Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SRE)

[Sparhawk6]

I'm having problems with some NBA playoff games. Specifically, the game tonight of the Lakers v. the Spurs. SRE labels it as "Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs" and highlights it red, saying it can't find the game to monitor. So I pull up ESPN's site and plug in that label (LA Lakers at San Antonio) and it still says it can't find that game. Any ideas Slugger?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

I'm having problems with some NBA playoff games. Specifically, the game tonight of the Lakers v. the Spurs. SRE labels it as "Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs" and highlights it red, saying it can't find the game to monitor. So I pull up ESPN's site and plug in that label (LA Lakers at San Antonio) and it still says it can't find that game. Any ideas Slugger?

I'm not sure what the problem might be - my daily test of the parsers shows that it found the game data for me with no problems:

Test Results: 27 May 2008

MLB Baseball         New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles         [7:05 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Rays               [7:10 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds         [7:10 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Florida Marlins at New York Mets              [7:10 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Los Angeles Dodgers at Chicago Cubs           [7:05 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Colorado Rockies at Philadelphia Phillies     [7:05 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Chicago White Sox at Cleveland Indians        [7:05 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals         [8:10 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Atlanta Braves at Milwaukee Brewers           [8:05 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         Houston Astros at St. Louis Cardinals         [8:15 PM E ]
MLB Baseball         San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks  [9:40 PM E ]
NBA Basketball       Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs       [9:00 PM E ]
NFL Football         2004: Oakland Raiders at Denver Broncos       No monitor

Can you make sure your Sage server where SRE is running from can properly access espn.com? I've even setup that game to record on my server and SRE reports finding the game data (and highlights it in green).

[Sparhawk6]

Oops. Looks like Sage was recording the TNT's re-air of the game at 1 AM rather then the live airing, because there were other favorites being recording at the live time slot (even though NBA basketball is higher in the favorites list). That's quite annoying. I want the live game recorded. I don't care if it's being shown again later. But that's not SRE's issue. It's Sage's. Thanks for your help.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

Oops. Looks like Sage was recording the TNT's re-air of the game at 1 AM rather then the live airing, because there were other favorites being recording at the live time slot (even though NBA basketball is higher in the favorites list). That's quite annoying. I want the live game recorded. I don't care if it's being shown again later. But that's not SRE's issue. It's Sage's. Thanks for your help.

Be very, very careful when recording same day reairings of events monitored by SRE. If SRE is monitoring a reair of a game and SRE is set to end recordings early then SRE will cut off the recording early since SRE will see the game is over. If there's any chance of recording same day reairings that SRE will monitor then you should ensure that SRE is not set to end recordings early.

Not saying you're in trouble, but you mentioning a reair reminded me to post this general PSA for all SRE users.

[Slugger]

SRE v1.6.2 is now available.

v1.6.2 has just one fix: The included JDBC driver is updated to the latest available version. The latest version addresses a possible memory leak (as seen in the SJQ plugin).

NOTE: If you use both SRE and my SJQ plugin then you must upgrade to SRE v1.6.2 or above if you're running SJQ v1.5.0 or above. The version of the JDBC driver in SRE v1.6.1 or below will conflict with the version of the driver included in SJQ v1.5.0 and above.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

SRE v1.6.2 is now available.

Many thanks for a great plugin! SRE is invaluable to my daily enjoyment of Sage TV and I was reminded of this when the Sox/Yanks game had a 90 minute rain delay on Friday night. All my Tivo owning friends whose recording cut off early can eat their hearts out!

One thought I've had recently... I know that SRE has to set the game to a Manual Recording in order to extend the record time, but is there any chance that SRE could automatically remove the Manual Recording flag when the game ends? I have the baseball games set up as Favorites and I end up having to manually remove the Manual Recording flag (otherwise they stay at the top of my Sage Recordings list and won't auto-delete). If I don't watch the game for 3 or 4 days in a row, then I end up with 3 or 4 recordings at the top of my list that won't be auto-deleted.

My other thought is... any way I can donate? I use this plug in so much that I'll love to donate you something for your efforts.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Many thanks for a great plugin! SRE is invaluable to my daily enjoyment of Sage TV and I was reminded of this when the Sox/Yanks game had a 90 minute rain delay on Friday night. All my Tivo owning friends whose recording cut off early can eat their hearts out!

One thought I've had recently... I know that SRE has to set the game to a Manual Recording in order to extend the record time, but is there any chance that SRE could automatically remove the Manual Recording flag when the game ends? I have the baseball games set up as Favorites and I end up having to manually remove the Manual Recording flag (otherwise they stay at the top of my Sage Recordings list and won't auto-delete). If I don't watch the game for 3 or 4 days in a row, then I end up with 3 or 4 recordings at the top of my list that won't be auto-deleted.

This should be rather straightforward to add. If you could, please add a feature request to the SRE project:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sage-sre

Originally Posted by spacecadet

My other thought is... any way I can donate? I use this plug in so much that I'll love to donate you something for your efforts.

The project at SF is setup to accept donations.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

This should be rather straightforward to add. If you could, please add a feature request to the SRE project:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sage-sre

Done.

Originally Posted by Slugger

The project at SF is setup to accept donations.

And Done!

Didn't realize the sourceforce page was there as I've always downloaded directly from the Sage Customizations site.

Thanks again!

[Slugger]

SRE v1.7.0 is now available.

The v1.7.0 release is a feature release that adds one new feature and updates the MLB event monitor.

The new feature allows users to have the manual recording flag removed from favourite recordings monitored and modified by SRE.

The bug fix is a modification to the MLB monitor that allows the proper monitoring of the MLB All-Star game. To monitor the All-Star you must use an override for the event and the description should be "National at American" (without the quotes). Versions of SRE prior to 1.7.0 will not accept this override nor will they be able to monitor the All-Star game.

v1.6.2 -> v1.7.0
================

* 2011805: Allow removal of manual recording status for monitored favourites
* 2018243: Fix MLB monitor so it can monitor All-Star game (with an override)

[Slugger]

Ok... last night is exactly why I wrote this little plugin. I had to work and couldn't watch the all-star game. Though difficult, I managed to stay away from espn.com and SportsCenter, etc. and hadn't heard a thing about the game. Wake up early this morning to watch it - in it's entirety. With SRE's assistance Sage recorded all 5h45m of the game.

Unfortunately, I didn't have nearly 6 hours to spend watching the game this morning, so I had to do some fast forwarding, but at least I had the full recording sitting there instead of just three hours (as per the EPG).

[Stuntman]

Same for me!! Couldn't believe it when I saw it! I had manually set the all-star game to record an extra 60 minutes.. figured there was NO WAY it would go more than 60 minutes long... then I updated Sluggers Plugin and used it instead of my manually modified extra 60 minutes... it worked like a charm!!! Got the entire game.. and I didn't have to stay up and worry about it missing the end!

Fantastic!!!!

[Sparhawk6]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Ok... last night is exactly why I wrote this little plugin. I had to work and couldn't watch the all-star game. Though difficult, I managed to stay away from espn.com and SportsCenter, etc. and hadn't heard a thing about the game. Wake up early this morning to watch it - in it's entirety. With SRE's assistance Sage recorded all 5h45m of the game.

Unfortunately, I didn't have nearly 6 hours to spend watching the game this morning, so I had to do some fast forwarding, but at least I had the full recording sitting there instead of just three hours (as per the EPG).

Slugger, can you see the future?

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

Slugger, can you see the future?

No. If so I'd have moved every penny to my name into oil back when it was $40/barrel.

I actually wrote an original version of this (for an unnamed competitor) a couple years ago after being called into the lab during a playoff hockey game and coming home to find my recording had ended 4 minutes into overtime. So this idea is a reaction to an unpleasant experience rather than my ability to see into the future.

[Shield]

Here's a tip for people that were on 1.4.1 and want to upgrade to 1.7.0:

Just run the installer. I had all kinds of problems doing it manually. Ajax errors, etc.

Just run the installer.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by Slugger

SRE v1.7.0 is now

v1.6.2 -> v1.7.0
================

* 2011805: Allow removal of manual recording status for monitored favourites
* 2018243: Fix MLB monitor so it can monitor All-Star game (with an override)

v1.7.0 is working great. The new feature does exactly what I had hoped. Thanks very much Slugger!

If you're like me and didn't run the installer to upgrade, there is one typo in the install instructions:

To update the webserver servlet.properties, you need to add the following line:

servlet./sage/SRE.code=net.sourceforge.sagetv.sre.SREServlet

The online instructions are missing the .sagetv in the Java class name.

[evilpenguin]

So how well does this handle the packed football on Saturday and Sunday where you have games stacked one after the other?

For instance if I have these recordings all on the same channel...

Game 1: 1pm - 3pm
Game 2: 3pm - 5pm
Game 3: 5pm - 7pm

And then game 1 starts to run long what will it do in regards to game 2 and 3?

Ideally I'd like it to extend the Game 1 recording until its finished and then start Game 2 recording immediately after, but I'm worried that it would extend the Game 1 recording and then start recording Game 2 on a separate tuner at its original start time.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

So how well does this handle the packed football on Saturday and Sunday where you have games stacked one after the other?

For instance if I have these recordings all on the same channel...

Game 1: 1pm - 3pm
Game 2: 3pm - 5pm
Game 3: 5pm - 7pm

And then game 1 starts to run long what will it do in regards to game 2 and 3?

Ideally I'd like it to extend the Game 1 recording until its finished and then start Game 2 recording immediately after, but I'm worried that it would extend the Game 1 recording and then start recording Game 2 on a separate tuner at its original start time.

It does as you fear. SRE does not modify start/end times for recordings it's not currently monitoring. Meaning, SRE will extend Game 1 until it sees it's over. If you have more than one tuner and it's available to record Game 2 then that second tuner will be used to start recording Game 2 at 3pm. SRE will then start to monitor Game 2 and extend it as needed and Game 3 will then start on another free tuner right at 5pm. If you don't have more than one tuner or you don't have a free one for Game 2 then, in all likelihood, Game 2 will be considered a conflict and not recorded - though SageTV may choose to start recording it late as soon as a tuner becomes available - that's a Sage core decision, not an SRE one. I believe Sage will start a recording late as long as it's within 5-10 mins of the scheduled airing time, after that it's a conflict and won't be recorded.

I have yet to devise a sound strategy to handle this situation - there are just way too many variables. Personally, I let the abundance of tuners on my system handle it, when needed, which is rare for me. I typically only encounter this on rare occasions when MLB and NFL or NHL and NFL overlap.

I guess I could handle this by checking for programs that follow on the same channel with the same title, but even if I were to delay the start time, I have no way to ensure that the Sage core is going to pick the same tuner to record on anyway (unless you're on a single tuner system). It likely would, but all I (SRE) can do is pad the start time for the recording, the rest of the decisions are left up to the Sage core. Again, there are just so many variables in playing with recordings following live events that I just choose not to get involved with it.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

v1.7.0 is working great. The new feature does exactly what I had hoped. Thanks very much Slugger!

If you're like me and didn't run the installer to upgrade, there is one typo in the install instructions:

To update the webserver servlet.properties, you need to add the following line:

servlet./sage/SRE.code=net.sourceforge.sagetv.sre.SREServlet

The online instructions are missing the .sagetv in the Java class name.

Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.

[IanV]

Hi Slugger, SRE sounds great but I guess would not be very useful here in Australia. However, we do have a particular problem which the approach you have used for SRE might fix. The FTA channels have actively tried to prevent EPG data being available. One even took IceTV to court claiming copyright infringement. Fortunately IceTV won because the Judge stated that you can't copyright facts.

One of the other ploys they use to frustrate EPG users is to overrun programs so that subsequent airings start late. The only clue I have found to explain this behaviour is that they don't want viewers to have the ability to skip over the ads. Late last year they did announce that the channels would make EPG data freely available but a confidential letter from their Association to members which was written on the same day as the announcement (and leaked) said they would not allow the data to be used on any equipment that could skip through ads at more than 60x.

Would it be possible to come up with a modified version of SRE which starts monitoring the current program at the published starting time but delays the start of the recording until the required program actually begins? I guess this would mean checking at 5-10 second intervals.

If this could be done many Australians would be eternally grateful.

Ian

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by IanV

Hi Slugger, SRE sounds great but I guess would not be very useful here in Australia. However, we do have a particular problem which the approach you have used for SRE might fix. The FTA channels have actively tried to prevent EPG data being available. One even took IceTV to court claiming copyright infringement. Fortunately IceTV won because the Judge stated that you can't copyright facts.

One of the other ploys they use to frustrate EPG users is to overrun programs so that subsequent airings start late. The only clue I have found to explain this behaviour is that they don't want viewers to have the ability to skip over the ads. Late last year they did announce that the channels would make EPG data freely available but a confidential letter from their Association to members which was written on the same day as the announcement (and leaked) said they would not allow the data to be used on any equipment that could skip through ads at more than 60x.

Would it be possible to come up with a modified version of SRE which starts monitoring the current program at the published starting time but delays the start of the recording until the required program actually begins? I guess this would mean checking at 5-10 second intervals.

If this could be done many Australians would be eternally grateful.

Ian

Is there an online source that can be monitored to signify when the program actually begins? SRE monitors (near) real time information from the web and makes its decisions based on the content it parses from these web sites. If there's some online source that can be monitored then this is a possibililty. Won't promise anything, but I'll at least look into it. First, though, we need an online source to monitor.