[addon] PostHaste

[acegolfer]

I have 2 Fusion5 cards and posthaste crashed when 2 recordings stopped at the same time. I used "immediate" option. I will try "deferredimmediate" option.

[cmcquistion]

If you have a dual-core CPU, then BTV will try to launch two post-processing tasks at once, whether you use "immediate", "deferred", or "deferredimmediate".

I don't use PostHaste, because I couldn't get it to work, properly, but the script that I wrote to do my post-processing has a procedure in it to make sure that only a single post-processing task runs at a time (I have a dual-core CPU, also, but I didn't want to have too much I/O.)

[jdsnov73]

I have been using this program since October of last year to run the comskip.exe, and it was working great. But the past few weeks when I go to open and watch a show, there is no commercial detection completed, even after days after the recording.

I open up web admin, and it shows the showsqueeze as running, but there seems to be no activity. The task manager shows little or no CPU usage.

See the attached screen print of my web admin. Anyone have any ideas on why it stays running at the SmartChapter Generator step?

Thanks,
Jeff

[cmcquistion]

You might be better of just using a simple batch script and telling BTV to launch it during off-peak hours. That seems to be pretty reliable, in my experience.

If you need an example script for comskip, do a search in this forum for my username and the word "comskip.bat".

[krollenhagen]

Thank for the bat files. However, I have a problem with the sleep command. I can run sleep 5 from the command prompt and it works fine. I can run my waitsqueeze.bat file and it runs fine. But, when the waitsqueeze.bat file is run from the custompostprocessing.xml file, I get

'SLEEP' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Some other job is still running. I will try again in 60 seconds...

repeated over and over and over again.

Any ideas?

[cmcquistion]

No idea. I've used SLEEP on several systems and I've never had a problem.

Can you post your batch file? Maybe I'll see something in there?

[cat6man]

hey now folks,

just started looking into using posthaste with BTV-Externinator for post-processing QAM recordings with VRD+'s 'quickstreamfix' to fix the
timestamp anomalies that come with TS recordings (they are in OTA recording also....you see them if you play back the files on network media players.....not an issue if played back in BTV).

in any case, i find that posthaste works great with a simple batch file script that calls this batch file:

{
@ECHO OFF
SET ORIGINAL=%*
SET TEMPFILE="d:\media\temp\%~nx1"

cscript //nologo "c:\program files\videoredoPlus\vp.vbs" %ORIGINAL% %TEMPFILE% /t /d /q /e

DEL /F %ORIGINAL%
MOVE /Y %TEMPFILE% "d:\media\new shows"

:END
}

the problem i'm having is that when 2 instances of this are running on different size files (say a 30min and a 60 minute show), both instances of the post-processing are terminated when the first instance finishes.

can posthaste be set to do jobs sequentially?
i.e. can it check to see if an instance of posthaste is already running, and defer the subsequent executions until the first is completed?

[geoffstewart]

cat6man,

Did you use the DeferredImmediate priority in the custompostprocessing.xml? Something like:

<CustomTasks>
<Task>
<GUID>531E0175-87F4-4d6f-B464-E603BC641DAE</GUID>
<Priority>DeferredImmediate</Priority>
<PropertyCollection>
<Property>
<Name>Command</Name>
<Value>C:\Program Files\comskip79_26\PostHaste.exe</Value>
</Property>
</PropertyCollection>
</Task>
</CustomTasks>

I had a problem with simultaneous executions of posthaste until i used DeferredImmediate.

hope this helps.

Geoff

[cat6man]

thanks, but i can't do that....i'm not using BTV post-processing but calling posthaste from BTV-Ext, a plugin for qam cable recording....it creates 'virtual tuners' that BTV doesn't know about or control

[cmcquistion]

I'm doing something similar with QSF to fix up my recordings (MPG and TP.) This is part of a much larger script that does a couple different things.

Here is the section of my batch script that does QSF and then the section that moves the file back to the Video folder.

::
@ECHO OFF
::
::
SET COMSKIPFOLDER=M:\Files_Backup\Comskip
SET TEMPFOLDER2=V:\Temp\2_Fixed
SET ORIGINAL=%*
SET NAME="%~nx1"
SET TEMPFILE2="%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~nx1"
SET FINALDIR=%~dp1
IF %~x1==.tp SET EXT=/t4
IF %~x1==.mpg SET EXT=/t1
FOR /F "tokens=2 delims=." %%A IN ('VER ^| TIME ^| FIND "current"') DO SET RANDOM=%%A
::
::
ECHO Sleeping for %Random% seconds, so Post Processing jobs don't bump heads...
ECHO .
SLEEP %RANDOM%
::
ECHO .
ECHO Quickstream Fix will be run on %ORIGINAL% and output to "%TEMPFOLDER2%\"
ECHO .
ATTRIB -R %ORIGINAL%
cscript //nologo "c:\program files\videoredoPlus\vp.vbs" %ORIGINAL% %TEMPFILE2% %EXT%
::
MOVE /Y "%COMSKIPFOLDER%\qsf.running" "%COMSKIPFOLDER%\qsf.done"
ECHO .
::
:TRYTODELETE
IF EXIST %ORIGINAL% ATTRIB -R %ORIGINAL%
IF EXIST %ORIGINAL% DEL /F %ORIGINAL%
IF EXIST %ORIGINAL% GOTO CANNOTDELETE
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.chapters.xml" ATTRIB -R "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.chapters.xml"
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.chapters.xml" DEL /F "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.chapters.xml"
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.chapters.xml" GOTO CANNOTDELETE
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.index.dat" ATTRIB -R "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.index.dat"
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.index.dat" DEL /F "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.index.dat"
IF EXIST "%FINALDIR%\%~nx1.index.dat" GOTO CANNOTDELETE
GOTO DELETED
:CANNOTDELETE
ECHO Cannot delete %ORIGINAL%, so waiting for 30 minutes to try again...
SLEEP 1800
GOTO TRYTODELETE
:DELETED
MOVE /Y %TEMPFILE2% "%FINALDIR%"
IF EXIST "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*chapters.xml" MOVE /Y "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*chapters.xml" "%FINALDIR%"
IF EXIST "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*vprj" MOVE /Y "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*vprj" "%FINALDIR%"
IF EXIST "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*chp" MOVE /Y "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*chp" "%FINALDIR%"
DEL "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*txt"
DEL "%TEMPFOLDER2%\%~n1*VPrj"
ECHO .

In my script, I haze a dummy file "qsf.running" that I use as a placeholder when QSF is running. This isn't absolutely necessary, but it keeps the server from crunching away at too many jobs at once. This can cause a lot of I/O and disturb BTV Link playback. I also specifically have my jobs wait a random number before all launching, so they don't collide and launch things simultaneously, thereby defeating my placeholder method of keeping just one QSF job at a time, running. Thirdly, I do all my QSF jobs to a temp folder and then move them back to BTV when everything is done. This keeps BTV from freaking out about a file being written to the video folder. It also keeps me happy if I'm watching that particular show, via BTV Link, I don't get a bunch of stuttering on it. Also, the final file won't be moved back to the original video folder unless it can successfully change the read-only permissions, which it can't do, if I'm actually watching that show on BTV Link.

You do have to install the Windows 2003 Resource Kit and install it, to get the "SLEEP" command.

I'm not sure what all those arguments are that you're calling after your QSF command. You don't need anything but "/t4" if you're processing a transport stream and "/q" if you want to run the job in "quiet mode", which will just put a little icon in the tray. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? Are you wanting to hide the whole batch script?

[ijourneaux]

John

I am experiencing the same erro you saw. that seems to be related to Net 2.0. I though the problem was related to a new version of comskip but I just installed a dual core processor that is purhasp causing the problem when 2 copies of PostHaste try to get executed at the same time.

Were you able to resolve the problem

[cmcquistion]

I just don't use PostHaste. I couldn't get it working, correctly, so I use custom batch scripts. On some systems, these are set to launch as Post Processing scripts, either immediately, or during off-hours. On some other systems, I've used Dirmon2 to launch my scripts.

[ijourneaux]

How do you hide the Comskip Window so it doesn't overlay BeyondTV?

[cmcquistion]

Originally Posted by ijourneaux

How do you hide the Comskip Window so it doesn't overlay BeyondTV?

If you run a simple .bat file as a post processing task, using BTV's CustomPostProcessing, then you can't hide it. You could use Dirmon2 to kick off the .bat file, as a post processing task, and Dirmon2 has the ability to hide the command window.

[ijourneaux]

I periodicly get a posthaste crash reported in the application log. ANy idea what might cause this?

EventType clr20r3, P1 posthaste.exe, P2 1.0.0.0, P3 444aa420, P4 mscorlib, P5 2.0.0.0, P6 461eee3d, P7 331e, P8 21c, P9 system.io.ioexception, P10 NIL.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.