BTV-Externinator
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Contents |
About
The goal of BTV-Externinator is to perfom recordings using capture devices not currently supported by Beyond TV (i.e. Firewire, DVB, clear QAM, , etc.). This add-on acts as a bridge between BTV's powerfull scheduling and an external application, which knows how to perform recordings with that unsupported capture device (i.e. VLC, ProgDVB, FusionHDTV, etc.)
Installation
The application does not come with an installer, so just unzip the file in the appropriate folder and run BTV-Externinator.exe from there or through a shortcut. If the BTV-Server is not located at http://localhost:8129 (how do you access the web admin from this machine?) with a blank password, BTV-Externinator will go to the Configuration tab, sub-tab Parameters so you can input the appropriate values (remember to save...).
Configuration tab
About
This sub-tab shows how to contact the author, the current version number and a log to monitor what is going on.
Parameters
From this sub-tab, you can load/save the configuration file. When using the Auto-launch feature, you can set a delay to make sure that BTV has time to load after a reboot (or switching on the PC). The log file is useful for debugging purposes and to keep track of what BTV-Externinator has done...
Controls
This sub-tab is where you configure controls that are common to the various External recordings.
You can disable the External recordings that you are not using, this will remove the corresponding sub-tabs. The other options are:
* Add information: add the episode title, description, etc. * Add to Recent recordings: this will prevent BTV from trying to reschedule a new recording. * Hide file while recording: this prevent the high CPU usage of BTV-Library. * Use .inprogress.xml: makes the file available through "Recorded shows". * Debug: more debuging information is available in the log. * Allow SmartSkip: you can disable SmartSkip on the External recordings while keeping it as default for the normal BTV recordings. * Allow HD ShowSqueeze: you can disable HD ShowSqueeze on the External recordings while keeping it as default for the normal BTV recordings. * Customed post-processing: you can run PostHaste or another application instead of SmartSkip/ShowSqueeze. * Substitute for pool drive: you can specify a specific folder to use. * Destination folder: you can overwrite the actual recording location, possibly to a folder not monitored by BTV.
Appearance
With this sub-tab, you can chose the font type, font size and colors of the various texts and backgrounds.
External tuner tab
Since Beyond TV 4.9 officially supports clear QAM recordings on the Hauppauge cards and that the HDHomeRun has been officially supported for even longer, their support within BTV-Externinator will be removed soon.
DVICO-QAM
In order to perform this type of recording, you will need to install one of the latest version of the DVICO recording software (3.5 is recommended, I am still working on adding support for 3.6). You might need to consult this thread in regard to some msvcrt71.dll errors when shutting down the DVICO recording software. You need to go to the web admin in order to create a new unencrypted QAM channels lineup (or use the "save as new" option on an existing one) and to hide all the encrypted channels. You also need to associate this unencrypted QAM channels lineup to the channels expected by the DVICO recording software through the Table of Channel tab.
The first step consist in selecting the capture device to monitor. To do that, use the drop down box and press the "Associate" button, the capture device will be shown at the bottom. Next, you need to enter the full path to the database used by the DVICO software to schedule recordings. You do need to keep BTV-Externinator and the FusionHDTV tray application running, in order for those recordings to happen. Support for the DVICO software version 3.6 is still in development...
Firewire+
The main purpose of this sub-tab is to perform Firewire recordings with the help of VLC, though in principle it should also work for DVB recordings with ProgDVB (untested). Another alternative is to use this sub-tab to have BTV change the channel but not actually record the schedulled job (well, a few seconds will be recorded, but the file can be deleted automatically at the end). Using the Template, you can see what kind of information are suggested for each. For the Firewire recording, it is assumed that you have already added the Firewire Tuner/Panel according to cat6man instructions in this post.
The first step consist in selecting the capture device to monitor. To do that, use the drop down box and press the "Associate" button, the capture device will be shown at the bottom. Only one device can be monitored, though this might eventually change. Next, you need to enter the full path to the Executable (i.e. VLC). By enabling the "Channel" box, you can specify the location of the utility (channelw) used to change the channel as well as its parameters in the field (/v 2) after it (leave both blank for ProgDVB). The "Parameters 1" holds the command line used to select the correct tuner and format in VLC, the filename gets automatically filled and "Parameters 2" ends the command line (thus the closing "}}). The "Closing parameters" is the command sent to the Executable at the end of the recording to close the application (you did enable the single instance in VLC, right?).
Other options:
* Block recording: when using a Cloned tuner, both would record the same show without this. * Delete original: when using a Cloned tuner, before receiving the Block command BTV has time to start recording, so this clean up that part. * Delay (s): delay is seconds to complete the channel tuning.
Here is an example using DVBDream instead.
HDHomeRun
Support to be removed soon.
DVB
In order to perform this type of recording, you will need to install DVBViewer and the Dabdig scripts.
The first step consist in selecting the capture device to monitor. To do that, use the drop down box and press the "Associate" button, the capture device will be shown at the bottom. Only one device can be monitored, though this might eventually change. Next, you need to enter the full path to the Dabdig scripts. Finally, enable the "Auto execute" and you are set! Well ok not quite, this is still untested and will most likely require a table of channels to link Beyond TV's channels to the ones used by DVBViewer... So, any guinea pig?
GrafCorder
Hauppauge
Support to be removed soon.
R5000HD
Server tab
General
Want to change some advanced settings that might not be available in the Web admin yet?
Tuner
This is where you can create a Virtual capture device.
To use this sub-tab, select an existing capture device from the drop down list and check the "Edit a tuner" box. After that, you can change the friendly name of the tuner, change the associated lineup, recording format and so on. In order to modify that existing capture device, simply press Save. Alternatively, you can associate two Lineups with one Capture device or create a Virtual capture device (to perform some External recordings through VLC, ProgDVB, DVBViewer or DVICO software), by using the other two save options. Using the "Save as new" option, you can create a new virtual capture device, unrelated to any real capture devices. Using the "Clone" option, you can create a new virtual capture device associated to the selected real capture device, similar to adding a new input to that real device. Having a cable box connected to both the real capture device (s-video or composite) and virtual capture device (Firewire), is a good candidate to use the Clone mode, since you would not want to have different recording jobs schedulled at the same time on both. You should either reboot the BTV server or at the very least shutdown and restart BTV in order for the modifications to take effect. WARNING: virtual capture devices should not be edited through the web admin or BTV wizard.
Source
This sub-tab can be used to monitor the LiveTV sessions or what Recordings are going on, as well as what is playing on any channel. At some point, it should be possible to perform more advanced operations on the External capture devices, but that is very low on my priority list...
Table of channels tab
Since the HDHomerun has been officially supported by BTV for a while, it will be dropped from BTV-Externinator shortly. Accordingly, expect the remaining sub-tab (DVICO) to be moved to a different tab.
DVICO-QAM
Since the DVICO recording software and Beyond TV do not use the same channel notation, it is necessary to build up a Channel table.
While BTV-Externinator can provide the list of channels in your various lineups, it is recommended to schedule a recording job on each clear QAM channels available (using the DVICO scheduler). Once done, using the External recording tab, DVICO QAM sub-tab, the Channel column will give you the RF channel (i.e. 8666) and Program number in hexadecimal (i.e. 666) corresponding to each channel. You can then fill out the Channel map with that information, by selecting a Channel from the drop-down menu, entering the RF and Program values, then hitting the "Associate" button. Of course there are other methods of obtaining that information, but this seems like the easiest one (keep in mind that the RF Channel corresponds to 7000 + digital channel and the program number is in Hex).
HDHomeRun
Support to be dropped soon...
Recording tab
Upcoming
This sub-tab displays the list of Upcoming recordings. The list can be filtered out by Tuner.
Recent
This sub-tab displays the list of Recent recordings. Starting with BTV 4.9, a lot less information is retained and the conversion process from pre-BTV 4.9 actually strips away the titles and such...
Acknowledgments
Without the BeyondTV SDK I would not have tried to do this.
Thanks to DaWanderer for the BTVLibrary!
Thanks to LaMarvin for the ColorPicker!
Thanks to Martin Cook for the Managed Font Combobox!
Thanks to Nishant Sivakumar for the multi-line listbox!
Thanks to RodgerB for the MessageBox with a timeout!
Thanks to Alexander Lowe for the Shutdown Windows!
Thanks to Kilrsat for answering my frequent questions!
Thanks to Klaus W. Basan for the C# Telnet-client!
Thanks to Howard Gilbert for the C# HDHRcorder!
And finally thanks to the guinea pigs, er, I mean testers!
This application is freeware but I do accept donations.