Hi all,

Been coding on a web scheduler application - aTVScheduler, that lets you schedule TV-shows for recording with MyTheatre among other DVB programs. I'm quite satisfied with the result and thought that maybe it could be of use for some of you aswell...

It's a Java standalone program, it uses XMLTV data for input and the internal windows scheduler to handle start/stop of the DVB software.

Please take a look at server.logoff.nu/atv for more info. All feedback appreciated

Regards
H

I'll check this out as soon as I have the time, from following the links this looks like a its based on some earlier work called jTV, if so a big thankyou. I have been using this program with Mytheatre for the last 9 months with no problems. It makes setting up a recording schedule very easy.
It took a little bit of effort to set up, I only had one unresolved issue which was that I had to go into Mytheatre scheduler and manual tick on ever program the option to wake the computer up out of standby for a recording to start automatically, minor issue that I can live with and may not even be with jTV.
It takes about 10 minutes to set up a weeks schedule of recording (around 20 shows) after that the computer just wakes up records the shows and goes back into standby. I know this sounds like a basic Media center function but I've yet to find a Media center that works well with our true FTA satellites most had special functions added by hackers or couldn't funtion as reliably as MT on our satellites.

It may be a week or so but I will let you know how the new version works out.

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Yes it´s true that the application was called jTV earlier but i changed
the name to 'aTV Scheduler' when jTV was already used for a similar application.

But take the new version for a spin and lets see what you think, there's been quite some changes to it the past months.

/h

Hi Hasse Sorry for the delay in replying I have been away a while and are only just getting caught up. I did get a chance to try the new aTVScheduler and like it a lot,:) :up the timeline option is particularly nice,:up is the an option anywhere to extend the grid to 6 hours?
I'm still having the same issue I mentioned above to wake the computer from standby, not that it's a big deal, I'm just curious if it's something I can fix in my configuration or a limitation of aTV

Right now I'm having another issue which is nothing to do with aTV, my source of xmltv files has gone down, I was using a zap2it grabber (http://zap2xml.110mb.com/) to download a custom true FTA listing like this (http://poptopcamper.freehostia.com/creating_a_web_based_tv_program.htm).
None of the sources of xmltv data including schedule direct have the option to included enough line ups from different areas so this was the only way to easily do it, hopefully it well get fixed soon.
I'm working on a solution using mc2xm (http://mc2xml.110mb.com/)l it works but I have to manually combine the files, if I can get a one button option to work it will be a better solution.

Hi again, glad you liked it!
Regarding the 'TimeLine' it's still a bit of a beta function, it's not 100 percent exact in it's representation of start/stop times, but still fairly good. But i will look deeper into that.
I made it a 3 hours span initially but you gave me the idea to perhaps make it an user option...when i get the time :)
But you did notice the arrows in the upper right corner and that allows scroll one hour at the time?

About the option to make the computer wake from standby for scheduled items I first thought it was a piece of cake to fix. But it was not :(
It's unfortunately not an option when scheduled items are created with schtasks.exe (strange though when this options exist when it's done from within the Scheduled Items in the Control Panel). I still haven't find a good way to circumvent this....any ideas are of course welcome!

/h

I finally figured out how to get mc2xml working as a source of xmltv data for our satellites, if anyone else needs the data to set it up let me know and I will get the files to you.

Hausse, I noticed those arrows to move the time line along 1 hour :up if you get time to change the grid maybe you could consider making the arrows move the grid along for the time period of the grid and not just 1 hour at a time or making it an option.

Sorry figuring out the scheduled tasks is bit beyond me, quite a bit beyond........:what
I did notice something that might be relevant, when I schedule a recording it appears in the list of scheduled recordings but as soon as i go into Mytheatre and click on the option to wake from standby and apply, the scheduled recording listed in aTV is removed from the list (after a screen refresh).
After I have enabled the wake from standby option in MyTheatre for all the recordings scheduled, often about 20 for a week, no scheduled recording are shown in aTV at all.
Not a big issue, just something to be aware of when scheduling recordings in this way.

Thanks again for a very useful piece of software. :)

Hasse
did the demo look's great. going start building my htpc next week. sick of playing with my az box.
sure will give your software a spin when i can.
thanks for sharing

Hi again,
Well it sound a bit strange that your changes to the scheduled task make them disappear from aTV Scheduler. The only reason for this is that they're renamed (not prefixed with 'aTV_' anymore) or simply that they have been deleted.

I'm not sure how or what you do in MyTheatre to accomplish this but it seems rather complicated and time consuming. So I started to look a bit deeper into the problem.

I've made a small program that *perhaps* will solve the problem. It scans through the aTV tasks created and alters them to have the 'Wake from Standby' flag enabled. Atleast it looks like that when I check the tasks via Windows (only checked XP at this point...)

But I have not tested that it actually works...

The program is called EnableWakeFromStandby.exe and by default it looks for
tasks in c:\Windows\Tasks that are prefixed with 'aTV_' and alters them all.

If the above path is not the correct one it can be overridden by giving another
path as an argument when the program is started. The easiest way to run it is
simply copy it to the toolbox directory in aTV and run it from the Web gui I guess.

you can download it from server.logoff.nu/atv/ewfs.zip

Hopefully it will work and suite your needs.

madmadworld; Thanks, you're welcome! :)

EDIT
Made a test and probably the case is that the Task Scheduler does not recognize the changed jobs directly.
So to accomplish this wrap the EnableWakeFromStandby.exe in an .bat file that stops/starts the service.

This file could contain something like this;

@echo off

echo Invoking EnableWakeFromStandby.exe %1 ^<BR^>
net stop "Task Scheduler"
c:\atv\bin\EnableWakeFromStandby.exe %1
net start "Task Scheduler"

exit 0

/hasse

I've been playing around with it a bit more and you are correct as soon as Mytheatre "wake by task"is enabled from Mytheatre (Mytheatre-right click-actions-open scheduler-Wake by Task)) the complete task is renamed from aTV to Mytheatre hence the reason for it disappearing in aTV.

Your new utility nearly fixes the issue, it looks like there are still 2 issues.

1) I think it also needs to enable the "run only if logged on" flag, in windows scheduled tasks as well as the "wake the computer to run this task" flag that it currently enables.

I noticed that when Mytheatre makes a change to a schedule task to "wake by task" these are the 2 extra flags it enables in windows scheduled tasks

I've been Googling the subject and apparently XP is very reluctant to run any scheduled task without a password enabled. There are various hacks and work arounds suggested but so far I have been unable to get any to work


I thought by manually selected "run only if logged on" it would solve the issue but this is where things start to get weird

2) After 1) above to get the PC to wake I also have to go into schedules tasks, select the schedules tab where the time for the start of the recording is shown and select any item in the window to cause the apply button to light up it is not necessary to change anything although changing something and then reversing the change is an easy way of getting the apply button to light up.
After clicking on the apply button the PC will now successfully wake from standby and record as scheduled :)



Just noticed your edit to the post, I will give it a try if I can figure it out, I'm working at the limit of my very limited knowledge here :eek: :D

Hi,

This looks interesting but will it work on XP SP2?

The last time I upgraded my pc to SP3 it messed it up badly.
I do not trust or like windows at all. And I've heard only BAD things about SP3.

Last time I put SP3 on my pc I had to wipe it out and start clean because it screwed up pretty much everything. The hard disks started crashing and losing data, I lost two 500gb Seagates because of SP3. I went back to SP2 and I've had no troubles since.

Thanks. :)

I'm using XP professional SP3

I have used earlier versions of this program with SP2

Hi again,

Sadie; yes try with the bat file to start with. If it still won't work I can try to
see if i can enable the other flag aswell.

It's easy to do;
1. Create a new text file with NotePad and copy/paste the content from my previous post into it. (the text in italic)
2. Save the file in the format .txt but enter the filename within quotes, eg "WakeStandby.bat" That makes sure the file suffix will be .bat and not .txt.
3. Make sure that the path to the EnableWakeFromStandby.exe in the .bat file corresponds to the actual path of the executable.
4. Move the .bat file to the toolbox directory and run it from there...

Dee_Ann; Yes SP2 should be no problem as long as you run XP Professional.
If you're using XP Home this version lacks the schtasks.exe that aTV use to schedule items...

i know i don't have XP professional.

one of my atsc cards uses titan i wonder if you could some how add FTA to it. that would pretty cool. ???

thanks

I believe the are various work arounds for XP Home to either add "schtasks.exe" or an equivalent utility, you might want to try Googling the subject.

Its Working now!! :) The bat file did the job perfectly thanks very much :up

The doesn't seem to be any need to enable the "run only if logged on" flag, although I've only tested it on my laptop which has a password enabled to log on, my HTPC has a blank password, I should get a chance to try that tonight.

I had to include some quotation marks in the path to the executable due to the being some spaces in the description on my system

My final bat file looks like this

@echo off

echo Invoking EnableWakeFromStandby.exe %1 ^<BR^>
net stop "Task Scheduler"
"C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\aTV\toolbox\EnableWakeFromStandby.exe" %1
net start "Task Scheduler"

exit 0

Edit: Sorry I forgot my HTPC has a password enabled

I'm happy it works!

Also, many thanks for your input!

/h

Hi again,

Sadie; yes try with the bat file to start with. If it still won't work I can try to
see if i can enable the other flag aswell.

It's easy to do;
1. Create a new text file with NotePad and copy/paste the content from my previous post into it. (the text in italic)
2. Save the file in the format .txt but enter the filename within quotes, eg "WakeStandby.bat" That makes sure the file suffix will be .bat and not .txt.
3. Make sure that the path to the EnableWakeFromStandby.exe in the .bat file corresponds to the actual path of the executable.
4. Move the .bat file to the toolbox directory and run it from there...

Dee_Ann; Yes SP2 should be no problem as long as you run XP Professional.
If you're using XP Home this version lacks the schtasks.exe that aTV use to schedule items...

Oh goody! I checked and it says xp professional sp2.
I think I will look into your little program this evening.

Thank you!! :)

I totally give up. This is WAY over my head. All sorts of other programs have to be installed and all sorts of cryptic programs have to be edited.

Far too complicated for me.

I will just not have a tv guide .

My new HDTV can show LOTS of information about what's playing and what's coming up. But my COMPUTER can't? That's crazy. :mad:

See, I don't watch TV using the tuner in the new TV, my pc is the tuner for satellites and for antenna and it plays on the tv by a cable.
IF it had a guide I could schedule things to record in advance. As it is now, I have to stumble upon things by accident, hit record and be happy if I can catch at least some of the show on recording.

Can the hdtv download it's tv guides into the pc? It of course would only be antenna tv and not satellite but that would be better than nothing.

As for this, well, I guess it's cool that you super geeks can make it work but us little goblins way down at the bottom just can't comprehend all that programming gobblety-gook.. :(

I've been thinking of doing a how to for this, I will add it to my "to do list".

Setting up aTV is not too bad, but getting the xmltv data for the TV guide is a real pain.

You would think the industry would make this easy, after all you need a guide to watch your favourite programs, instead they seem afraid that you might record the program and watch it at your convenience. In which case they want a piece of the action.

The data is out there but its not that easy to use either the pay way or the free way.

I finally figured out how to get mc2xml working as a source of xmltv data for our satellites, if anyone else needs the data to set it up let me know and I will get the files to you.Please send it to me. Can you post them here for others in a zip archive, adding a Read me file with Instructions?

Is there no way to simplify this ?
I tried to figure it out but the entire thing is just sooooo above and beyond my ability to comprehend.

Dee_Ann
I'm working on a one button installation for this but it will be some what limited, I need to confirm 2 things.

1) that you have Mytheatre installed in this directory C:\Program Files\MyTheatre
This is the default installation for most setups.

2) That the date format in your computer is in the form MM/DD/YYYY
Hold your mouse over the time displayed at the bottom right corner of most monitor screens.
It can be changed if not, but its one more step.

If all goes according to plan this should get aTV installed and displaying data for 6 FTA channels I have selected, to get it to record will involve one more step and some file editing, I will post a how to on that step.

Zamar23
I should have something up in the next few days

Will it display data for channels you didn't happen to choose (say may be you don't like them personally)? :)

Will it display data for channels you didn't happen to choose (say may be you don't like them personally)?

It will but that's the subject of its own how to, its also the biggest pain in the whole set up :D

Dee_Ann
I'm working on a one button installation for this but it will be some what limited, I need to confirm 2 things.

1) that you have Mytheatre installed in this directory C:\Program Files\MyTheatre
This is the default installation for most setups.

2) That the date format in your computer is in the form MM/DD/YYYY
Hold your mouse over the time displayed at the bottom right corner of most monitor screens.
It can be changed if not, but its one more step.

If all goes according to plan this should get aTV installed and displaying data for 6 FTA channels I have selected, to get it to record will involve one more step and some file editing, I will post a how to on that step.

Zamar23
I should have something up in the next few days

Yay!

Ok, I installed a program called my theater in the default directory just as you showed above.

For the date, mine shows "Monday, October 26, 2009" when I put the mouse over the clock.

I would dearly love to be able to use this thing but I just do not understand all that programming stuff. I spent a few hours trying to figure it out and I ended up with a migraine and I had to go lay down in a dark room for a few hours.

I'm just not very smart about programming stuff at all. Maybe I'm too old. I think it's a thing for the youngsters. :(

The one step installer for aTV and mc2xml for MyTheatre is finished and has been tested on my computer, however upon reading the legal details it appears I cannot re distribute these programs in this manor unless I have the authors permission, so it will not be publicly available until and unless I get their permission.

For the time being I can provide a copy of my files minus the .exe files for mc2xml and the aTV folder since its only necessary to change 2 folders that I have provided for this program.

Both these programs are very versatile and can be installed in many different ways by modifying the properties, chl, dat, and bat files, unfortunately you will have to do it my crazy way :D if you want to get it working with my files and the least bother. Once you see what’s going on, modify away to suit your needs.

Your computer must be set up as follows.
1) You have Mytheatre installed in this directory C:\Program Files\MyTheatre
this is the default installation for most setups.
2) That the date format in your computer is in the form MM/DD/YYYY
Hold your mouse over the time displayed at the bottom right corner of most monitor screens, it should display something like this "Monday, October 26, 2009" in a pop up window

The following is basically what the installer program will do for you, if released.

First step
Install mc2xml pre configured to download xmltv data for, PBS World, PBS Create, PBS HD East, PBS Montana, BIO and HISTORY Channel, more channel can be added but that’s subject will have to wait for another post.

1) Download this file (http://www.box.net/shared/ad3mv884i3) of mine and unzip, it contains a folder called mc2xml place it in the Mytheatre directory C:\Program Files\MyTheatre
2) Next go to the authors website (http://mc2xml.110mb.com/) and download mc2xml extract the contents and take mc2xml.exe and place it in the folder mc2xml which you created in the first step, it should be located at C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\mc2xml
3) The next step is optional but makes life easier later.
Open the folder C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\mc2xml (it should already be open) and locate the file mc2xml.bat right click on it and select “create shortcut”. Copy and then paste the shortcut to your desktop, if you wish you can rename it to “Update EPG” for example.

To run mc2mxl either go to the folder mc2xml located at C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\mc2xml and double click on the file mc2xml.bat or double click on the shortcut you just created.

A black window with text in it should pop up, just let it do its thing, it shows mc2xml progress in downloading the data.
With dial up it will take 10-15 minutes after it completes you should have a new file in the mc2xml folder called tvguide.xml , this is the data for the guide that aTV will use.

At this stage if you have a firewall installed you may get a warning and be required to give mc2xml.exe access.

Second Step
Installing aTV with my pre-configured aTV properties file.
1) Go to the aTV website (http://server.logoff.nu/atv/) and download the program, extract the contents and take the folder aTV (which should contain 10 items) and place it in the MyTheatre directory C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\
2) Download this file (http://www.box.net/shared/xx8p4uy9z9) of mine and unzip its contents, open the folder and copy the file atv.properties.
3) Open the aTV folder in the MyTheatre directory and then open the props folder.
You should now be in this folder C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\aTV\props.
Paste the file you previously copied into this folder, a window will pop up asking you to “confirm file replacement” click yes, you may wish to backup the existing file first.
4) The next step is optional but makes life easier later.
Return to the aTV folder C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\aTV , in it you will see a file called aTV.exe right click on it and select “create shortcut”. Copy the shortcut and then paste the shortcut to your desktop, if you wish you can rename.
5) The next step is also optional, it updates the image folder to contain logos for the channels we will be using. Return to step 2 and this time copy the folder images.
Open the folder C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\aTV and paste the folder here, again you will be asked to confirm the file replacement

Phew that’s it. :rolleyes: I hope it makes sense.

Running aTV

Either double click on the shortcut you created on your desktop or return to the aTV folder C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\aTV and double click on the file aTV.exe.
aTV should start up and a window will pop up, if all is working correctly it should contain something similar to this

[ logviewer ]
Tue Oct 27 15:26:03 - [ Read system properties ok ]
Tue Oct 27 15:26:03 - [ Parsing XML input file ]
Tue Oct 27 15:26:04 - [ Found 6 channels for 15 days ]
Tue Oct 27 15:26:04 - [ Starting server socket ]
Tue Oct 27 15:26:04 - [ Server socket started ok ]

Again at this stage if you have a firewall installed you may get a warning and be required to give aTV.exe access.

aTV server is now running on your computer to access it open a browser window and type in this address http://127.0.0.1:8080/ , you may wish to bookmark it.
The webpage gives you full access to aTV features and should be displaying data for 14-15 days .


A few more relatively simple steps are necessary to integrate aTV with MyTheatre so you can set up a recording schedule and enjoy some media center like features.
If any one actually gets this far I will post the instructions, also if you want other channels added to guide let me know RTV is the only other Ku band station with a schedule that I can think of at the moment. It”s also possible to add your local station to the guide but that will be another “how to” if any one is interested.

Thanks!

So, the xml data file must be re-downloaded twice a month?

Pls post your instructions on integrating aTV with My Theater and adding more channels to the Guide. At some point different people may be interested to use them.

What's the status of PC Wakeup from Standby issue in aTV to autostart scheduled recordings?

So, the xml data file must be re-downloaded twice a month?

The data is updated by the provider every week day, I generally update it once a week when I schedule recordings, occasionally there are changes as more info becomes available


Pls post your instructions on integrating aTV with My Theater and adding more channels to the Guide. At some point different people may be interested to use them.

Will do, probably in a few days for integrating aTV with MyTheatre, I'm still scratching my head wondering about the best way to explaining how to add more channels, I'll get something together.



What's the status of PC Wakeup from Standby issue in aTV to autostart scheduled recordings?

Its working great for me, the necessary changes are included in the files I provided, I will explain how to use it when I do the integration instructions

The guide for integrating aTV and MyTheatre can be found here (http://poptopcamper.freehostia.com/aTV%20intergrate.htm)

Great work with that guide!

I realize i'm lucky to be able to use the XMLTV Project for getting my tv-data in an easy way where i live...

But I have one little utility included in the toolbox directory that could speed up the channel mappings needed so that you don't have to check each and one channel for it's channelID.

On the toolbox page, execute 'MyTheatre Channels.exe' and give the path: "c:\program files\mytheatre\channels.mdb" as input (if thats were you have MyTheatre installed)
If all goes well this program reads the MyTheatre channel database and lists all channels and channelID.s. I guess this could make the configuration a bit easier.

keep up the good work!

Sadie

Thanks for the Guide! Can you make a .pdf file out of it and attach here just in case, that link is broken later?

Thanks Hasse, I'm slow I only just noticed that this morning :rolleyes: it works great, it all depends on how many channels you have in your MyTheatre channel data base which way is easier and faster, I will put both methods into the how to.
I keep on finding more capabilities in your program the more I delve into it, it really is a very useful program. :hatsoff:

Sadie

Thanks for the Guide! Can you make a .pdf file out of it and attach here just in case, that link is broken later?


I'll do that later when it gets to the final version, right now its sitting on one of my websites where its easy to edit and add images.

I want to add a detailed how to for mc2xml for what we do, it really is a very useful program and is highly configurable, you can download as many line ups as you want, just select the channels you want, combine them into one xmltv file, name that file whatever you need to and place it where ever you need to in your file system plus many other things. It can therefore be used with many other media center programs.

It does however take quite a bit to configure it do these things if like me your just learning and are not a programmer, besides if I don't write it down I'll forget when I have to change something in a year. :D

The mc2xml "how to" can be found this webpage (http://poptopcamper.freehostia.com/mc2xml%20start.htm) or below, I hope it makes some sense :)






44064
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Edited: The mc2xml long demo file won't work until tomorrow

The one step installer for aTV and mc2xml has now become a two step installer although the second step is a very small one.
The author of mc2xml did not wish to have his work included in a freeware product since it is actually donation ware, also in the past he has had problems with people including his work in commercial products and not compensating him, I can understand his position.
The extra step is to download mc2xml from its authors website (http://mc2xml.110mb.com/) and place it in the mc2xml folder in the Mytheatre directory that the installer creates C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\mc2xml
Just run setupProgramGuide.exe and IF you meet the requirements in my earlier post (http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-pc-dvb-discussion/184637-web-based-epg-scheduler-3.html#post2001028)the folders and files will be installed as described.
The rest of the set up is covered in my earlier post. The installer is packaged with an uninstaller called Program guide which can be accessed through the control panel, Add or Remove Programs
The following Channels are listed in the program guide

# 23 KEYTDT2 RTV
# 15 ION
# 58 HISTORY
# 111 WMFPDT2 RTV
# 112 PBS HD East
# 209 PBS WORLD
# 237 PBS CREATE
# 243 BIO
# 3 PBS MONTANA

I had trouble finding a good match for the RTV east and west listings, the 2 shown are fairly close, please let me know if you have a better match I will need the station callsign letters or any other that you would like added.

Download setupProgramGuide.exe (http://www.box.net/shared/7uytsv1epj)

Sadie

You haven't mentioned anything about adding local ATSC listings in a separate Group. Do you think, it may be logical given mass availability of ATSC PC tuners?

Sorry I guess I didn't make that clear in the mc2xml how to, you can't add the local listings as a separate group but you can add them to the list, I believe Mytheatre will accept some ATSC cards so it should work out OK.
To add another line we have to change the mc2xml.bat file (using notepad) to look like this.

mc2xml -D Line1.dat -C Line1.chl -o Line1.xml
mc2xml -D Line2.dat -C Line2.chl -I Line1.xml -o Line2.xml
mc2xml -D Line3.dat -C Line3.chl -I Line2.xml -o Line3.xml
mc2xml -D Line4.dat -I Line3.xml -o tvguide.xml

Or you can download this copy of the mc2xml folder and replace the existing one at C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\mc2xml with it, and place a copy of mc2xml.exe in it.

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After mc2xml downloads the first 3 line ups, a window will pop up asking for your zip code and other information as mentioned in the how to.
I haven't included a file to select what channels you want in your listing to do this first create a Line4.chl file with the channels you want and then change the mc2xml bat file as follows

mc2xml -D Line1.dat -C Line1.chl -o Line1.xml
mc2xml -D Line2.dat -C Line2.chl -I Line1.xml -o Line2.xml
mc2xml -D line3.dat -C line3.chl -I Line2.xml -o Line3.xml
mc2xml -D Line4.dat -C Line4.chl -I Line3.xml -o tvguide.xml