Is there a PUSH verion of TyTool?

[FredThompson]

Here's the idea:

A version of TyTool starts every day at a specified time, say, 2AM. It pushes extracted streams across a TurboNet connection to another IP address. Maybe it's local, maybe not, doesn't really matter.

The destination machine should be running a password-protected FTP server which the modified TyTool logs onto.

Filenames would be based on some unique characteristic of the saved file. Perhaps the easiest would be a date/time stamp. If this is done, it should be easy for the program to know the last properly exported streams, it would just keep a file with a dtg as the contents.

If you've got enough storage space, this could be very helpful because the conversion/extraction would take place automatically. Editing/muxing would still be necessary but the delay associated with manually initiating a pull extraction would be removed.

This could also be nice if the destination is really large. If the Tivo's storage ever got full and it started freeing up space, the risk of loss would be minimized because of the extracted streams.

Oh...guess there would have to be some form of integrity testing to make sure the complete stream was sent properly.

Hmm...thinking with my keyboard active, apparently.

[phrend]

Interesting idea... sounds like you need to start scripting! :)

[FredThompson]

Yeah.

The more I think about this, the better it seems.

Granted, I'm not interested in keeping huge stores of stuff on the TiVo. If I was, I'd probably be one of the people who's excited about 9th Tee's new controller.

I'm still thinking through the various permutations of how this would work.

For example, what if the destination machine has a timed event to check for new files in the upload directory. (It has to know the uploads are complete first, maybe it only works on things that are two days old. In any event...) Then suppose that triggers a scripted execution of a muxing routine?

All that would be left then is GOP-aware editing if the mux is done properly.

I need to think through this for a while to find the gotchas. Still, imagine the time savings it could bring...

I guess if you really wanted to, you could launch a secondary encoder with a template to re-encode for the format/size you wanted if you're not burning to DVDR. I wouldn't, I hate ads, but it could be done.

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wrt me doing the coding, I'm far more capable of doing scripted control of Windows aps then the Linux needed to make this work. The whole thing could actually be done on a Windows machine. It will be far easier to detect new stored programs on the TiVo itself, though.

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Sure wish the DirecTiVo had fully addressable USB ports on the back...

[phrend]

Look around in the forum - there are other apps to extract that run on the TiVo and send the audio and video files to an NFS or SMB mount.

[FredThompson]

TyTool is best at getting proper extraction.

[FredThompson]

Oh, that's wonderful information.

OK, I'll look into this.

I beta test web spiders and do a lot with scripting. Should be fairly easy to come up with a way to make this completely automated.

I'm in NC with a buds in other states. You've just given me even more ideas. Thanks for your reply.

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The downside of the forum organization is there's lots of old info. Hence, my comment about TyTool. The upside is the kind of response that's just happened here. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate this information.

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by rc3105
there are serveral people doing auto extraction re-insert and streaming playback from a pc

--
Riley

Are these publicly available tools you're referring to?

[FredThompson]

Was that a reference to nfs servers?

If a FULLY automated extraction doesn't already exist, I can put a package together to do it.

The spider I use most often is Offline Explorer. It's the most powerful but also commercial.

I'm hoping to put together a set of instructions and software that are freely distributed. That's easily done it's just going to take a little while to find the right mix of power and simplicity. For example, I'd prefer to NOT require folks to have Python.

It will take a little longer to do it with free software but that will certainly be more helpful for other people.

There are some fairly simple free scripting packages that support variables. I'll look at some of them later tonight. Right now I don't know anything about nfs servers. The challenge with making a FULLY automated package is duplicating the thought of knowing what's available, if it's complete, was it fully transferred properly, is there enough room to do another transfer, etc.

Going to take a little while anyhow, my unit left today to be serviced in PA. :(

[FredThompson]

Riley, is this the kind of thing you meant?

MfsStream Web Module

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13409&highlight=nfs+server

I've just started looking through it.

If I understand correctly, they're talking about adding hotlinks to TivoWeb pages that would yield a converted stream.

If THAT'S true, it would be incredibly easy to run an automated pull process by using a web spider set to grab changed content and unspidered links only.

(OMG, I just realized I had this same conversation a year ago in a ng. I must be getting old. Going full circle and don't even realize it.)

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by rc3105
tivoweb with click and extract is old news

*wishin for firewire ports myself - tcp over 1394 ROCKS!

Great!! That saves a lot of work.

Can you provide a link or a good search phrase? "TivoWeb extract" gets a LOT of unwanted hits. I see hits for the stickies. Wish the search would give deeper thread links.

The nice thing about USB2 is it's faster than firewire (480 vs. 400) and people are used to it. Surprised the snot out of me when I saw that. I like the way USB2 is backwards compatible also considering I've got game controllers, keyboards, etc. Been seeing USB on camcorders far more often. Wonder if Apple pulled a Sony too long and honked people off. That's sure how it looked while USB2 was being put together.

Then again, firewire would be cool if the TiVo would extract to DV. Taking a camcorder with you? Put something on those "blank" tapes for the trip.

Sure would be cool if there was a hidden flip-down panel on the front of the DirecTiVo units with ports. Pull the keyboard from the PC and go right to command-line on the TiVo.

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by FredThompson


Sure would be cool if there was a hidden flip-down panel on the front of the DirecTiVo units with ports. Pull the keyboard from the PC and go right to command-line on the TiVo.

Kind of hard when there is no VGA out or keyboard controller on the box.

[FredThompson]

USB driver and video overlay.

Wouldn't be for heavy stuff. Just thinking "out loud" that it might be easier to plug in a keyboard for simple commands. An ML keyboard driver wouldn't take up that much room. Biggest challenge would probably be getting the hardware info.

Could be cool, though. Prep a 120G drive with something like Xtreme that includes keyboard/videotext support and pop that in the box. Forget serial cables, ya got a keyboard and hidden ports on the front.

Been wondering how they test the series 2 units since there's no edge connector. Wonder if they do it through the USB ports. If so, there might even be some useful code hidden away in those.

[FredThompson]

Methinks this is the culprit I was looking for:

mfsstreamweb97.zip

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13409&perpage=15&highlight=nfs%20and%20server&pagenumber=7

[phrend]

Search for mfsstream3x.zip - it's the updated version I think...

[FredThompson]

Found it last night but the post says it's for version 3.0. The DirecTiVos don't support that yet. Still, maybe it also works with 2.5x. I'll look into it. Thanks for the reply.

[FredThompson]

So...what are they named?

What have you found that performs better than TyTool?

[FredThompson]

It's obvious you're very familiar with this stuff but your replies have seemed non-specific at time to the point they're almost non-answers because they lead to more questions to try to get to the answers.

BubbleLamp was most likely also asking for names or references, not just, "yes, they're GPLed."

Please take a little more time to give some specific names/search terms. For example, "insert utils" will most likely bring appropriate hits but what, specifically, are the ones which should be considered? (ok, not the best example because you linked a thread. It's VERY helpful, btw, thanks.)

wrt TyTool, you made the statement there are more accurate ways to extract but didn't give a specific example. If there's something better, of course we'd rather use it but can't without knowing what it is.

You probably don't realize your replies, while helpful, aren't frequently giving enough to go on, they're leading to more questions to try to get enough to go on. Please provide more guidance.

[FredThompson]

Thanks for your reply.

I could tell, from poking around the boards, that you have a very good feel for what's up with the current state of development.

Yeah, I saw your thread about putting a DVD burner inside the box. That's really cool. Maybe people weren't interested because the burners are so much more expensive than CDRW drives and the lack of really good editing tools to run inside the box. Prices on drives are dropping so that will be a different issue within a year. That leaves editing and the hardware support. I dug into the data formats last night hoping to find a way to do intra-GOP cutting. Not as simple as I had hoped. We'll see. Been digging into MPEG-2 algorithms but the vast difference in CPU power really makes my shy away from editing on the TiVo itself. Hoping to put together an intra-GOP frame remover that can be distirbuted for free...

Wonder if the edge connector could be used with a mini-PC controller card to do anything helpful. Controllers are usually expensive, though...

Maybe the new boxes, if there truly are some, will be better suited for the kind of expansion you're working on. Don't remember where I first saw a mention of them, some tech board, but last night I noticed some of the ebay dealers also said Sony has dropped prices on the T60s. Then again, I'd also expect a lot more internal encryption...

Don't know what response you've had from other folks. When I saw your comment about moving stuff between boxes I immediately sent the thread to a buddy who lives about 1500 miles away. We're certainly interested.

Thanks, again, for your reply. All the bickering about which extraction methods to use and all of that is a real mess to dig through. The TyTool thread has a lot of posts but the tail end talks about problems then it just stopped months ago.

[FredThompson]

I really hate how this server gets clogged/confused/whatever and edit sessions are lost:mad:

I was working with AviSynth to replace some bad frames in an AVI tonight and realized there's no need to re-encode while doing intra-GOP editing.

You can't just remove non-I-frames without screwing up the stream, right?

So...convert the GOPs with the first and last frames of the section to be removed into a collection of I-frames then delete.

Sort of, I wouldn't actually code it like that. I'd make a table of instructions that's sorted by frame number and use it with a filter to the export routine.

That way you're not screwing with the original file which makes the process a lot easier. You're also not re-encoding or trying to make padding frames. You're just passing the MPEG-2 stream or sending I-frames for the GOPs that were partially cut.

Think I'd also include the option to insert some null (black only) frames. Sometimes a segment has a fade to black and the next one starts real bright. Padding with a few null frames could be nice. No, that's done automatically as part of the cut process. Just a few frames, 4, maybe 8.

So...that's a table of text that's a linear organization of instructions of how to process the stream when exporting.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of the "editor" being an HTML frontend served by TivoWeb. We'd certainly have a very universal interface then. Maybe it has a 1/2 or 1/3 size "preview" of frames with a slider under it and the list of instructions is on the right of the screen.

I guess there'd have to be a way to save the list of instructions and the power of the client should be used with scripts to free up the TiVo as much as possible.

Oh, there's an idea. Maybe the extracted stream is sent through the scripts on the client and THEY do the filtering. That frees up the TiVo as much as possible. Oh, I like that. The power of the PC is probably far greater than the TiVo and there's lots more room to work. All it really needs is the ability to tell the TiVo which frame it wants. (Ok, there's a little more but not much.)

Wow, I could design the client-side for that.

Wonder if you could also frame-serve to a PC via an .avs extension. That would be cool.

Hmm...a script-based pre-processor that provides frame-accurate cutting with as little modification to the original encoding as possible. You could extract the result as an MPEG-2 stream or frame-serve to a computer from conversion to another format. Wonder if that would be a faster way as opposed to pulling the files out then doing the operations.

I need to think about this some more and do a little more research. Been reading up on packet structure. The TiVo certainly has all the bi-directional capabilities needed.

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My interest is a little different than what I suspect yours is. I'm not that interested in editing and sending that edited content to another TiVo. That makes this a little easier, I think.

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Thanks for the advice on moving and piping. That looks like the last piece I needed to watch stuff while in my office as the unit is on another floor, joined to the LAN.

[Hi8]

Originally posted by rc3105

I'm in texas, my gf is in nebraska, with a cable modem on her end and a sat modem here I can watch shows off her tivo or upload a dvd to her nowshowing.

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Riley

sounds like if you moved closer together you wouldn't need to watch so much TiVo!

:D

[GambleR]

I have been following the various insertion threads and think that RC3105, AlphaWolf, and TivoDvlpr have been driving a lot of good work. I am a 'user' waiting for something more packaged that I can use. I assume things are progressing though the threads at alt.org have gone dark the last couple of weeks.

Anyway, Riley, I would be interested in a cookbook of how you insert a DVD into NowShowing as I would love to have this capability.

[FredThompson]

Wow!!! How about this as the slave computer?

http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/

Win2k running under Linux on an XBox. Granted, a TV can't do much more than 640x480 and it's a little iffy at that, but still. Imagine how much easier it will be to support this way?

Might be a lot easier to get a DVD burner wedged into an XBox that's slaved to the TiVo. It'll certainly be much easier to get full editing aps, be they for video or disc layout/menuing.

Granted, Microsquash just changed the XBox hardware so getting the right modchip support will be a challenge. Still, this might be something to seriously consider.

I have a BookPC (800 mHz P3) and there are things like the Shuttles and really small ATX boards but why not get the XBox considering M$ is willing support $200 or so of the hardware cost?

OMG - This is incredible news IF it can be a sustained platform.