Any Alternative to DTb File Watcher?

[blich_iu]

See comskip.txt for all possible settings
live_tv=1

Thanks!

[ghostlobster]

Erik,
I just today had a chance to put the new rev in place and set the live tv variable. It worked awesome! Great work and thanks a bunch!

[joesc1]

Are you guys turning off the output_dvrmstb flag now that your running with Dirmon2? Would that make any difference?

[ghostlobster]

Are you guys turning off the output_dvrmstb flag now that your running with Dirmon2? Would that make any difference?

I believe you need that setting in order to create the .xml file that is used by DTB's auto commercial skipping.

[joesc1]

I believe you need that setting in order to create the .xml file that is used by DTB's auto commercial skipping.

Ok, as long as it's working for you when you have that setting, good enough for me.

Thanks!

[bmblank]

dtb is still being used to do the actual skipping, just not the file watching process, so the xml file I'd still necessary.

[ACraigL]

+1 for getting livetv skipping working. This is the one thing I missed having switched from ShowAnalyzer to Comskip. Other that that Comskip is better in *every* way.

[joesc1]

I'm glad live tv skipping is working for other people. Unfortunately it's not working for me. Can you post your settings for comskip.ini and Dirmon2 if it is different from the defaults?

My Dirmon2 settings are:

Job Management Tab -

• Program to run: C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\comskip.exe
  Targets: wtv,dvr-ms
  Command Line Options: --ini="C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\comskip.ini"
  Triggers: MUST NOT EXIST- xml OR log
  All other checkboxes are off except for ignore hidden files.

Global Settings

• Polling Time: 300
  Checked start automatically at boot
  RunAs: LocalSystem allowing service to interact with desktop
  Cleanup:
  delete files: log,xml,txt,edl,incommercial
  When no corresponding: wtv,dvr-ms

Comskip.ini changed from defaults

• thread_count=6
  output_dvrmstb=1
  live_tv=1

Thanks

[bmblank]

Is it just the live skipping out all skipping in general that's not working for you? The only thing that stands out to me as different is running it as local_machine versus as a user. Not sure, but it may need to run as user.

[joesc1]

The live skipping is the only thing not working. If I run comskip on shows that aren't live (usually by deleting the incorrectly created files), it works fine.

[dooger]

Excellent thread ghostlobster! I've got DirMon2/Comskip chugging away on a remote PC and it's working great! One thing to point out, which might help others, is that I could not get the DirMon2 service to start up with any user other than LocalSystem. And as previously noted, the LocalSystem user will not have access to the remote recordings. So, in order to get the service started with my 64-bit Win7 system, I installed the DirMon2 service from within DirMon2, but then had to access the DirMon2 service from the Computer Management Console, Services. Then right-click comskip.exe and choose properties, choose the "Log On" tab, and from here I entered a local user, and the system briefly flashed a message about that user being granted permission to run the service, and the service started. Not sure why it refused to start from within the GUI, but I did install and run DirMon2 "As Administrator". Anyway, I just switched over from SAV1, dontated to the cause, and am once again enjoying commercial skipping!

[ghostlobster]

Actually, i justs did a rebuild of the PC that is processing commercial skip data, so I discovered the "login as service" issue first hand. On my original build, the user had already been granted permissions to login as service from another issue i was working on. The easy fix is to enter the info in the Dirmon interface, don't try to start the service, just install it, close out the interface then start the service from the Services app in control panel, and grant the permissions there. Once complete, you're good to go!

Oh, Erik, awesome job on Live TV. I just set Dirmon to wait for a file to reach 200MB before launching, and with Live_tv set to 1, the. Xml file is created on the fly nicely.
Thanks a bunch!

[toricred]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I upgraded to Windows 8 and while configuring DirMon2 I noticed that the comskip threads are launching with the --ini parameter after the filename in the command line. Would this work or would the ini parameter be ignored?

[erik]

Well, set
verbose=10
in comskip.ini and see if comskip generates a log file
If so it does work

[bjb]

I thought I would post some additional information that wasn't completely obvious to me in hope that it might help some others wanting to use dirmon2.

First of all, you don't need to use a wild card character to configure dirmon2 for partial matches. Just simply enter the string of characters in the field that you want the partial match setup for, so no need for an asterisk. As an example, WMC names the TV show files with the show name and network name. If I have a comskip.ini file specifically configured for modern family, I can create a new job and put "modern family" in the target field, and change the radio button to entire file path.

Next, there are some environment variables that I found for the program. Below, the variable is listed first, and the output for the example given is shown second.

Code: Select all

Example filename: D:/TV/Nova.mpg
%FULLFILESPEC% - D:/TV/Nova.mpg
%DRIVE% - D
%PATH% - D:/TV
%DIRECTORY% - TV
%BASENAME% - Nova
%EXTENSION% - mpg

Example filename: D:/Nova.mpg
%FULLFILESPEC% - D:/Nova.mpg
%DRIVE% - D
%PATH% - D:
%DIRECTORY% - 
%BASENAME% - Nova
%EXTENSION% - mpg

Example filename: //Media/TV/Nova.mpg
%FULLFILESPEC% - //Media/TV/Nova.mpg
%DRIVE% - //Media/TV
%PATH% - //Media/TV
%DIRECTORY% - 
%BASENAME% - Nova
%EXTENSION% - mpg

Example filename: //Media/TV/SageTV/Nova.mpg
%FULLFILESPEC% - //Media/TV/SageTV/Nova.mpg
%DRIVE% - //Media/TV
%PATH% - //Media/TV/SageTV
%DIRECTORY% - SageTV
%BASENAME% - Nova
%EXTENSION% - mpg

The variable has to be enclosed in double brackets, so in the target field I would use [[%basename%]] and that would translate to Nova in the example given. You cannot nest the variables, but you can string them. As an example, I could use [[%basename%.%extension%]] to get nova.mpg.

I am using the %basename% variable, so dirmon2 passes the filename to a vbscript I created. PBS really doesn't have any commercials, so I don't want to bother processing them. I could put the network in the ignore list, but that would cause the dtb addin to issue a popup saying the commercial file is missing. So I created a new job to look for the name of my local PBS network, and I created a vbscript to write an empty XML file, so that the popup doesn't appear in WMC that the commercial file is missing. My script reads in the argument that dirmon2 passes, and then I use that to create the file with the appropriate name.

Hopefully this helps anyone that wants to do more with dirmon2 than just simply checking for new files. All this functionality was in dvrmstoolbox, and it appears that most if not all of that functionality can be accomplished in dirmon2 with the write steps albeit a little less elegantly. You can even create rules based on the details that are embedded in the file, like channel number, HDTV content, rerun, etc.