Utility: DirMon v0.2.4 (Updated 3 September 2005)

[Jere_Jones]

You have been caught by the evil "DirMon can't tell if a processor is done on Windows 2000" bug. It is an evil, insiduous bug that has "bugged" me since Sandra Bullock was born.

I'll look into it. For now, download the 0.2.3 version of DirMon and it should work fine. Just change the version number in the link. I left it up just in case.

Jere

[davephan]

I still had a copy of DirMon 0.2.3. I installed DirMon 0.2.3 and it worked!

Sun Sep 25 22:10:14 2005: Checking directories...
Sun Sep 25 22:10:14 2005: Checking "D:\Video"
Sun Sep 25 22:10:14 2005: Checking for orphan targets.
Ensuring D:\Video\HighVoltage-2931593-0.mpg still exists.
Verifying the that D:\Video\HighVoltage-2931593-0.mpg should still be processed.
Sun Sep 25 22:10:19 2005: Attempting to execute the following command:
"C:\Program Files\Dragon Global\ShowAnalyzer\ShowAnalyzer.exe" D:\Video\HighVoltage-2931593-0.mpg
Sun Sep 25 22:10:19 2005: Waiting for processor to finish.
Sun Sep 25 22:31:29 2005: Processor Done.
Ensuring D:\Video\HighVoltage-2931593-0.mpg still exists.
Verifying the that D:\Video\HighVoltage-2931593-0.mpg should still be processed.
Nope. It's done. Not processing.
Ensuring D:\Video\NorthtoAlaska-2927636-0.mpg still exists.
Verifying the that D:\Video\NorthtoAlaska-2927636-0.mpg should still be processed.
Sun Sep 25 22:31:39 2005: Attempting to execute the following command:
"C:\Program Files\Dragon Global\ShowAnalyzer\ShowAnalyzer.exe" D:\Video\NorthtoAlaska-2927636-0.mpg
Sun Sep 25 22:31:39 2005: Waiting for processor to finish.


It takes about 19 minutes to process a 95 minutes program.

I have one other question.

What does "Edge Profile" mean?

Dave

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by davephan

What does "Edge Profile" mean?

In reference to DirMon? I don't know.

Of course, if you are asking about edge profiles in reference to some other program, I recommend you ask in a more appropriate thread.

Jere

[marneb17]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

In reference to DirMon? I don't know.

Of course, if you are asking about edge profiles in reference to some other program, I recommend you ask in a more appropriate thread.

Jere

[tonez]

Hi Jere,

Nice little utility.
I had a bit of a fight with the directory cleanup code, though. Here's the deal:

I store my sage recordings in D:\PVR and F:\. I also use F: drive to store other various things in subfolders, such as downloaded programs. When I added F:\ to my dirmon directory list and began processing, it ran through all my subdirectories and deleted every text file it found (*.txt). There were quite a few txt files in some of these subdirectories. I realize that I had the "Process subdirectories" checkbox checked and probably shouldn't have, but found it strange that it deletes .txt files indiscrimantly without warning.

Furthermore, it seems that if any .txt files were found to cleanup, then no actual processing would occur after cleanup. Some of the .txt files were read-only, which caused dirmon to think they were missing:
... disappeared!! I didn't do it!!!
and the result is that dirmon never actually does any processing, because every time it wakes up, it tries to cleanup, can't remove the read-only .txt files, stops processing, and goes back to sleep.

I've unchecked the "Process subdirectories" checkbox which more-or-less fixes my problem.

A few suggestions:
a) don't skip regular processing if there are files to clean up
b) add a checkbox (default to checked) :
Place deleted files to the Recycle Bin
c) I found it a little discomforting that files are [recursively] deleted without any warning. I suggest having a default .ini setting such as "WarnAboutCleanup = 1" that pops up a dialog whenever the directory list is changed and looks something like this:
"Warning: dirmon will delete all files matching a Target Extension if there is no corresponding file matching the Source Extension. If "Process Subdirectories" is checked, it will do this recursively! Be very careful when changing Target Extensions as you could very quickly delete alot of data! All deleted files will appear in the recycle bin."
[Continue]

cheers,
Tony

[Jere_Jones]

Odd bug. Wierd. I'll take a look.

Also some very good suggestions. Another warning dialog that I plan on adding is a warning about no processors setup or no triggers set up for some processors. That should reduce the "DirMon doesn't do anything" problem.

Jere

[Polypro]

...but isn't that an "I don't read the forum" problem Great programs Jere, I'll be buying as soon as I play a little more.

P

[Deadbolt]

Is there anyway for DirMon in conjunction with ShowAnalyzer to ignore recordings based on channels as comskip did in some stvs? This is a great feature to prevent dirmon from launching showanalyzer on HBO, PBS, etc. programs.

[Polypro]

I believe using AWSOME! neilm's webserver will allow this, but I'm still getting to know the program.

P

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by Deadbolt

Is there anyway for DirMon in conjunction with ShowAnalyzer to ignore recordings based on channels as comskip did in some stvs? This is a great feature to prevent dirmon from launching showanalyzer on HBO, PBS, etc. programs.

No. DirMon will launch the processor on every file not in the ignore list.

However, why try to prevent SA from being launched? Launching SA shouldn't be that big a deal. It seems like you just want to avoid a full blown scan of the file. That's easy enough. Used properly, SA will open up, realize that it shouldn't process the file, create an empty txt file and shutdown.

Jere

[Deadbolt]

Originally Posted by Jere_Jones

No. DirMon will launch the processor on every file not in the ignore list.

However, why try to prevent SA from being launched? Launching SA shouldn't be that big a deal. It seems like you just want to avoid a full blown scan of the file. That's easy enough. Used properly, SA will open up, realize that it shouldn't process the file, create an empty txt file and shutdown.

Jere

How can I use SA properly so that it recognizes it shouldn't process the file (any HBO show)? I only know how to do this with ignore wildcards based on title...unless I want to add a wildcard for every single movie I plan to record on HBO, this doesn't help me in the case of HBO movies or new series. I know that I never want to detect commercials on HBO...ever. The effect is that I always have little spots that SA thinks are commericals and never are in my HBO recordings...this forces me to turn off autoskip everytime I watch anything on HBO. Not ideal at all. Am I missing something?

[ToxMox]

Install Nielm's webserver plugin for Sage and in SA there is an option to use the webserver to get information about the shows it scans and there is another tab in SA to make rules about which shows not to process and you can exclude by channel number.

[Deadbolt]

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Install Nielm's webserver plugin for Sage and in SA there is an option to use the webserver to get information about the shows it scans and there is another tab in SA to make rules about which shows not to process and you can exclude by channel number.

This sounds good, but to be clear I need Nielm's webserver plugin in order to exclude by channel number?

[ToxMox]

Yes

[mayamaniac]

I remember in Cayars STV with comskip support, there was an option to disable background processing. Meaning comskip does not run when SageTV is in use, from recording to watching. I miss this feature.

Jere, is there a way to setup DirMon to stop processing if SageTV is in use? I prefer an automated method integrated into SageTV, but would settle for a simpler remote control command to trigger Start/Stop DirMon manually. So when I am about to watch TV, I can press an assigned button on my remote and it tells DirMon to stop processing. This way, SageTV runs more smoothly while I'm using it. And when I'm done watching, I can press the button again and it tells Dirmon to start processing again. Can this be done?

[geogecko]

I would think you could use the throttling option to contol this. Although, I'm not sure it would ramp back up, when nothing else was processing (i.e., go to 100% if the CPU was not busy...), but that's one way to limit the amount of CPU SA takes away from SageTV. I currently have mine set to about 25%, and it works pretty well.

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I remember in Cayars STV with comskip support, there was an option to disable background processing. Meaning comskip does not run when SageTV is in use, from recording to watching. I miss this feature.

Jere, is there a way to setup DirMon to stop processing if SageTV is in use? I prefer an automated method integrated into SageTV, but would settle for a simpler remote control command to trigger Start/Stop DirMon manually. So when I am about to watch TV, I can press an assigned button on my remote and it tells DirMon to stop processing. This way, SageTV runs more smoothly while I'm using it. And when I'm done watching, I can press the button again and it tells Dirmon to start processing again. Can this be done?

If you use ShowAnalyzer with DirMon and install Nielm's webserver then there are options in the ShowAnalyzer config to make it pause during playback or recording or both.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by geogecko

I would think you could use the throttling option to contol this. Although, I'm not sure it would ramp back up, when nothing else was processing (i.e., go to 100% if the CPU was not busy...), but that's one way to limit the amount of CPU SA takes away from SageTV. I currently have mine set to about 25%, and it works pretty well.

Where is this "Throttle" option?

Originally Posted by ToxMox

If you use ShowAnalyzer with DirMon and install Nielm's webserver then there are options in the ShowAnalyzer config to make it pause during playback or recording or both.

I'm running DirMon on a client machine. And the webserver is installed on the server machine. Does webserver even run SageTV client?

[ToxMox]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Where is this "Throttle" option?

I'm running DirMon on a client machine. And the webserver is installed on the server machine. Does webserver even run SageTV client?

In SA's config you put in the IP and port of the webserver and user/password. Doesn't have to be on the same machine. and to answer your question...yes AFAIK the webserver can run on a client as well as the server.

[mayamaniac]

Thanks Tox, will give it a try using IP method.