Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SRE)

[Slugger]

Snapshot 652 contains the fixes for the NCAA basketball monitors (men and women).

[Clift]

I just installed this last week and had the first chance to test it out this weekend. All I can say is THANKS and AWESOME!!! Worked like a charm. No assuming all goes accordingly I'll never have to worry about missing the end of games again or having to record the next scheduled show.

[wayner]

I just got some weird errors today -

The event monitor for 'NBA Basketball: Phoenix Suns at Toronto Raptors' is invalid. Either the episode information needs an o...

The event monitor for 'NHL Hockey: Toronto Maple Leafs at Florida Panthers' is invalid. Either the episode information needs ...

There is nothing different about these listings and another hockey game later this week is picked up although there appears to be an issue with a basketball game. Slugger - any idea why this would be? (I assume the italics means there is a problem)

Airing ID Title Subtitle Recording
7386954 NBA Basketball Toronto Raptors at Boston Celtics 11/27/09 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
7431263 NHL Hockey Toronto Maple Leafs at Florida Panthers 11/27/09 7:30 PM - 10:30 PM
7506347 Rugby France contre Nouvelle-Zélande 11/28/09 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
7379637 South Park Butters' Bottom Bitch 11/28/09 5:30 PM - 6:00 PM
7388881 Premiership Rugby Bath vs. London Irish 11/29/09 1:45 AM - 3:30 AM
7371970 NBA Basketball Phoenix Suns at Toronto Raptors 11/29/09 1:00 PM - 3:30 PM
7388865 Rugby Fall Tour: Ireland vs. South Africa 11/29/09 5:00 PM - 6:45 PM
7403181 Rugby Fall Tour: Wales vs. Australia 11/29/09 9:30 PM - 11:15 PM
7403925 Ni Hao, Kai-lan The Moon Festival 11/30/09 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
7403180 Rugby Fall Tour: Wales vs. Argentina 11/30/09 6:45 PM - 8:30 PM
7417956 NHL Hockey Buffalo Sabres at Toronto Maple Leafs 11/30/09 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM

[Slugger]

Once a day SRE goes out on the net and checks to see if it can find the game data for future events. It is possible that when it checked those events your inet connection was down or espn.com was temporarily down. Did it end up monitoring the games anyway?

My automated daily tests picked up those games with no problems so my best guess is that it was an intermittent error. As far as I can see, the parsers are still valid for both the NHL and NBA as of Nov 28 (I just ran today's tests manually and they all look good for today).

[Slugger]

Seems ESPN.com has went and changed the format of all its NCAA scoreboards so SRE is broken for all NCAA monitors, but tests shows all the pro sports continue to work.

I've found a new source of data that should be much less prone to these kinds of problems and am looking to implement that now (over the next few days) so I don't plan on fixing the broken NCAA monitors, but instead hope to have a snapshot that uses the new source data available soon.

[Slugger]

Snapshot 708 is available for download. This build contains the new NCAA monitors. However, you may want to tread lightly with this build as it moves ALL monitors to the new data source, including ALL the pro sports monitors that STILL WORK in v2.2.1.

There are a few key changes in 708 worth mentioning:

• All monitors now use the ESPN.com "Bottom Line" data feed; this is a raw data feed used by ESPN.com's Bottom Line app; it's a raw data feed meaning it's dead easy to parse and the format shouldn't change too often. This is the dream data source I've been searching for!
• One "gotcha" with this new feed is that it only feeds the current day's scores so SRE no longer can look into the future and determine if your monitors are going to work, but with the use of this raw feed, it shouldn't be an issue (sort of, see below)
• Overrides are going to be a bigger necessity for NCAA events with the new data source; e.g. This feed will use "N'western" for Northwestern, "N Dame" for Notre Dame, etc. There are just too many combinations and shorthands used by ESPN that I won't even try to keep up with them; if you see an error that a game isn't being monitored then create the override (details on how to find the appropriate name coming soon)
• The above issue isn't as prevalent with the pro sports (though there may be typos, etc. in my code in this first snapshot, but all the pro sports should be sorted out after a few days of testing)

Since SRE can no longer look into the future and verify monitors, I highly recommend installing SageAlert along side SRE and configuring it to notify you via an alert if a game isn't being properly monitored. This alert will occur shortly after the recording starts.

I'm currently running this build and testing it with tonight's late games in the NHL. Unless you absolutely need to monitor NCAA games, I'd recommend holding off on upgrading until I've reported back my test results. I make this build available now for those that absolutely need NCAA monitoring this weekend. (Automated tests show that the parsers are working and find most game data for NCAA - the above abbreviations used by ESPN are causing problems for some games, but I also had to make some changes to the SRE engine because of the fact I can't look into the future anymore so that's why I'm a little concerned that some kind of bug may have crept in.) If you do upgrade, please let me know how it goes. I'll report back by end of weekend with an update on the status of this snapshot.

[Slugger]

Use snapshot 710. Everything said above about 708 is true in 710, except 710 contains a few extra enhancements. I've used 710 to monitor NHL and NFL, automated tests show that it's picking up NCAA and NBA events as expected as well. I'm quite confident in the stability of 710, but of course the more testers the better.

Note that as described above, the need for overrides is more prevalent with the move to the new data source. However, 710 introduces an NCAA map that will help with this. Please read this wiki doc for more details.

Feel free to ask any questions about the 2.3.0 snapshots...

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

[*]Overrides are going to be a bigger necessity for NCAA events with the new data source; e.g. This feed will use "N'western" for Northwestern, "N Dame" for Notre Dame, etc. There are just too many combinations and shorthands used by ESPN that I won't even try to keep up with them; if you see an error that a game isn't being monitored then create the override (details on how to find the appropriate name coming soon)

Is there a way to expose the SRE "dictionary" to end-users? That way, if I am a Northwestern fan, I can just add N'western to my dictionary, thus preventing me from having to manually override every N'western airing?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Is there a way to expose the SRE "dictionary" to end-users? That way, if I am a Northwestern fan, I can just add N'western to my dictionary, thus preventing me from having to manually override every N'western airing?

Well, yes, sort of. I'm exposing the dictionaries via the net and so SRE will read them from the net. I did this so as to promote the building of a global, more complete map in a quicker manner by the community of users. So once Northwestern, for example, is added to the global map then everyone who uses SRE benefits from this mapping. Eventually, over time, the global map should be built up enough that overrides should be a rare necessity instead of the prevalent one they are right now.

[Paul H]

What I need is a plugin that sees that a (sports) 'event' is going to run over time and check to see if a 'favorite' progam is scheduled to record in the over-time period and change the favorite's record start time to correct for this. I'm tired of missing half of a favorite because another show runs long.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Paul H

What I need is a plugin that sees that a (sports) 'event' is going to run over time and check to see if a 'favorite' progam is scheduled to record in the over-time period and change the favorite's record start time to correct for this. I'm tired of missing half of a favorite because another show runs long.

Not possible. I explain why in this post.

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Not possible. I explain why in this post.

RE: my request:
Sorry, if you didn't get it. But that was sarcasm!!

[Slugger]

Snapshot 727 contains a fix for the ESPN Bottom Line parser. This fix allows proper monitoring of games involving team names with '&' (or any other "special" characters) in their name. This snapshot will be required if you're looking to monitor today's NCAA bowl game featuring Texas A&M.

[Slugger]

Visit http://sre-maps.appspot.com to be able to view a pretty printed view of the ESPN Bottom Line feed for the current day. Use this view to find the override values needed when SRE (v2.3.0+) requires an override to monitor an event. Work is also being done to support real time user updates of override values that SRE will use such that once you tell this web app about a mapping, it will be remembered forever and SRE will constantly check this online map for auto override information. The online maps work is being done slowly, but should be ready by mid-Jan; more updates will be provided once I need some testers to help me.

[Slugger]

I need people to help test SRE v2.4.0 beta builds. The key new feature in this version is the use of the "SRE Maps" web application for retrieving override information. Basically, I've written a new web application hosted at:

http://sre-maps.appspot.com

This application hosts the global override map for all of the events that SRE can monitor. Anytime SRE is monitoring an event it will consult this online map for possible override values. The key feature of all of this is that the map is maintained and updated by the community - in real time! If SRE is not able to monitor an event simply visit the above URL and load the event feed, let's say you're trying to monitor Syracuse/Seton Hall, but SRE is telling you it can't. In SageTV, your EPG lists the game as:

College Basketball
Syracuse at Seton Hall

Go to the above URL, click "View Data Feed", select NCAA Men's Basketball then look for the Syracuse/Seton Hall game. This view is a pretty printed view of the raw ESPN Bottom Line feed that SRE uses to monitor the game live. So find the game on this page and you'll find something like:

(5) Syracuse at S Hall (9:00 PM ET)

For NCAA events, always drop the ranking specifier, so you end up with an override of:

Syracuse at S Hall

Since only Seton Hall was different, you only need to tell sre-maps about the mapping for Seton Hall. To do that, send an email to editmap AT sre-maps DOT appspotmail DOT com (replace the AT and DOT as appropriate) with the following text in the BODY of the email:

* ESPNBL_NCAA
+ Seton Hall
- S Hall

The subject of the email is irrelevant and the body can include other things that will be ignored (email sigs, etc.). The important thing is that the lines are together (no blank lines between them).

The general format of this email is:

* <event type; currently only ESPNBL_NCAA supported>
+ <EPG Name>
- <Feed Name>

You can include more than one mapping in a single email, but each must include an event type, epg name, and feed name. Once you send this email and it's processed by the application then that override will automatically be picked up, but not only is it picked up for you, but it immediately gets used by every SRE user. Eventually, we should have a big enough map stored online that overrides for NCAA events should no longer be necessary.

Currently, the only event type supported is "ESPNBL_NCAA", which is used for NCAA football and basketball (men and women). Support is built in for the pro sports, but as of now, overrides aren't ever necessary for any of the pro sports, but it can easily be turned on should that change.

Please grab a v2.4.0 beta and if nothing else simply confirm that it works just as well as v2.3.x. Ideally, users of SRE who record and monitor NCAA football or basketball will also help test the online map by contributing to it when necessary for the games they monitor.

[Slugger]

For those of you running any v2.4.0.x beta build, please be advised that I will be uploading a new version of the sre-maps web app tomorrow before noon EST (17:00 GMT).

This will completely break all 2.4.0.x versions of SRE and render them useless!

A new 2.4.0 beta will be uploaded and made available at the same time. I've learned some lessons about writing apps for the Google cloud and need to make some API breaking changes to everything. I believe/hope this will be the last such API breaker, but I can't promise anything. I will, however, promise that such API breaking changes will only be made in the mornings and I will post a message like this the night before warning users of the required upgrade.

Users of SRE v2.3.x are not affected by this change and can ignore this message. Target completion of v2.4.0 is still mid January.

[Slugger]

Snapshot 736 is ready; it contains the updates required to use the new sre-maps web app version just deployed. All v2.4.0.x builds prior to 736 are broken as of now.

[Slugger]

A courtesy warning for those planning to record and monitor tonight's Fiesta Bowl game with SRE: An override is needed for all v2.3.x users of SRE. Use the following override value for the game to ensure that SRE can monitor it:

Title: College Football
Subtitle: Boise State vs. TCU

Users of v2.4.0 beta 736 or higher do not need to make any changes as the online global override map has already been updated and therefore SRE is able to automatically find the game info.

2.4.0 beta build 737 is now available. This build adds the ability to automatically submit your overrides to the online global override map (no need to send the specially formatted emails as outlined above - though that method still works). Snapshot 737 is feature complete and is just lacking a little polish on the GUI. I'm now declaring v2.4.0.737 the recommended version and am no longer supporting any version of SRE prior to v2.4.0.737. All users are encouraged to upgrade to v2.4.0.737 or newer immediately. Once I polish up the GUI as desired, I will release v2.4.0 as an official release, however, as I said, build 737 is feature complete and I consider it stable (I've been using 2.4.0 for a couple weeks now). Please upgrade and provide feedback.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

A courtesy warning for those planning to record and monitor tonight's Fiesta Bowl game with SRE: An override is needed for all v2.3.x users of SRE. Use the following override value for the game to ensure that SRE can monitor it:

Title: College Football
Subtitle: Boise State vs. TCU

Users of v2.4.0 beta 736 or higher do not need to make any changes as the online global override map has already been updated and therefore SRE is able to automatically find the game info.

Just upgraded to 737 and set the BSU/TCU game to record. We'll see how it goes without entering an override.

Two enhancement thoughts:

1. Allow SRE to be configured so that when I create an override through the user interface, it automatically updates the global map - without requiring me to send an email separately.

2. Provide a direct link to http://sre-maps.appspot.com/ from the UI.

Will let you know how it goes with tonight's game!

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Just upgraded to 737 and set the BSU/TCU game to record. We'll see how it goes without entering an override.

Two enhancement thoughts:

1. Allow SRE to be configured so that when I create an override through the user interface, it automatically updates the global map - without requiring me to send an email separately.

Done. Snapshot 737 has this functionality. When you create an override with 737 (or newer) it will prompt you after the override is verified. You have to confirm the mappings and enter your email address, but the actual email is sent automatically in the background. I only ask for your email address for two reasons:

1) So you can get confirmation that the global override map was updated (the updates are done asynchronously on the Google cloud)

2) I log your email address so I know who's updating the map with what info, but I don't store your email address other than in the app log and the app log is cleared by Google every 90 days so your email address isn't saved/used/sold/etc.

2. Provide a direct link to http://sre-maps.appspot.com/ from the UI.

Will let you know how it goes with tonight's game!

Yeah, need to add that link to the GUI; there's still some polish to be applied to the GUI.