Recording imports

[Bobins]

I'm trying to manually import a number of video files into the database but failing to get it right.
The last template I created for the required fields doesn't seem to work anymore as the database has obviously progressed.
I tried mimicking the fields from a recording-backup.xml but I must be getting values or syntax wrong because it doesn't create the correct populated entries.

Sub (or anyone else who knows). Can you advise which fields need to be populated, which are optional, which are created by NPVR on import and what effect each field has on the database (e.g. I see two entries for every recording start & end time..... why?)
I see the SubTitle field has changed / disappeared?

An example dump below.

- <recording>
<oid>5681</oid>
<name>Piers Morgan's Life Stories</name>
<channel>ITV HD</channel>
<filename>R:\Recordings\Piers Morgans Life Stories\Piers Morgans Life Stories_20180303_21502245.ts</filename>
<status>READY</status>
<startTime>2018-03-03T21:49:02.0000000Z</startTime>
<endTime>2018-03-03T22:48:00.0000000Z</endTime>
- <Event>
<OID>2690048</OID>
<Title>Piers Morgan's Life Stories</Title>
<SubTitle />
<Description>Pamela Anderson: Pamela Anderson reflects on her career and personal life, including her first husband's imprisonment for spousal abuse and her relationship with Julian Assange. [S,HD]</Description>
<ChannelOID>7151</ChannelOID>
<StartTime>2018-03-03T21:50:00.0000000Z</StartTime>
<EndTime>2018-03-03T22:45:00.0000000Z</EndTime>
<FirstRun>true</FirstRun>
<DVBServiceEventID>14975</DVBServiceEventID>
<DVBTableVersion>9</DVBTableVersion>
- <Genres>
<Genre>News / Current Affairs</Genre>
</Genres>
<UniqueID>New: Piers Morgan's Life Stories/1001339462</UniqueID>
</Event>
</recording>


Thanks.

Ray.

[sub]

You pretty much only need "name", "channel", "filename", "startTime" and "endTime". The "oid" is ignored, and a new one of those is allocated when imported. A manual recording made by NextPVR only has those fields. The startTime/endTime here are the actual time that the recording covered.

If it was a recording made from the TV Guide, it can also contain an embedded copy of the show information it is associated with - this is the <Event> node (and the fields it contains like title, subtitle, show start and end time, genre etc). The show start time and end time are the time the actual show was scheduled to air. ie, not always the same as the recording time (which could include padding etc).

I see the SubTitle field has changed / disappeared?

If it knows this info, then it's included. In the example you posted above, the subtitle isn't known, so it's got an empty subtitle node.

[Bobins]

I think some of my problems may be the syntax difference between subtitle and SubTitle, title & Title etc.
The field names seem to have changed from the template a created for a few NVPR versions ago (I don't need to import files very often except when the wife says "I missed the last series of xxxx can you get them for me" )

I'll try again.

Thanks Sub... latest release is looking pretty good overall.

[sub]

I think some of my problems may be the syntax difference between subtitle and SubTitle, title & Title etc.

It's a bit unfortunately there is some attributes in all lower case, and some in mixed case. It's not ideal, but this just had to be the case when I decided to combine two bits of info for the export, and they just happened to use slightly different formatting in their respective parts of the application.

Hopefully in the nicely layed out example below, you can clearly see the main recording attributes (like name/startTime/endTime/filename etc), and the embedded <Event> node (in MixedCase, like Title/Subtitle/StartTime/EndTime etc). If it's a manual recording, you won't have this embedded <Event> node.

Code:

<recording>
    <oid>1913</oid>
    <name>Breakfast</name>
    <channel>TVNZ 1</channel>
    <filename>D:\Temp\Breakfast\Breakfast_20180305_06000900.ts</filename>
    <status>READY</status>
    <startTime>2018-03-04T18:23:04.0000000Z</startTime>
    <endTime>2018-03-04T18:23:39.0000000Z</endTime>


    <!-- embedded copy of EPG guide event -->
    <Event>
      <OID>8704420</OID>
      <Title>Breakfast</Title>
      <SubTitle>Monday 4th of March</SubTitle>
      <Description>Start your day off right with Hayley Holt, Jack Tame and the Breakfast team, bringing you the latest in news, sports and weather.</Description>
      <ChannelOID>53404</ChannelOID>
      <StartTime>2018-03-04T17:00:00.0000000Z</StartTime>
      <EndTime>2018-03-04T20:00:00.0000000Z</EndTime>
      <FirstRun>true</FirstRun>
      <DVBServiceEventID>291</DVBServiceEventID>
      <DVBTableVersion>4</DVBTableVersion>
      <UniqueID>Breakfast/10505394</UniqueID>
    </Event>


  </recording>

The field names seem to have changed from the template a created for a few NVPR versions ago

I'm pretty sure they haven't changed in years. You will get slight differences depending on if they're manual recordings (simple timers) or guide based (with EPGEvent node, which can have optional values depending on info available.)

[Bobins]

Thanks Sub. When I said "field names changed", I was simply referring to the syntax Uppercase/lowercase confusion.
Having realised the problem, fixing my case syntax errors has worked. Files imported and Wife happy :-)