Recording 24/7

[klunde]

Hi

I've read that Beyond TV can record from multiple sources and I wonder, can it be used to record 6 channels at once around the clock? If it can do this, is it possible to control the filenames and how often the program breaks the recording into new files?

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by klunde

I've read that Beyond TV can record from multiple sources and I wonder, can it be used to record 6 channels at once around the clock? If it can do this, is it possible to control the filenames and how often the program breaks the recording into new files?

In BTV itself you would have to manually mark all those shows individually to do that... But that is actually what someone had asked me to implement in my addon (link in my .sig). You will need to check the Enable expert mode on the configuration tab, then go to the Expert mode tab (channel sub-tab) and mark the channels where you want to record everything with the appropriate filters if any. I would suggest that you limit the number of days for those auto-recordings as BTV becomes sluggish with over 200 recording jobs and the web services tend to time out when trying to access informations (such as running any BTV addon after having scheduled all those recordings), though I might have solved that problem, just never got any feedback from the person that requested that feature...

You can also use the channel browser sub tab (of the search tab) to be more selective and/or to setup some exclusions (like not recording those Sign off )...

[klunde]

Actually, I really don't care about the shows, I want to record 24/7 and if possible in half hour blocks switching to a new file on the hour and on half past each hour. Do you think that would be possible with your addin?

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by klunde

Actually, I really don't care about the shows, I want to record 24/7 and if possible in half hour blocks switching to a new file on the hour and on half past each hour. Do you think that would be possible with your addin?

I am using the Electronic Programming Guide (EPG) to create those jobs, so I don't control the durations...

From the sound of it, I guess you have some surveillance cameras connected to each capture card or such, thus the 30 minutes recordings regardless of the content and weither shows/movies are cut in multiple segments with missing time between the re-capture... If I am right, I assume there are some home automation/security software more appropriate for that (possibly things like X-Loby, Quarks and such)... If it is not about security cameras or such, could you elaborate a bit more, I don't understand the point of those 30 minutes recordings not matching the EPG...

[klunde]

I'm recording TV Channels, the reason I don't want to record complete shows is that we have users who transcribes from different shows and they do not want to wait the whole show is recorded, instead we break it into half hour slots.

[HomeyFour]

Are you planning on using BTV in a commericial/business environment? If so, you need to contact SnapStream sales to inquire about the commercial version of BTV.

[klunde]

I might be yes, but I'm not buying any license at all before I've tested and found the program useful for my purpose. If I find BTV to be the recorder I should use I have no problem with buying whatever license I need.

The issue here - at this point - is not the license, its the capabilities of the software package.

[cmcquistion]

The simple answer is YES.

You can set up a manual recording to start and end at a specific time and specific channel. You can name this recording something representative like "1330-1400" or something. You would have to set up 48 of these manual recordings, if you want to record a single channel in half hour blocks all day. This is somewhat time consuming, but once it is done, it is done. It will continuously record these on the schedule you specify (daily, weekly, etc), until you tell it to stop.

[Fonceur]

Creating those 48 manual recordings on 6 different channels would be time consuming but should work. What I would be worried about is how BTV will handle those back to back recordings on a multi-tuner system. BTV seems to change Tuner every time to avoid the lost of information while the switch occurs, or maybe that is only when you have padding enabled...

I would suggest that you do a few tests of those 30 minutes blocks and see if your users are really more interested in getting those recording fast with garbled/missing parts in between, or the correct content as schedulled in the EPG... Those starts at odd times like 9:01, 9:03 or 9:05 would certainly be a pain...

You do know that you can playback the recording (through BTV or BTV-Link) while it is still going on, right?

[klunde]

Hmm.. maybe I'll try this. But is there a way I can control the filenames? I would like to have the files named {channel}{yyyymmdd}{hhmm}

And yes I know you can use BTV-Link for playback, but the player isn't good enough (I have my own with special features like global hotkeys for start, stop, pause, rewind x seconds, archiving of files etc.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by klunde

Hmm.. maybe I'll try this. But is there a way I can control the filenames? I would like to have the files named {channel}{yyyymmdd}{hhmm}

Since you fill out the names for manual recordings, you could probably schedule {channel}{hhmm} with BTV automatically adding {yyyy-mm-dd-0} or such to each. So getting the exact format that you want from there would not be too hard...

[klunde]

That format is not very good. There is a huge difference between yyymmdd-hhmm and hhmm-yyyy-mm-dd - think about sorting files for several days.

Now, I've tested this a little and so far I can just say that BTV has issues with recording back-to-back. I added half hour recordings for two channels on a two tuner system and let it run for two hours. BTW recorded one channel ok, while the other lost half the recordings. The log only stated

[2006/3/1 09:30:31] COHauppaugePVR250CardBuilder:Build - Failed to build graph. err = 0x80004005
[2006/3/1 09:30:31] Failed to build device-specific capture graph!
[2006/3/1 09:30:31] BTV Recorder failed to attach to graph.

I think it can't manage if it doesn't have a "free" tuner

[Mr.X]

I don't think there's anything inherently in BTV that will stop you from doing what you want to do.
The error you got sounds like a configuration/driver issue or a maybe a hardware problem. Are you using v4.1?

Originally Posted by Fonceur

BTV seems to change Tuner every time to avoid the lost of information while the switch occurs, or maybe that is only when you have padding enabled...

I think that's only with padding, but it doesn't matter. You can lock a specific tuner to a specific recording, just change "record from" from "any available source" to a specific tuner. It won't switch tuners in that case. Padding should be turned off.

Originally Posted by klunde

That format is not very good. There is a huge difference between yyymmdd-hhmm and hhmm-yyyy-mm-dd - think about sorting files for several days.

It would be trivial to add a batch file that renames the files after they have recorded.

If you were really tricky, you'd set up 6 manual recordings of 24 hours each, set the buffer slices to 1/2 hour and then build something that automatically copies and renames the buffer slices. Set the expiry on the recorded shows to 1 copy only and then they'll auto-delete when the next 24 hour cycle starts.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by klunde

That format is not very good. There is a huge difference between yyymmdd-hhmm and hhmm-yyyy-mm-dd - think about sorting files for several days.

As I said, you'd have to do the conversion to a more friendly name format, but the information would be there. Besides you can still sort out by creation date if you want them ordered correctly..

[klunde]

If you were really tricky, you'd set up 6 manual recordings of 24 hours each, set the buffer slices to 1/2 hour and then build something that automatically copies and renames the buffer slices. Set the expiry on the recorded shows to 1 copy only and then they'll auto-delete when the next 24 hour cycle starts.

Where do I configure the buffer slices?