[mythtv-users] Myth Recording Extender (MRE) v1.0.0 Released

[Derek Battams]

Quoting Daniel Walton <dwalton at cisco.com>:

> This tool is a great idea!  Questions/comments:
>
> - For NFL preseason support is adding the following to   
> EventFactory.php the only
> required change:
>
>             case 'NFL Preseason Football':
>                $obj = new NFLEvent($data['subtitle']); break;

Yes, adding to the case statement is all that's needed to support  
preseason games.

WARNING!! I didn't add support for preseason games because NFL Network  
is showing preseason games on a tape delay.  If the game is shown on  
the same day it was played on tape delay then MRE will prematurely  
detect that the game is over and you'll miss the last ~30 minutes of  
the game.  If you're only going to be recording live preseason games  
on the networks then you should be fine or you can disable MRE from  
ending recordings early even if it detects the event its monitoring  
ended early (i.e. only allow MRE to extend recordings beyond the  
scheduled time, never allow it to shorten a recording).

> - How forgiving are the team matches when comparing the "X vs Y" in   
> the channel
> guide vs the "X vs Y" from the espn pages?  In other words if I tell myth to
> record the "Carolina Panthers vs NY Giants" but espn.com has it as "Carolina
> Panthers vs New York Giants" or "Carolina Panthers vs N.Y. Giants" will MRE
> figure out that this is the same game?

It should figure it out with no issues.  The .dat file for each type  
of event lists the terms that ESPN.com uses to identify teams.  To  
date, MRE has not failed me in mapping the TV listings description of  
the game to that used by ESPN.com.

>
> - any plans to add this functionality to mythbackend or to mythweb?
>

Not at the moment, I think this is best used as a standalone daemon,  
though actually integrating this functionality into the backend would  
be interesting.

> - Say I'm going to record the 1pm and 4pm NFL games on the same   
> channel.  If the
> 1pm game runs over will MRE recognize that it doesn't need to change anything
> since I'm recording the following program on that channel?

No.  It will extend the recording of the 1pm game until it detects  
it's over.  If you have more than one tuner with the 4pm game  
available then the Myth scheduler should move the 4pm game to an  
available tuner.  If you only have one tuner available for both games  
then the 4pm game will likely be listed as a conflict (iff the 1pm  
game is extended).  This is theory, I've never actually faced this  
condition.  I only record games involving my favourite teams so I've  
never actually recorded back to back live events that were being  
monitored by MRE before.

> - Assume I have one tuner and I want to record the 1pm NFL game on   
> FOX and the
> 4pm NFL game on CBS.  If the 1pm NFL game runs over by 15 minutes   
> MRE will tell
> myth to record FOX until 4:15?  Will MRE also tell myth to not   
> bother recording
> the CBS game until 4:15 or will the 4pm CBS game not record at all   
> because there
> was a conflict?

As above, I speak in theory because I've never faced this situation.   
For sure, I can tell you that the 1pm game will record until 4:15.   
It's been awhile, but last time I traced through the scheduler code I  
believe an active recording always wins and won't be stopped, so  
definitely the 1pm game will go to 4:15.  Sometime between 3:55-4:00  
MRE will detect the game is running late and tell Myth to extend the  
recording.  At that time, Myth should mark the 4pm game as a conflict  
and it won't record it.  When the tuner becomes available at 4:15 Myth  
may or may not start recording the program that was previously marked  
a conflict (I'm 99% sure it won't do that, but it may, I'd assume it  
won't).  All those decisions are left to the Myth scheduler.  MRE only  
interacts with a recording it is monitoring by updating the post-roll  
values for the recording.

> - If espn.com changes their page format and MRE can no longer parse   
> espn pages
> will MRE extend a recording by some default amount just as a safety net?

No.  However, I run a regression test every day for all event  
monitors.  The results are posted to a project mailing list (subscribe  
on project site).  Anytime a failure is detected I get a notice.  If  
the failure is unexpected the event monitor is updated and a new  
release of MRE would occur.  Hasn't happened yet, but, of course, it  
will - probably during ESPN's annual site redesign.  Unless they do  
something totally wild and crazy, I'm usually able to whip up a parser  
in 20 minutes or less.  The default action of MRE is to do nothing if  
it cannot attach a valid event monitor to a recording.

   - Derek