Recorded TV Automation Question

[TeoKnight]

I apologize if there is a thread existing already, asI may not have searched the right keyword. Is there a way to take recordings from my RecordedTV HD folder and automatically move them into their own folder? I'm not concerned about removing commercials, I'd just like to be able to use use Media Browser 3 plugin for all my media instead of just Music and Movies. I'm not seeing a way in MB3 to group episodes of a show together unless they are in a dedicated folder. Am I missing something?

[IownFIVEechos]

I apologize if there is a thread existing already, asI may not have searched the right keyword. Is there a way to take recordings from my RecordedTV HD folder and automatically move them into their own folder? I'm not concerned about removing commercials, I'd just like to be able to use use Media Browser 3 plugin for all my media instead of just Music and Movies. I'm not seeing a way in MB3 to group episodes of a show together unless they are in a dedicated folder. Am I missing something?

Check out this Thread:

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 7&start=20

Should be all you need. Good luck.

[TeoKnight]

I figured it was there somewhere. Thanks!

[barnabas1969]

If you're handy with VBScript, you could also take this script and modify it to do whatever you want.

For a program that's already written, there are the ones below. The WTVmetaRenamer looks to be exactly what you want:

http://wtvmetarenamer.codeplex.com/
http://www.fjdrasch.com/v3/automove.htm

[IownFIVEechos]

The important part with MB3 and Plex I think is that each show needs a subdirectory. The WTVrenamer will actually fix names and give more detail I think. I have not had a chance to use it.

[isomerize]

I'd recommend mcebuddy over the other suggestions. It will rename with S#E# and sort all in one. It also can distinguish TV shows from movies and handle them appropriately and is actively being developed.
http://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/

[IownFIVEechos]

I found this thread to be interesting:

http://mediabrowser3.com/community/inde ... anization/

Pay close attention to the registry changes. Looks interesting to get the names with more detail etc..

[element192]

I'd recommend mcebuddy over the other suggestions. It will rename with S#E# and sort all in one. It also can distinguish TV shows from movies and handle them appropriately and is actively being developed.
http://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/

Are you pretty familiar with MCEBuddy? I set mine up the other day following AssassinHTPC's guide and had a few problems. I have the program pulling my recorded shows, converting them to MKV and using Comskip to cut out commercials. A couple of the conversions had the audio butchered (sound was in 'slow motion' and really low tone) and some of the commercial cutting cut out parts of the shows. Some of them had the intros missing (kids shows) and some were missing the last minute or two of the actual show.
I followed the guide's settings but are there are other things I can change to improve the program? I'd really like the program to be "set and forget."
I don't mean to hijack OP's thread if this irrelevant and will start a new thread if needed.
Thanks.

[wally007]

well the question is about Comskip rather than MCEBuddy. Dont use Comskip unless you have time to fine tune it for your provider ( there is no one setting that will for for all .... each provider has different transition to commercial breaks )

[element192]

well the question is about Comskip rather than MCEBuddy. Dont use Comskip unless you have time to fine tune it for your provider ( there is no one setting that will for for all .... each provider has different transition to commercial breaks )

Is this the equivalent of saying "don't bother trying to cut out commercials?" That's kind of the conclusion I'm starting to come to. I've read a little more about DVRMSToolbox and Show Analyzer, but for $30 I don't know if I care enough to cut out commercials and have to deal with all of the fine tuning.

For WAF, I think I may be better off getting Recorded TV HD and leave it at that. For shows I want to archive (like shows my kids like to rewatch), I may still look into a solution for manually editing out the commercials. Maybe using DVRMSToolbox and Comskip since it's cheap?

[barnabas1969]

No, I think wally007 meant that if you don't take the time to set it up properly, then don't bother. This is especially true if you're going to use something like MCEBuddy that will permanently remove the parts of the recording that were detected as "commercials". One nice thing about ShowAnalyzer is that it has a graphical user interface (GUI) for fine tuning... which is much, much better than the command-line kludge of Commskip.

Also, element192, I am going to send you a PM about ShowAnalyzer.

[barnabas1969]

Oh, and I definitely recommend Recorded TV HD. Best app for Media Center that I've seen. I like his My Memories for Media Center too... much better than the default photo screen saver in Media Center - and it works on extenders too.

[element192]

Oh, and I definitely recommend Recorded TV HD. Best app for Media Center that I've seen. I like his My Memories for Media Center too... much better than the default photo screen saver in Media Center - and it works on extenders too.

That's awesome to hear, I'll download it tonight and give it a try. Thanks for your input.

[barnabas1969]

Ever since he added the "Add Recording" option in the settings menu (the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen), I disabled the default TV menu strip in Media Center.

Regarding the "Add Recording" option in Recorded TV HD, if you customize the menu strip in the Recorded TV HD settings, you can add an "Add Recording" item to the menu strip so that users don't need to navigate to the gear icon in order to get to the Add Recording menu in Media Center.

In case you don't know... the Add Recording menu (which is a built-in thing in Media Center) allows you to setup a "Wish List" recording (and several other options). For example, you can setup a Wish List to record everything where Ben Afflec is in the list of actors/directors/etc.

[element192]

Ever since he added the "Add Recording" option in the settings menu (the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen), I disabled the default TV menu strip in Media Center.

Regarding the "Add Recording" option in Recorded TV HD, if you customize the menu strip in the Recorded TV HD settings, you can add an "Add Recording" item to the menu strip so that users don't need to navigate to the gear icon in order to get to the Add Recording menu in Media Center.

In case you don't know... the Add Recording menu (which is a built-in thing in Media Center) allows you to setup a "Wish List" recording (and several other options). For example, you can setup a Wish List to record everything where Ben Afflec is in the list of actors/directors/etc.

Sounds pretty cool, I'm going to install this tonight once my wife goes to bed. I've never really used the "Add Recording" beyond the obvious searching by TV show title.

Which software do you use to customize your menu strips? I tried using the Media Center Studio you can download from AssassinHTPC's blog, but when I save the changes they don't work. I can customize themes using the software, just not the menus.

[barnabas1969]

RecordedTV HD has a setting to hide the default TV strip. I don't use any software to customize the menu strips, except for Relaunch to add my own custom items and such. I've never had the need to customize the strips beyond that.

[element192]

RecordedTV HD has a setting to hide the default TV strip. I don't use any software to customize the menu strips, except for Relaunch to add my own custom items and such. I've never had the need to customize the strips beyond that.

Yeah once I set it up last night and chose that option I saw that it lumped all of the TV items into one menu strip, totally awesome feature.
I use Relaunch for a few things as well. What I would like is something that allows me to move my Relaunch items into a custom menu strip (like "Streaming" or "Internet TV") and reorder the menu strips. Not a big deal, but now my "Movies" menu strip is down above "Tasks" and my "TV" is way up below "Extras" with a few things in between. I was hoping for something to a quick re-ordering of those things, but it's such a small deal.
Great recommendation on Recorded TV HD though, I only played around with it for 15 minutes or so last night but it's a really beautiful program with a lot of cool settings/options.

[barnabas1969]

I like the List View, with a black background the best. I also set my Media Center color scheme to black. There's another thread around here for that... with some additional tweaks from the Australian media center forum.

You might want to check out the link below. Make sure to read the comments at the bottom too.

http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/03/remove-m ... trips.html

[JazJon]

By the way, The new MCEBuddy 2.3 Beta 15 supports true WTV Unproccessed profile & Skip Remux Skip Copying. (doesn't work in pre beta 15 builds)
https://mcebuddy2x.codeplex.com/discussions/437842

Commercials are cut out lightening fast now.

I know some people want to convert WTV to MP4 etc, but XBMC PVR ServerWMC works great with native WTV files since it uses Media Center as the full backend.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=ServerWMC

[mike_ekim]

Are you pretty familiar with MCEBuddy? I set mine up the other day following AssassinHTPC's guide and had a few problems. I have the program pulling my recorded shows, converting them to MKV and using Comskip to cut out commercials. A couple of the conversions had the audio butchered (sound was in 'slow motion' and really low tone) and some of the commercial cutting cut out parts of the shows. Some of them had the intros missing (kids shows) and some were missing the last minute or two of the actual show.
I followed the guide's settings but are there are other things I can change to improve the program? I'd really like the program to be "set and forget."
I don't mean to hijack OP's thread if this irrelevant and will start a new thread if needed.
Thanks.

I used to be set up to record every episode of Spongebob and then used MCEBuddy to convert to MP4/h.264/AAC stereo (for Roku/Plex) WITHOUT removing commercials, and some shows would either have the intro or the last few minutes missing. In my case it's WMC's fault, not MCEBuddy's. I toyed with changing the beginning/end times but when you are recording back-to-back episodes (like Spongebob) any change to the end of the first episode, will also change when you start recording the second episode, so that only made things worse (i.e. I had the end of the first episode at the beginning of the second episode).

Now I'm doing the same thing except using Comskip to remove commercials. It seems to start cutting about 2 seconds too soon, and then resuming 2 seconds too soon, so we just barely see the end of a commercial before a show resumes. As others have mentioned, I need to configure Comskip for my system/provider. The frequency that the beginning/end of episodes being cut off with Comskip seems to be about the same as it was before when I wasn't using Comskip.

I have also converted to MKV/h.264/AC3 and had no audio problems. Are you sure it's a problem with the file, and not with the playback?

Sorry to bump an month-old thread, but I think it's recent enough to be relevant.