myTV

Windows 7 RTM confirmed for July 13th

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:05:02 GMT

Like the topic says, bar any blocking bugs being found this late in the game (which I doubt will happen), Windows 7 RTMs on Monday July 13th.

Great news for those with MSDN/Technet subscriptions :)

It also means I'll have a good few months to finalize Win7 support before its GA date of October 22nd.

Feel free to post explicit Win7 myTV bugs in this thread for me to look at once I install the final build.

Folder Monitoring

dwhiffin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:59:03 GMT

Hi Guys

I have a NAS device which stores all my TV Shows and I find that MyTV sometimes doesn't update the monitored folders and I'd like to know if there is a way to force it to check and update. For example I allready have Stargate SG-1 Seasons 01 - 04 setup and working fine but I copied Seasons 05 - 07 onto the NAS using the same solder structure \\TVComplete\Stargate SG-1\Season 05 and up until even today all it picked up was Season 05 and Season 06 but it only added one episode to Season 05 and 2 episodes to Season 06. It didn't pick up Season 07 at all. Now the naming structure of the files in Season 05 and Season 06 was like so

Stargate SG-1 [5x01] Enemies

Which I would normally go and change to "s05e01 Enemies" but granted I didn't do that until this morning but I find it weird that it still picked up on episode without changing the name format. Also Season 07 had a different format which was Stargate.SG1.s07e01.Fallen.DVDRip.avi which as far as I was concerned would have been acceptable but MyTV didn't add that one at all.

I tried restarting the MyTV Service yesterday and restarting the machine (Vista) about an hour ago but still no joy. I now may have a new issue because before I renamed Season 05 & 06 I deleted what had been added to MyTV Season 05 (1 Epsiode) and Season 06 (2 Episodes) hoping that once I renamed them that it may add them back but I'm not sure that it will now (I didn't choose to remove them from the file system either only the database).

Any ideas on this or a way to force an update of the folders would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

David

Xbox 360 Extender + My TV And Windows Home Server Shares

hostaway — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:32:58 GMT

Hi There,

I Have A Windows Home Server With My TV Shows Stored On However I Want To Install Trascode 360, And Use My TV On My Xbox 360 However I Am Not Sure About How To Go About This

If You Could Advise Me I Would Be Most Greatful

Thanks

tvrss is down

bdee1 — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:27:34 GMT

now that tvrss.net is down, does anybody else know of a good way to get similar rss feeds for tv?

v1.2.09155 coming up - please post any issues/features you expect to be fixed/included

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:37:40 GMT

About to drop the build, but as this is likely to be the last build with new features for some time I wanted to make sure I've got everything covered. So if you are waiting for a feature to be included or a bug to be fixed, please feel free to post a quick reminder here - even if I have already said it's done or is being worked on.

As the TV season is over for most people, for now, I will be spending time on other projects to help pay the bills :) For example there should be a public 'trial' of the myDVD backend available soon.

Fire... lost everything...

hansolo77 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:58:51 GMT

I'm writing to report why I haven't been as active on this site and as supportive as I had been months ago. We had a fire in our condo, and although the fire started 7 doors down, it affected our place the worst. See, we live 2nd from the end, and there's a thing called "flashback" (I believe that's what they call it). Basically, when the fire moves across the building and runs out of places to go, it bounces back on the ending wall and starts to burn all the hotter as it moves back the otherway. Being 2nd from the end, we received the initial blast and then the bounce back as well before the fire was eventually put out. The fire travelled along the common attic between the different condos in the building. Luckily, the fire remained in the attic and didn't burn down the walls or anything. However, the fire department's delay in putting out the fire, and then the 30,000 gallons a minute of water they pumped into it didn't help things any. Needless to say, we lost probably 95% of everything we had in the upstairs. I lived out of my bedroom (which is upstairs), and really only came out to go to the bathroom or go eat. I admit, I'm a hermit. But that just further shows how much I lost. My Media Center computer survived, thank God, but my server didn't. I can't seem to get it to turn on and stay on, and what makes it worse..it reboots itself after being off for 3 seconds! Another tragic loss is my new TV I just bought last year, a 37-inch LCD HDTV.

I don't have a job, and searching has dramatically decreased due to the fire. I've not felt like doing much of anything other than sleeping. They say they're going to gut the place and rebuild it within 6 months. Only problem.. they can't get the premits. It's already been a month as of June 27. They've done nothing yet.

So, not to sound like I'm begging or anything, but without a job it's going to be very difficut to progress with all my losses. I need to start replacing, although I'm in no hurry to do so. I haven't even really gone though yet to see what all I have officially lost yet. But I do know, as I said, that I have lost the server with all my TV shows, and my tv.

We've created a Paypal donation button, and request that if there is anything anybody can give to help out in recovery, it's more than appreciated. It is located in my signature.

Thanks for understanding and I look forward to hearing your comments/replies. I will be back more often (now that I have re-established a temporary internet connection with our landlord's dialup AOL) and answer any questions I'm sure you may have. Thanks again!

- Aaron

Windows 7 questions and issues

Glenn — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:34:18 GMT

My Vista installation has been driving me insane for some months and keeps blue screening.

Other than a complete reinstall of Vista and starting from scratch, I thought I'd give Windows 7 a go and see how it goes.

So far; all is working well and everything is fine except for a couple of issues:

I cannot add any new shows to myTV. The existing stuff has been picked up correctly using the series.id file already in place.

I have tried to add two new series and each time it just goes through the usual "new show found" etc. I select the correct shows but nothing happens. I couldn't see any errors in the log either.

I decided to use dgaust's mytool utility to manually create the series.id file and just get a "not responding" error when trying to create the file.

I have now copied an existing series.id file and manually edited the show number; this works perfectly and the two shows have been added successfully.

Seems like a permissions issue but not sure what to do about it as everything including the userid is the same between my Vista and Windows 7 installations.

The other issue is when using the i key via iMon from the series/season selection menu. As well as getting the myTV popup menu; I keep getting a second box with Internet Security and Settings as the two options. If I go into Internet security the message below is shown:

Page Name:

Main Menu

Security:

This is not a secure page

Address:

resx://myTV/myTV.Resources/Helix

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Glenn

TVRss Download, Torrent feature not working?

paula20744 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:04:29 GMT

paula20744 Posted: Mon, Jun 22 2009 20:50

I found that my torrent feature in myTV does not work. This started after TVRss site went down. I tried (Show Rss) but it only allows you to check once an hour. and my bit torrent client is not happy with this but that could be Me: the problem. I would like to try TVTorrent but that requires an invites. I finally sign up for Demonoid.com and I'm in good standing, but TVTorrent seem to not have an open season. What site is myTV pointed at, to check torrents. And if there is a pointer, will you change it. Please give me some insight and where I can get a invite to TVTorrent and is it a good site to maintain my collection of over 105 shows. They are not all showing up in Web Collection. I'm wish for TVRss site to return.

Thank you for this wonderful program, it in itself make Vmc and 7mc a better product.

Refreshing Episodes after manual database delete

Brisbird — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:02:02 GMT

I coped a whole lot of series/season folders from a friend who also runs MyTv to get a full list of shows I was interested in. Because there was overlap, I first deleted my entire series(root) directory beforehand and replaced/refreshed with the copy. This was because some of the episodes were named differently.

Upon entering MyTv the first time after this, I found the banners existed for all the new series and within each of these the seasons. Going into a series/season that I previously had, I was prompted with messages about not being able to find files, asked whether these should be deleted from the database (of which I selected yes). I still however had double-up episode thumbnails. When selecting one of a double-set (both named the same), I got an error about not being able to launch the application, and then it drops back to the MediaCentre menu.

I decided to manually remove all the episode information from the myTV database through the sqlcmd prompt. Now I have no episode thumbnails appearing under any of my series/seasons. I did this as I thought this would be quicker than going through the 2000 odd files. I assumed the system would effectively refresh automatically.

I have restarted MediaCentre a couple of times and entered MyTv, but no episodes have been added, and there are no messages flickering at the bottom of the screen to say any new episodes are being added.

How can I get the system to effectively refresh all the episodes as all the physical files (and xml etc) still exist.

Brisbird

Episode name possibly incorrect?

maccagill — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:39:59 GMT

This is happeneing on many of my season in my database (maybe all, haven't checked)

e.g

Walking with dinosaurs.

In episode selection screen, it says 1x1 New Blood........this is correct

In the special folder, the episode show up as 0x2 Walking with Dinosaurs - 0x02 - Special: Big Al Uncovered.

Is this correct for the special folder? Or have I done something wrong my end.

I would have expected it to say 0x02 Special: Big Al Uncovered

I use mediarenamer to rename myt video files

tvtorrents.com

aozm48 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:19:52 GMT

Anyone else having problems reaching tvtorrents.com?

Its been offline for me since at least 5pm yesterday, both for trackers, and the website.

DCR-MS Editor

maccagill — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:43:00 GMT

Can anyone recommend a good and preferably free DVR-MS editor for Windows 7?

I need to be able to trim the stuff before and after episodes/films.

I tried Live Movie Maker, but it doesn't allow frame advance, and I tried VideoReDo, but a 2 hr file was reduced to just over an hr (wouldn't output end of movie)

Banner creation

maccagill — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:46:52 GMT

I have some shows that do not have banners (no banners on the database) and was wondering where people get their banners from?

Are there some recommended sites to get banners from, or are these home-made?

If you make these yourself, can someone give me some tips/tutorial on creating banners (the ones I have made so far, are of poor quality)

Many thanks

Automatic sorting of recorded TV

woolooloo — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 07:00:18 GMT

I'm a new myTV user, purchased it this week, really pretty happy with it so far although I haven't had a chance to use it much yet, I'm still loading it up. As I've been tediously re-ripping my TV DVD's into episodes rather than the ISO's I've been using in MyMovies, I was not looking forward to having to rename all of the dvr-ms files in my recorded Tv directory.

So today I wrote a program to automatically go through, query the thetvdb.com database for the necessary information, rename the files, and put them into my "saved shows" directory where I store my files for myTV. Unfortunately, I didn't notice until just now that dgaust has written a service to do much the same, so it looks like there will be a new option for this :)

It is a somewhat limited command line program now, the usage is:

Usage: EpisodeSorter recordedtvdir savedshowsdir [otherfilesdir] [-c]

          recordedtvdir = directory new recorded tv shows are saved to
          savedshowsdir = directory where saved shows are stored
          [otherfilesdir] = optional, directory where auxiliary files (such as commercial skipping files are stored
          [-c] = optional, copy files only, do not move, will be slow!

For example: EpisodeSorter "d:\recorded tv" "d:\saved tv" "C:\Users\Public\DvrmsToolbox\CommercialsXml"

It will search your recorded tv directory, try to determine the season and episode of each show based on its metadata, and rename/move the file to your saved tv directory. So for example, it found "d:\recorded tv\Two and a Half Men_WJZY_2008_11_10_19_30_02.dvr-ms" on my system, determined that it was season 5, episode 4, and moved it to "d:\saved tv\Two and a Half Men\Season 05\Two and a Half Men.S05E04.City of Great Racks.dvr-ms".

It will also, optionally, scan a directory for files with the same name but a different extension and rename them (but not move them). I created this feature to rename my commercial skipping XML files I generate with DVRMSToolbox, but I guess there could be other uses as well.

There are currently some limitations I will work to get rid of:

1. Will only work with one output (saved shows) directory. I imagine some people may have collections that span multiple directories and this won't necessarily work well in that environment (yet). Update, multiple directories can be configured manually in the SeriesInfo.xml file.

2. Matches on the first matching series in thetvdb.com's system. So for example, I had a Life On Mars episode, and I guess that is originally a UK show, so the proper name for the series in thetvdb.com is "Life On Mars (US)". Right now it will match on the UK version "Life On Mars". In my case it didn't match the other criteria so it didn't find a season/episode and just left the file for manual handling but in some cases it may wrongly match up and move the file. Update, the correct series id can be configured manually in the the SeriesInfo.xml file.

3. The renaming convention is fixed, it puts it into a subfolder "Name of Show" in your saved tv directory, and then puts it into a subfolder "Season XX" in there. The file will be named "Name of Show.SXXEXX.Name of Episode.dvr-ms". Update, naming is completely configurable as described in a later post.

Short term improvements will include the following, please provide feedback if you are interested in this tool.

1. Flexible renaming criteria. I am interested in knowing how people name their files so that I can make it flexible enough for everyone to use. Done

2. Allow it to span multiple output directories. Done via manual configuration

3. Provide a config file to store parameters. Done

4. Provide a user interface to resolve conflicts.

5. Provide a service that will run automatically.

6. Look for existing folders with the series information to further reduce the number of queries to thetvdb.com

7. Add support for WTV files for those with TV Pack. Done

8. Allow you to tell it to skip certain series, or to only move certain shows. Done

Anyways, that's all for tonight. If you are interested in testing with the current version and can live with the limitations, feel free. You can also set up test directories if you don't want to mess with your real files. You can also use the "-c" option to copy the files to the new directory instead of move them, but as you probably know, copying these files can take a lot of time.

If there are any features you'd like to see added, please let me know.

If you are interested in taking a look, you can find it here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/247531481/mcez-sort.0.1.7.zip

Whale wars S02E03

crzykidd — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:20:40 GMT

Has anyone seen this post.

MyTV Not working: "Cannot open "myTV" requested by login...."

hijinxx — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:45:17 GMT

I am getting the above error when I try to start MyTV. I tryed doing a reinstall but have the same error message. I have check the User and he has Admin rights and is a member of all SQL Groups. Please help.

myTV Watcher Service Constantly Crashing

aozm48 — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:27:53 GMT

I'm running the latest build 1.2.09135 and since i've just recently deleted several series and re-added them due to data moves, the mytv watcher service constantly crashes at a certain point.

Just after the message "Checking Existing Episodes for missing thumbnails" i get the following error appear in the mytv event log

Unhandled crash occured.

Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Run(RunBehavior runBehavior, SqlCommand cmdHandler, SqlDataReader dataStream, BulkCopySimpleResultSet bulkCopyHandler, TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.ConsumeMetaData()
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader.get_MetaData()
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.FinishExecuteReader(SqlDataReader ds, RunBehavior runBehavior, String resetOptionsString)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReaderTds(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, Boolean async)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method, DbAsyncResult result)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.RunExecuteReader(CommandBehavior cmdBehavior, RunBehavior runBehavior, Boolean returnStream, String method)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior behavior, String method)
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand.ExecuteReader()
   at myTVservice.myTVservice.CheckEpisodeImages()
   at myTVservice.myTVservice.InitialRun()
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

At which point the service crashes, then auto-recovers 1 minute later. These episodes have all previously been in my database with no issues, so i'm unsure why the service is now crashing. I've performed a manual restart of the watcher service around a SQL server restart, but this has had no effect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Adding 1 part shows

maccagill — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:52:05 GMT

Didn't know how to word the subject...lol

I have some tv shows which are 1 parters, i.e. Lee Evans live at the O2, 24 Carrot Gold,which have been on TV, but are not part of a series.

Before I waste yours and my time, are there any problems with adding this sort of show to the database?

Error message in event log

maccagill — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:33:55 GMT

I am getting the following error message in my event log (Windows 7):

Failed in handling the PowerEvent. The error that occurred was: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject)

at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection)

at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)

at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()

at myTVservice.myTVservice.CheckSeasonImages(Object obj)

at myTVservice.myTVservice.InitialRun()

at myTVservice.myTVservice.OnPowerEvent(PowerBroadcastStatus powerStatus)

at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.DeferredPowerEvent(Int32 eventType, IntPtr eventData).

Not sure if it is anything serious, but I noticed it was aprrox at the time I put my computer into sleep mode, The sleep mode failed

Asus P5N7A-VM cooling

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:55:35 GMT

On dgaust's recommendation I picked up the above motherboard for my devbox and after some initial trouble (seems my first PSU was underpowering the system) it seems to be working okay now, apart from the Nvidia chipset becoming way to hot.

It was initially idleing at around 85 deg celsius and automatically shutting down when reaching critical temperature (just over 100c). Unfortunately it did this [after a couple minutes] every time I was running Media Center, which meant the setup was useless as I still couldn't actually code on it :)

Anyhow, installed another three casefans (initially only had the CPU fan, so a very nice and quiet work environment, especially as I finally got around to moving the remaining server up into the loft). It's not idleing at 59c, which is still a little high for my liking, but way within specs and it no longer reaches critical temperatures, only going up a few degrees under load. However, these extra case fans are driving me mad as they are way too noisy.

Googling around it seems this mobo is notorious for overheating, often having an idle chipset temp or around 70c, however I haven't found anyone with a definite list of tips to combat this. For example, can I get some sort of aftermarket heatsink/fan for the chipset? Would it help just removing the existing one (which even has heatpipes - although only for show I think), cleaning and re-applying some arctic silver?

All and any ideas most welcome on how I can get rid of the extra casefans I installed.

Babylon 5 Episodes not showing up in MyTV

planejumper — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:56:04 GMT

I have the entire series, each season's episodes are in seperate folder under Babylon 5 folder, just like all my other shows.

The problem is that MyTV does not seem to pickup all the episodes.

Season 1 has 22 episodes, but only 15 show up. It is numberd like this: 1x01, 1x02, etc.

Season 2 has 22 episodes, but only 12 show up. It is numbered like this: s02e01, s02e02, etc.

Season 3 has 22 episodes, but only 19 show up. It is numbered like this: s03e01, s03e02, etc.

Season 4 has 22 episodes, but only 17 show up. It is numbered like this: s04e01, s04e02, etc.

Season 5 has 22 episodes, but only 5 show up. It is numbered like this: s05e01, s05e02, etc.

I tried deleting the show from the database, and re-adding it. That did not solve the problem. got exactly the same result.

FYI: the show name "Babylon 5" is not included in the filenames, just the episode number, and in some cases, episode title.

Any help would be appreciated.

Problems reinstalling MyTV

hijinxx — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:32:30 GMT

I am trying to reinstall mytv as I started having problems with it. Now when doing the reinstall I get the a message SQL Datebase already exists do you with to continue then when I continue I get the error " Failed to connect to SQL database. ( -2147467259 mytv ).

I also run MyMovies.

Thx.

Download access denied

jdseidel — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:06:58 GMT

I paid for the program a few hours ago and I continue to get "Access Denied" when trying to download myTV. Why?

Win7, MKV, Xbox 360 and AC3/DTS...

admin — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:56:49 GMT

Sooo, now that we no longer have to transcode H264 material for playback on the 360 what do we do to get full fidelity audio?

I'm guessing AC3 streams shouldn't be a problem? But what about DTS streams? I've seen reports that these get downsampled to 2 channel PCM which is less than ideal, any workarounds at all (other than running my own implementation of mencoder which converts DTS to AC3)?

Is anyone running Win7 and an Xbox 360 for playback of H264 & AC3/DTS in MKV containers currently? What's your experience? This might be the kick I need to finally shift my Media Center VM to Win7.

Possible Bug: Error getting MediaInfo for...

planejumper — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:51:05 GMT

My apologies if I posted this in the wrong forum. I did not know which forum to post this in...

These three messages repeat continually in the myTV log:

==========================================

Error getting MediaInfo for D:\Videos\TV\Lost in Space\The.Robinsons.Lost.In.Space.SCREENER.VCD.mpg.
Please report this error in the myTV forums. If possible provide the file that failed along with the complete errormessage below.

Input string was not in a correct format.
   at System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)
   at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
   at System.Convert.ToInt32(String value)
   at myTVservice.myTVservice.VideoFileInformation(FileInfo f)

==================================================

Error getting MediaInfo for D:\Videos\TV\Star Trek - Voyager\Season 2\star_trek_voyager.2x26.basics.part.1.ac3.dvdrip_xvid-fov.avi.
Please report this error in the myTV forums. If possible provide the file that failed along with the complete errormessage below.

Input string was not in a correct format.
   at System.Number.StringToNumber(String str, NumberStyles options, NumberBuffer& number, NumberFormatInfo info, Boolean parseDecimal)
   at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
   at System.Convert.ToInt32(String value)
   at myTVservice.myTVservice.VideoFileInformation(FileInfo f)

==================================================

Error getting MediaInfo for D:\Videos\TV\Friends\Season 6\Friends.S06E01.DVDrip.XviD-SAiNTS.avi.avi.
Please report this error in the myTV forums. If possible provide the file that failed along with the complete errormessage below.

Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
   at senseIT.General.MediaInfoWrapper.MediaInfo.MediaInfo_Open(IntPtr Handle, String FileName)
   at senseIT.General.MediaInfoWrapper.MediaInfo.Open(String FileName)
   at myTVservice.myTVservice.VideoFileInformation(FileInfo f)

=================================================

Also, the myTV watcher service continually stops and is restarted every 2 minutes with these two error messages:

SYSTEM LOG: The myTV watcher service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 337 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

APPLICATION LOG: Faulting application myTVservice.exe, version 1.0.0.0, time stamp 0x4a0df260, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x4791adec, exception code 0xc0000374, fault offset 0x00000000000a6e97, process id 0x1bdc, application start time 0x01c9ed77ba163b00.

Any ideas?