Good scheduler?

[markm]

I'm looking for a good capture program with scheduling capabilities.

I've tried just about everything I can find, the only one that works well so far is WinVCR+ 2.5. Only problem I have with it is that it does MPEG1/2 or ASF, no AVI. The MPEG quality is OK, but I'd rather capture to avi and encode later with TMPGenc.

I've tried the virtual dub with schedule/timer addon. It's nice, but I have to start virtual dub, and enter capture mode. The same applies to alot of others with some sort of timer ability.

WinVCR leaves a little launcher app running, that starts and stops WinVCR as needed for the recording. I can schedule a bunch of shows, and let the PC record them without having to worry about running the app and setting it up beforehand.

I think PowerVCR would do what I want, but it only supports WDM drivers, and Hauppauge hasn't sorted out the sound bug while recording with it's WDM drivers yet.

Any suggestions?

[Bullworth]

Have you tried AVI IO? Good program and you can download it for free. It expires at the end of the month but the author always puts up a new file each month. Registration in $25 to remove this limitation.
I use it all the time for timed capture and never have had a problem.

[markm]

I just looked at it again, I thought it only had basic timer support, but there does seem to be a full scheduler there. I'll have to play with it some more.

Seems to be lacking a way of launching it though, which means it has to be running or the schedule will be missed.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: markm on 2001-10-09 08:46:27 ]</font>

[Bullworth]

I'll admit that it is a small drawback, but it's still a very good program. I used to use MMC that came bundled with my ATI but the MPEG capture quality wasn't as good as I wanted so I just stuck with AVI.

[markm]

I think I've got it all sorted out. I ended up not even using the timer capability of avi_io. The time limit on recording was sufficient, coupled with being able to completely set it up via the ini file.

I slapped together a perl script that creates the ini file, setting the capture file, record time, source, etc. It then launches avi_io using that ini file. Once the recording is done, avi_io shuts itself down.

Grabbed a "cron" type scheduler from the net, and I just use it to call my record script at the times I need. I pass it a show name, and it creates the avi with that name.

Thanks for the tip on avi_io. Turned out to be exactly what I wanted, something I could configure externally and called from a script. Now I have almost complete control over my recordings.

[frogster]

Markim,

I think you found, as i did, that avi_io is the best schedulable program because it lets you save as avis and select the compression.

i use powervcr to record shows i'll watch once and delete.

i'm interested in hearing more about your perl script and scheduling setup.

also, i've never had luck with it, but show shifter supposedly permits capturing in avi files. it always crashes on me though.

[Bullworth]

Hey markim, do you think you could possibly share that script? I've always wanted to get AVI IO to run and shut down by itself but I'm not much of a programmer; I can play around with it if it's already assembled but no way I can do it from scratch.

[markm]

I've got some changes I want to make to the script to make it more flexible. Right now, it records a fixed channel for a fixed time. I need to add the ability to pass arguments for channels and times and such.

I'll gladly share it, though you'll have to learn at least a little about perl to make it work. You'll need to change some file paths and such. You'll also need to alter what it writes for an ini file, since everyone's settings will be different. It's not hard though, and since others are interested, I'll make it as easy as I can.

I'll put up a link here in a few days once I sort it out. In the meantime, grab and install perl on your machine if you want to use it. http://www.activestate.com is where I usually get perl from.

[markm]

I've put the script, along with the scheduler I use up on my web server. http://gcr.dyndns.org/record.zip

You need to edit the record.bat file before you use it. I tried to comment it as best I can. This hasn't been heavily tested, but it seems to be working ok for me so far.

Record doesn't schedule anything. It simply kicks off a recording immediately. I though this was better than having avi_io sitting around running waiting to do the recording. Don't forget to factor in setup time into your schedule. If it takes 2 minutes before avi_io is up and capturing, add that into your schedule.

I've got some minor enhancements I want to make, but this is essentially it. The change I'd like to make is the ability to specify different capture sizes and compression.

Oh, and I forgot to put it in the usage text. Channels are specified as:

positive numbers are cable channels to tune to
negative numbers are off air antenna channels

to use another input, specify it's name as seen in avi_io. ie; -c composite will capture from the composite input. -c 38 will capture cable channel 38. -c -3 will capture antenna channel 3.

Enjoy.

[Bullworth]

Thanks a million markam!