> On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 09:24:16PM -0500, James Miller wrote: >On Wed, 1 Apr 2015, Roger wrote: > >> I merrily and simply use a small self-created script for tuning and recording >> called record-dvb.sh. (It's file location URL is linked within a Gentoo Wiki >> page.) For scheduling recordings, I easily call the script via crontab. The >> script has been reliable for me for many years. >> >> The other thing you have to watch for when recording, MPlayer and MythTV tend >> to unknowingly re-encode the data streamed from the pvrusb2 device (or any >> DVB >> device file) into it's own format of choice. Hence, you're not recording a >> vanilla stream from the device and likely unknowingly degrading the video and >> audio quality. Most do not seem to mind this loss versus having all the >> features of MythTV, etc. (ie. The only tasks required for recording from >> the >> DVB device, first lock the tuner to a channel, and then simply use "cat >> /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 > file.mpg".) > >I've run across that script before, Roger, and I have to admit that I've >found that approach very appealing. I would very much welcome getting away >from the bloat of MythTV. There would be some minor drawbacks for me >personally--things such having to schedule all episodes of some series >individually rather than as a group. Though I personally could live with >such minor inconveniences, the real barrier for me to adopting the DVR >approach you've taken is the fact that I am not, and do not want to be, >the sole DVR scheduler in my household. You see, my wife would never be >able to manage the more manual/technical method you reference for >scheduling recordings. On the other hand, she's become quite adept at, and >is now very attached to, scheduling recordings through Mythweb. Were I to >adopt an approach such as yours, the burden of scheduling all recordings, >I am sure, would fall on me.
Thanks for the compliment. I always enjoy hearing my work has benefited somebody else! It's a small script, but was scripted around need versus wants. It wouldn't be too hard to script a graphical front end maybe using Zenity, but Zenity from what I see is for simple tasks. A more inclusive solution would likely deal with C/C++, or even Javascript. For splitting sessions due to the large resulting file sizes, could probably implement "/usr/bin/split". However hard drive sizes these days are usually more then adequate for recording. (Thank God.) >That said, there might be ways of making your method more >user-friendly--perhaps even friendly enough for more techno-phobic folks >like my wife. For example, perhaps, rather than scheduling cron jobs, the >remind program, running in daemon mode, could be utilized. It does have a >frontend (tkremind), and calendar appointments can be made to trigger >events like executing scripts. How an interactive interface like tkremind >could be made available across the network so that someone could enter >"appointments" (recording time slots) from a remote machine, I have no >idea. Then there would be the issue of somehow matching entries entered >there to a set of recording scripts. Then, you start getting partway >toward a more full-fledged solution like MythTV. Unfortunately my modest >technical abilities do not allow me to do much more than speculate that >some such alternate arrangement might be made to work; the actual >execution of it, if it would even be possible and/or more desirable, remain >beyond my reach. Which is why I remain a user of MythTV :( There is even a C tool called "/usr/bin/gnutv" within linuxtv-dvb-apps, which performs similar to my script. My script's goal was just to simplify Linux DVB recording, and using existing (Unix ;-) tools versus implementing another all-in-one solution. Anything added, usually immediately increases size and complexity with being easily read scripting/coding. One could take time and implement a simple text file for stating recording times, but then we're back to dealing with users whom then do not know how to open and edit a simple text config file. (For which that is all a crontab consists of to begin with, except for learning the syntax.) Most users I find at this point, usually do not mind using something like MythTV. Albeit, you're getting smarter and seeing you really do not need all that just to record. It's a fact of marriage, for better or worse. ;-) -- Roger http://rogerx.freeshell.org/ _______________________________________________ pvrusb2 mailing list [email protected] http://www.isely.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pvrusb2
