Using PostPocessing to move recordings

[ballfam]

I'm running NextPVR on Linux, and I'm integrating it with Plex. So nextPVR makes the recordings in to a folder monitored by Plex. I'm also running Plex auto-optimization on the recordings to convert them from a .ts format to .mp4. All good, except that NextPVR seems to occasionally close off the file during the recording, I guess to save existing contextnt, and this kicks in the Plex auto-optimization and I end up with an optimized version that only contains part of the recording.

Seems like the way to fix this is to have NextPVR record to a location not moniored by Plex, and then move the recording the the Plex location when it is done. It appears I can do that by creating a PostProcessing.sh script in the scripts directory. Somehow, this seems like it would be a relatively common task, does anyone know if there is a script (or template) for Linux sh (not a bat file) out there that I can use to do a move at the end of the recording?

I understand shell scripting enough to be dangerous, but it would probably take me a few tries to get this right, and it would be nice if I could use something someone already coded.

Thanks

[mvallevand]

First are you sure NextPVR is reopening recordings that are in-progress? I didn't even think that is possible. I suspect it is a more an issue with Plex monitoring kicking in while recording is in progress.

Martin

[ballfam]

The Plex people think that the file is being closed and reopened. In fact what I think is happening is that there is some buffering out. Just to complicate matters, I'm running Plex on Windows, and then I mount one of the drives to the Linux machine using SAMBA; NextPVR is running on the Linux box and writing to the drive mounted from Windows. What I notice when monitoring it on Windows is that occasionally, the file jumps in size. I don't know is this is a side-effect of SAMBA, or just that NextPVR is occasionally moving the end-of-file marker along without actually closing the file. Whatever it is, it is causing a problem with Plex, which now believes there is some non-zero sized file that it can re-code.

So, I'm stuck dealing with the situation, and it appears that the only good solution is to make the file visible to Plex (i.e. move it in to a location monitored by Plex) only after the recording has finished. Looks like PostProcessing.sh can do that for me.

[mvallevand]

Of course the size will not be zero as it grows and flushes. You will see the same thing if you copy it after recording though so not sure it solves your problem entirely.

There are a few PostProcessing.sh examples on the forum but if you aren't comfortable with bash scripting sounds like you made a mistake not just keeping NextPVR with your Plex server on Windows.

Martin

[ballfam]

Actually, I'm more conformable with shell scripting than bat files. I develop on Linux for a living, and if it wasn't for some applications which must run under Windows on my server, I would run everything on Linux. If you asked me to write a C program to process this, I could do it in 5 minutes flat, unfortunately I don't write shell scripts much; I can do it, but it may take me a few tries to work out parameter processing correctly.

As it happens, I'm just moving the file to the same drive in a different location, not actually copying it across drives, so this will always happen instantaneously since it just needs to update the directory index with the new location. I don't think I'll have any issue with Plex.

let me see if I can find something, otherwise I'll code something up at the weekend when I have some time. If it works, I'll post it back to the forum.

[daphatty]

The easy part of this is the cp command. The hard part is knowing which files need to be passed to your script in order to copy them from A to B.

[mvallevand]

Sounds like a mv not cp but it is going to be something like

Code:

plex=/folder/one/
mv "$1" "$plex"
plexfile=$plex"$(basename "$1")"
/opt/dotnet/dotnet /opt/nextpvr/system/NScriptHelper.dll  -rename "$1" "plexfile"

Martin

[ballfam]

Yup, it will be an mv, not a cp. I code shell scripts so rarely that I always forget the subtle differences between csh, sh, and bash, and I have to run it to test it because there is no compiler

Thanks for the quick start, I'll take a run at it over the weekend. Does the script need to be executable (u+x), or does NextPVR run it under "sh <script>?

[mvallevand]

Yes scripts need to be executable.

Martin

[sub]

The Plex people think that the file is being closed and reopened.

You guys are already well past this, but just for confirmation - it only opens the file once, writes to the file until the recording is complete, then closes the file. No closing and reopening.