It took me very long until I found out that one can go back with Alt-Enter. Previous position and size of window do not get restored reliably! (if you changed the window before going to full screen)

Fonts:
GB: Fonts in XP are superb on main screen, in 7 slightly truncated. Scaling of window in guide gives quite good fonts in every size.
Next: Fonts on main screen are ok, they have buffer space around them for different sizes. Scaling guide window often results in very ugly fonts! They look irregular. It looks like a misbehaving smoothing.

Missing visual feedback of current recording:
GB: The tray icon changes to green background.
Next: I did not recognize anything during recording.

Handling and presentation of manual recordings:
GB: Maybe this depends on the chosen skin. I like the vertical list of menu entries on the left side, with "Manuell" being on the same plane/level as "Fertig", "Neueste" and "Geplant".
Next: Possibly depending on skin also. I have no complete list of different recording categories or states at a glance. I have to switch through the list. And "Man-Rec" is on a different logical level.

Manual Recordings:
GB: The name of the channel is included in the name of the recording. Good!
Next: The name of the recording is just "Default". Bad. Inside Next I get the channel not until a second step. Outside I don't get it at all.

A lot of options that pop up only when mouse is over them:
I'm not shure how much GB and Next differ in this realm.
I was irritated because it took me quite a while to find "Man-Rec" at all.
But, playing a recording:
GB: I can jump reliably to a position in the recording with a mouse click. And I get a navigation bar.
Next: I can't jump reliably with the mouse, or at least the visual feedback with the green bar lags a lot behind. I don't see any navigation bar.