Is communication 2-way with WMC?
#1
I'm having some issues with recordings showing up in the Recorded TV listings under Live TV and recordings being indicated in the EPG in XBMC.
Because my skin doesn't support the dialog boxes associated with series recordings, I set them directly in WMC.
However, even though those recordings go directly to the same folder, they do not show up in the Recorded TV listing.
It's unclear to me how that folder is composed in XBMC. Is it simply scanned for files with the appropriate extensions?
The same with the EPG: do only recordings initiated in XBMC show up in the EPG with a timer indicator? Or can ServerWMC somehow query WMC for future recordings?

As a separate issue, I've already posted as Feature Request for support for .wtv files in the normal TV folders. I don't quite understand why all sorts of other files will show up, but not .wtv files.
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#2
Yes, generally things should be 2 way with WMC. Things you do on the WMC side should be visible in XBMC and vice versa.

Specifcally talking about recordings and timers, this is more krusty's area but from looking at the code the recordings and timers come from the WMC database. I dont see any code to actually scrape the file system but my WMC shows recordings that I have in my file system that I placed there manually (eg test files I downloaded from you guys on the forums here) so Im assuming WMC takes care of getting recordings into it's database whether they were actually recorded by WMC or just happen to be present on the file system.

Also FYI the display in XBMC is a stacked/virtual structure where you drill down into the show name, then see all episodes of that show rather than a flat list.

So from what you describe I do think that your recordings should be showing in XBMC. Im not sure about whether the EPG items are decorated based on XBMC knowing there is a Timer for that slot or whether the EPG item has to be flagged/associated by us as it is sent over... but we can focus on the recording list first and then look at the timer list second.


To proceed further we need a ServerWMC log but in your case I think we also need to enable the logging of reply message fields so we can see precisely what is being sent back to XBMC. Can you enable LogReplyMessages in the config.xml file and restart ServerWMC, connect your client so it retrieves Recordings and Timers and then post the log to pastebin?

Also you should mention what shows/timers you have setup in WMC that you dont think are coming across, and we can look through the logs for those items.



Oh one other thing to note is that recordings that fail metadata lookups will not be sent across (this can be disabled in config file UseMetaDataForRecordings). The log file will say if this is happening
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#3
(2014-02-11, 16:14)scarecrow420 Wrote: Yes, generally things should be 2 way with WMC. Things you do on the WMC side should be visible in XBMC and vice versa.

Specifcally talking about recordings and timers, this is more krusty's area but from looking at the code the recordings and timers come from the WMC database. I dont see any code to actually scrape the file system but my WMC shows recordings that I have in my file system that I placed there manually (eg test files I downloaded from you guys on the forums here) so Im assuming WMC takes care of getting recordings into it's database whether they were actually recorded by WMC or just happen to be present on the file system.

Also FYI the display in XBMC is a stacked/virtual structure where you drill down into the show name, then see all episodes of that show rather than a flat list.

So from what you describe I do think that your recordings should be showing in XBMC. Im not sure about whether the EPG items are decorated based on XBMC knowing there is a Timer for that slot or whether the EPG item has to be flagged/associated by us as it is sent over... but we can focus on the recording list first and then look at the timer list second.


To proceed further we need a ServerWMC log but in your case I think we also need to enable the logging of reply message fields so we can see precisely what is being sent back to XBMC. Can you enable LogReplyMessages in the config.xml file and restart ServerWMC, connect your client so it retrieves Recordings and Timers and then post the log to pastebin?

Also you should mention what shows/timers you have setup in WMC that you dont think are coming across, and we can look through the logs for those items.



Oh one other thing to note is that recordings that fail metadata lookups will not be sent across (this can be disabled in config file UseMetaDataForRecordings). The log file will say if this is happening

Thanks!!! That was a whole lot of useful information. I think that the metadata lookup is probably primarily responsible because it is the 'copy once' shows that are giving me a problem. What I decided to do was configure WMC as an external player that I would use via the Play using... menu for .wtv shows that can't be transcoded because of the copy once flag. My hope was to still see those shows in XBMC but play them using WMC. I will give your recommendations a try and report back. Thanks again.
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#4
Ah right, I always forget about DRM since we dont have that in Australia on our free to air channels, and we dont have cable cards etc for getting cable/sat channels in a PC setup (well not easily anyway).

ServerWMC hides Copy Protected recordings since only WMC is able to play them back so there was no point in showing them in XBMC, so it sounds like that's why they aren't showing in your list.

Luckily though, there is a setting in the config file called HideContentProtectedRec that can control this behaviour so if you set that to false they should come through to your recordings list in XBMC (which wont be able to play them natively of course).

Not sure how the external player stuff works in XBMC but if it can work off items in the LiveTV recordings list then this could give you what you are after!

Alternatively if you just added your Recorded TV folder as a source in Videos then you would be able to go into Video->Files section and should be able to see the WTV files
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#5
(2014-02-11, 16:42)scarecrow420 Wrote: Alternatively if you just added your Recorded TV folder as a source in Videos then you would be able to go into Video->Files section and should be able to see the WTV files

That's exactly what I have been doing Big Grin But I was hoping I could get them to show up in the Recorded TV list (or even better in the normal TV folder) so that there are fewer places to go looking for newly recorded content. I may have a go at seeing if there is a way to do this with a smart playlist.
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#6
(2014-02-11, 16:53)KenV99 Wrote:
(2014-02-11, 16:42)scarecrow420 Wrote: Alternatively if you just added your Recorded TV folder as a source in Videos then you would be able to go into Video->Files section and should be able to see the WTV files

That's exactly what I have been doing Big Grin But I was hoping I could get them to show up in the Recorded TV list (or even better in the normal TV folder) so that there are fewer places to go looking for newly recorded content. I may have a go at seeing if there is a way to do this with a smart playlist.

Not sure if you saw my post but you should be able to get them in your recording list by changing the config file setting I highlighted. Whether you can launch external player from recordings list, im not sure though...

Also as already mentioned, if you do want help to look into things further, get a logfile with LogReplyMessages on up to pastebin, so we can see what's actually being transmitted etc
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#7
Xbmc will show recordings that are scheduled by wmc. However, it currently doesn't get an event telling it when wmc has created a new timer, so xbmc won't show the new timer unless it is forced to re-read the database. If you want to see this, just restart xbmc and you'll see the new timers you created using wmc.
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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Is communication 2-way with WMC?0