Utility: ComChecker for SageTV on Mac OS X

[bcjenkins]

ComChecker - A GUI front end for running Erik's Comskip under Wine on an Intel based Mac. (An AppleScript Studio application which executes a bash script) There were a few people asking for a Comskip application for the Mac which works with SageTV. This implementation method was chosen because it allows you to update to Erik's latest versions as he releases without the need to someone else to create a new OS X application. Please note: This requires an Intel processor.

Features -

• Supports concurrent scanning of files, user definable.
• Displays current running status
• Can check multiple data locations

Installation -

You will need Darwine and Erik’s Comskip. I suggest placing Darwine in /Applications and Comskip in /Applications/Utilities. Download ComChecker and place it wherever you'd like. Don't forget to adjust your comskip.ini as well.

First Launch -

Click on the Options button to open the text file containing all of the variables, save and exit. Click Start to enable the scanning.

Usage -

To have ComChecker auto-run, simply add it to your login items in the Accounts prefpane in Apple's System Preferences. Enable automatic starting of the scan process by selecting the application menu, preferences and checking the box.

Version History -

Version .3a - First GA release. No known issues.

Version .3b - Found minor bug when used in conjunction with nielm's xml generator. General code cleanup in bash script.

Version .3g - Script has been updated to unify the linux and Mac OSX versions.

[pratt733]

I've been using it for about a week now and no issues whatsoever. Previously, I was running a whole VM just for comskip. This is quite a beautiful solution and very easy.

[bcjenkins]

New version uploaded today to fix a minor bug found when using the xml generator plugin.

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[karljayne]

Very cool, thanks for posting this. One question though, when you say to adjust the comskip.ini file, is there anything in particular i should be adjusting, or are you referring to the recommended 'tuning'?

note: i was having some trouble understanding at first why it wasn't working for me initially. When one decompresses the comskip archive, the folder created contains the version number. not sure if that's important, but removing the version number seems to have helped comchecker find comskip. Also, directing comchecker to the files to check took a couple times to get right. I use an external hard drive for recording and included /localhost/Volumes/[drivename]/[folder] in my first try. changing that to /Volumes/[drivename]/[folder] was what it needed. Thank you again for putting this together!

[bcjenkins]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into the folder name causing issue. Can you post your "Options" content so I can understand where your paths are pointing to? I'll also consider adding some sort of gui to support the options which would eliminate the need for the end user to understand mount points. As you could probably tell, this was my first project doing this.

You are correct about 'tuning' comskip. It goes beyond the scope of this project, and any help or pointers are better off coming from the thread dedicated to its support.

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[karljayne]

As requested here is my options file:

#Simultaneous comskip executions
SIMUL=2

#Path to wine inside of the wine.bundle
WINEPATH=/Applications/Darwine

#Path to comskip.exe and ini.
CSPATH=/Applications/Utilities/comskip

#Path to tv files -- Space delimited
TVPATH=( /Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV )

#Video file types to scan -- Space delimited
VTYPE=( mpg ts )

#Comskip files to look for -- Space delimited
CHKEXT=( txt log edl )

#If files exist with these extentions, keep all files related to video -- Space delimited
KEEP=( mpg mp4 ts ps )

#Set the interval for checking the directory. Recommend 60 seconds. Live scanning is faster.
DELAY=60

On a side point, and I'm not sure if its related, but after installing, recent recordings began disappearing. I'll do some testing to see if I can figure out what going on.

Confirmed: enabling Comskip and comchecker is causing my recording to disappear. any ideas why that might be happening?

[karljayne]

To clarify, the folder name problem is not so much a problem with comchecker, rather every version of comskip has it's version number attached to the folder, so unless the end user either deletes the version number from the folder name, or updates the options within comchecker to include the full folder name, there could be some confusion.

[bcjenkins]

Please confirm what version of the utility you have.

What types of recordings do you have? Comchecker is setup to cleanup files if it can't find a file name ending in "mpg mp4 ts ps" Please post the output of

ls /Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV

from terminal. I am running this same script on my linux server and do not have this issue.

Regarding folder name, all I ever replace is comskip.exe, comskipgui.exe and sometimes will change comskip.ini depending on the release notes. My design of this was to really let you manage where you put the required components.

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[karljayne]

I'm running ComChecker_v3 and have sidegraded to ComSkip79_132.

I suspected the KEEP function might be the culpret and added ts to the beginning before mpg. So far all my recordings are *.ts on this box.

#If files exist with these extentions, keep all files related to video -- Space delimited
KEEP=( ts mpg mp4 ts ps )

Then I set up a test folder (pointing comchecker there) and tuned comskip and then started comchecker. the results were good. So, one or all of the changes above solved the disapearing file problem.

Thanks again for for you help!

[bcjenkins]

Your suspicions are correct. Thanks for the testing! Please try the attached. I'll post to the download area after you validate.

Sorry about that.

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[karljayne]

Thanks for the update. I'll install it and see how it does. I mistakenly thought I had fixed the disappearling file issue and let the other version run without monitoring. Sadly I have very few recordings to test on at the moment.

[karljayne]

Okay, I've had that revD running for a few days and although it appeared to be working well, I'm again losing recordings. The really odd thing is the .txt files are still there. Do you have any idea what would be scrubbing the recordings while leaving the comskip data?

I don't really understand ComSkip, even though I went through the 'tuning', the whole process left me more confused than when I started. Anyhow, is it possible ComSkip could be deleting the recordings?

[erik]

Nope

[bcjenkins]

I have made a minor logic change to the Options opener and cleaned up a few bits. But from the look of things, I don't see how this would have deleted your files and left the text behind. The delete command is showname.* Could someone else have deleted the shows? Revision E attached. Please post your comskip.ini too.

Thanks,

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[bcjenkins]

My focus has been on ensuring the script would run under Linux and Mac. I have been running the new version on my Linux server and put it through the paces on the OS X side, but I would like some feedback on the attached.

Thanks

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[karljayne]

I'm having a little trouble configuing the update. I've set up a test folder for for it to work thru and got an AppleScript error when selecting the Options button.

Here's a cap:

I edited the .pref file from the contents and pointed ComChecker to the test directory. It ripped thru the files and there were no immediate casualties. I've set up an RSync to continue testing on that test directory for a while.

[bcjenkins]

All new 3g version only $199

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[karljayne]

Thanks for the update! I can confirm that the patch fixed the prefs link.

[bcjenkins]

I have updated the main download section as well.

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[soccerdad]

Hi!

This utility sounds great, decided to give it a try. Sorry if I'm missing something very basic, I know next to nothing about OSX. I think I followed the instructions correctly, installed darwine, extracted comskip and comchecker, installed X11 downloaded from here: http://cjmart.in/2006/12/01/install-...r-install-dvd/

I'm not sure what to do next, expected to open comchecker and get to the options in an interface window. When I open comchecker, it places an icon in the bar for a second and then there is nothing. Anybody know what I'm doing incorrectly?