[mythtv-users] Recording Questions

Ray Olszewski ray at comarre.com
Mon Jun 16 21:20:12 EDT 2003


At 06:46 PM 6/16/2003 -0700, RJV wrote:
[...]
>2) Is it possible to let mythtv name the video-shows in a more sane and
>human-readable format - such that an mplayer browser on another machine
>can discern what the file is from the name?  (Eg: Daily_Show_6-16-03.nuv
>or Simpsons-Episode-222)

I've wondered about this myself, but even in principle, I can't come up 
with a scheme that would work without human intervention. I captured a lot 
of video before I found Myth, and even naming the shows by hand, I haven't 
managed to contrive a good way to standardize names.

The closest I've found to a standard for episode numbering and naming is 
the episode indexing at tvtome.com, and that only works for shows in its 
database ... a large number of sitcoms and dramas, yes, but way short of 
everything I record, which includes movies, concert broadcasts, 
rebroadcasts of old Ed Sullivan variety shows, and the occasional how-to 
show. I don't capture sports or news, but they would be problems too. And 
my thinking is limited to the USA ... how filenaming would handle non-ascii 
characters from non-English speaking countries compounds the general problem.

I don't know Isaac's mind in this, but I do think I understand the scope of 
the problem he faced in coming up with a naming system. I suspect I'd have 
ended up with something similar to what he chose ... a time-based system 
that can easily be made into an automated naming standard, plus links to a 
database that can store the program name and description in whatever form 
the listings source provides it.

Actually, this approach does add to the difficulties regarding a question 
I've been meaning to ask: how do you record a show that is not in the 
listings? Let me make this clear with an example. Turner Classic Movies 
often fills out the time between the end of one movie that the start of the 
next by running a short subject ... an old Movietone newsreel, or a "Crime 
Does Not Pay" sermonette, or any number of other "one reelers"  that were 
shown in theatres from the 30s to the 50s.

I'm rather fond of these things, but they are very inconvenient to catch 
when broadcast. So I have a machine (not using Myth) set up so that 
whenever it isn't busy with a scheduled recording, it will capture the 
"last 20 minutes'" of the scheduled time block for each movie TCM runs. 
This is pretty time intensive to maintain by hand, and I'd love to find a 
way to automate it.

Is there any way I could get MythTV to do this? How would MythTV name the 
resulting files?





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