Listing of what is on each EHD

[navychop]

Is there an automated way to dump a listing of titles (& maybe more) of what is on each EHD to a text file? Something I could maybe import into Excel? The idea being to produce a sorted printed listing. Then I could have a listing for each EHD, or a listing of all content with the EHD upon which each item resides noted.

I'm thinking maybe a directory (LS) of each drive. I have some ancient Unix experience, and some more recent experience with Xandros Business Ver 2, which I still have (now unused). I am willing to get a more modern Linux, especially if it's free. I have so many EHDs now, and no doubt some duplicate recordings. It would be nice to have such a listing, making it easy to find something specific and determine which drive it is on so it can be viewed. No, I don't expect Dish to show the slightest interest in this. Heck they not only won't NAME each EHD, they don't seem to even UNDERSTAND why that would be desirable. A piece of blue tape and a name on an EHD does nothing to pick out which drive is External 1 vs External 2. <rant off>

Any ideas? Anyone done something like this? Does anyone even see any value in this?

 

[TheKrell]

Yes it would be very valuable if somebody worked it out. The trouble with your "ls" idea is that ls goes by filenames, and filenames are some inscrutable meaningless unique sequence of letters and numbers. The actual program title is recorded within an unencrypted text file whose name I can't remember. So, in principle, you could code up an app that looks into the relevant text files for the actual program name, and wrote out the list you want. Are you raising your hand to do this?

 

[bwexler]

I will start the voting.
i am strongly in favor of Navychop figuring this out and making the program available to all of us who care, along with the detailed help files to set up and execute it.
will he also be providing us the Linux box?

 

[navychop]

....No good deed goes unpunished.......

 

[navychop]

Is there really so little interest? Are EHDs of such little importance to US, the cutting edge for Dish? I expected a lot more votes. So few will just encourage Dish to abandon any enhancements to EHDs.

 

[satjay]

If a list could be done that would be great, if not. I will continue as usual as load up my EHD

 

[navychop]

If it was so tending that could be done that would be great, if not. I will continue as usual as load up my EHD

???

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[Teehar]

I think it's a great idea navy,it sure would make things simpler.

 

[navychop]

So who wants to recommend a good free Linux implementation? Just go with Ubuntu and burn a self booting disk? Then find and read (with what) that text file with the programs list? This is beginning to look easier than I first thought.

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[dke]

Mint is a nice distribution of Linux. There is no text file with the listing of the programs on the EHD's. Each program is in it's own directory with 4 files. The 'cat' file contains the name of the recording and info, and can be read with a text editor (such as gedit) but the file itself is binary. It wouldn't be difficult to write a program to do it but I don't really see it being useful to very many people even though it would be nice to have.

Dan

 

[navychop]

Thank you. Mint was recommended before, I just could not remember the name. Maybe I can look it over tomorrow.

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[KKlare]

I keep my list in a spreadsheet--entered by hand.
I am changing from EHDs with equal IMDb rating or a range (bad idea) to pure alphabetic (Dish style).
(More than 1 disk is needed for "The" titles. But the Hopper has no editing for titles. 722 was initial cap only.)
I found too many times the ratings change so I instead now have a major task of moving them around.
The "best" way would be to add them to a disk as they come and record where they are.
To get any program just look up the disk and go find the name. Remember to kill the duplicates.
This would distribute the pain if any disk were damaged over all types and ratings.
Less pain than loosing all the best but you still would not like to lose any--you saved them once.
Dish tells me on a transfer error the "External Device" number of the listing I am showing and not where it is.
That's a serious error for the archivist.
The helps for matching disk name to content are the disk and free space sizes and which are idle or busy.
Why can't we have names on the disks? I'm juggling 4 simultaneously right now--ran out of outlets.
As the disk number changes with restarts I keep a short list of my "names" and sizes. I peek some times, too.
There are some shows hang the transfers but once in a while they get through.
Get most now and either keep the bad transfers on the main drive or get a new copy, sometime.
I do have some special-purpose drives like for PBS or major series.

-Ken

 

[navychop]

I keep my list in a spreadsheet--entered by hand.....

Good idea. I think I've got 6 EHDs. When can you come over and do mine?

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[odbrv]

Just add a print option to the Edit Action drop down menu that can address any printer on the whole home network.

 

[dfergie]

Need to update mine, first post is an example ...
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads...ve-Movie-Event-Thread/page5?highlight=archive

 

[bwexler]

Ken after you get som practice on Navychop you can come by and do mine.
If you know how to duplicate a drive you can copy what you like to take home, assuming I have something you don't.

And I voted yes long ago. just have little skill to add to the project.

 

[navychop]

A bit busy today, outside the home. But I did have a few minutes to work on this. I downloaded Mint and burned a bootable DVD. There was one folder on an EHD I examined, DishArc. Then there were 87 folders under that, with cryptic file names. No true text files. Each folder contained a png of, for example, Nat Geo, and sometimes a jpg. Also 4 items: bm cat tsp wtt

LibreOffice Writer brought up the below from cat. The name of the program (Critical Situation), as visible to the Hopper (& no doubt other receivers), was there, along with the episode name and some program description. And a lot of junk. See below PDF.

View attachment Linux EHD cat.pdf

I think I need to find a Pascal program that will run under Linux. That is the language I am most comfortable with, although I guess I could go with a C variant if need be. Rusty. Maybe even ADA, but I doubt such exists. Or even, God Forbid, the Fatal Disease. And HOPE the program (EPG) name is always at the same character count. I could then do a run time capsule and pass it around. It would be really nice to decipher the database fields entirely. Anyone know if such is published anywhere?

If I can find the right tools, this might not be so hard after all.

 

[TheKrell]

ADA? I wasted many hours trying to learn that! PITA.

As for where the cat file is described, you might look into the relevant part of PVRexplorer, which IIRC works even for 722 receivers.

 

[dare2be]

The only language that tripped me up was LISP. *barf*

 

[Yespage]

I think I need to find a Pascal program that will run under Linux. That is the language I am most comfortable with, although I guess I could go with a C variant if need be. Rusty. Maybe even ADA, but I doubt such exists. Or even, God Forbid, the Fatal Disease. And HOPE the program (EPG) name is always at the same character count.

It appears that spaces may be your friend. I'd run a character analysis and place each portion of the string into an array that has a space before or after it. Then work forwards and backwards in order to snip out portions of the string that don't include alpha/numeric data. This would allow you to capture everything, regardless of where they appear in the original string.