Plugin: Sage Recording Extender (SRE)

[Slugger]

The first beta version of Sage Recording Extender is now available for download.

Sage Recording Extender (SRE) will monitor certain types of recordings (live sports) and extend (or shorten) the recordings based on the real time status of the event being recorded. More details available from the download page.

Feedback welcomed.

[sakker]

Sounds extremely useful in certain situations, I rarely record sports, usually watch them if I am interested. One thing I would suggest, only from experience with my dvr's that annoyed the hell out of me, the show right after a sporting event. If the event ran long and you were set to record that show, you record 20 minutes of the event, and 40 minutes of the show, missing the last 20.

I don't know if it's feasible, but try and include something like that that picks up recordings also affected by a long running show and extend those also?

my 2¢

Good luck with it.

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by sakker

Sounds extremely useful in certain situations, I rarely record sports, usually watch them if I am interested. One thing I would suggest, only from experience with my dvr's that annoyed the hell out of me, the show right after a sporting event. If the event ran long and you were set to record that show, you record 20 minutes of the event, and 40 minutes of the show, missing the last 20.

I don't know if it's feasible, but try and include something like that that picks up recordings also affected by a long running show and extend those also?

my 2¢

Good luck with it.

Now THAT would be awesome.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by sakker

Sounds extremely useful in certain situations, I rarely record sports, usually watch them if I am interested. One thing I would suggest, only from experience with my dvr's that annoyed the hell out of me, the show right after a sporting event. If the event ran long and you were set to record that show, you record 20 minutes of the event, and 40 minutes of the show, missing the last 20.

I don't know if it's feasible, but try and include something like that that picks up recordings also affected by a long running show and extend those also?

my 2¢

Good luck with it.

I thought about this, but it's not as easy to determine when a show after a live event should start/stop recording.

When dealing with the live event itself, it's easy to determine when to stop or extend the recording of that event. The source I parse to tell me if the event is over is telling me about the event itself so when it says the game is over I know I can safely stop recording or if it tells me the game isn't over I can extend the recording if needed.

But to use the info to determine when the show following the game should start/stop is not the same. In this case, just because I now know the game is over doesn't mean the show is going to start immediately. Is there a post game show on the network? If so, how long does it run? Usually networks (thinking of Fox/CBS with the NFL here) will run the post game show to the top or bottom of the hour, but it's hardly a rule to be followed so without knowing when the show following the live broadcast will start, it's nearly impossible to pad the recordings after the event. One could try something like rounding to the next half hour, but that's a crap shoot at best and will likely result in just as many partial recordings as doing nothing.

Then there's the issue of identifying all the shows affected by the live event running over. Take Fox and the NFL, again. If the late game runs to 8:15 then not only is The Simpsons 15 minutes late, but all programs for that night. But this isn't always true. Sometimes if it's just 5 or 6 minutes, Fox will cut a commercial or two so that by 9:30 everything is back on schedule. But then they don't always do that either.

So after thinking about this, I decided there's just no reliable way to modify recordings following live events with any certainty. Of course, I'm open to ideas and would have no problems trying to implement this if a reliable way to determine what to pad and how can be determined.

In the meantime, at the very least, when I record the afternoon ball game to watch after work I won't be left in the dark when the recording ends after the 8th inning.

[sakker]

O, I definitely see your point. On those times I would like to watch something after a game though, I would rather have recorded 2 hours of show and been sure to pick up what I wanted to record rather than miss it or only end with a partial recording.

I think the last time it happened to me was this last superbowl I think? I believe it was 24 that was on after it, so come the next like Monday when I finally had time to sit down and watch it right before the next episode came on, here I am popcorn in hand and a bunch of crap about the superbowl was recorded and really screwed my evening.

I fixed the problem though because now I am just downloading the tv shows I would normally record and streaming them through Sage. That wasn't the only time something like that happened and I wished my dvr at the time would have recorded another hour or whatever.

I am really like the peanut gallery, I probably won't be able to help you do anything, but by god I will sure try and tell you what I think you should do! So take it for what it's worth.

[mayamaniac]

How come SRE won't monitor Favorites? Is it a technical barrier to implement it or something that will be added at a later time? Also, what internet sources is it checking for extended periods?

I always pad more than needed to my NBA favorite, this is the safest way to make sure I record OT periods.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

How come SRE won't monitor Favorites? Is it a technical barrier to implement it or something that will be added at a later time? Also, what internet sources is it checking for extended periods?

I always pad more than needed to my NBA favorite, this is the safest way to make sure I record OT periods.

I plan on adding support for monitoring favourites in the very near future. Just going to require a little experimentation and testing. Do I modify the padding on the favourite rule? Or do I convert the favourite recording to a manual one and monitor it? Can an in-progress favourite recording be converted to a manual recording? And so on. Those were all issues I didn't have time to test with before my trial period runs out. The initial goal was to ensure that I could come up with a way to monitor and extend in-progress recordings before my trial period expires. This initial beta version of SRE has at least proven that it's possible and so I'm looking forward to improving on SRE after purchasing a license. Once I purchase a license I'll also have access to Studio, which will allow me to hopefully add a config menu for SRE as well.

As to the sources used for monitoring games. All current monitors (NHL, NBA, MLB) use ESPN.com as the source.

[Slugger]

Beta2 of SRE is now available for download.

Changes from Beta1 to Beta2

• Now supports monitoring of favourite based recordings
• Internal changes and improvements to code

In addition, I also now use server properties to store details about the plugin. I was even able to modify the standard STV to include all these configuration options in the Detailed Settings menu, but my attempts to create an STVi failed horribly. I can provide anyone my modified STV if you want access to the SRE config menu, but unless you're developing/testing the plugin then the defaults should be fine so there probably isn't any need for the conf menu.

The server properties relating to SRE are:

• slugger/SREOnOff
  • boolean - Will SRE modify recordings with valid monitors? [default=true]
• slugger/SRELastScan
  • long - Date, in milliseconds, of the last successful run of SRE; used to ensure thread is still running when no debug window is available
• slugger/SRESleepTime
  • long - Number of milliseconds SRE will sleep between runs [default=300000] (5 minutes)
• slugger/SRETestMode
  • boolean - Put SRE in test mode; for testing purposes only - ALL recordings have test monitor attached to them in test mode so be careful with this [default=false]
• slugger/SRETestMonDone
  • boolean - When true, test monitors will report that the event they're attached to is over, when false the monitor will report the event is not over; used with test monitor objects [default=false]

If anyone wants to guide a newbie through creating an STVi from a modified default STV then I'd appreciate it. All I did was modify the Detailed Settings menu to include an "SRE" section. My mods work great within the modified STV, but I don't have a clue as to how to export the changes into a loadable STVi.

Feedback on SRE welcomed.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Slugger

If anyone wants to guide a newbie through creating an STVi from a modified default STV then I'd appreciate it.

There are some step-by-step instructions for creating an STVI in my Studio Tools documentation, but they do assume a certain level of familiarity with Studio and with how an STVI works. If you want to discuss it in more depth, the Studio forum is the best place for that.

[Slugger]

Just in time for MLB's opening day, SRE Beta 3 is now available. It seems ESPN.com decided to make a change to their scoreboard format effective yesterday so MLB support is broken in the first two betas. You will need Beta 3 to monitor MLB games.

Changes from Beta2 to Beta3

• Update MLB monitor due to changes in page format at ESPN.com
• Limit amount of time SRE will extend a recording (default 8 hours)
• Update output format of test driver for web parsers
• Added the following SageTV server properties
  • slugger/SREMaxExtLength
    • long - Maximum amount of time SRE will extend a recording, in milliseconds [default=28800000] (8 hours)

[Armondole]

Originally Posted by Slugger

Just in time for MLB's opening day, SRE Beta 3 is now available. It seems ESPN.com decided to make a change to their scoreboard format effective yesterday so MLB support is broken in the first two betas. You will need Beta 3 to monitor MLB games.

Changes from Beta2 to Beta3

• Update MLB monitor due to changes in page format at ESPN.com
• Limit amount of time SRE will extend a recording (default 8 hours)
• Update output format of test driver for web parsers
• Added the following SageTV server properties
  • slugger/SREMaxExtLength
    • long - Maximum amount of time SRE will extend a recording, in milliseconds [default=28800000] (8 hours)

I'm looking forward to trying this to record NHL games... especially good timing with the playoffs coming up... I can't stand it when the game goes into overtime and you've spent two and a half hours getting to that point all to see your recording end early!

[CanadianEh]

Very cool idea.. thanks!!!

[Slugger]

SRE v1.0.0 is now available for download. See download page for changelog. All documentation, including system requirements and installation instructions included in javadoc overview as part of the zip file download.

[Slugger]

SRE v1.1.0 is now available for download.

[mikesm]

Does this work with SageMC?

thx
mike

[Slugger]

This plugin does not rely on any STV. The plugin runs in the background so yes, the plugin works with SageMC (or any STV).

If you're referring to the STVi that was included in v1.0.0 and older versions of SRE, then no, the STVi will only work with the default STV. However, starting with v1.1.0 I've removed the STVi and no longer support it. Instead, I've included a servlet class in the jar file that can be used with nielm's webserver plugin to configure SRE. The servlet is the only supported method of configuring SRE from here on out. See the installation instructions for details on installing the servlet and feel free to ask questions here if you're having any problems with the servlet (or the plugin in general).

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Slugger

This plugin does not rely on any STV. The plugin runs in the background so yes, the plugin works with SageMC (or any STV).

If you're referring to the STVi that was included in v1.0.0 and older versions of SRE, then no, the STVi will only work with the default STV. However, starting with v1.1.0 I've removed the STVi and no longer support it. Instead, I've included a servlet class in the jar file that can be used with nielm's webserver plugin to configure SRE. The servlet is the only supported method of configuring SRE from here on out. See the installation instructions for details on installing the servlet and feel free to ask questions here if you're having any problems with the servlet (or the plugin in general).

Thanks. Where are the install instructions? I didn't see them in the download.

Thanks,
Mike

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Thanks. Where are the install instructions? I didn't see them in the download.

Thanks,
Mike

When you unzip the download it created a directory called sre_javadoc under C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ - load index.html in your web browser then read the overview section - it contains the install instructions.

[Slugger]

SRE v1.2.0 is now available.

[rsagetv99]

I haven't loaded this yet, but come football season this will come in handy for me.

I was thinking that a good enhancement would be a default end padding in case something went wrong with ESPN's site, like an outtage or like their formatting change that you mentioned. In my case I would want something like an hour or so default padding, just to be sure that if the game goes into OT, and ESPN's site is not working, I will still get the entire game.