Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SRE)

[CsquaredIN]

You may have already been aware of this, but I thought I would mention it just in case. ESPN.com is changing their website soon (the beta site is viewable now), and it looks like they are changing how their scoreboards look. I don't know if this will affect how SRE works as I am not a programmer.

Thanks for all your hard work!

[Slugger]

Yeah, I've been following the upcoming updates. Got my first access to the beta this morning and if all the scoreboards follow the new format of the beta NBA scoreboard then all the parsers are going to be broken when they make the switch.

Hopefully they aren't planning to switch until some time in the new year, but if they do switch during the holidays then SRE will immediately be broken and I won't be around to fix it. A quick look at the NBA scoreboard suggests they're making it a little harder to parse the scores from it, but not impossible. However, nothing can be said for sure until they finalize everything and actually make the switch.

[Slugger]

ESPN launched the newest version of its web site today meaning that many of the parsers are broken in SRE.

As of now (Mon, 11:15 EST), the following parsers are broken:

• NBA
• NHL
• NCAA basketball

Still working...

• NFL
• NCAA football

Out of season...

• MLB

The ones that are working only do so because ESPN hasn't updated those scoreboard pages yet, but I suspect it's just a matter of time (hours, maybe a day or two at most).

And today's my first day back to the office in two weeks so my upcoming week is pretty much filled. I'm going to try and sit down this evening and study exactly what changes are necessary and see if I can't fix at least the NHL parser tonight (need it to record a hockey game ). If you are going to keep SRE running, be sure to set your default padding to a proper value as that's how SRE will pad your recording should it not be able to find game data.

I'll update this thread later today with any details that I'm able to discover.

[Slugger]

Snapshot 167 contains the updated NHL parser. Initial testing looks good, but no guarantees until I get a chance to test it with tonight's recordings. With that said, I'm fairly confident (every software engineer's famous last words!!).

Assuming tonight's testing goes well, the others should follow rather easily once I find an evening to do the rest of them - hopefully this week.

[Slugger]

Just a quick update: the updated NHL parser in snapshot 167 appears to be working fine - I used it to record a hockey game this evening.

I will fix the rest of the parsers as time permits during the evenings this week. Watch for new snapshots with the various parser updates as I fix them. I hope to roll all the fixes up into an official fix release Sunday morning before the NFL playoff games start.

If you are waiting for a specific parser to be fixed and want to be notified when a snapshot with the fix will be available simply go to the issues list on the project web site and star the appropriate issue. Starring an issue will notify you of updates to it.

[Stuntman]

If only my Lakers played on the ice!

Good luck with getting the NBA and NFL back online... would be nice if we could count on SRE for the NFL Playoff games (I believe there are games BOTH Saturday and Sunday).. I didn't have SRE running on the Colts/Chargers game and the recording ended with 3 minutes left in the 4th... a perfect example of why we all need SRE!

Thanks for the time and effort!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Stuntman

If only my Lakers played on the ice!

Don't forget that Slugger is a Canadian - you know where his loyalties lie!

And I do believe that the Lakers do play on ice - it is just underneath the hardwood at the Staples Center.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by wayner

Don't forget that Slugger is a Canadian - you know where his loyalties lie!

And I do believe that the Lakers do play on ice - it is just underneath the hardwood at the Staples Center.

Excellent points, both! I knew Slugger is Canadian, and would never imply that Hockey shouldn't be his top priority.. I will explain that to my wife when I tell her that I must watch the 'other' games in real-time just to be sure I don't have the ending cut off.... I won't mention default padding or anything like that!

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Stuntman

If only my Lakers played on the ice!

Good luck with getting the NBA and NFL back online... would be nice if we could count on SRE for the NFL Playoff games (I believe there are games BOTH Saturday and Sunday).. I didn't have SRE running on the Colts/Chargers game and the recording ended with 3 minutes left in the 4th... a perfect example of why we all need SRE!

NFL should still be working... ESPN has yet to update that scoreboard. Same with NCAA football. I suspect ESPN isn't touching those two until the end of the season.

NBA and NCAA hoops will be fixed before the weekend - perhaps this evening. I just don't know when I'll have time to roll up an official release and upload it to Google Code, etc. Until then, star the issue for the parser you need fixed then wait for the email. Since all I'm fixing this week are the parsers, I wouldn't worry too much about applying a snapshot build as opposed to waiting for the "official" release, which in this case will be nothing more than the latest snapshot uploaded to Google Code after I've done a little more testing.

[Slugger]

Ok... I've fixed the NBA and NCAA basketball parsers. Snapshot 170 contains those fixes. However, in their infinite wisdom, ESPN has decided to update the NCAA hoops scoreboard and not update the NCAA football scoreboard. Unfortunately, my code ties the two together (actually all NCAA monitors) for common things like parsing school names from show descriptions, etc. So while the NCAA hoops parser is fixed, by fixing it I broke the NCAA football parser.

So, as much as this sucks, it's about the best I can do... if you're monitoring:

• NHL: Use snapshot 167 or above
• NBA: Snapshot 170
• NFL: Snapshot 170 or lower (official 2.0.4 should continue to work along with these snapshots)
• MLB: Snapshot 170
• NCAA basketball (men's): Snapshot 170
• NCAA football: Snapshot 167 or lower (official 2.0.4 should also work)

Once ESPN updates all the scoreboards to the new format then everything will work nicely together in a single build. Also, I was able to add a new monitor for NCAA Women's basketball. Unfortunately, that scoreboard hasn't been updated so I've disabled monitoring of women's games until they update it. Once they do, a flip of a switch in the code will get that one up and running as well.

So until ESPN flips everything over to the new format, please use the above list to make sure you have a build capable of monitoring the events you're interested in.

I will not be making the "official" fix release with all of these parser updates until ESPN switches more scoreboards to the new format. Until then, continue to use the available snapshot builds. Ideally, I'd like to wait until all the NCAA scoreboards are moved (or out of season in the case of football) and the NFL scoreboard is updated (or out of season). Check back often for more updates.

[Slugger]

SRE v2.0.5 is now available. This is a bug fix release that fixes the various parsers to support the new ESPN.com scoreboard format. All supported event monitors work in this release except NCAA football. Please read the details on the project front page if you still require NCAA football monitoring.

[Slugger]

SRE v2.0.6 is now available. This is a bug fix release that fixes a typo in the NBA monitor that was preventing the monitoring of games involving Cleveland.

[SageGk]

I installed this plugin and tried it our for the first time yesterday. I have "The Mentalist" setup to record as a favorite, and the football game ran late, so the recording didn't start until about 30 minutes later than scheduled. Sage didn't record the last 30 minutes of the show either. Anyone else have this issue?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by SageGk

I installed this plugin and tried it our for the first time yesterday. I have "The Mentalist" setup to record as a favorite, and the football game ran late, so the recording didn't start until about 30 minutes later than scheduled. Sage didn't record the last 30 minutes of the show either. Anyone else have this issue?

The SRE plugin is only capable of monitoring the football game and extending the recording of the football game, it does not (nor can it reliably) modify recording times of the programs that follow live events. Had you been recording the football game, SRE would have ensured that the entire football game (including the extra 30 minute run over) was contained in a single recording.

[SageGk]

Originally Posted by Slugger

The SRE plugin is only capable of monitoring the football game and extending the recording of the football game, it does not (nor can it reliably) modify recording times of the programs that follow live events. Had you been recording the football game, SRE would have ensured that the entire football game (including the extra 30 minute run over) was contained in a single recording.

Thanks for clearing that up, I didn't realize this was for sports events only, which is a great plugin because I watch a lot of sports. Thanks!

[Slugger]

A snapshot build, 190, was just built that removes some regex code from the ESPN parser. Seems as though the Java regex package doesn't play nice with extremely large strings, which can occur when parsing some data from ESPN.

My automated test results failed for all NHL games today, but when I reran the tests some games passed, while others didn't. Each rerun resulted in a different set of games passing and failing. Once I removed the regex code everything returned to normal. Might be the JRE version I'm using (I'm using JRE6u11) or might not, but either way removing the regex code seems to have cleared up the failed tests from today (while the same regex code worked flawlessly with the NCAA hoops tests). You may or may not want to upgrade to the 190 build, but I'd recommend it as removal of the regex code can only make the parser more stable. Snapshot 190 was tested with all of today's tests 20 times in succession and passed with a 100% success rate all 20 times.

I'm heading out for the evening so no official package will be done up tonight, but feel free to grab the snapshot and install it.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Slugger

The SRE plugin is only capable of monitoring the football game and extending the recording of the football game, it does not (nor can it reliably) modify recording times of the programs that follow live events. Had you been recording the football game, SRE would have ensured that the entire football game (including the extra 30 minute run over) was contained in a single recording.

I was about to post the same question, for the same reason. As it happens, I have no interest whatever in pro sports or in recording sporting events on TV. My only interest would be in reliably recording the programs that get bumped. So count this as one more vote in favor of such a capability, if you ever think of a way to make it work.

[gplasky]

Make it three. Too bad you couldn't take the actual end time of the game and calculate how much over it ran so you could add padding to the end time of the following recording. Or turn them into manual recordings with new start and end times. I will watch sports but I don't usually record them. I DO get upset by the rest of the lineup shifting. I can't tell you how many times I was glad I was recording CSI:New York late night and luckily The Unit ran into that recording space. It was split but at least I saw the whole episode of The Unit.

Gerry

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Make it three. Too bad you couldn't take the actual end time of the game and calculate how much over it ran so you could add padding to the end time of the following recording. Or turn them into manual recordings with new start and end times.
Gerry

I could calculate the time that the football game ran over and pad recordings that followed, but that's not going to be good enough. This exact request was brought up back when I first released this plugin and my response explains why I haven't implemented the feature.

The same issues remain today as they did when I wrote the original post (in March of 2007). But, as I stated back then, if someone has a way to approach the problem then I'm more than willing to implement it in SRE (I did miss 20 mins or so of 'The Mentalist' on Sunday because of this exact issue).

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Slugger

I could \(I did miss 20 mins or so of 'The Mentalist' on Sunday because of this exact issue).

I padded the end time by 45 minutes and managed to get the whole episode. And thanks for the explanation. Doesn't make me happy but makes me more knowledgable.

Gerry