pruperting

MythTV Recordings: Rename, Move and Delete From The Database

So, I have been using MythTV for a while now and it is a.w.e.s.o.m.e.. However, I had one problem, since I transcode and store all my videos on my Ubuntu server and not my MythTV box (which is off most of the time via mythwelcome) I had to manually transfer recorded files to my Ubuntu server via mythweb.

I thought this was a bit of a hokey solution, so I asked around if there was a script that allowed you to rename MythTV recordings (to a more human readable version), move them to another location and remove them from the MythTV database. There were some solutions out there, but they all involved the recorded files being kept in the MythTV database.

So, I wrote my own script. This script renames the MythTV files to a nice human understandable version using mythrename.pl, it then moves the recordings to a folder of your choice (in my case a mounted samba share on my server), it then uses myth.find_orphans.pl to delete the moved recordings from the mythTV database (I don’t know if it will still remember that these files were previously recorded so it doesn’t rerecord them or not, I guess time will tell).

So, without further ado, here is the script, in lovely Bash (the script is called mythtvremodel (mythtv REname MOve DELete, geddit?):


#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: mythtvremodel
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $syslog $remote_fs dbus
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $syslog $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: rename, move delete recordings
### END INIT INFO
# script to rename files recorded from mythtv and then to move them and delete them
#made by prupert.co.uk
#creative commons licence, whichever is the most FREE (as in beer)

#lets put in some variables so others can use this
#location of log file, you can choose anything and any name
log=/path/to/mythtvremodel.log
#this is the full path to mythrename.pl
mrename=/location/to/mythrename.pl
#this is the full path to your recordings folder
record=/var/www/mythweb/data/recordings/
#this is the extension your recordings are stored as, usually mpg or nuv
ext=mpg
#this is the full path to where you want your files moved to
dest=/path/to/folder/to/move/recordings/to/
#this is the full path to myth.find_orphans.pl
morphan=/path/to/myth.find_orphans.pl
#mythtv database password for myth.find_orphans.pl
pass=yourmythtvdatabasepassword

# first, run mythtvrename to get nice names for the recordings
echo starting mythtvremodel on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` > $log
perl $mrename --underscores --format %T-%S-%d%m%y >> $log
# use find to search for all recorded files in the recording folder and move them to the TV folder
find "$record" -name "*.$ext" >> $log
find "$record" -name "*.$ext" -exec mv {} "$dest" \; >> $log
# use mythorphan to remove the now missing recorded files from the database
perl $morphan --pass=$pass --dodbdelete >> $log
#that should be it
echo stopping mythtvremodel on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> $log
exit 0

And there you have it. Now, since I run mythbuntu, I have put this script in /etc/rc0.d (thats rc zero . d) and have named it K03mythtvremodel, thus it is run when my system shuts down, but before all the samba shares and drives are unmounted. As I said, since I use mythwelcome to shutdown my machine when idle, this seemed like the best solution.

Hope it helps someone!

MediaPortal Comskip and Transcode Bat and Bash Scripts

As I mentioned earlier, I use MediaPortal to record DVB-T broadcasts. As these end up quite big, I then use two scripts to check the recordings for adverts and to transcode the recordings to a mkv file (smaller and better supported).

This solution isn’t very elegant, since it is for my personal setup which is a little unusual, in that the recordings are done via a Windows XP MediaCentre PC, they are then analysed for adverts using Comskip and are then transferred to my Ubuntu-based server, which then transcodes the files to an MKV file and the adds Chapter markers to those MKV files using the file from Comskip. Thus there script is in two parts, one a Windows Bat script and the other is a Ubuntu Bash script.

The scripts are below. First, the Windows Bat script that runs the recorded file through Comskip and then copies it over to the server. Since I wanted to only run one script for all the recordings made in an evening, the script takes the file name from MediaPortal, which passes it to the script after the file is finished recording, using the Comskip plugin. This explains all the weird “Echo” in front of all the terms, since basically it is putting all the commands into another script, which is then run early each morning.

BASH

@ECHO OFF
ECHO ECHO.
ECHO Rem Batch commands for %1 START >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO CD "C:\scripts\comskip" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO START "" "C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO %%SystemRoot%%\explorer.exe "Z:\" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO ************************** ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO Post Processing started on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ECHO Starting mpeg2repair %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO mpeg2repairHelper.exe %1 %1-fixed.ts >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ECHO mpeg2repair finished on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO Comskip started on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO comskip %1 >>"%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO Comskip finished on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "Z:\new_files.log" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ECHO ComClean started on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO mencoder "%~dpn1.ts" -edl "%~dpn1.edl" -alang eng,nar -noskip -vf harddup -oac copy -ovc copy -of mpeg -o "%~dpn1_clean.ts" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ECHO ComClean finished on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO New file %1 being moved to Server ^>^> "Z:\new_files.log" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO Tidying started on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO %%SystemRoot%%\explorer.exe "Z:\" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO CD "%~dp1" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ren *.edl *.ts.edl >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO ren *.txt *.ts.txt >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ren *.chap *.ts.chap >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO Moving Clean TS to Server directory on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO IF EXIST "%~dpn1_clean.ts" del %1 >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO xcopy %1 Z:\ >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO IF EXIST "Z:\%~n1.ts" del %1 >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
REM ECHO xcopy "%~dpn1.edl" Z:\ >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO del "%~dpn1.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO xcopy "%~dpn1.ts.chap" Z:\ >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO TS and others moved to Server directory on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "%~dpn1.PostLog.txt" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO ECHO %~n1.ts moved to Server on %%date%% %%time%% ^>^> "Z:\new_files.log" >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO TASKKILL /IM vlc.exe >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"
ECHO Rem Batch commands for %1 FINISH >> "C:\scripts\comskip\trans.bat"

Thus this script creates the trans.bat file, which is then run via a scheduled task. All the stuff starting with REM are lines that the script no longer uses, but that contain interesting code that might be useful in the future. This includes using a program called mpeg2repair, that was meant to clean the recording in-case there were any errors during transmission, but the program error-ed out too many times. Another line was also meant to use Mencoder to cut the adverts out directly using an EDL file created by comskip, but this resulted too often in audio/video sync problems, I think as a result of the original .ts file having some errors in it, so I REMed out that line as well.

The second script is my Ubuntu bash script, which is run every morning, after the trans.bat script (created by the script above) is run.

#!/bin/bash
# Written by FakeOutdoorsman and updated by mysoogal further updated by prupert
# Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported
# http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en
# trackback http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=960627
echo trans.sh started on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` > /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.ts" >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
chmod -R 777 /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.ts" -exec /home/server/Desktop/handbrake/HandBrakeCLI -i {} -t 1 -c 1 -o {}.mkv -f mkv -e xvid -b 1200 -2  -a 1 -E faac -B 160 -R 0 -6 dpl2 -D 1 -C 2  -v '{}' \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
echo trans.sh finished on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
echo attempting to add advert chapter markers on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.mkv" -exec /home/server/scripts/mkvmerge.sh "{}" \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
echo advert chapter markers added on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
echo starting clear up on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
cd "/mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/" || { echo >&2 "Source folder not found"; exit 1; } >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find . -type f -name "*.ts" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.ts}.ts.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find . -type f -name "*.ts" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.ts}.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find . -type f -name "*.ts.mkv" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.ts.mkv}.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find . -type f -name "*.ts.chap" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.ts.chap}.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.mkv" -exec mv {} /media/video/Video \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.edl" -exec rm {} \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.txt" -exec rm {} \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
echo ts files deleted and moved script stopped on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log

This is run by a cron job every morning. It uses Handbrake to transcode the .ts file to a .mkv file. It then runs a third script (below called mkvmerge.sh) to use mkvmerge to add chapter markers to the mkv file that Handbrake created. Finally, it moves the mkv file to where all my Videos are stored. At the very end, there are some commands to delete the .ts files and the intermediate .mkv files ONLY if the mkv file has been correctly created.

Here is the mkvmerge.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
echo mkvmerge.sh started on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/trans.log
VIDEO=$1
ENC=${VIDEO##*/}
mkvmerge --chapters "${VIDEO%/*}/${ENC%%.*}.ts.chap" "$VIDEO" -o "/mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/${ENC%%.*}.mkv"

This script is called by the main Ubuntu trans.sh script above.

I also have a separate script that I use to transcode the .m2ts files produced by the Sony PS3’s PlayTV program:

#!/bin/bash
echo transm2ts.sh started on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` > /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.m2ts" >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
chmod -R 777 /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.m2ts" -exec /home/server/Desktop/handbrake/HandBrakeCLI -i {} -t 1 -c 1 -o {}.mkv -f mkv -w 720 -e xvid -b 1200 -2 -a 1 -E faac -B 160 -R 0 -6 dpl2 -D 1 -C 2 -v '{}' \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
echo transm2ts.sh finished on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
echo starting clear up on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
cd "/mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/" || { echo >&2 "Source folder not found"; exit 1; } >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
find . -type f -name "*.m2ts" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.m2ts}.m2ts.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
find . -type f -name "*.m2ts" -exec sh -c '[ -f "${1%.m2ts}.mkv" ]' _ {} \; -delete >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
find /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV -name "*.mkv" -exec mv {} /media/video/Video/TV \; >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
echo m2ts files deleted and moved script stopped on `date "+%m/%d/%y %l:%M:%S %p"` >> /mnt/media/documents/ruperts/TV/transm2ts.log
exit

Because Comskip can’t be run on .m2ts files, I don’t call the mkvmerge.sh script, since there is no .chap file to use.

I would freely admit that these scripts aren’t very user friendly, since they are customised just for my setup. However, if readers would prefer a useful version that was more user-friendly, I could create that. It is possible to convert the Ubuntu Bash script into a Bat script for Windows. However, I don’t think there is any alternative to the mkvmerge file for Windows that the Ubuntu script uses.

Also, sadly, the devs of Handbrake are a little blinkered. They created the CLI interface so you can run Handbrake via the commandline, which is great. The CLI also creates Exit codes, which is very useful for scripting. However, the Exit codes only tell you if the CLI worked correclty, not if Handbrake worked correctly. So if the transcode failes, but the CLI worked corretly, it will exit as if nothing went wrong. Sadly the Handbrake devs don’t see this as a problem. Kind stupid imho, but hey, it’s their loss. Thus, there is no way of telling if the transcode worked correctly or not, the only way to check is to see if the file you want to be created is there…doh!

Bash and Windows batch script file name variable conversion

I’ve been getting into Bash and Windows Batch scripting recently (as part of my ongoing battle to get my HTPC working correctly with MediaPortal).

One problem I kept on coming across was how to pass different variations of the variable you pass to your script, sometimes I wanted the full path to the file, other times I just wanted the filename with the file extension, other times I wanted just the folder the file was located in.

It took a fair bit of googling and experimentation with terms to find the right information, so I have decided to amass it all here to help others (and me).

For Bash Scripting

(taken from linuxgazette)

Given:
foo=/tmp/my.dir/filename.tar.gz

We can use these expressions:

path = ${foo%/*}

To get: /tmp/my.dir (like dirname)

file = ${foo##*/}

To get: filename.tar.gz (like basename)

base = ${file%%.*}

To get: filename

ext = ${file#*.}

To get: tar.gz

For Windows Batch Scripting

(taken from imagemagick)

These two pieces of info can thus be used to pass any variable or variation of that variable to a command in your script.

Using these tools I have been able to get MediaPortal to automatically scan each new recording for adverts using comskip and then transfer the recording, alongside the necessary advert info files to my network hard drive on my server using a batch script. Then the server runs a bash script each morning to scan for new files on the new recordings file, convert them to MKV using Handbrake and add chapter markers and then move the MKV files to my networked videos file. Cool!

Bluetooth controlled motion start-up script

So, after messing with ZoneMinder and creating a bluetooth script for it, I am now messing with motion instead, and have modified the script accordingly.

For kicks, I have hosted it on google code

http://code.google.com/p/bluetoothmotion/

It also details a fix for the problem with motion on Ubuntu and the /etc/init.d/motion stratup script.

Turn programs on and off with Bluetooth in Ubuntu

Having recently been messing around with ZoneMinder for home security, I wanted to turn on and off the program using Bluetooth. Basically, the idea being that when I am around, the server will sense my presence (no Darth Vadar jokes please ) via the Bluetooth on my phone and turn off ZoneMinder. Then, if I leave the location of the server, it will no longer be able to sense Bluetooth on my phone and thus will turn on ZoneMinder.

So, I hunted around for such a program, I came across bluemon and BlueProximity, but they both only worked on proximity, i.e. they relied on you being near by, as far as I could tell, there was no option of running an action when the phone was completely unavailable.

So, I decided to write my own script to do what I wanted. Now, bear in mind I have very little skill when it comes to Bash and scripting and what I wrote was a result of trial and error. It all revolves around a tool called hcitool that can be used in Linux to control Bluetooth connections.

The first attempt at my script can be found here and with another link below.

It is only designed to work with ZoneMinder and there isn’t much advice within the code, but I shall update it as time goes by to make it more useful

Here is the full link to the script:

bluetoothscan

Tags: bluetooth, Code, Scripts, ubuntu