Port existing DVarchive (ReplayTV) library?

[robbc]

I am moving from ReplayTV/DVArchive to SageTV. I have a ton of movies stored in DVArchive and I would like to import the XML data into SageTV so they appear as SageTV recordings. The MPEG files must stay on the existing system (A RAID 5 terrabyte server). Currently I can play the movies via SageTV but I really want them the properties of the movie to be accessible to SageTV.

I have not found any documentation yet on how I could code such a converter. I would prefer to use Perl but will use whatever is required.

Another capability would be to have SageTV record to a local drive, then move the files to the RAID every night. Would save my poor house network from saturation. Much like I do with DVArchive/ReplayTV today.

Any suggestions?

[stanger89]

First, the SageTV API:
http://download.sage.tv/api/index.html

You also might want to check out my DVDPro2Sage parser:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...3&postcount=24
and the STVi for importing metadata into Sage:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...6&postcount=26

For an example of how you can use the SageTV API to pull data from external sources into SageTV. There are a couple other examples, like Neilm's XML import/export stuff.

[robbc]

Thanks! That should get me started.

[robbc]

I feel like a blind man trying to figure out SageTV extensions. I get the feeling there is some really, really cool stuff, but cannot seem to grasp hold of it.

I have some basic STVis loaded, but after that all is turning dark.

I think I understand that DVDPro2Sage is a set of tools for others to use. And it appears that SageMC is a huge UI project with yet its own plugins.

Any resources for a beginner SageTV user trying to find some solid ground? Once I have a grasp of the work that has been done I suspect 99% of what I want is available. And what little isn;t I may be able to code. Been wanting to learn Java for a bit now. While I would prefer Ruby (just for fun) or Perl (because I know it well), Java has got to be a better environment than PHP (my CMS's language of choice).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by robbc

I feel like a blind man trying to figure out SageTV extensions. I get the feeling there is some really, really cool stuff, but cannot seem to grasp hold of it.

I have some basic STVis loaded, but after that all is turning dark.

I think I understand that DVDPro2Sage is a set of tools for others to use. And it appears that SageMC is a huge UI project with yet its own plugins.

Well, just to give you some background:

DVDPro2Sage is a Java class/library for parsing DVD Profiler XML files and extracting metadata from them. I don't know if you've dealt with XML much but DVDPro2Sage is the result of me fumbling my way through XML processing over the past, well, I'm not really sure how long. In it's current form, it's pretty elegant and I think would make a good jumping off point for processing other XML files.

SageMC, yup, it's a completely substitute UI, definitely not something you want to tackle right away. I'm still amazed by SageMC, I've had some desire to build my own, but the amount of effort is immense, props to mlbdude and flachbar for their work on it.

The second step, once you figure out how to read the XML file, is to get that data into the SageTV database. That's where the metadata importer I linked comes in.

One thing to note, it's generally very hard to build something from scratch in Sage, it's much better to copy stuff that's already there, and add to it. Try importing the stvi and then look at the Library Import View in Studio (Ctrl+Shift+F12 in Sage). This would be a good starting place to see how to call external java libraries and how to put data into the SageTV database.

Any resources for a beginner SageTV user trying to find some solid ground? Once I have a grasp of the work that has been done I suspect 99% of what I want is available. And what little isn;t I may be able to code. Been wanting to learn Java for a bit now. While I would prefer Ruby (just for fun) or Perl (because I know it well), Java has got to be a better environment than PHP (my CMS's language of choice).

All that said, there might be a much easier way to do it, depending on your skills. As of 6.1, Sage now natively supports loading metadata from .properties files:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...ata+properties

I'm a big fan of leveraging other peoples work wherever possible, no sense reinventing the wheel and all. You might want to look at converting the DVArchive XML into metadata.properties files (as described in the link above). Then Sage will automatically load the data for you.

At that point, you'd have your DVArchive files in Sage, with metadata, but in the Imported Videos section. The next step would be to move them to the recording section*, I haven't followed it closely, but I know the subject has come up before, and I think there are ways to do it.

*I'm not sure you'd really want them in the recorded TV section, it sounds like this is an archive, one of things you don't want deleted, so it might be best to just leave them in the imported videos area.

[robbc]

One of the problems with a large system (or environment) is not the API, but the vast amount of work that others have done to modify the system. Your very detailed description helps a lot. The properties import sounds promising. Converting DVArchive XML to whatever should be easier than writing my own Sage Plugin.

One thing I still need to figure out is how to create a single archive set for all recordings of X. For example all Modern Marvel's should appear in the same list (archive, recorded, foobar, whatever) no matter where they came from (imported or recorded). But I think I have seen just such an extension.

Thanks again for your very detailed description. Now off to read the properties thread.

[markspace]

Although this topic started long ago, I'm curious what procedure robbc came up with. I have a few TB's of replaytv content on my dvarchive server that I'd like to consider importing into Sage, then transition off my ReplayTV and DVA setups.

[jptheripper]

I struggled with same thing with beyond tv. In the end, i ended up renaming the files to proper (from thetvdb.com) tags of SxxExx. Then sage imports them perfectly.