# SwapDV available - Replay TV client, server and guide editor



## jotter

Hi,


The SwapDV application allows you to manage your own digital video library, based on content backed up from from your replay TV. It combines the functionality of a replay client (Yet Another Replay Client), a replay server (Yet Another Replay Server) and a replay guide editor 


The application is for all platforms.


A small feature list:

* connect to a replay TV and browse its contents

* download mpegs (raw/modified)

* save and edit guides (raw/header stripped)

* import digital video into your local server, either from your replay TV or from your disk

* edit, add, remove shows and channels

* emulate a replayTV box on your local network

* "real" replay TVs can play back videos from your server


The application needs 3 files in order to import a new digital video into its guide - the mpg, the ndx and a guide snapshot with that show in (.rgd). The guide editor will save these three out for you automatically, or you can use the import function to import directly from a replay TV box on the network.


Feedback encouraged ([email protected], private msg, or post a reply). What do you like, what don't you you understand with the UI, what functionality is missing etc.


Jotter


* Updated: version 0.12 (95 downloads)

- Fixed import bug

- Tolerate bad (stripped header) guides

* Update: version 0.15 (15 downloads)

- More options (auto-save guide, auto-restart server on load)

- Server config moved to server menu

- "Failed to copy entire file" incorrect dialog fixed

* Update: version 0.15b/c (132 downloads)

- Fixed dropped menu handlers

- Autosave filename bug fixed

* Update: version 0.22 (514 downloads)

- Application runs in Tray

- Updated column names

- Show descriptions/length etc. can be edited

- Shows can change channel (drag over channel to change)

- Multiple select supported for various operations

- Play supported for local files

- .rgd files stored into video dir for guide recontruction

- initial release of UPnP "proxy" functionality - make an internet replay TV available to your internal network replay box

- Log file save/clear added

* Update: version 0.5 (883 downloads)

- Completely Java, with swing GUI for cross-platform support

- Macrovision protection


NOTE: More than 4 simultaneous transfers from a replay box seems to crash the replay box (you need to reboot it to recover). I would recommend only importing 2 files at once (as their are 2 files for each - the .ndx and .mpg)

*SwapDV 0.5 and source code released. Go to http://swapdv.sourceforge.net to download the new version and/or sources*


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## Biscuitsjam

Cool. Quick question:

Would it be possible for me to...

1. Set up a box with win2k and 320 gB or so of storage and install this on it

2. Pull all the stuff off a Replay TV (presumably this could even be done automatically with a macro program).

3. Set up all 20 computers in my house (running win9x or win2k) to be able to pull shows off the server box.

4. Have 2 or more people pull shows off the server at the same time.


If your program will fit the above scenario, you are my new shero.


-Biscuits


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## jdm1979

Great Job! I have a couple questions though.


What does save show as library swap file mean?


Whats the difference between saving the mpg's as replay or pc format? On my computer I can view both formats in Windows media player just fine.


When will a FAQ or readme be available for SwapDV


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*Great Job! I have a couple questions though.


What does save show as library swap file mean?


Whats the difference between saving the mpg's as replay or pc format? On my computer I can view both formats in Windows media player just fine.


When will a FAQ or readme be available for SwapDV*
Answers 

* FAQ/readme - err, when I can get around to it. Anyone want to host the download 


* "save show as library swap file" basically means save the three parts required to swap the file with someone else. So saving a show that way will save "101nnnnn.mpg" "101nnnnn.ndx" and "101nnnnn.rgd". If you give these to someone else, they can add the show to their swapDV library by right clicking on a channel and selecting "import".


* Save as Replay vs Save as PC. Basically the PC save adjusts the mpeg header to make it "more" mpeg complient. The Save as replay saves the raw Mpeg without alteration. I was after some terminology which was a bit more user friendly.


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Biscuitsjam_
*Cool. Quick question:

Would it be possible for me to...

1. Set up a box with win2k and 320 gB or so of storage and install this on it

2. Pull all the stuff off a Replay TV (presumably this could even be done automatically with a macro program).

3. Set up all 20 computers in my house (running win9x or win2k) to be able to pull shows off the server box.

4. Have 2 or more people pull shows off the server at the same time.


If your program will fit the above scenario, you are my new shero.


-Biscuits*
Answers:

(1) yes

(2) yes. I should allow you to select more than 1 file at once to import to your swapDV library

(3) hmmm. yes in theory but not currently (if your host server could manage the load). You would need something to be able to play the incoming stream (windows media player?) and I would probably need to add some functionality to the server to stream the mpeg in a more standard manner than the wierd chunked format the replays understand.

(4) yes, pretty similar to (3). You should be able to point the "client" part of the swapDV app at another swapDV library server and do that...


Jotter


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## l8er

Forgive me if I've just missed it, but does your app or anyone else's allow for playing a show (streaming) from a real ReplayTV box on (to) a PC? It appears this does everything but that. Thanks.


-Gary


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## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*

* Save as Replay vs Save as PC. Basically the PC save adjusts the mpeg header to make it "more" mpeg complient. The Save as replay saves the raw Mpeg without alteration. I was after some terminology which was a bit more user friendly.
*
What changes are you making? There seemed to have been a consensus that the 4k mpeg streams were compliant as-is.


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## jdm1979

I have an issue..


When i pull a video from my replaytv and view it in ati file player it plays normal However when I play it in Windows Media Player, its a little slow and the voices sound like demons! i pulled another show and ttested and it did not happen again. It seems only certain shows do this. Is there a specific codec I should Install to view replaytv content on my pc?


WINXP here.


jdm


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## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by l8er_
*Forgive me if I've just missed it, but does your app or anyone else's allow for playing a show (streaming) from a real ReplayTV box on (to) a PC? It appears this does everything but that. Thanks.*
I have a plugin for Xine that allows this, on Linux. I also have a modified http input stream for vlc (crossplatform) that should work or be close, but I can't get a vlc compile to work at all on MacOS X and I haven't moved it over to my Linux box to try it there, and I don't have a Windows compile system.


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by l8er_
*Forgive me if I've just missed it, but does your app or anyone else's allow for playing a show (streaming) from a real ReplayTV box on (to) a PC? It appears this does everything but that. Thanks.


-Gary*
Ive easy to do but doesn't do that yet. I'll add it to my list of things to add. Im pretty sure replaypc does support this with one of its command line switches.


Quite why you'd want to watch it on your PC rather than the TV Im not sure about. Maybe if someone is watching the TV and you want to watch a show it has?


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*ok, i have 1 issue.. how come when i pull a video from my replaytv and view it it plays a little slow and the voices sound like demons? i pulld another show and this did not happen. only certain shows do this???*
Im pretty sure its your mpeg2 decoder. I saw some tennis like this on someone elses PC. Pretty wierd to watch and listen too. Try the elcard (?spelling?) decoder and you'll probably find no problems.


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*What changes are you making? There seemed to have been a consensus that the 4k mpeg streams were compliant as-is.*
I make *no* changes on all downloads apart from the "mpeg for PC" option. That one uses the mpeg2 header changes that the original replaypc code used, the so-called "adjusted" mpeg. I think certain mpeg2 codecs worked better on the PC with the altered header which is why I left an option in to do that. If you want the raw mpeg then every other save/import option does that.


Jotter


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## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*I would probably need to add some functionality to the server to stream the mpeg in a more standard manner than the wierd chunked format the replays understand.
*
The "weird chunked format" is completely standard HTTP 1.1. The only things that I know of that might give trouble are the status code line at the very beginning of the stream, before the mpeg itself starts; that the replay itself insists on the proper User-Agent being sent; and that the mpeg streams are Program Streams (designed for local storage) rather than Transport Streams (designed for streaming).


If you make the very same request to the Replay, but as HTTP/1.0 rather than HTTP/1.1, you don't get any chunking.


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## aslagle

The only problems I've noticed so far are:


When you pick save to import files, the trailing backslash is not used when the new filename is constructed. So if you want to save files in the d:\

eplay directory, the actual files will get saved in the root of D:, as d:\

eplay1011491997.mpg.


Also, the import directly to the server from your replay fails, it says it cannot read the file. (Perhaps this is related to the other?)


I haven't tested the actual server portion, still importing my files.


I'm running it on Windows XP, with the MS JVM installed.


And I *still* think it's slicker than snot.


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## markus98

When I run it it says 'unable to parse guide.'


If I try to add a channel I get an exception.


If I try to import a program I get an exception.


What am I doing wrong?


M


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## mschoneman

I can't wait to get this working. I think it's going to be great. I tried importing a show directly from my replay and I got the following error:


"Cannot copy file: Cannot read from the source file or disk."


then


"Failed to copy C:\\SwapDV\\Import\\101267198.mpg to

C:\\SwapDV\\Video\\1012867198.mpg


Delete imported files 1012867198.mpg,1012867198.ndx, and 1012867198.rgd? (recommended)"


Any ideas?


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by markus98_
*When I run it it says 'unable to parse guide.'


If I try to add a channel I get an exception.


If I try to import a program I get an exception.


What am I doing wrong?


M*
Where is the application getting your guide from?


SwapDV will create an empty guide if the root directory doesn't have one in. Otherwise it chooses the most up-to-date one in the root dir. Have you downloaded one using replaypc? replaypc and swapdv (optionally) saves a stripped guide (no ascii headers) which will not be parsable by the SwapDV application. I'll add it to my todo list to handle these types of guides a little more gracefully. Try remove all the .rgd files from the root directory and trying again.


Once it doesn't have a guide then any guide operations fail (obviously although I should trap that better).


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by mschoneman_
*I can't wait to get this working. I think it's going to be great. I tried importing a show directly from my replay and I got the following error:


"Cannot copy file: Cannot read from the source file or disk."


then


"Failed to copy C:\\SwapDV\\Import\\101267198.mpg to

C:\\SwapDV\\Video\\1012867198.mpg


Delete imported files 1012867198.mpg,1012867198.ndx, and 1012867198.rgd? (recommended)"


Any ideas?*
Hmm. I'll take another look at the importing. Looks like a bug.


If you say "no" to this dialog the application will leave the three files in the Import directory. You should be able to "manually" add them to your local guide by right clicking on a channel and choosing "import show from library swap files".


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*The only problems I've noticed so far are:


When you pick save to import files, the trailing backslash is not used when the new filename is constructed. So if you want to save files in the d:\

eplay directory, the actual files will get saved in the root of D:, as d:\

eplay1011491997.mpg.


Also, the import directly to the server from your replay fails, it says it cannot read the file. (Perhaps this is related to the other?)


I haven't tested the actual server portion, still importing my files.


I'm running it on Windows XP, with the MS JVM installed.


And I still think it's slicker than snot.*
Bug fixed with the trailing slash. I'm looking into the import problem. Difficult to test at home since my wireless connection to my replay box is slllooooowwww.


Jotter


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## mschoneman

Actually, I get the same error when I try to manually import them. Hope that helps with the debugging. If I can do anything else let me know.


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*The "weird chunked format" is completely standard HTTP 1.1. The only things that I know of that might give trouble are the status code line at the very beginning of the stream, before the mpeg itself starts; that the replay itself insists on the proper User-Agent being sent; and that the mpeg streams are Program Streams (designed for local storage) rather than Transport Streams (designed for streaming).


If you make the very same request to the Replay, but as HTTP/1.0 rather than HTTP/1.1, you don't get any chunking.*
Thanks for the info. Nice to know, I'll withdraw my "wierd" comment, although (as you say) it does have the extra status code line embedded in the first chunk.


It really means my micro-web server should test to see if the http request is 1.0 or 1.1. Even then maybe a different request should probably just blast it down as a "200 ok, content-type: video/mpg" response.


Interestingly the replays themselves don't handle the streaming very well. If you have a 100 lan then its all perfect. A slightly busy 10 lan can give you stuttering video quite easily.


Jotter


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## Biscuitsjam

Note: massively editted

Quote:

_Originally posted by biscuitsjam_
*

1. Set up a box with win2k and 320 gB or so of storage and install this on it

2. Pull all the stuff off a Replay TV (presumably this could even be done automatically with a macro program).

3. Set up all 20 computers in my house (running win9x or win2k) to be able to pull shows off the server box.

4. Have 2 or more people pull shows off the server at the same time.
*
Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*

Answers:

(1) yes

(2) yes. I should allow you to select more than 1 file at once to import to your swapDV library

(3) hmmm. yes in theory but not currently (if your host server could manage the load). You would need something to be able to play the incoming stream (windows media player?) and I would probably need to add some functionality to the server to stream the mpeg in a more standard manner than the wierd chunked format the replays understand.

(4) yes, pretty similar to (3). You should be able to point the "client" part of the swapDV app at another swapDV library server and do that...


Jotter*
So what you are saying is... This program can stream videos off it, though PC's can not currently understand the streamed video.
Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*

Interestingly the replays themselves don't handle the streaming very well. If you have a 100 lan then its all perfect. A slightly busy 10 lan can give you stuttering video quite easily.*
On high quality video, the Replay TV streams at something like 8 megabits a second. If you have a 10baseT network, you better have a good network card and no traffic. I imagine low and medium quality video works better. A 100baseT network should be able to stream 10+ shows at once without becoming bogged down.


Are you going to work on the ability for a PC to be able to watch a streamed video, or, at least download it as a whole off the server to its harddrive?


I really appreciate you spending your time developing this and then giving it back to the community.


-Biscuits


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by mschoneman_
*Actually, I get the same error when I try to manually import them. Hope that helps with the debugging. If I can do anything else let me know.*
Thanks. Worked it out. For those of you who care when filling in the pFrom and pTo parts of com.ms.win32.SHFILEOPSTRUCT you must make sure to double terminate the strings... It does say so in the docs but on some machines you don't need to 


**

New version available, get from the first post of this thread...

**


Jotter


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## aslagle

Jotter, this is simply awesome. I've gotten the 3 shows imported. It's _really_ nice to have the Replay Server guide not filled with shows I haven't transferred.


I'll list all the errors I had to work around to maybe help with the troubleshooting.


1. All of the times I've tried to directly import from the replay, I've gotten the "cannot copy file from xxxxxx" error. Right now my only guess is that this is related to the trailing backslash error. If SwapDV can't find the file because it isn't where it thinks it is, It'll never be able to find it.


2. On a very large file (2 hour, high quality movie, "Babylon 5 - Legend of the Rangers", 3.60 GB) I could not get SwapDV to copy the file at all - I tried direct import, then save import files. It kept on giving "Could not copy entire file" errors. (I finally relented and copied the mpeg using the replaypc command line utility. After I did that, I could import the file manually.)


3. The server log is blank. Of course, this could just be a good sign.  It would be nice if all of the messages you were giving us in the YARS would be listed in the log. (Just a suggestion, but following the format of the MS logs in that errors get a different icon than normal messages would be nice.)


Now for my wish list:


It would be great if this program had some way to recover from a power failure/computer reboot problem. I currently plan on running this application on a computer connected to a ups, but sometimes they run out of power. Also, it would be nice if I would not have to log into the computer to do this. A good solution to this is to have the server portion of the program run as a service. This would remove the requirement to be logged in, and allow the server to 'start itself' after a reboot.


A friend of mine said there is a program that will allow you to make a program into a service, I'll try to get more information on that for you.


If running as a service isn't possible, then maybe an option to start the server immediately on program load would be nice. (That way you'd still have to log on, but you could use tweakui to handle logon automatically, and put SwapDV in the startup group.)


Once again, I don't want you to think that I'm not extremely happy with SwapDV and your work. This is so far beyond what I had hoped for when I bought my 4K.  You da _man_!


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## Biscuitsjam

Note: I massively editted my previously post but was a little late hitting the save changes button.

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*

2. On a very large file (2 hour, high quality movie, "Babylon 5 - Legend of the Rangers", 3.60 GB) I could not get SwapDV to copy the file at all - I tried direct import, then save import files. It kept on giving "Could not copy entire file" errors. (I finally relented and copied the mpeg using the replaypc command line utility. After I did that, I could import the file manually.)
*
There is a limit of 4 gigabytes or thereabouts in filesize for FAT32 (used by win9x and some win2k). The file is under 4 gigs, but maybe this is somehow related... On the other hand, I suspect some people might disagree with you on whether this is a "high quality movie" 
Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*

It would be great if this program had some way to recover from a power failure/computer reboot problem. I currently plan on running this application on a computer connected to a ups, but sometimes they run out of power. Also, it would be nice if I would not have to log into the computer to do this. A good solution to this is to have the server portion of the program run as a service. This would remove the requirement to be logged in, and allow the server to 'start itself' after a reboot.


A friend of mine said there is a program that will allow you to make a program into a service, I'll try to get more information on that for you.


If running as a service isn't possible, then maybe an option to start the server immediately on program load would be nice. (That way you'd still have to log on, but you could use tweakui to handle logon automatically, and put SwapDV in the startup group.)
*
Woot! I would also be a great fan of that feature.


-Biscuits


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## mschoneman

A couple of issues:


I shut down the program and lost my guide contents. Would it be possible to auto save when programs are added?


After I imported the shows, I deleted the original downloads because the MPGS where in the Video directory. Now that I've accidentally deleted the guide is there some way I can import the shows? I get an error about missing rgd files.


Keep up the great work!


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## aslagle

Quote:

_Originally posted by Biscuitsjam_
*There is a limit of 4 gigabytes or thereabouts in filesize for FAT32 (used by win9x and some win2k). The file is under 4 gigs, but maybe this is somehow related...*
Nope, this is a WinXP box running on NTFS. No 4 gig limit here.


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## l8er

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*Quite why you'd want to watch it on your PC rather than the TV Im not sure about. Maybe if someone is watching the TV and you want to watch a show it has?*
That would be it. Thanks.


-Gary


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by mschoneman_
*A couple of issues:


I shut down the program and lost my guide contents. Would it be possible to auto save when programs are added?


After I imported the shows, I deleted the original downloads because the MPGS where in the Video directory. Now that I've accidentally deleted the guide is there some way I can import the shows? I get an error about missing rgd files.


Keep up the great work!*
"Save prompt before quitting" added to todo...


Would you prefer an "autosave" option instead? e.g. save on all changes straight away?


You can recover by simply grabbing the full rgd file from your replay and renaming it to the same "date" as your replay mpegs and ndxes. For example, if your mpg was called "101111111" then save a replay guide from your replay (assuming it has the show still in) as 10111111.rgd and "import" the show again.


If you have deleted the show from your replay box then its harder. Email me and I'll let you know...


Jotter


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*Jotter, this is simply awesome. I've gotten the 3 shows imported. It's really nice to have the Replay Server guide not filled with shows I haven't transferred.


I'll list all the errors I had to work around to maybe help with the troubleshooting.


1. All of the times I've tried to directly import from the replay, I've gotten the "cannot copy file from xxxxxx" error. Right now my only guess is that this is related to the trailing backslash error. If SwapDV can't find the file because it isn't where it thinks it is, It'll never be able to find it.


2. On a very large file (2 hour, high quality movie, "Babylon 5 - Legend of the Rangers", 3.60 GB) I could not get SwapDV to copy the file at all - I tried direct import, then save import files. It kept on giving "Could not copy entire file" errors. (I finally relented and copied the mpeg using the replaypc command line utility. After I did that, I could import the file manually.)


3. The server log is blank. Of course, this could just be a good sign.  It would be nice if all of the messages you were giving us in the YARS would be listed in the log. (Just a suggestion, but following the format of the MS logs in that errors get a different icon than normal messages would be nice.)


Now for my wish list:


It would be great if this program had some way to recover from a power failure/computer reboot problem. I currently plan on running this application on a computer connected to a ups, but sometimes they run out of power. Also, it would be nice if I would not have to log into the computer to do this. A good solution to this is to have the server portion of the program run as a service. This would remove the requirement to be logged in, and allow the server to 'start itself' after a reboot.


A friend of mine said there is a program that will allow you to make a program into a service, I'll try to get more information on that for you.


If running as a service isn't possible, then maybe an option to start the server immediately on program load would be nice. (That way you'd still have to log on, but you could use tweakui to handle logon automatically, and put SwapDV in the startup group.)


Once again, I don't want you to think that I'm not extremely happy with SwapDV and your work. This is so far beyond what I had hoped for when I bought my 4K.  You da man!*
For (1) did you get 0.12 version I reposted. Should solve that problem.


For (2) this is a problem I had with the old Yet Another Client. I'll look into it. I actually think my application is actually lying - could you compare the final file size of my attempt to transfer the babylon 5 film and replaypcs attempt and see if they are different? That would help a lot. Thanks


For the server issue. Hmmm. Harder to do with J++ programs. Id be interested in the code your friend knew of. Email [email protected] please 


I can easily add the program as a "autostart" in the registry or the start menu - added to todo!


Thanks for the list. Very useful.


Jotter


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## aslagle

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*For (1) did you get 0.12 version I reposted. Should solve that problem.


For (2) this is a problem I had with the old Yet Another Client. I'll look into it. I actually think my application is actually lying - could you compare the final file size of my attempt to transfer the babylon 5 film and replaypcs attempt and see if they are different? That would help a lot. Thanks


For the server issue. Hmmm. Harder to do with J++ programs. Id be interested in the code your friend knew of. Email [email protected] please *
Actually, I posted this before I knew of 0.12. And yes, it did fix #1.


I believe that the final file sizes were the same. 3,777,312 KB. (Of course, I don't have the error copy, and I deleted the show off of my 4K once I got a good copy. I'll punish myself appropriately, of course.  )


As for the service code, I'll have to ask my friend about it in a bit more detail. Since he will probably come over tomorrow (uhh...today?) to play with SwapDV a bit , I'll ask him then.


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## mschoneman

I'd prefer the Auto Save feature. I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't want to save the guide, but I'm sure someone will so maybe make it optional...


While your adding items to the wish list, I'd really like the ability to have the shows stored in different locations with different names (so that I can spread them across drives, and watch them on my and know what the heck they are).


I'm having some issues streaming from my PC to my Replay. I got quite a few blue screens saying there was no video. I've never used another server before and my 320 hr unit still hasn't gotten here so I don't if this is common or not. My network is all 100Mb switch ethernet so I don't think that's the problem...Maybe it's my computer? It's only a PIII 900Mhz with 256Mb with 5400rpm drives. I've got a new one that should be in next week (Athlon 2000+ with 512 Mb DDR and 7200rpm drives) so we'll see.


Again, great work!


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## centaur

Crap, I run Suse, instead of that unstable OS.


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by centaur_
*Crap, I run Suse, instead of that unstable OS.*
Suse?


Anyhow, the guts of the program are all pure java. The gui is (abviously) win32. When I get time (or if I get persueded) I'll look into a swing version on top of the main libs...


Jotter


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## karog

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*Suse?*
Suse is a linux distribution.


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## jimre

Dang! Now I'm going to have to go buy a heck of a lot more hard disks. Your new app is threatening to make my PC into a quite useful video library server for my Replay.


Fantastic job on this. I installed it on Win XP Pro, and everything worked fine. The only thing that tripped me up was not realizing I had to manually save the master guide every time. I think it should automatically save guide changes as soon as they are made. Maybe always keep the most recent 1-2 guide versions around as backup, just in case someone need to recover.


Also - I second the idea of an "autostart" option (if not "run as service") for unattended operation.


Thanks again.


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## Scyber

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimre_
*Dang! Now I'm going to have to go buy a heck of a lot more hard disks. Your new app is threatening to make my PC into a quite useful video library server for my Replay.
*
At least all you have to do is buy hard drives. The work that is being done here is driving me closer and closer to buying myself a 4k unit and a bunch of hardrives. Perhaps a couple 100 giggers in an nice Raid config.


If I wasn't saving for that darned house that I wanted to buy.


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## Biscuitsjam

Quote:

_Originally posted by Scyber_
*

Perhaps a couple 100 giggers in an nice Raid config.*
I really don't see the purpose of using RAID for this...


RAID 0 (data striping) would give you speed but decrease reliability. There's not even really a good reason to get 7200 RPM drives for this. The speed requirement just isn't there. And with RAID 0, if either hard drive fails, you lose all your data.


RAID 1 (mirroring) is a little more useful but still not something I would use for this. Basically each hard drive has identical data on it, so either one can fail and you don't lose the files. However, you only have half as much storage room. If you want to back up files, it would be better to just burn them to DVD, or, failing that, CDR.


There are other RAID solutions out there (RAID 0+1, RAID 5) that require more hard drives, but they really don't add much either. Just get a couple 100+ GB 5400 RPM hard drives.


Who needs a house anyway when you're going to sit on the couch watching TV all day 


-Biscuits


----------



## aslagle

Quote:

_Originally posted by Biscuitsjam_
*I really don't see the purpose of using RAID for this...


...snip...


There are other RAID solutions out there (RAID 0+1, RAID 5) that require more hard drives, but they really don't add much either.*
RAID adds quite a bit, actually. A mediocre RAID 5 solution will ensure that your disk subsystem is not the slowest part of your video serving system.


Several people are thinking of using this as serving to multiple machines simultaneously. Also, if a drive happens to fail, you haven't lost the entire series run of you've been nursing for the past year.


RAID 5 (it's my favorite) will give you all that, and the increased throughput of a striping array. Never mind the big hunk of cache hanging off of the controller card.


There's a reason all high-volume commercial servers use RAID 5.


----------



## Biscuitsjam

Yeah, I can kind of see the purpose of RAID 5. You add a third hard drive to get more reliability, while only losing 1/3 of the total volume. The third drive is used to calculate a parity bit for the other two drives which have the data striped across them. It alternates which drive has the parity bit. If any drive fails, the lose data can be reconstructed. With intensive video serving, there is going to be a lot of "thrashing" of the hard drives and this extra reliability is going to come in handy.


You also get increased speed, but I'm not sure you are going to need the speed though for these purposes. Those high-end commercial servers you are talking about have gigabit ethernet connections (sometimes dual gigabit) and RAM measuring in the gigabytes. They are also serving a heck of a lot more people than anybody here is talking about.


In comparison, we are using fast ethernet (100 megaBIT - 12.5 megaBYTE), whereas the fastest consumer hard drives are ATA133 (133 megaBYTE). A high quality video stream is only going to be 1 megabyte a second and your fast ethernet is going to max out after 10 or so of those at a time. Even with the relatively poor performance of non-sequential reads, the disk subsystem is going to be faster than your network connection.


So, I can see the usefulness of RAID 5: it adds reliability at a modest cost. The speed is not necessary for video serving though.


-Biscuits


----------



## centaur

Jotter, here's a request for Swing.


*nix is the future. And Winduhs + apps costs too darned much, now that they're clamping down on re-installation, and content protection is endemic. 'Fair Use' as public policy is presently being eliminated.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

jotter,


I have to say that this is a nice piece of code. I started a similar program in VB/VC++ but I didn't have anytime to spend on it so it never really got off the ground. Anyway I'ld like to ask for a couple of features if you've got the time.


1.) It would be cool if the program could check in a specific Category on the replay, say "Backup" and download/import those shows then delete them from the replay. If this function could be scheduled by the user that would be awesome.


2.) If you could delete programs on the replay from the PC that too would be good.


3.) Having multiple storage folders. So that more than one drive can be used.


You mentioned in an earlier post that you going to post the source code. Are going to do that? I would love to help add some of the features that people have been asking for. You mentioned that its J++, are you using J++ 6.0 from MS??


----------



## Scyber

Quote:

_Originally posted by Biscuitsjam_
*Yeah, I can kind of see the purpose of RAID 5. You add a third hard drive to get more reliability, while only losing 1/3 of the total volume. The third drive is used to calculate a parity bit for the other two drives which have the data striped across them. It alternates which drive has the parity bit. If any drive fails, the lose data can be reconstructed. With intensive video serving, there is going to be a lot of "thrashing" of the hard drives and this extra reliability is going to come in handy.
*
In addition to the increase reliability you also get the fact that the two drives are treated as one drive by the system. This will help with file management as you don't have to worry as much about your drives filling up. If I set up a server for this I would want to minimize the administration aspects of it.


-Scyber


----------



## jdm1979

"Failed to copy entire file"


This is the error I get after copying a file 100% in SwapDV v0.12


I am able to view the file in its entirety though so I assume its safe to work with it. Is there something wrong with this mpeg? Or is it just a program bug that wont effect the output of the file? I want to edit the commercials out with womble and burn to CD.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*"Failed to copy entire file"


This is the error I get after copying a file 100% in SwapDV v0.12


I am able to view the file in its entirety though so I assume its safe to work with it. Is there something wrong with this mpeg? Or is it just a program bug that wont effect the output of the file? I want to edit the commercials out with womble and burn to CD.*
Its a bug in the program - the file has actually been copied ok.


The new version has this corrected, I'll upload it later today to this thread...


Jotter


----------



## jgourd

I am getting speeds of 1.8 to 2.5 MB per sec using this program. What kind of numbers are you folks seeing?


----------



## jdm1979

im getting 1.8 - 2.7 on avg.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*im getting 1.8 - 2.7 on avg.*
I'm getting roughly the same. On a 100mbit switched network right?


----------



## acourvil

Me, too. Around 2.5 on a 100mbit switched.


----------



## jdm1979

"The new version has this corrected, I'll upload it later today to this thread... "


Jotter




What can we expect to see in the upcoming new version? Any new features? Or is it only the bug fix for the "Failed to copy entire file" error?


jdm


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*"The new version has this corrected, I'll upload it later today to this thread... "


Jotter




What can we expect to see in the upcoming new version? Any new features? Or is it only the bug fix for the "Failed to copy entire file" error?


jdm*
** New version available, download from first thread post **

- options for guide saving and server restarts

- nicer "first time" startup

- server configuration moved to "Configuration menu"


Jotter


----------



## Ed Rempalski

Man Jotter, Really nice work! Thank you so much!!


One question.


Can I bulk download say, 10 episodes of "The Daily Show" and have them go into a directory saved with different file names? These shows in particular have the same show name. Will/Could ShareDV default to show name and date to allow this type of download?


I tried Replayer.jar and it causes them to write over each other, Honus is aware of it, but has been working like a dog at his real job so hasn't had much play time...


Anyhow thank you again, you folks are making the coolest tools,

and being so nice to share!


----------



## ozone

Awesome tool Jotter.


Found a couple of anomolies to report:


in v1.2

wound up getting java memory error dialogues - i was downloading multiple files from my 4000 box on the 2 occasions that i saw this error. i'll see if 1.5 does the same.


in v1.5 - can't seem to connect to the 4000

file-remote replays-connect to... - yields no subsequent dialogue. disclaimer, i haven't rebooted since running a 1.2 session which gave me one of the above memory error conditions - hence jvm has most likely cacked.


other than the above - this is awesome stuff.


Wish list:

Has anyone thought of a way to bring in an edited mpeg or an mpeg from another source, make it compliant with replay mpeg stream and build the corresponding ndx and guide files?


The above would truly be awesome for loading non-replay generated mpegs and "serving" them to the replay.


Probably a tough task unless a ndx generator can be whipped up - guide file possibly less of an issue?


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by ozone_
*The above would truly be awesome for loading non-replay generated mpegs and "serving" them to the replay.


Probably a tough task unless a ndx generator can be whipped up - guide file possibly less of an issue?*
I can build ndx files, and my (GPL) source is available in the ReplayPC source tree for anybody who wants it, and I've posted here pretty much everything I know about ndx files (all but one flag and one field which is almost always (well over 99.99% of the time) the same value)


The sticky point is making mpeg files the replay likes -- the replay files are multiplexed in an unusual way (what details I've written up are in the replaypc developers mail archive) that no other multiplexer I've seen uses, and I don't have a multiplexer written yet, and I don't think anybody else is working on that problem.


Speaking of ndx files -- I'd still like one from a macrovision recording, to see if the flag I've IDed as "PPV" is a generic "protected" bit or if there's another one for macrovision.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by ozone_
*Awesome tool Jotter.


Found a couple of anomolies to report:


in v1.2

wound up getting java memory error dialogues - i was downloading multiple files from my 4000 box on the 2 occasions that i saw this error. i'll see if 1.5 does the same.


in v1.5 - can't seem to connect to the 4000

file-remote replays-connect to... - yields no subsequent dialogue. disclaimer, i haven't rebooted since running a 1.2 session which gave me one of the above memory error conditions - hence jvm has most likely cacked.


other than the above - this is awesome stuff.


Wish list:

Has anyone thought of a way to bring in an edited mpeg or an mpeg from another source, make it compliant with replay mpeg stream and build the corresponding ndx and guide files?


The above would truly be awesome for loading non-replay generated mpegs and "serving" them to the replay.


Probably a tough task unless a ndx generator can be whipped up - guide file possibly less of an issue?*
The serving *any* mpeg problem, well I think jtl knows more about this than me - see his response 


Errr. I think a number of menus lost their event handlers when I reorganised them (why doesnt J++ keep track of them!?). I'll make sure they are all working (again) and upload a new version.


Also the memory problem may be new. I dont think 0.15 will fix it as I didnt know it was a problem! Could you email me ([email protected]) details of the memory dialogs you're getting and maybe a description of what you did to get them? (and also what OS you're running on...)


Thanks

Jotter


----------



## jgourd

In version .15 I see the following message on my status bar:


"Unable to save guide: D:\\scratch\\Video\\D:\\scratch\\Video\\1013463366.rgd.rgd"


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jgourd_
*In version .15 I see the following message on my status bar:


"Unable to save guide: D:\\scratch\\Video\\D:\\scratch\\Video\\1013463366.rgd.rgd"*
Argh. Auto-save bug. Hopefully fixed now! If you could grab the latest version and test it that would help.


Thanks

Jotter


----------



## shaggy

anyone try sending to a PC over the internet running the server that doesn't have a replay box?


----------



## aslagle

Jotter, this is simply awesome. With tweakui's 'autologon' and SwapDV's 'autostart on load' option, my 'Replay Server' will now come up on its own after a reboot.


Your willingness to put in new functionality and provide quick fixes is absolutely stunning. I code for a living (albeit not in J++) and know just how hard it is to get a 'personal project' going.


Of course, I haven't been able to get the most recent version, since my home internet access has been down for the past day or so.


----------



## jgourd

All appears to be working now. I have even watched a few things on the PC from the Replay


----------



## markus98

win2k

removed .rgd, starts ok. connected to r4k, downloaded a program for swap directory. downloaded ok. shows as available.


killed iis server, started swapdv server, log is entirely blank.


ethereal shows that once a minute (I changed it from 5 min to 1min) I send out the probes. The real replay does not respond.


If I go to the real rtv4k it does not see any other servers.


Rebooted the rtv4k and the win2k box and it doesn't make a difference.


win2k box pings the rtv4k just fine. they're both served off a 10/100 switch (unmanaged, and no filtering).


Any ideas what to try to make the swapdv show up on the replay?


M

p.s. I'm assuming it would show up on the replay-guide section next to all-programs scrolling left of all-programs...

p.p.s I have downloaded and tried each version

posted hoping it was an obscure bug but I'm

afraid it's been the same with all versions...


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by markus98_
*p.s. I'm assuming it would show up on the replay-guide section next to all-programs scrolling left of all-programs...
*
Nope, it's above that, top right corner of the screen, in a field that isn't obviously a variable field. press 'up' from the tabs, and see what happens.


quick-skip and instant-replay (or is it fast forward and rewind?) will scroll that without having to go all the way up there.


----------



## MasterK

Well I got SwapDV working and I think I even understand it! (A FAQ would help) So I decided today to fill in the missing pieces in my setup. First I used Resource Hacker to extract the icons from the .dll that the Replay photo software installs. and move them into the SwapDV.exe so it has a real icon of it's own.


Then I found Minimize Magic 2.4, a handy little shareware app that allows any program to be saved to the system tray.


So now I have it autostarting minimized to the tray with a cool replay Icon!!


Much cleaner look on the machine. Now to build a dedicated machine in a 1u case to serve as my dedicated Replay server!!


Man I love The 4000.


If any one has questions I will try to write down exactly what I did soon.


----------



## centaur

Me Linux user left out in the cold... (snif)


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by centaur_
*Me Linux user left out in the cold... (snif)*
I am using SwapDV to make the guide files and then playing them on my 1.1 TB Linux video server.


-Nathan


----------



## Methanoid

I'm keen to get this server setup so that I can use it to send and received MPEGs from people in the US.. for trading shows....


But...


a) I need a little help and

b) I'll need to test that the US guys can play PAL MPEGs on their Replays (or its DVD or PC only).


Anyone interested in taking further please email me @ [email protected]


----------



## jotter

SwapDV FAQ (Kid Plasmid & Jotter)


Q. What is SwapDV?

A. SwapDV allows you to manage your own personal digital video (DV) library based on DV downloaded from ReplayTVs and other SwapDV instances running on your local area network and the Internet.


Q. So does this mean you condone illegal sharing of copyrighted material?

A. No. There are multiple sources of legally sharable content, such as personal videos and public and government television. SwapDV is intended for use with this content only.


Q. How can I transfer my personal video to SwapDV.

A. Connect your video source (like your VCR or digital camera) to the Replay TV input 1 or 2 and select manual record. The content is then properly digitized for viewing on other peoples replay TVs.


Q. Can SwapDV talk to my Replay TV?

A. Yes. You can use SwapDV to (1) connect to your ReplayTV and browse the contents; and (2) download mpegs. Once the digital video is imported into SwapDV you can watch it from your ReplayTV or PC. You can also use SwapDV to save the ReplayTV's guide data.


Q. How do I import personal digital video from my ReplayTV (or another SwapDV)?

A. First, create a "channel" where you will store imported content by using "Content Guide>Add Channel." Next enter the address of your ReplayTV or SwapDV using "File>Remote Replays." A Library guide window should open showing you a listing of "shows." Finally, right click on the desired content and select "Import Show to my SwapDV Library."


Q. Can I watch personal digital video stored on SwapDV from my ReplayTV?

A. Yes. SwapDV emulates a ReplayTV box on your local network and any content stored in SwapDV's guide is available for remote viewing.


Q. How do I make the SwapDV show up on my ReplayTV?

A. Go to the Replay Guide section and look in the top right corner of the screen. Pressing "UP" from the Guide Tabs will select the field which can then be used to switch between all the ReplayTVs and SwapDVs on your local area network.


Q. What files are needed to import new digital video into SwapDV?

A. To import shows, SwapDV needs the digital video (.mpg), the index (.ndx), and a guide snapshot (.rgd) that contains the content you are importing. You can use the import command to copy these three files and import them directly into SwapDV.


Q. Can I edit the show fields, channels, descriptions?

A. No, but this may be implemented in the future.


Q. Can my ReplayTV play digital video from my friend's SwapDV server directly?

A. Unless your "friend" is on the same high-bandwidth network segment this is not recommended. Trying to play video on a ReplayTV over a slow network connection results in choppy playback and system hangs. Additionally, your ReplayTV will not "see" the remote SwapDV server because UPnP does not usually pass through the Internet. We recommend you import the personal digital video into your local SwapDV server first.


Q. Can SwapDVs swap?

A. Yes. The SwapDV Network vision is a collection of servers on the Internet acting as front-ends for ReplayTVs. These servers provide playback of stored personal digital video (DV) to your LAN's ReplayTVs and also swap DV with each other. Initially swapping is manual using the import command but eventually a form of P2P technology will be supported.


Q. Does SwapDV run on Unix, Linux, Suse, or Multics?

A. Not yet. The basic program is Java but the graphical UI is based on Windows so this should not be too difficult and depends on user demand.


Q. Can I setup SwapDV so it automatically runs when my computer reboots?

A. Download Tweakui which has the ability to login a user on reboot and then put SwapDV in the startup program group. Also enable "restart server on startup" from the SwapDV options menu. People also report Minimize Magic 2.4 is useful.


Q. What does "Save as [X]" mean?

A. The "save show as library swap file" command means save the three parts required to swap the personal digital video with someone else. So saving the content that way will save "101nnnnn.mpg" "101nnnnn.ndx" and "101nnnnn.rgd". If you give these to someone else, they can add the video to their swapDV library by right clicking on a channel and selecting "import". The "Save as Replay" saves the raw Mpeg without alteration. The "Save as PC" adjusts the mpeg header to make it more mpeg compliant. Note, normally just use the Import command.


Q. Can I automatically backup (all) content from my ReplayTV?

A. This is an often asked for feature that may be available in the future if it doesn't violate copyright law.


Q. Can I watch (streaming) video on my PC?

A. In order to watch ReplayTV MPEG video you need an MPEG-2 player and decoder. The one we've found that works is from http://www.elecard.com. Currently you cannot play streaming video on your PC through SwapDV.


Q. What about really big disks?

A. Allowing multiple "root directories" or the ability to run multiple servers under different names may be provided in the future


---------------

If anyone has any additional questions or insights that they think would be good in the FAQ please drop me some email ([email protected])


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Methanoid_
*I'm keen to get this server setup so that I can use it to send and received MPEGs from people in the US.. for trading shows....


But...


a) I need a little help and

b) I'll need to test that the US guys can play PAL MPEGs on their Replays (or its DVD or PC only).


Anyone interested in taking further please email me @ [email protected] *
Methanoid,


Sadly at this time you cannot provide your *own* mpegs. The Replay boxes (and therefore SwapDV) will only work with Replay generated Mpeg2s. No-one (currently) knows how to construct or convert existing video files into the correct mpeg2 format for the replays.


However, you can certainly used SwapDV to trade programs with US people. You just won't be able to add any UK content at this time (or content outside of that recorded on Replays)


Jotter


----------



## markus98

Win2k, latest swapdv,

run the server, it shows the two programs I've

imported into the library.


go to thertv4K. SOMETIMES it sees the swapdv, but says there are no programs there (28hrs available for recording).


SOMETIMES it doesn't see the swapdv...ethereal shows no responses from the 4k to the swapdv announcements.


What can I tweak... what can I troubleshoot?


M


----------



## kcroke

Do I have to have a replayTV4000 to run SwapDV?


----------



## jmaver

Nope. You just need to find a way to get the required files. You can then import them. However, you need a replay4000 to stream them to from SwapDV. Without a replay4000 somewhere, you are better off using extract_rtv


----------



## kcroke

What files are required? Could someone email me the required files at [email protected] .


Also, this means that I will be able to download shows from other replay users, correct?


Thanks,

Kevin


----------



## jgourd

OK,


I told my CTO about SwapDV and Snapstream. He says that all this is great, but what he really really wants is to be able to stream his MP3 collection to the ReplayTV 4000.


Figure out a way to do that and you have a really cool system, much better than Rio Receiver!


----------



## ozone

re: Automatically pulling off of Replay in the future. Great feature, Jotter. I would recommend adding an ability / option to automatically delete the shows pulled from the Replay as well - if that's possible.


----------



## ozone

So - now with all this great work under way, we need to get Replay (or someone) to supply a "near-diskless" version of the RTV 4k. I mean really stripped down model that can sell dirt cheap!


Functional requirements:


Connect for guide update

Maintain enough "cache" to manage pause, instant replay, etc.

Connect to remote replay guide on lan (SwapDV, ReplayServer or another RTV 4k)


Enhanced feature:

Stripped down RTV 4k could still record a show - storage would reside on another RTV server on the lan (SwapDV, ReplayServer, or other RTV 4k node).


I propose calling this the RTV Green Model - "it can recycle those poor old sub-30 gig drives"


Anybody wanna guess at a good price point?


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by markus98_
*Win2k, latest swapdv,

run the server, it shows the two programs I've

imported into the library.


go to thertv4K. SOMETIMES it sees the swapdv, but says there are no programs there (28hrs available for recording).


SOMETIMES it doesn't see the swapdv...ethereal shows no responses from the 4k to the swapdv announcements.


What can I tweak... what can I troubleshoot?


M*
Hmm. Well it seem possible that the broadcast UPnP message isnt arriving at the replay. So check that the replay photo app can "see" your replay. A useful way of "tricking" the replay into rescanning for your swapdv server is to "stop" the swapdv server and then "start" it again. The stop actually send the byebye message to the network which should make the replay box re-request information about your box when it sees the start messages.


If the guide is empty there are two possibilities. One is that the replay simply isnt requesting a new guide from your server. You can see this by opening the log window and watching for requests from the replay server. When you select your swapdv server on the replay box it normally asks for the latest guide from your server. Try that!


One final possibility is that the guide editor has somehow corrupted the swapDV guide. To test this you can copy the latest .rgd file from the root directory into a backup place and download your replays own guide (.rgd) and put it into the swapdv root directory. Then stop and restart your swapdv server and see if the replay will show you the guide on your server.


Edited text:

Looking at your problems again my thoughts are that the most likely problem is some kind of firewall or network trouble again. Are you running zonealarm or have any kind of firewall involved here?


Let me know how you get on!

Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jmaver_
*Nope. You just need to find a way to get the required files. You can then import them. However, you need a replay4000 to stream them to from SwapDV. Without a replay4000 somewhere, you are better off using extract_rtv*
You dont need a replay.


You can simply transfer the replay files from one swapdv server to another (ftp, http, whatever). Simply export the show you want to swap into its 3 files (.rgd, .mpg, .ndx), transfer them to the other swapdv machine and choose "import" on the swapdv channel right-click menu.


Out of interest, what features does extract_rtv have that may be useful in SwapDV?


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jgourd_
*OK,


I told my CTO about SwapDV and Snapstream. He says that all this is great, but what he really really wants is to be able to stream his MP3 collection to the ReplayTV 4000.


Figure out a way to do that and you have a really cool system, much better than Rio Receiver!*
Maybe possible if someone works out how to turn the mp3 part of the replay on!


(another more mundane method would be to convert the mp3 to the audio part of the mpeg2 on the fly. No idea how to do that...)


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by kcroke_
*What files are required? Could someone email me the required files at [email protected] .


Also, this means that I will be able to download shows from other replay users, correct?


Thanks,

Kevin*
You only need the zip attached to the first post of this thread.


You can download shows from anyone who opens up their own replay (or swapdv) server on port 80 to the whole internet - and the IP. However this is not necessarily a good idea.


Im hoping soon to get some help with some P2P technologies to support the sharing of the files between swapdv servers. For now, ftp is probably best!


Jotter


----------



## jgourd

I am also having this problem. Looking at the log, it shows that the Replays are requesting a guide, but SwapDV is indicating that the Replay already has the most recent copy.


Creating a new guide from scratch will update the ReplayTV, but it never updates after the first time.


I would send the log, but there isn't a way to save it right now.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jgourd_
*I am also having this problem. Looking at the log, it shows that the Replays are requesting a guide, but SwapDV is indicating that the Replay already has the most recent copy.


Creating a new guide from scratch will update the ReplayTV, but it never updates after the first time.


I would send the log, but there isn't a way to save it right now.*
Hmm. Looks like a bug. I'll look into it.


For now you could simply rename your more up-to-date guide file with a new name (add 1 to the number!) and the swapdv should server the new one when requested...


Jotter


----------



## epete

I dont believe it is the remote because I have the same problem when using my old style RPTV remote with the 4Ks


----------



## NoFreakinWay

I'm having a problem thats causing the RPTV 4k to reboot. I'm not sure if its the 4k or swapDV. When I go to the replay guide and move up to the replay 4k name and switch to my swapDV server, it causes the RPTV to reboot. Sometimes it takes switching back and forth a couple times, but it always reboots.

Other times the the guide is not showing any entries when its on the swapDV server.

Anyone else have this happening???


----------



## jgourd

Mine will reboot when accessing SwapDV as well.


----------



## mschoneman

Mine will reboot if if I'm downloading a show with SwapDV and try to access the menu.


Also it will reboot if I try to pull two shows at the same time. It doesn't happen right away, but about 50% through both shows my 4080 goes out to lunch for a while then reboots.


jotter keep up the good work. I'm more than willing to deal with the occasional hiccups because the end result is fantastic.


----------



## acourvil

I had the reboot problem when I tried to use a guide pulled with ReplayPC, but not if I got the guide with SwapDV or started with an empty guide generated by SwapDV. Maybe the guide is corrupted?


At this point, SwapDV seems to be working great for me; with a guide editor, it would be perfect (at least for my needs).


----------



## jdm1979

Ever since the software update from replay [jan, 30], SwapDV 1.5c doesnt function right. When I try to download a 60 minute clip for example, (save as PC Mpeg) it freezes the download at any given time, sometimes at 7 percent, sometimes at 56 percent and ever as close to 90 percent. Does anyone else have this issue? Is there a fix? I tried rebooting both the replay and th pc and that doesnt help. I also reinstalled WinXP on my Pc. Before the software update, there was never a problem downloading a show.



jdm


----------



## acourvil

I've only downloaded one show since the software upgrade, but it worked fine. I'll play around with it a liitle more and see if I have problems.


----------



## jdm1979

Jotter: Here is a request for SwapDV that would make it totally awesome.


I don't know if its possible but can you somehow incorporate a download accelerator into Swap DV so it downloads a show that is 1 GB in size in 1/3 the time it normally takes by splitting the file up in 2 - 3 pieces and downloading those pieces simoultaniously and then after the completed downloads it recooperates the files into the original form? Or perhaps allow for the use of an external download accelerator, such as Download Mage located at www.dlmage.com. 


This particular download accelerator is quite excellent for me for normal everyday use. It also works with Morpheus. How you might ask, well its simple... I figured this out by accident. All you do is start downloading a file in Morpheus like normal, then run DLMage, and make sure Monitor Downloads is checked. The right click the file you are downloading from in Morpheus and select Preview / Play. It will launch the Download Monitor and accelerate the download. At this point cancel the download in morpheus but let DL Mage take over. It works for me.. Also, I heard a while ago that Morphes has some sort of exploit / hole [or whatever you wanna call it] in it that allows you to view a users shared files in IE. Well, I am not sure how to do that but from what I understand its not a security issue because its showing only what is being shared. Anyways, You can use this method to download the files as well from DOwnload Mage. See, some files in Morpheus you cannot preview there fore you cannot activate Download Mage. But using the other method will allow you to use Download Mage.


Well this was totally out of the area I was going at but you understand what I am getting at with the SwapDV thing.. Is that possible or is there an issue that prevents this from happening?



jdm


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*Ever since the software update from replay [jan, 30], SwapDV 1.5c doesnt function right. When I try to download a 60 minute clip for example, (save as PC Mpeg) it freezes the download at any given time, sometimes at 7 percent, sometimes at 56 percent and ever as close to 90 percent. Does anyone else have this issue?*
I've transferred about 6 hours worth of video since then without any trouble, but that was with ReplayPC/my httpfs, not swapdv. There were no changes at all in the HTTPFS module, but there were in HttpHandlers.


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*Jotter: Here is a request for SwapDV that would make it totally awesome.


I don't know if its possible but can you somehow incorporate a download accelerator into Swap DV so it downloads a show that is 1 GB in size in 1/3 the time it normally takes by splitting the file up in 2 - 3 pieces and downloading those pieces simoultaniously and then after the completed downloads it recooperates the files into the original form?*
I tried exactly that with my httpfs client, and it didn't help at all. Someone else pointed out that the ~21mb/sec transfers we're getting match up pretty well with disk transfer rates over non-ultra IDE -- I think that's where the bottleneck is.


----------



## jdm1979

Is ReplayPC/my httpfs GUI based? I like gui's for easy configurations and organizations.


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*Is ReplayPC/my httpfs GUI based? I like gui's for easy configurations and organizations.*
Nope, they're command line tools, for ease of use and flexibility.


----------



## jdm1979

I thought of another minor feature that would be cool... how about when you minimize SwapDV it shows the progress of the xfers your making to your PC...[time left, %, files left] like most FTP clients do. This way if your surfing the web or chatting on irc you dont have to switch between them both [alt tab] or clicking the bar in the taskbar area to view the progress. It will save a few seconds of time and not that big a deal.. but a nice additional feature.


----------



## nystratton

Well I was wrong, I have been trying to do all my SwapDV work on Windows and keep the video on the big Linux box, but it is just to slow. I tried to run SwapDV on my Linux box using WINE, but right now WINE can't support Java windows emulation.


Anyone working on a more open frontend?


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jdm1979_
*I thought of another minor feature that would be cool... how about when you minimize SwapDV it shows the progress of the xfers your making to your PC...[time left, %, files left] like most FTP clients do. This way if your surfing the web or chatting on irc you dont have to switch between them both [alt tab] or clicking the bar in the taskbar area to view the progress. It will save a few seconds of time and not that big a deal.. but a nice additional feature.*
Added to todo...


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*I tried exactly that with my httpfs client, and it didn't help at all. Someone else pointed out that the ~21mb/sec transfers we're getting match up pretty well with disk transfer rates over non-ultra IDE -- I think that's where the bottleneck is.*
I agree that a download accelator would be great between swapDV servers. Something supporting a good P2P model would be great.


However, Im not sure that would help backing up video from your replay box over the local network. As people have pointed out the transfer rate could be disk limited (but at which end?). Im not sure how splitting up the dl across multiple requests would help?


If the transfer is network limited then splitting up the requests clearly won't help either.


Hmmm?

Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*I've transferred about 6 hours worth of video since then without any trouble, but that was with ReplayPC/my httpfs, not swapdv. There were no changes at all in the HTTPFS module, but there were in HttpHandlers.*
Hmmm. Anyone else seeing this?


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by mschoneman_
*Mine will reboot if if I'm downloading a show with SwapDV and try to access the menu.


Also it will reboot if I try to pull two shows at the same time. It doesn't happen right away, but about 50% through both shows my 4080 goes out to lunch for a while then reboots.


jotter keep up the good work. I'm more than willing to deal with the occasional hiccups because the end result is fantastic.*
Hmm. What menu are you talking about? The SwapDV show menu from your replay box?


For other people here are conditions which I know will cause reboots:


* SwapDV serving a corrupt guide. Most commonly happens when you download a "stripped" guide from replaypc etc. Use SwapDV to grab a guide or create one from scratch.


* Trying to play a show which doesn't exist on the remote replay (e.g. SwapDV). Replay says no video but when you try to play a second show (regardless of whether it exists) it will reboot.


If you have a reboot which doesn't seem to fall into these two please let me know ([email protected])


Jotter


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*As people have pointed out the transfer rate could be disk limited (but at which end?).
*
For my speed tests, I was throwing the received data away, not storing it.
Quote:

*Im not sure how splitting up the dl across multiple requests would help?*
If the bottleneck had turned out to be a small send window and network/software latency, it would have helped a lot -- that's why the download accelerators work so well over the long distances of the 'net. That's doesn't seem to be the bottleneck here.

Quote:

If the transfer is network limited then splitting up the requests clearly won't help either.
There are ways the network can be the bottleneck other than the simple bits/second throughput.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*I'm having a problem thats causing the RPTV 4k to reboot. I'm not sure if its the 4k or swapDV. When I go to the replay guide and move up to the replay 4k name and switch to my swapDV server, it causes the RPTV to reboot. Sometimes it takes switching back and forth a couple times, but it always reboots.

Other times the the guide is not showing any entries when its on the swapDV server.

Anyone else have this happening???*
This sounds like a corrupted guide. How did you get the guide which SwapDV is serving up? You could try and move your root directory elsewhere and get SwapDV to recreate a blank one - add a new channel and see if you can get that guide appearing consistently.


Jotter


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


This sounds like a corrupted guide. How did you get the guide which SwapDV is serving up? You could try and move your root directory elsewhere and get SwapDV to recreate a blank one - add a new channel and see if you can get that guide appearing consistently.


Jotter*
My guide was created by swapDV as I added shows. If I delete the guide then I will lose the ability to serve the videos I've downloaded. They are no longer on my 4K so I have no way to recreate the guide with these shows in it. Is there anyway that swapDV can be used to re-create the guide or repair the guide? The questionable thing that happened is a manual recording from Line2 input. On an earlier version of swapDV it would not allow me to even download the manual recording, not unitl I went to the replay and renamed the show and channel that I recorded from. I recently recorded another from line2 and it did let me downlaod it, but I think the problem has been occuring since then.


----------



## epete

I too, am having many RPTV rebooting problems, I was able to get SwapDV to stream a program to my RPTV once, but RPTV is constantly rebooting now anytime I select the SwapDV Server from the RPTV.


I am sure, I am doing something wrong, because I don't completely understand the proper *.rgd process.


I assume RPTV maintains a single *.rgd file and updates as programs are added or removed. When SwapDV imports a show to my SwapDV library, it saves my *.mpg and *.ndx into the video folder. I assume it is also saving a snapshot of the *.rgd file into my SwapDV root directory.


After performing this process, I was unable to see a guide on my server via the RPTV. I copied the *.rgd file and renamed it to the same name as the *.mpg file. (I believe this is what I am supposed to do from reading through all of the strings.)


I was then able to see the guide and play a program. (but only once). I did try to play a program that was not copied and the RPYV reboots almost any time I scroll to the server (or sometimes as I scroll through programs on the server).


I have seen some discussions of swapDV creating its own guide. How is this done? What does "Content Guide|Add Channel" do? I have seen some references to editing the guides, does SwapDV support this yet or is this one of the dimmed options?


Please help me understand the proper way to copy or generate a clean guide that will work without RPTV Rebooting. If there is a method for editing the guide, that would be helpful to know how to do also.


What is the reason for the "save contents guide (no header)" when right clicking a program within a real RPTV library window?


This is really great stuff here! Thank You.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by epete_
*I too, am having many RPTV rebooting problems, I was able to get SwapDV to stream a program to my RPTV once, but RPTV is constantly rebooting now anytime I select the SwapDV Server from the RPTV.


I am sure, I am doing something wrong, because I don't completely understand the proper *.rgd process.


I assume RPTV maintains a single *.rgd file and updates as programs are added or removed. When SwapDV imports a show to my SwapDV library, it saves my *.mpg and *.ndx into the video folder. I assume it is also saving a snapshot of the *.rgd file into my SwapDV root directory.


After performing this process, I was unable to see a guide on my server via the RPTV. I copied the *.rgd file and renamed it to the same name as the *.mpg file. (I believe this is what I am supposed to do from reading through all of the strings.)


I was then able to see the guide and play a program. (but only once). I did try to play a program that was not copied and the RPYV reboots almost any time I scroll to the server (or sometimes as I scroll through programs on the server).


I have seen some discussions of swapDV creating its own guide. How is this done? What does "Content Guide|Add Channel" do? I have seen some references to editing the guides, does SwapDV support this yet or is this one of the dimmed options?


Please help me understand the proper way to copy or generate a clean guide that will work without RPTV Rebooting. If there is a method for editing the guide, that would be helpful to know how to do also.


What is the reason for the "save contents guide (no header)" when right clicking a program within a real RPTV library window?


This is really great stuff here! Thank You.*
Ok, the .rgd process is pretty straightforward. The SwapDV server serves the most recent .rgd file (based on filename) from its root directory. This is YOUR list of videos which you edit using the guide. When SwapDV needs to exchange a show (either from a remote replay tv or with another SwapDV server (probably by saving the show to disk)) it needs a "snapshot" of a guide containing the show so that it can copy the description into your content guide. The SwapDV program imports to the "Import" folder and once all 3 files are in place (.rgd, .ndx and .mpg) it copies the show entry from the import .rgd into its root .rgd and deletes the imported .rgd file afterwards. You should never normally need to touch the .rgd files yourself (although its sometimes necessary to recover)


There is a bug with the current release of SwapDV which stops the server returning an up-to-date version of the guide when "auto-save guide" is being used. Ive fixed it and hope to have a bug fixed release with "edit" and "play" features out soon.


The only reason for the "save contents guide (no header)" is that some other tools like a "stripped" or headerless version so I added a function for cross-tool use. In normal use you probably never need to save the remote replay guide explicitly.


Soooo. To get you started:

* Move the contents of your SwapDV folder somewhere else for "safe-keeping". You should have your root folder with "Video" and "Import" subdirectories (all empty)

* Start SwapDV. It will create a new "blank" guide for you to start with.

* Add a new channel.

* Go to remote-replays and enter your replays IP address

* Find a show you like and select import and choose the channel you just created. *NOTE* there is a small bug here where if you hit cancel now it WILL import the show anyway and create a new channel the same as the show had originally.

* After it downloads you should see the new show entry in the SwapDV contents guide.

* You may need to click on "Save guide" off the "Content guide" menu at the top if auto-save isn't on

* Start the server (if it isn't already)

* Go to your replay box and hopefully the top left of your guide screen menu will allow you to select another replay (the SwapDV server)


As I said Im hoping to get a minor bug-fixing release out soon.


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Thanks to nearly all of you for the bug reports, feature requests and support.


While Im thinking about where to go next with SwapDV heres a new version (0.2a). Minor fixes and features:


* auto-save bug fixed

* edit show details now added 

* play added to show menu (local SwapDV file only)

* SwapDV now runs as a small icon in tray with right click menu


I've not replaced the 0.15c as Id like to see how people get along with this one first... 


If anyone wants to give me some good looking SwapDV icons, rather than the horrible 5 minute ones Ive produced, please drop me a line 


Jotter


134 times

*** Please use attachment in very first post ***


----------



## NoFreakinWay

jotter,


I deleted the manual recording from the replayserver and the reboot problem dissapeared. Sooo it was apparently a guide problem like you said. Thanks.. I have the offending guide file if you're interested it looking at it.




The manual recordings will have to wait. 

Maybe with the editable guide in this release it will work. We'll see.

BTW: Thanks for all your work. And my offer to help out still stands. I do have J++ available.


----------



## acourvil

jotter -


Thanks for this great piece of software!


If you are still taking feature requests, I have a couple of thoughts. The new edit capabilities are great, but it would be good if it was also possible to edit some additional information, like minutes, channel, etc. One reason for this is importing older shows for which we have no guide info. It looks like you can do this by taking an existing guide entry and editting it, and by changing the name of the show that you want to display to the name originally associated with that guide entry. But unless they were both the same length, it will display oddly in the Replay guide (e.g., I added the movie "Disclosure" this way; it seems to show up in the guide and play just fine, but because the guide entry I used was fo a 30 minute show, it displays as a 30 minute show even though it is ~2hrs.). Another possibility would be a "build your own" guide entry. It would also be handy to be able to edit channels.


Also, the entries in the edit dialog for recordings show up in the wrong columns(i.e., Show Title is in the Episode Title column, Episode title is in the Description column, Description is in the DescName column).


----------



## jmhardy

I must be missing something because I can't get a show I've imported to my SwapDV Library to show up on my ReplayTV.


Here's what I did:


1. Created a channel in My SwapDV Library called "Stuff"


2.Ran the app, opened my RTV, clicked on a show and selected "Import Show to My SwapDV Library", when prompted for what channel to import it to, selected "Stuff"


3. Watched in the download page as the show downloaded and completed. It is now listed under the Content Guide of my Library.


4. Went into my ReplayTV recorded shows view, went up to the top and selected the computer name which is running as the server. It doesn't show any shows available to watch.


I tried to weed this information out of all the posts....really I did, but I didn't see it answered. Someone please take pity on me?


----------



## jmhardy

Well, something I did caused the show to become available...but I'm not sure what! Any ideas?


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*


My guide was created by swapDV as I added shows. If I delete the guide then I will lose the ability to serve the videos I've downloaded. They are no longer on my 4K so I have no way to recreate the guide with these shows in it. Is there anyway that swapDV can be used to re-create the guide or repair the guide? The questionable thing that happened is a manual recording from Line2 input. On an earlier version of swapDV it would not allow me to even download the manual recording, not unitl I went to the replay and renamed the show and channel that I recorded from. I recently recorded another from line2 and it did let me downlaod it, but I think the problem has been occuring since then.*
I have the same problem, I use a combination of PHP3 Replayserver and the Java replay server depending on my guide format. I then can save the guide in whatever format I want. You are right though, a quick tool to fix this would be cool.


----------



## nystratton

You may want to add a option to limit the number of simultaneous downloads to a replay unit. When I try to suck more then 4 from a unit at one time the tool locked up. I thought it was just my box, but I have 3 replays and I can suck 4 files from each replay or 12 files at one time with no problem.


-nathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*You may want to add a option to limit the number of simultaneous downloads to a replay unit. When I try to suck more then 4 from a unit at one time the tool locked up. I thought it was just my box, but I have 3 replays and I can suck 4 files from each replay or 12 files at one time with no problem.


-nathan*
Interesting. So it looks like a replay limit. Sounds like a 4 transfer limit would be a good idea.


Jotter


----------



## jgourd

I think you might want to maintain a queue and let the user determine the max threads (1-4).


----------



## nystratton

My setup is a bit odd, I run SwapDV on a win 2000 box, but the storage is a SAMBA drive on my Linux box.


Anyway, when I start transferring files with Swap DV I get 4 downloads each from two 4Ks. The transfers start at around 200K each (slower because the traffic has to hit the 2K box and then hit the Linux server with the RAID drives) download. As time goes on that keeps dropping until the download finishes and ends up around 80k.


Now I can see how a flow would get smaller, but when one of the 4 flows finishes and I start a new transfer it jumps back to around 200K so I know the box can send more.


So has anyone else run into this sort of thing? It looks like the replay will lower the transfer because of network issues, but never brings it back up. It is almost like TCP sliding window is broken.


-Nathan

My setup is a bit odd, I run SwapDV on a win 2000 box, but the storage is a SAMBA drive on my Linux box.


Anyway, when I start transferring files with Swap DV I get 4 downloads each from two 4Ks. The transfers start at around 200K each (slower because the traffic has to hit the 2K box and then hit the Linux server with the RAID drives) download. As time goes on that keeps dropping until the download finishes and ends up around 80k.


Now I can see how a flow would get smaller, but when one of the 4 flows finishes and I start a new transfer it jumps back to around 200K so I know the box can send more.


So has anyone else run into this sort of thing? It looks like the replay will lower the transfer because of network issues, but never brings it back up. It is almost like TCP sliding window is broken.


-Nathan


----------



## ozone

I've noticed a significant number of video interrupts when attempting playback from a SwapDV server stream to a 4000. The symptoms are the appearance of a blue screen with the message "video unavailable". The blue screen remains for approximately 2 to 3 seconds and then the video stream will proceed. I've experienced this condition consistently since installing the last two revs of SwapDV with an interrupt interval of approximately every 10 to 15 minutes. I'm running 100 on the network, hence I don't believe the network is necessarily the bottleneck. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Jotter, is there possibly something in the server that could be causing this?


----------



## jotter

Hi,


Im contemplating moving part of the SwapDV micro-server code over to a more fully functional (but still probably standalone and hopefully small) java based HTTP1.1 web server. If anyone has any thoughts on the possibilities/alternatives (hopefully with fairly generous licensing for distribution) please drop me a line ([email protected]) (Jetty for example?)


Jotter


----------



## nystratton

I have a odd problem that I hope someone can help me with. When I suck video using SeapDV and I look at it in the Import directory as it is being downloaded I can play the video fine in Wamble or Media Player. I also can play any downloaded video from any of my 4Ks that was downloaded with replayer or replaypc.


However when a download finishes with SwapDV and it is moved into the Video directory from Import I can no longer play it. I just goet a black screen. Anyone have any ideas? Could it have something with the move from Import to Video or is the file touched in any way after it is downloaded?


My setup is a Linux box with 1.1 TB of RAID disk using SAMBA to map the drive to a windows box running SwapDV.


-Nathan


----------



## dbatten

Jotter

I have a question/request about running SwapDV on a server with multiple IP addresses on Port 80. I wish to run SwapDV on the same machine I use for a web server (Windows 2000). When I add a second IP address to the NIC, SwapDV will only see the primary IP address. I have tried to move the IIS5 web services to the second IP, but both SwapDV and the IIS5 web services won't run at the same time on port 80. Is there any way to get SwapDV to see multiple IP's? Will SwapDV see more than one IP if I add a second NIC? I know I can use a different port for SwapDV, but the Replay 4000 does not see the server if I use any port besides 80.


Thanks,

David


----------



## jgourd

I am not sure if the ReplayTV would work if the Web server doesn't disguise itself as another ReplayTV. With that in mind, it might be easy to make a SwapDV component that registers itself as an ISAPI filter in IIS to allow us to use IIS as an altenative to the internal Web server.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by dbatten_
*Jotter

I have a question/request about running SwapDV on a server with multiple IP addresses on Port 80. I wish to run SwapDV on the same machine I use for a web server (Windows 2000). When I add a second IP address to the NIC, SwapDV will only see the primary IP address. I have tried to move the IIS5 web services to the second IP, but both SwapDV and the IIS5 web services won't run at the same time on port 80. Is there any way to get SwapDV to see multiple IP's? Will SwapDV see more than one IP if I add a second NIC? I know I can use a different port for SwapDV, but the Replay 4000 does not see the server if I use any port besides 80.


Thanks,

David*
Hmmm. Presumably if you could edit the IP address you could put in the second NIC IP instead? I just use Javas built-in local inet address functions which are clearly defaulting to the NIC you don't want.


However, Im not sure even then it would work as you seemed to have tried doing a variant of that with your IIS server. SwapDV (or ANY replay server) needs to run on port 80. The other replay box on your network simply won't see it otherwise. Obviously if you are just interested in running the server you can on a different port but the replay won't be able to use it.


Putting it behind an IIS web server *may* be possible, but there are problems with the URL paths the SwapDV server needs to accept (almost everything at the root level).


Hmmm.

Im currently thinking about moving over to a web-interface for x-platform work (the swapDV server must run a web server anyway) so there may be a need to think about more integration with an existing web server, rather than standalone (although for many people standalone is much easier to deal with - no setup!)


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by ozone_
*I've noticed a significant number of video interrupts when attempting playback from a SwapDV server stream to a 4000. The symptoms are the appearance of a blue screen with the message "video unavailable". The blue screen remains for approximately 2 to 3 seconds and then the video stream will proceed. I've experienced this condition consistently since installing the last two revs of SwapDV with an interrupt interval of approximately every 10 to 15 minutes. I'm running 100 on the network, hence I don't believe the network is necessarily the bottleneck. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Jotter, is there possibly something in the server that could be causing this?*
There could be a problem with the server although the show streaming isn't really rocket science. It's simply in a loop reading the file from the disk into a buffer and pushing that buffer out to the replay in "chunked" format.


I can't think of any obvious reason why the throughput should choke once its all going. Its possible there is some odd memory or stack problem which keeps accumulating for 10/15 mins and then does something but I don't really think so.


Hmmm


Jotter


----------



## epete

I have noticed the same video interrupts when streaming from one RPTV to another. This may be a problem with replaytv or maybe the network, rather than SwapDV.


----------



## ozone

Supposedly SB made some fixes related to interrupted video in 411 - I haven't noticed a difference.


Is anyone else experiencing the "Video Temporarily Unavailable" condition?


----------



## nystratton

Well I have run some more tests, and wanted to updated the list and see if anyone else could help me with my problem.


First let me say that SwapDV is very cool code, but I run a unix shop and have built a 1.1 TB replay server on Linux. I have tested Swap DV on my win2K desktop and laptop and everything works fine. However if I tell SwapDV that my storage is a maped remote drive (via SAMBA on the Linux box) I start to run into problems. When video is first downloaded into the Import directory I can copy the file as it is downloading and paly it just fine in Wamble and Media Player. Hoever when the mpg finishes and it is moved onto the Video directory I can no longer pay it. The video is just back and stoped after a few secs even if the program is 2 hours long.


How is the video moved? It is copied or just moved? Is there anything that happens to the video after it finishes that could be causing this problem after it moves, but be fine as it is downloading?


----------



## WebToad

I am also having those same symptoms. I have twice replaced my network device. It is currently at 100Mbps switch. SwapDV is running on a new machine. I have been trying to test shows at lower quality settings. Am I correct in thinking that someone says the latest SonicBlue software upgrade may have "fixed" this?


BTW, I see a refrence to remote storage using SMB. It would be good to clean up that drive resource before you retrieve the file. I would bet that it gets written in a fragmented state as SMB wont give you the cleanest "stream" of data to the Drive.


----------



## marksmith99

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*Well I have run some more tests, and wanted to updated the list and see if anyone else could help me with my problem.


First let me say that SwapDV is very cool code, but I run a unix shop and have built a 1.1 TB replay server on Linux. I have tested Swap DV on my win2K desktop and laptop and everything works fine. However if I tell SwapDV that my storage is a maped remote drive (via SAMBA on the Linux box) I start to run into problems. When video is first downloaded into the Import directory I can copy the file as it is downloading and paly it just fine in Wamble and Media Player. Hoever when the mpg finishes and it is moved onto the Video directory I can no longer pay it. The video is just back and stoped after a few secs even if the program is 2 hours long.


How is the video moved? It is copied or just moved? Is there anything that happens to the video after it finishes that could be causing this problem after it moves, but be fine as it is downloading?*
I am having the same problem, but I am using FreeBSD and a Win98 box. The video is fine until it is moved to the /Video directory. It would be nice if you we had an option to build the guide without transfering the video. We then could just copy directly from the replay to our unix boxes.


----------



## kreigerm

If you have a machine with multiple IP addresses, you can have the application bind to the address you want it to.


I know you can do this with straight Winsock calls. I'll try to see if this can be done with the INET.DLL which really just wraps the Winsock.DLL and gives it more high level calls.


If you want to poke yourself, it would be somewhere in a BIND call.


----------



## nystratton

Well I have not found the magic file size that breaks the video files, but I have found out that small files work. I have tried standard, medium, and high quality video with files sizes around 20 meg and around 70 megs with no problem, several gig files break and I am not trying several hundred meg files.


Again, the video looks like it downloads into the Import directory fine, but when it is moved to Video something hapens to it and it can't be viewed.


-nathan


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*Well I have not found the magic file size that breaks the video files, but I have found out that small files work. I have tried standard, medium, and high quality video with files sizes around 20 meg and around 70 megs with no problem, several gig files break and I am not trying several hundred meg files.


Again, the video looks like it downloads into the Import directory fine, but when it is moved to Video something hapens to it and it can't be viewed.


-nathan*
Import is a local filesystem, and /Video is mounted over SMB, served by Samba?


I'd guess 2 gigs, either an SMB protocol limitation or Samba not having been compiled with large file support.


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Import is a local filesystem, and /Video is mounted over SMB, served by Samba?


I'd guess 2 gigs, either an SMB protocol limitation or Samba not having been compiled with large file support.*
Ya, this is odd. My SwapDV works directory is called test on my unix box and it has the guide it it. Then in that directory I have Video and Import so everything that SwapDV uses is on the unix box. It may be some sort of 2 gig problem. I just tried a 500 meg file and it worked. The odd part is I have used Samba to transfer +2 gig files with no problem so I am not sure the issue with SwapDV.


-Nathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*


Ya, this is odd. My SwapDV works directory is called test on my unix box and it has the guide it it. Then in that directory I have Video and Import so everything that SwapDV uses is on the unix box. It may be some sort of 2 gig problem. I just tried a 500 meg file and it worked. The odd part is I have used Samba to transfer +2 gig files with no problem so I am not sure the issue with SwapDV.


-Nathan*
To clarify the move operation from the import to the video directory....


The code uses standard windows ShFile "move" operation for the files. Nothing special. Its basically the same as dragging the file across the directories. It doesn't change the files at all, they are simply moved... Which makes this problem odd.


Downloading directly to the video dir is slightly more problematic as shows sometimes need to be renamed (due to time/unique filename conflicts) and updated, which is easy to test for before I move the file and update the guide.


Could someone clarify if this problem occurs only with Samba mounted drives?


Jotter


----------



## BadPacket

To Jotter (Excellent work on this program! Thanks so much!)


Import problems:


What I'm trying to do

---------------------------

Importing a 60 minute program (2.5GB) from a Replay 4000 (10 Mbps connection) to my server (100 Mbps connection), both connected to a Cisco Catalyst 2900XL switch.


What's happening

-----------------------

At random times, the import stops... the time-remaining countdown also stops. if I cancel and try to import another file, I get an error message in the status line saying "unable to locate associated mpeg"

If I File/Connect to the Replay unit again, I am able to start importing the same MPG that supposedly didn't exist....


Some kind of TCP connection timeout happening?


Let me know if you need more info in debugging (by the way, my Replay has the latest code, and I'm using SwapDV 0.2a).


----------



## jmaver

I would like it if SwapDV would support remote delete. When I am watching a show on a remote replay, and I finish , I want to delete it there, but I get a "Show in use" message.


----------



## BadPacket

I agree, remote delete would be cool -- also, is there any way to send a program back to a Replay unit instead of streaming it from the server?


On another note.... is there any way to change what Channel an episode belongs to? It would be cool if you could just drag and drop from the Episode Title area into the ShowLabel area to change the show's channel....


...I'm gonna say it every time: Thanks Jotter! SwapDV is great!


----------



## MasterK

When got started with SwapDV I would click on a show in the guide one of the Replays and did the "Import Show to SwapDV Library" function. That makes a channel in the Library Main guide and copies the .mpg and .ndx but NOT the .rgd


This worked great until my main guide got corrupted and I had to reimport everything, but guess what since I did not have the original.rgd file for each show I could not do it. I had a couple of shows I had already deleted off the Replay that I am not going to be able to get back easily (until they reair again).


In order to prevent this from happening again at somepoint I now "save show as library swapfiles" and then import it and copy the .rgd to the video directory manually after the import is done. It sits there causing no problems but if my guide becomes corrupted again all I will have to do is reanme the video folder to something else and reimport all the channels.


Sorry this has been so long winded but, shouldn't SwapDV save the .rgd automatically even wehn the "Import Show to SwapDV Library" feature is used for just such a backup reason?


Thanks,


----------



## richyrich

I just discovered SwapDV and this is the greatest thing since the ReplayTV itself.


The client functions are easy to use and all work great.


I cannot get SwapDV to act as a server. When I start the server messages appear in the log:


Sending broadcast message...

...done broadcast message

Waiting for socket connect


[~30 sec Pause]


Socket read failed

Finished request, closing socket

Request from 10.0.2.67/10.0.2.67

Waiting for socket connect

...

[repeats]



My ReplayTV is at 10.0.0.6 and my SwapDV on a PC is at 10.0.0.8. My gateway is a linux box running ipchains as the firewall.


Where does the ip address 10.0.2.67 come from? It is not reachable on my local network.


I did not change any configuration options. Do I need to change any of these? If so, how?


If I run SwapDV on 2 different computers on the network both instances recognize each other, but the real RTV does not see SwapDV.


TIA - rich


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*I can build ndx files, and my (GPL) source is available in the ReplayPC source tree for anybody who wants it, and I've posted here pretty much everything I know about ndx files (all but one flag and one field which is almost always (well over 99.99% of the time) the same value)*
I searched the SourceForge area related to ReplayPC and did not find the code you referred to about making NDX files. I'd like to work on getting general MPG support working for SwapDV. Can you direct me to the NDX generation code?


Thanks,

Randy


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by RandyRazor_
*


I searched the SourceForge area related to ReplayPC and did not find the code you referred to about making NDX files. I'd like to work on getting general MPG support working for SwapDV. Can you direct me to the NDX generation code?


Thanks,

Randy*
It's not in a released version of ReplayPC yet (some more windows testing/porting work is still needed); http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=43349 gives an overview of how to check out the current source tree or browse it in-place.

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/v...aypc/replaypc/ is a good place to start browsing; you'll want to look at build-ndx.c, ndx.c, ndx.h and probably ndx-dump.c


There's also a writeup at http://www.molehill.org/~jtl/replaytv/ndx.html you'll probably want to read (and any comments about anything that's confusing or unclear are appreciated).


----------



## Robert Simandl

I just DL'ed SwapDV.


I entered the IP address of my Replay 4160 correctly, but when I try to connect to it, SwapDV locks up. The mouse can move, but clicking doesn't do anything. When I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, "my SwapDV Library" shows on the task list as "not responding," and I have to hit "end task."


Anyone know what's up here? Thanks...


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*I just DL'ed SwapDV.


I entered the IP address of my Replay 4160 correctly, but when I try to connect to it, SwapDV locks up. The mouse can move, but clicking doesn't do anything. When I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, "my SwapDV Library" shows on the task list as "not responding," and I have to hit "end task."


Anyone know what's up here? Thanks...*
Additional info.....


Suddenly the ReplayPC text application also now locks up when trying to access the Replay 4160. Never did before????


Could this be a problem of my Replay suddenly not being accessible for some reason, and both programs on my PC lock up because they're trying to access data that can't be accessed?


Thanks...


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*


Additional info.....


Suddenly the ReplayPC text application also now locks up when trying to access the Replay 4160. Never did before????


Could this be a problem of my Replay suddenly not being accessible for some reason, and both programs on my PC lock up because they're trying to access data that can't be accessed?


Thanks...*
It's pretty easy to crash the Replay entirely, or its network stack separately from the rest of it, so that it falls off the network, by making network requests it doesn't like. When that happens, connects to it fail slowly, timing out, which can look like lockups. In that case, though, pings will fail too, with "address unreachable" or something similar.


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*It's pretty easy to crash the Replay entirely, or its network stack separately from the rest of it, so that it falls off the network, by making network requests it doesn't like. When that happens, connects to it fail slowly, timing out, which can look like lockups. In that case, though, pings will fail too, with "address unreachable" or something similar.*
Hmmm, didn't know that, thanks..... but how do I fix it? Do I reboot the Replay?


Thanks...


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*


Hmmm, didn't know that, thanks..... but how do I fix it? Do I reboot the Replay?


Thanks...*
Yep. That's what I do, at least.


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Yep. That's what I do, at least.*
Hmmmm, it worked! Thanks!


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*


Hmmmm, it worked! Thanks!*
Hmmm again..... just copied a show to SwapDV, and the Replay network stack apparently crashed again.....


Am I going to have to reboot my Replay every time I import a show from it?


Thanks...


----------



## mudtoe

Hi folks:


Forgive me if this is a stupid question (I'm a replayTV newbie), but I was trying to figure out if I can use this program to backup programs from my ReplayTV (I have the 4160 model) and put them back in the ReplayTV at some future date as if I'd received them from someone elses unit.


From reading this thread I get the idea that you can play them using the software as a server, provided your home network has enough bandwidth, but as far as I could tell it never explicitly showed how to put something back into the ReplayTV. I've recorded a lot of the Olympics and it's taking up most of the hard drive space. I'd like to back them up to my PC (I have a 320gb NAS device on my network to save big files on), and then later put them back in the ReplayTV.


I've been playing with the program, but everytime I upload something from the ReplayTV it says at the end that it couldn't copy the whole file (I'm using version 15c of the program), so I haven't been able to do much real life testing.


Feedback and comments welcome.


Thanks,


mudtoe


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*


Hmmm again..... just copied a show to SwapDV, and the Replay network stack apparently crashed again.....


Am I going to have to reboot my Replay every time I import a show from it?


Thanks...*
I haven't ever crashed mine just fetching a show from it (using ReplayPC and httpfs -- I don't do Windows, and the SwapDV source code hasn't been shared), but a few other people have reported similar things, especially since the 4.1.1 software upgrade.


How fast is your network? How fast are your transfers going before they fail? Does the file transfer itself finish before the crash?


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by mudtoe_
*From reading this thread I get the idea that you can play them using the software as a server, provided your home network has enough bandwidth, but as far as I could tell it never explicitly showed how to put something back into the ReplayTV.*
To do that, you'd have to be able to write to the /Video filesystem and update the on-replay guide; I know how to make the /Video filesystem writable, but it requires pulling the drive, using extract_rtv to read a file, binary editing it, re-writing it, and putting the drive back -- not for the faint of heart. And I don't think anybody has a clue how to write to the replay's own guide -- it'd certainly be doable with the drive pulled, but hardly seems worth the effort of figuring out how.


The other alternative would be to emulate the IVS protocols, too, and have the replay pull the file. A complicating factor there is that it would require either an rddns server, or making up non-conflicting ISNs to use with the real ones. There's also the fact that nobody's put much effort into the IVS protocol, but that's a simple matter of work.


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*I haven't ever crashed mine just fetching a show from it (using ReplayPC and httpfs -- I don't do Windows, and the SwapDV source code hasn't been shared), but a few other people have reported similar things, especially since the 4.1.1 software upgrade.


How fast is your network? How fast are your transfers going before they fail? Does the file transfer itself finish before the crash?*
This last one seemed to go about 700K per minute, transfer finished just fine and dandy, plays fine on my PC. But now I can't access the Replay from either SwapDV or ReplayPC. Guess I'm gonna have reboot again....


----------



## jotter

* Update: version 0.22

- Application runs in Tray

- Updated column names

- Show descriptions/length etc. can be edited

- Shows can change channel (drag over channel to change)

- Multiple select supported for various operations

- Play supported for local files

- .rgd files stored into video dir for guide recontruction

- initial release of UPnP "proxy" functionality - make an internet replay TV available to your internal network replay box

- Log file save/clear added


See first post of thread for the zip file.


NOTE: More than 4 simultaneous transfers from a replay box seems to crash the replay box (you need to reboot it to recover). I would recommend only importing 2 files at once (as their are 2 files for each - the .ndx and .mpg)


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by mudtoe_
*Hi folks:


Forgive me if this is a stupid question (I'm a replayTV newbie), but I was trying to figure out if I can use this program to backup programs from my ReplayTV (I have the 4160 model) and put them back in the ReplayTV at some future date as if I'd received them from someone elses unit.


From reading this thread I get the idea that you can play them using the software as a server, provided your home network has enough bandwidth, but as far as I could tell it never explicitly showed how to put something back into the ReplayTV. I've recorded a lot of the Olympics and it's taking up most of the hard drive space. I'd like to back them up to my PC (I have a 320gb NAS device on my network to save big files on), and then later put them back in the ReplayTV.


I've been playing with the program, but everytime I upload something from the ReplayTV it says at the end that it couldn't copy the whole file (I'm using version 15c of the program), so I haven't been able to do much real life testing.


Feedback and comments welcome.


Thanks,


mudtoe*
Mudtoe,


Grab the latest version of SwapDv from this thread (that should avoid the error message you're seeing).


There is no way to really change the box contents using swapdv. Its actually very dangerous as you could maybe render the box unusable I would think.


For your situation, if you have a 10 baset network you can just play all the shows you've grabbed from the replay box back on your TV from the SwapDV server.


If you "start" the swapdv server it should appear as another replay box in your replay "guide" menu on your TV (in the top right of the screen).


Choosing that replay box will show you the PC swapdv contents. Choose a show and you can play it back on your TV.


So really there isnt any *need* to transfer stuff back to the replay.


Hope that helps

Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robert Simandl_
*


This last one seemed to go about 700K per minute, transfer finished just fine and dandy, plays fine on my PC. But now I can't access the Replay from either SwapDV or ReplayPC. Guess I'm gonna have reboot again....*
Hmmm. This is pretty strange as the two 411 replays Ive got access too (on completely different network setups) all seem ok.


Are you transferring a lot of files simultaneously? More than 4 (as reported by someone here (jtl?)) definately does crash the replays network functionality.


Hmmm!


Jotter


----------



## Robert Simandl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


Hmmm. This is pretty strange as the two 411 replays Ive got access too (on completely different network setups) all seem ok.


Are you transferring a lot of files simultaneously? More than 4 (as reported by someone here (jtl?)) definately does crash the replays network functionality.


Hmmm!


Jotter*
Nope, just one show at a time.....?


Thanks...


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*It's not in a released version of ReplayPC yet (some more windows testing/porting work is still needed); http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=43349 gives an overview of how to check out the current source tree or browse it in-place.

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/v...aypc/replaypc/ is a good place to start browsing; you'll want to look at build-ndx.c, ndx.c, ndx.h and probably ndx-dump.c


There's also a writeup at http://mp3.molehill.org/~jtl/replaytv/ndx.html you'll probably want to read (and any comments about anything that's confusing or unclear are appreciated).*
Thanks for the info. I was able to find all the information you pointed me to. I'll start working on this and keep this forum updated about my progress (or lack of)...


After reading the notes about build-ndx.c, it appears that the code really only works with ReaplyTV MPG's. Anyone out there done any further work on figuring out how to create ndx files for other MPG's? Also, are ReplayTV MPG's encoded using variable (VBR) or constant bitrate (CBR)?


Thanks,

Randy.


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by RandyRazor_
*After reading the notes about build-ndx.c, it appears that the code really only works with ReaplyTV MPG's. Anyone out there done any further work on figuring out how to create ndx files for other MPG's?*
What would be the point?


Since you can play replay-recorded MPEGs with mismatched ndx files (just without random-access features working), and can't play non-replay-format MPEGs, I'm still pretty convinced the problem with playing foreign mpegs is with the MPEGs, not the indices.


----------



## richyrich

I've got SwapDV running on 2 computers on the same network as my RTV. Each SwapDV sees the other SwapDV, but the RTV doesn't see either SwapDV.


When I hit the ReplayGuide button on the RTV what am I supposed to see in the upper right hand corner? When any Channel is highlighted I see "Replay Channel". When a show is highlighted I see "Replay Show". When a category is highlighted I do not see anything. Aren't I supposed to see the RTV name?


I was hoping to see the name,as a list entry, enclosed in two arrows that I coould select to scroll through the list of RTVs on the network, but I see nothing.


Any ideas on why this isn't working?


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*What would be the point?


Since you can play replay-recorded MPEGs with mismatched ndx files (just without random-access features working), and can't play non-replay-format MPEGs, I'm still pretty convinced the problem with playing foreign mpegs is with the MPEGs, not the indices.*
I wasn't aware of that. Sounds pretty hopeless. I think I recall some previous posts about transcoding replay-recorded MPGs to (S)VCD or DVD format. Any thoughts on transcoding a foreign MPG to a replay-style MPG?


Randy.


----------



## jgourd

OK, What is this new Proxy feature?


Here is something I would love for it to do: Merge the ReplayGuides of all the RTV4K units on my network so that I never have to switch between units.


RTV4K Should have done this in the first place.


----------



## jmaver

After I imported a few shows with version .15c, I was unable to get those shows to appear in the listing when viewing on another replay. I upgraded to .22, and the same thing happened. So, I looked at those items, and they didn't have a show name( the second field in the edit box). I edited the name in, and when trying to hit ok, it complained that the previously valid description was too long. I tried deleting longer and longer amounts of the description, until finally it accepted it.


So, summary:

1) If a show doesn't show up in the other replays, make sure all the info is filled in.

2) There appears to be a bug in the length restriction for the description field.


I am loving this app. Thanks.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*I've got SwapDV running on 2 computers on the same network as my RTV. Each SwapDV sees the other SwapDV, but the RTV doesn't see either SwapDV.


When I hit the ReplayGuide button on the RTV what am I supposed to see in the upper right hand corner? When any Channel is highlighted I see "Replay Channel". When a show is highlighted I see "Replay Show". When a category is highlighted I do not see anything. Aren't I supposed to see the RTV name?


I was hoping to see the name,as a list entry, enclosed in two arrows that I coould select to scroll through the list of RTVs on the network, but I see nothing.


Any ideas on why this isn't working?*
Some obvious questions

* have you started the server on both (Library Server->Start)

* open the log window (Library Server->Log) and check that its

sending the broadcast messages (leave the window and and stop and start the server again to see this)

* If you see "Address in use" then you already have a web server running on port 80 which you'll have to stop

* does the replay photo application on each machine see the replay box?


In the upper right corner of the "replay guide" menu on your replay box you should see left and right arrows indicating there are other replay guides to choose from.


Hope that helps

Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jgourd_
*OK, What is this new Proxy feature?


Here is something I would love for it to do: Merge the ReplayGuides of all the RTV4K units on my network so that I never have to switch between units.


RTV4K Should have done this in the first place.*
The proxy feature is pretty simple. If you have a replay box (or another swapdv server) on a fast network which is OUTSIDE of your local LAN then, currently, there is no easy way for your replay box to "see" that external box on the network. The "proxy" feature simply broadcasts a UPnP discovery packet on your local LAN with the details of the remote replay/swapdv.


... so you can see external replays on your local LAN.


however to play stuff back you're going to need a decent connection...


Jotter


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jmaver_
*After I imported a few shows with version .15c, I was unable to get those shows to appear in the listing when viewing on another replay. I upgraded to .22, and the same thing happened. So, I looked at those items, and they didn't have a show name( the second field in the edit box). I edited the name in, and when trying to hit ok, it complained that the previously valid description was too long. I tried deleting longer and longer amounts of the description, until finally it accepted it.


So, summary:

1) If a show doesn't show up in the other replays, make sure all the info is filled in.

2) There appears to be a bug in the length restriction for the description field.


I am loving this app. Thanks.*
So did it work once the "description" was small enough?


Incidentally "description" means anything on the first edit tab. All that info goes back into a fixed length buffer in the replay guide so unfortunately you can only have so much in those fields...


Jotter


----------



## jmaver

Yes, but the previously valid and unchanged description did not work. I ended up with single character descriptions or none at all. So, the import originally set the description, and these were valid until I chose to edit the show. All I did then was type in the name, not touching the description at all.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jmaver_
*Yes, but the previously valid and unchanged description did not work. I ended up with single character descriptions or none at all. So, the import originally set the description, and these were valid until I chose to edit the show. All I did then was type in the name, not touching the description at all.*
The name is part of the "description". Its a bit confusing I know (I should change the terminology). All the fields in the "description" tab (including the description field itself) get packed into one place in the guide, so adding to any field could produce an overflow.


However its definately possible that there is a bug in the size calculation all the time. I'll take a look!


Jotter


----------



## marksmith99

Anyone get swapDVD to work with Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, I dont care) or get SAMBA to work to a win box with SwapDVD?


----------



## dbatten

Jotter,

Thanks for all your hard work. SwapDV works very well and provides function that we would be without if it weren't for hard working people like yourself.

However, I do have another question about running SwapDV with Multiple NICs/IP's. I am now running ver .22 and can now change the IP Address in the config, but SwapDV still uses both address when you start the server. If IIS5 is using port 80, even for only one IP Address, SwapDV server will not start. I have also tried stopping IIS, starting SwapDV server, and then restarting IIS on port 80. Then IIS web server wont start. I have also started SwapDV Server with IIS shutdown, and can connect with SwapDV on both IP Address from another PC running SwapDV. Is there a way to keep SwapDV from using more that one IP for the server service.


Again, thanks for your hard work.


David


----------



## BASSOFeeSH

That would be fabulous.


----------



## abaduck

I've been out of the loop for some time, mainly due to work and travel... great progress folks! One question, which I don't really want to wade through multiple pages in multiple threads to find the answer (it should be in an FAQ someplace!):


What is the status of guide file decoding/editing/creating? My main interest is, I've a bunch of assorted .mpg and .ndx files, downloaded at various times with various tools, they all play fine on the PC, but how do I serve them back to through the RPTV without a .rgd that includes them? (I delete stuff off the RPTV as I download it, cheap guy that I am I only got a 4040!).


What we really need is a utility that we can point at a directory full of .mpg and .ndx files and say 'make a guide file containing all those shows'. How close are we? What are the problems?


Thanks


Mike


----------



## acourvil

SwapDV allows some editting of guide material, but not yet enought to create your owwn guide. However, here's something that I used for a couple of shows: (a) take an existing guide entry and determine the file names for it (e.g., 11122233.rgd, etc.) (b) change the file names for the mpf and ndx files for the show that you want to watch to correspond (e.g., 11122233.mpg), and (c) edit the name, description, etc. for the existing guide entry to reflect the right info for the show you want to watch.


The guide entry still won't show the correct time for the show that you swapped in, or some of the other not-so-important info, but you should be able to change the identification info that your RTV4k will display in the guide and be able to watch the show.


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by marksmith99_
*Anyone get swapDVD to work with Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, I dont care) or get SAMBA to work to a win box with SwapDVD?*
SwapDVD right now can't run under UNIX on any emulation programs. As far as SAMBA, I am working on why SwapDVD does nto work with SAMBA, but I have not found anything yet. I thought it had something to do with file size, but I just moved a 9 gig file via my win2K laptop from two directors on my unix box via SAMBA with nor problem.


-Nathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by acourvil_
*SwapDV allows some editting of guide material, but not yet enought to create your owwn guide. However, here's something that I used for a couple of shows: (a) take an existing guide entry and determine the file names for it (e.g., 11122233.rgd, etc.) (b) change the file names for the mpf and ndx files for the show that you want to watch to correspond (e.g., 11122233.mpg), and (c) edit the name, description, etc. for the existing guide entry to reflect the right info for the show you want to watch.


The guide entry still won't show the correct time for the show that you swapped in, or some of the other not-so-important info, but you should be able to change the identification info that your RTV4k will display in the guide and be able to watch the show.*
That sounds like a useful feature (to import other replay shows which havent been "exported" explicitly and create new guide entries for them). The underlying guide editor can already add new show entries (and the record time IS critical incidentally).


Can sometime tell me what are the implications of just using an existing .ndx file from another show in order to import the mpg?


If I added the ability to re-add existing replay mpgs (without their associated .rgd and .ndx counterparts) what other "guide" editing ability would people like/is missing?


Jotter


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


That sounds like a useful feature (to import other replay shows which havent been "exported" explicitly and create new guide entries for them). The underlying guide editor can already add new show entries (and the record time IS critical incidentally).


Can sometime tell me what are the implications of just using an existing .ndx file from another show in order to import the mpg?


If I added the ability to re-add existing replay mpgs (without their associated .rgd and .ndx counterparts) what other "guide" editing ability would people like/is missing?


Jotter*
The .NDX file can be wrong, but you just lose thing like CA. As far as other things I would like to see, I would like the ability to build a guide without copying the .ndx or .mpg files. I have all the files on the unix box already and just need new guide to bring all the different replay dumps that I have made over the last two months togehter.


----------



## abaduck

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


That sounds like a useful feature (to import other replay shows which havent been "exported" explicitly and create new guide entries for them). The underlying guide editor can already add new show entries (and the record time IS critical incidentally).


Can sometime tell me what are the implications of just using an existing .ndx file from another show in order to import the mpg?


If I added the ability to re-add existing replay mpgs (without their associated .rgd and .ndx counterparts) what other "guide" editing ability would people like/is missing?


Jotter*
Well, for me the big issue is that I have a lot of stuff downloaded with replayer.jar which changes names - so I have a bunch of stuff downloaded with swapdv and other tools with names like 1234567789.MPG/NDX and a bunch renamed by replayer with names like Babylon 5_End Game.MPG/NDX ... so that's the first thing that a guide creator would have to handle.


The second is the issue of 'download and delete' - I'm presently pulling down around 8 Babylon 5 episodes, and of course with swapdv the associated 'current' .rgd comes down as well - and they playback fine. Then I'll delete them off the RPTV. Then in a couple of weeks I'll have another 8 episodes, and (presumably) a new .rgd file which will contain these episodes, but not the previous ones (cuz they've been deleted!). You need to think about how your software does/should handle this...


I still feel the 'optimum' solution is not to hack about with multiple downloaded .rgd files, but to get smart enough to cook our own .rgd entirely on the fly, based purely on the content of the directory, so we can always serve everything we have back to RPTV.


Thanks again for the Good Things... so far it Just Works 


Mike


----------



## aslagle

Quote:

_Originally posted by abaduck_
*The second is the issue of 'download and delete'*
The current version of SwapDV doesn't delete the individual rgd files after you import them, it moves them into the Video directory just like the mpg/ndx files.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by abaduck_
*


Well, for me the big issue is that I have a lot of stuff downloaded with replayer.jar which changes names - so I have a bunch of stuff downloaded with swapdv and other tools with names like 1234567789.MPG/NDX and a bunch renamed by replayer with names like Babylon 5_End Game.MPG/NDX ... so that's the first thing that a guide creator would have to handle.


The second is the issue of 'download and delete' - I'm presently pulling down around 8 Babylon 5 episodes, and of course with swapdv the associated 'current' .rgd comes down as well - and they playback fine. Then I'll delete them off the RPTV. Then in a couple of weeks I'll have another 8 episodes, and (presumably) a new .rgd file which will contain these episodes, but not the previous ones (cuz they've been deleted!). You need to think about how your software does/should handle this...


I still feel the 'optimum' solution is not to hack about with multiple downloaded .rgd files, but to get smart enough to cook our own .rgd entirely on the fly, based purely on the content of the directory, so we can always serve everything we have back to RPTV.


Thanks again for the Good Things... so far it Just Works 


Mike*
[sigh] That *is* exactly what is happening now. How do you think editing and deleting shows in the guide is supported? I think there is some confusion about the use of the .rgd file, which I'll try and clear up:


SwapDV only serves ONE guide, that it creates and edits. This is in your root directory. You may see a few older copies of the guide left in that directory as SwapDV only auto-deletes with auto-save (and then the old guide goes to the wastebasket). However only the most current version is "served" when the replay or another swapdv server requests it.


When you import a show it uses a guide snapshot in order to extract the show details from the remote guide and add them to the local guide. Thats it. This is why in previous versions the video directory didnt have any guide entries - they simply aren't needed in normal operation as the shows information has already been added to the main SwapDV guide.


I now create a very small guide (.rgd) with just the show information in and store that with the video files IN CASE you corrupt your main guide. You can then re-create the guide simply be importing the show back in.


I agree that there is need to create a new show entry for existing files (for people like Mike who have no guide to use to get the show details from). Its not hard and I hopefully will add it to the next version. For now if you *do* have a .rgd snapshot which you know contains the show, you can add the shows details to your guide by renaming the .rgd to the same record date as the show (e.g. 1011111xx) and then use the import show from files option.


Jotter


----------



## abaduck

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


[sigh] That *is* exactly what is happening now. How do you think editing and deleting shows in the guide is supported? I think there is some confusion about the use of the .rgd file, which I'll try and clear up:


SwapDV only serves ONE guide, that it creates and edits. This is in your root directory. You may see a few older copies of the guide left in that directory as SwapDV only auto-deletes with auto-save (and then the old guide goes to the wastebasket). However only the most current version is "served" when the replay or another swapdv server requests it.


When you import a show it uses a guide snapshot in order to extract the show details from the remote guide and add them to the local guide. Thats it. This is why in previous versions the video directory didnt have any guide entries - they simply aren't needed in normal operation as the shows information has already been added to the main SwapDV guide.


I now create a very small guide (.rgd) with just the show information in and store that with the video files IN CASE you corrupt your main guide. You can then re-create the guide simply be importing the show back in.


I agree that there is need to create a new show entry for existing files (for people like Mike who have no guide to use to get the show details from). Its not hard and I hopefully will add it to the next version. For now if you *do* have a .rgd snapshot which you know contains the show, you can add the shows details to your guide by renaming the .rgd to the same record date as the show (e.g. 1011111xx) and then use the import show from files option.


Jotter*
Jotter, many thanks... that clarified things. Now I get it! That'll teach me to RTFM. Once we have the ability to auto-add any .mpg/ndx it happens to find, without the requirement to have an existing guide entry for that show, the job will be pretty much done. Roll on the next version 


Thanks again!


Mike


----------



## jgourd

Yo jotter:


I just got C# and the J++ project converter. I was wondering if you would want me to try running SwapDV through the converter and benchmarking the new version?


I might even be able to make SwapDV an ISAPI filter for those who insist on running IIS!


----------



## Goldwolf

forgive me if I've missed something earlier


just got my replayTV the other day, and we started playing around with swapDV. On one of our computers we couldn'g open the file. It tried to d/l a codec, but couldn't find it. On my PC it tried to d/l the codec (couldn't find it), but played the file without any sound. We are running XP Pro and XP home respectively.


We've tried saving the files as replay mpegs and pc mpegs


----------



## jgourd

GoldWolf:


You need an MPEG-2 codec. You can download this decoder which work with MS Media Player.

http://www.moonlight.co.il/products/mpeg2decoder.shtml


----------



## Goldwolf

problem solved


----------



## jgourd

How?


----------



## Goldwolf

sorry


your link solved the problem on both pc's


thanks


----------



## jgourd

Cool. If you give them money, the little squares in the top right corner of your screen go away.


----------



## Goldwolf

thanks.......I figured that would be the case....everyone wants money


----------



## jmhardy

I had SwapDV working fine on my laptop...I was able to see my RTV, pull files down from it, watch them on another RTV. Then, I got my new PC which has a lot more hard drive space on it, so I installed the program there and set it up to use one of those drives for the storage.


Now, I can see and connect to my RTV, I can see shows, and I can even select "Import show to my....", but the files never appear on the Download tab. I get no errors, it just doesn't copy the files over.


Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong? Could my RTV have somehow cached the address of my laptop and now won't allow me to use it from another PC? Can't see how that can be, seeing as I can connect to the box......


Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.


----------



## richyrich

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by richyrich

I've got SwapDV running on 2 computers on the same network as my RTV. Each SwapDV sees the other SwapDV, but the RTV doesn't see either SwapDV.


When I hit the ReplayGuide button on the RTV what am I supposed to see in the upper right hand corner? When any Channel is highlighted I see "Replay Channel". When a show is highlighted I see "Replay Show". When a category is highlighted I do not see anything. Aren't I supposed to see the RTV name?


I was hoping to see the name,as a list entry, enclosed in two arrows that I coould select to scroll through the list of RTVs on the network, but I see nothing.


Any ideas on why this isn't working?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Some obvious questions

* have you started the server on both (Library Server->Start)

* open the log window (Library Server->Log) and check that its

sending the broadcast messages (leave the window and and stop and start the server again to see this)

* If you see "Address in use" then you already have a web server running on port 80 which you'll have to stop

* does the replay photo application on each machine see the replay box?


In the upper right corner of the "replay guide" menu on your replay box you should see left and right arrows indicating there are other replay guides to choose from.


Hope that helps

Jotter*


I started the server on both PCs. I sent the uPnp interval to 60. The log contains:


Waiting for socket connect

Sending broadcast message

...done broadcast message

Request from Mars/10.0.0.8

Waiting for socket connect

Processing HTTP request:

GET /Device_Descr.xml HTTP/1.1

Returning device description...

...done


I have nothing else on port 80 on either PC.


The Replay Photo application sees the real RTV and the SwapDV running on the same PC (it does not see the SwapDV running on the other PC).


I ran a trace on the network traffic using ethereal (there is a linux box on the network). The machine I started the server on requested Device_Descr.xml from the other instance of SwapDV and got it. There was absolutely no activity from the real RTV.


In the upper right corner of the "replay guide" menu on my replay box I see nothing, no arrows, not even the name of the replay TV. Aren't I at least supposed to see the RTV name?


Rich


----------



## jgourd

Try This:


Name your SwapDV server "*this ReplayTV*". It confuses the hell out of the wife.


----------



## jmhardy

Wondering why nobody seems to want to reply to my message above.....


"I had SwapDV working fine on my laptop...I was able to see my RTV, pull files down from it, watch them on another RTV. Then, I got my new PC which has a lot more hard drive space on it, so I installed the program there and set it up to use one of those drives for the storage.


Now, I can see and connect to my RTV, I can see shows, and I can even select "Import show to my....", but the files never appear on the Download tab. I get no errors, it just doesn't copy the files over.


Does anyone have any ideas what I might be doing wrong? Could my RTV have somehow cached the address of my laptop and now won't allow me to use it from another PC? Can't see how that can be, seeing as I can connect to the box......


Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer."


----------



## acourvil

I don't think so, as I have run SwapDV from two different computers, and have change IP addresses on one of them. I've never had the kind of problem that you describe, although I've had few other problems. In a couple of cases, the problem was actually with the RTV4k; you might try re-booting your RTV4k and see if that cures the problem. Another possibility is a corrupted guide; try moving the guide to a different directory and start with a virgin guide and see if you get the same result. Also, if you are running a desktop firewall (or even a router with a firewall), try disabling the firewall and see what happens.



>>Could my RTV have somehow cached the address of my laptop and now won't allow me to use it from another PC?


----------



## jmhardy

OK, I'll try that when I get home tonight. Thanks for the response...


----------



## larrysw

I am unable to run 2 SwapDV's and my 2 Replays at the same time. If I open the second SwapDV on my other PC it either boots the original Swap Server off Replay's Network and replaces it or boots it and neither are up.


However if I run the second PC first, it works and then the Swap Server which was first before takes the booting role over so it's not either PC.


Any suggestions?


----------



## Robert Simandl

Well, I downloaded the newest version and still have the problem where I can only import ONE program from my Replay 4160 into SwapDV, then SwapDV locks up until I reboot my Replay.


Suggestions? Thanks...


----------



## nystratton

I have been in Japan for the last week, anyone make any progress with Samba or other Unix support?


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*



I started the server on both PCs. I sent the uPnp interval to 60. The log contains:


Waiting for socket connect

Sending broadcast message

...done broadcast message

Request from Mars/10.0.0.8

Waiting for socket connect

Processing HTTP request:

GET /Device_Descr.xml HTTP/1.1

Returning device description...

...done


I have nothing else on port 80 on either PC.


The Replay Photo application sees the real RTV and the SwapDV running on the same PC (it does not see the SwapDV running on the other PC).


I ran a trace on the network traffic using ethereal (there is a linux box on the network). The machine I started the server on requested Device_Descr.xml from the other instance of SwapDV and got it. There was absolutely no activity from the real RTV.


In the upper right corner of the "replay guide" menu on my replay box I see nothing, no arrows, not even the name of the replay TV. Aren't I at least supposed to see the RTV name?


Rich*
I think I may have found the problem with SwapDV not appearing in a ReplayTV's replay guide:


It appears that if you have multiple network interface cards in your PC, SwapDV does not specifically choose the "source" IP address for broadcasts. In my case, I have two NICs in my PC, one ethernet NIC connected to the network on which my ReplayTV is connected, and a phoneline NIC connected to the other PC's in my house. If I disable the phoneline NIC, I can see the SwapDV in my ReplayTV's replay guide. If I enable the phoneline NIC, I can't see the SwapDV. SwapDV appears to be using the default NIC (in this case the phoneline NIC) and broadcasting on that network, not the network that the ethernet NIC is connected to. Removing the phoneline NIC from the mix forces SwapDV to broadcast through the only available NIC.


SwapDV alread let's you specify the "source" IP address in the server configuration area. Simply changing the code to specify this address during the bind operation on the socket (assuming Winsock is being used) should fix this issue.


Do any of you that are experiencing this problem have multiple NIC's?


Randy.


----------



## richyrich

Quote:

_Originally posted by RandyRazor_
*


I think I may have found the problem with SwapDV not appearing in a ReplayTV's replay guide:


It appears that if you have multiple network interface cards in your PC, SwapDV does not specifically choose the "source" IP address for broadcasts. In my case, I have two NICs in my PC, one ethernet NIC connected to the network on which my ReplayTV is connected, and a phoneline NIC connected to the other PC's in my house. If I disable the phoneline NIC, I can see the SwapDV in my ReplayTV's replay guide. If I enable the phoneline NIC, I can't see the SwapDV. SwapDV appears to be using the default NIC (in this case the phoneline NIC) and broadcasting on that network, not the network that the ethernet NIC is connected to. Removing the phoneline NIC from the mix forces SwapDV to broadcast through the only available NIC.


SwapDV alread let's you specify the "source" IP address in the server configuration area. Simply changing the code to specify this address during the bind operation on the socket (assuming Winsock is being used) should fix this issue.


Do any of you that are experiencing this problem have multiple NIC's?


Randy.*
Thanks for your reply.


I have 3 PC's running Windoze (2 Win98, 1 XP), a Linux box, and a ReplayTV on the network. The Linux box has two NIC's, one on the local LAN, the other goes to a cable modem. The other PC's have only one NIC. I have tried disconnecting the Linux box completely from the network that the RTV is on. Didn't help.


Some of the PC's recognize the existence of another SwapDV and the RTV, so the broadcast must be going out on the same network as the RTV. The RTV Photo App also sees SwapDV. It just seems like the RTV doesn't recognize any instance if SwapDV.


After SwapDV comes up it sends out a upnp message. What should happen next? I think devices that recognize this message should request the XML header from the device that just sent out the message. When two or more SwapDV's are running, this works between the two SwapDV's (sometimes), but the RTV never requests the XML.


Maybe I am doing something really stupid. When I go to the ReplayGuide on the RTV, I see nothing in the upper right hand corner. Shouldn't I see the name of the RTV on the RTV (with or without arrows)? Is there any setting on the RTV that have to change to tell it other RTV's may exist on the network. Can I force the RTV to request XML from somewhere?


Rich


----------



## acourvil

Try this. Open up the Serverlog window for SwapDV so you can see the network traffic. The open up the configuration dialog and close it several times. What do you see?


What I typically see (this is one a system with 2 RTVs and one PC running SwapDV) is several broadcast messages, and then the RTVs will make an HTTP request, presumably for the guide info. The SwapDV server processes the request, and says "returning device description." When I have had SwapDV off, it is after the "returning device description" action that the SwapDV server shows up on the RTVs.


If you see the HTTP request from the RTV, does it reference the correct IP address? Does SwapDV return the device description in response to the HTTP request?


----------



## richyrich

I am running a SwapDV on my network with 1 PC, 1 linux box and 1 RTV. I ran ethereal and snooped the traffic. SwapDV broadcasts its existence. I expect the RTV (on 10.0.0.6) to respond.


Something on 10.0.8.2 responds. I am snooping eth1, the NIC on the local LAN. Where/what/how can anything be on 10.0.8.2 on eth1? The mask is 255.255.255.0. The BCAST mask is 10.0.0.255. When I send the uPnp broadcast, how can anything not starting 10.0.0.n get the message, much less respond?


It seems 10.0.8.2 responds to the uPnp request and tries to query SwapDV on port 80 but this fails.


Something is fishy here. What is happening?


Any help is appreciated.



Rich


Here is the trace:


No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info

1 0.000000 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1271 Destination port: 1900

2 0.000601 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1271 Destination port: 1900

3 0.001180 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1271 Destination port: 1900

4 6.912785 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1272 Destination port: 1900

5 6.913380 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1272 Destination port: 1900

6 6.913950 10.0.0.8 239.255.255.250 UDP Source port: 1272 Destination port: 1900

7 6.916549 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1368 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1905345981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

8 6.916657 00:80:ad:89:31:5a ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff ARP Who has 10.0.0.3? Tell 10.0.0.8

9 6.916688 00:10:4b:37:f4:f4 00:80:ad:89:31:5a ARP 10.0.0.3 is at 00:10:4b:37:f4:f4

10 6.916754 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1368 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308022123 Ack=1905345982 Win=64240 Len=0

11 8.438733 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1369 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1905793981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

12 8.438822 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1369 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308491447 Ack=1905793982 Win=64240 Len=0

13 9.904993 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1368 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308022123 Ack=1905345982 Win=64240 Len=0

14 9.939421 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1370 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1906241981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

15 9.939522 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1370 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308880177 Ack=1906241982 Win=64240 Len=0

16 10.255951 10.0.0.3 10.0.0.255 NBNS Name query NB WORKGROUP 

17 10.256094 10.0.0.8 10.0.0.3 NBNS Name query response NB 10.0.0.8

18 11.326901 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1369 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308491447 Ack=1905793982 Win=64240 Len=0

19 12.858172 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1370 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308880177 Ack=1906241982 Win=64240 Len=0

20 12.943998 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1371 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1907073981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

21 12.944091 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1371 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3309593460 Ack=1907073982 Win=64240 Len=0

22 14.448135 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1372 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1907521981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

23 14.448225 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1372 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3309997509 Ack=1907521982 Win=64240 Len=0

24 15.920729 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1371 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3309593460 Ack=1907073982 Win=64240 Len=0

25 15.920732 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1368 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308022123 Ack=1905345982 Win=64240 Len=0

26 15.945992 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1373 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1907969981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

27 15.946076 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1373 [RST, ACK] Seq=0 Ack=1907969982 Win=0 Len=0

28 17.342634 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1372 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3309997509 Ack=1907521982 Win=64240 Len=0

29 17.342640 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1369 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308491447 Ack=1905793982 Win=64240 Len=0

30 18.873897 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1370 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3308880177 Ack=1906241982 Win=64240 Len=0

31 18.946991 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1374 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1908801981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

32 18.947067 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1374 [RST, ACK] Seq=0 Ack=1908801982 Win=0 Len=0

33 20.449530 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1375 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1909249981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

34 20.449607 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1375 [RST, ACK] Seq=0 Ack=1909249982 Win=0 Len=0

35 21.936449 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1371 [SYN, ACK] Seq=3309593460 Ack=1907073982 Win=64240 Len=0

36 21.946161 10.0.8.2 10.0.0.8 TCP 1376 > 80 [SYN] Seq=1909697981 Ack=0 Win=32768 Len=0

37 21.946246 10.0.0.8 10.0.8.2 TCP 80 > 1376 [RST, ACK] Seq=0 Ack=1909697982 Win=0 Len=0


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*I am running a SwapDV on my network with 1 PC, 1 linux box and 1 RTV. I ran ethereal and snooped the traffic. SwapDV broadcasts its existence. I expect the RTV (on 10.0.0.6) to respond.


Something on 10.0.8.2 responds. I am snooping eth1, the NIC on the local LAN. Where/what/how can anything be on 10.0.8.2 on eth1? The mask is 255.255.255.0. The BCAST mask is 10.0.0.255. When I send the uPnp broadcast, how can anything not starting 10.0.0.n get the message, much less respond?*
Two possible misconceptions there.


In the class a/b/c system used in the Old Days, 10. was a class A network, meaning that its mask was 255.0.0.0; 10.0.8.2 is part of the same network. In these days of classless routing, masks can generally be set separately from networks -- when you say the mask is 10.0.0.255, I *hope* you really mean it's 255.255.255.0. (if you're actually using a mask of 10.0.0.255, then you're saying anything with bits 28 and 26 set, and the lowest octet '6', is part of the network.)


Second, the UPNP message goes to a multicast address, completely separate from the local broadcast address. The address used, 239.255.255.250, is part of the Administratively Scoped Bloc (see rfc2365), intended to be routed only on networks that are controlled by a single organization; in a perfect world, routers would be configurable as to whether or not they should forward such packets. I'd hope the default is 'no' for the consumer-model broadband routers.
Quote:

8 6.916657 00:80:ad:89:31:5a ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff ARP Who has 10.0.0.3? Tell 10.0.0.8
What is 10.0.0.3? Your router?


I'm assuming 10.0.0.8 is the machine running SwapDV.


----------



## richyrich

The mask is 255.255.255.0, 10.0.0.3 is the linux box (which runs samba, hence the SMB message)


PC running SwapDV


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:


Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.8

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.3

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.39.224.5

68.39.224.6



Linux Box:


eth1 Link encap:10Mbps Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:4B:37:F4:F4

inet addr:10.0.0.3 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX packets:538590806 errors:2647042 dropped:0 overruns:0

TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:1154628483

Interrupt:11 Base address:0xe000



So I am confused, how/what/where/why is 10.0.8.2 trying to connect on port 80 (presumably to SwapDV). There is no such address on my local network.


Can the uPnp request be making it out through the gateway and 10.0.8.2 is out there somewhere responding? If so, how come I cannot ping 10.0.8.2? How can I block the uPnp request from leaving my local network?


More importantly, why doesn't the RTV at 10.0.0.6 respond to the uPnp message from 10.0.0.8?


Rich


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*Can the uPnp request be making it out through the gateway and 10.0.8.2 is out there somewhere responding? If so, how come I cannot ping 10.0.8.2? How can I block the uPnp request from leaving my local network?*
Yes, that seems most possible. Lots of firewalls block ICMP packets (and thus ping) while still letting TCP through. How you block the UPNP from escaping, depends on your gateway -- if you've said what it is, I can't find it now.


Another possibility is that you actually *do* have a 10.0.8.2 on your local network, accidentally. Any chance you have a DHCP server running and you're hitting the DHCP bug in the Replay, and that's what's actually making that request?

Quote:

*

More importantly, why doesn't the RTV at 10.0.0.6 respond to the uPnp message from 10.0.0.8?
*
Can you change the UUID SwapDV uses? I've seen my Replay get confused about whether ReplayServer is running or not, and start ignoring the broadcasts. Changing the UUID so it thinks it's a brand new machine on the network fixes that.


----------



## richyrich

I do not have DHCP running anywhere on local network. If something on my network thought it was at 10.0.8.2 then I ought to be able to ping it since it is behind the firewall.


What is the DHCP bug in RTV? I configured my RTV (and everything else) manually. Could the RTV think it is at 10.0.8.2? I have seen it converse with replaytv.com and it thinks its at 10.0.0.6.


My gateway is the linux box running ipchains.


I have tried changing the UUID many times and just tried again. To no avail. I even rebooted the RTV (again).


When I rebooted thr RTV and traced traffic I saw a series of BOOTP requests from 0.0.0.0 (the RTV). Suddenly, I saw a uPnp NOTIFY on 10.0.1.131. The contents of this notify was LOCATION 10.0.9.32?????? The next message was another BOOTP from 0.0.0.0. Seems the uPnp message was generated before the RTV decided what it's IP was.


A few seconds passed and anpther uPnp message wass sent from 10.0.0.6 with location 10.0.0.6, but the SwapDV was trying to reach something at 10.0.1.131????


I bet people using DHCP are not having this problem!


Rich


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*I do not have DHCP running anywhere on local network. If something on my network thought it was at 10.0.8.2 then I ought to be able to ping it since it is behind the firewall.*
True. There goes that idea.

Quote:

*What is the DHCP bug in RTV? I configured my RTV (and everything else) manually. Could the RTV think it is at 10.0.8.2? I have seen it converse with replaytv.com and it thinks its at 10.0.0.6.*
The bug is (or was -- I think it may have been fixed in 4.1.1?) was that, even if manually configured, it would use a DHCP server if it later saw one on the net.
Quote:

*I have tried changing the UUID many times and just tried again. To no avail. I even rebooted the RTV (again).*
I'm pretty much out of ideas on the main problem.


In the 10.0.8.2 front -- what's in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/mc_forwarding on your gateway? If it's 0, then I'm clueless on that front, too. If it's 1, then changing it to 0 ('echo 0 > /proc/sys/etc' as root) might help.


----------



## richyrich

I finally got my RTV to see SwapDV.


I set up DHCP on my linux box. I know DHCP works because I reconfigured my PC's to use it.


When I tried to set my RTV up to use DHCP the RTV wouldn't configure automatically. A lease file was created but the RTV complained it could not het network informastion and kepot prompting for manual configuration. I erased all my manual network settings in the process.


After automatic configuration failed, I entered all the stuff I had before, exactly the way it was when I started, and it just started working. Go figure....


Looks like the network configuration logic in RTV needs some work.



Now, how do I create an MPEG that didn't originate from an RTV and view it on my RTV?


Rich


----------



## screamitus

Is SwapDV 0.22 the latest ver currently?


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by richyrich_
*Now, how do I create an MPEG that didn't originate from an RTV and view it on my RTV?


Rich*
That's what I want to know. Anyone been able to do this yet?


Randy.


----------



## aslagle

For all you guys making 'high capacity' machines to run SwapDV on...


Check out 3ware's site. They make an absolutely awesome IDE RAID controller card. Now you don't have to put up with RAID 0, 1 or 1+0...you can have true RAID 5 and not have to worry about a drive failure ruining your carefully saved season of .


I have one, and it's amazing. 5 80GB drives later, it's capacity is 320GB, for around $1000. (Yes, that includes the cost of the hard drives. And I bought their top-of-the-line controller.)


A similar SCSI solution can cost up to 10 times more.


And no, I don't work for 3ware, or a drive manufacturer. I'm just a techno-geek.


----------



## Mystic1

Promise, Adaptec and SIIG also make ATA (IDE) RAID 5 Controllers. You can find the Promise RAID 5 controllers for around $250 - $275 (if you look around). They work GREAT!


----------



## nystratton

You may want to check out the 3ware card, it has much better IO and works with 2 more drives. I have 8 160 gig disks on one RAID aray under Linux. My only problme now is that I can't run this cool code.


-Nathan


----------



## Bruce vanNorman

It seems as if there are mingled expectations of SwapDV in this thread. Perhaps we should have separate threads for those who use the ReplayTV box as the final rendering (playing) engine and those that don't. The expectations of interoperability are quite different but they sound similar.


----------



## Bruce vanNorman

ReplayTV told me that file size is 1,2, or 3gB per hour depending on requested quality. If I have a 3 hour high quality file (9gB) on Windows, I have a "random access" (skip and jump around) problem. Not to mention that WIn 9x Explorer doesn't like to move >2gB files around (DOS command works). ATI's MMC, WinDVD, and HollywoodPlus all share the this problem in one form or another which they blame on the WDM interface limitations. Linux (at least RedHat 6) will not tollerate files over 1gB. DVDs split up the MPEG data into multiple files, each less than 1gB to circumvent file size limitations. What does SwapDV / ReplayTV do?


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by Bruce vanNorman_
*Linux (at least RedHat 6) will not tollerate files over 1gB.*
The limit is 2gb, not 1. And programs can be compiled and/or specially written to use Large File Support, which gives much much larger limits.
Quote:

*What does SwapDV / ReplayTV do?*
If you mean ReplayPC: 0.3 (still the currently released version) can be compiled with Large File Support. The current source tree uses the modern interfaces throughout, and compiles with large file support by default.


----------



## aslagle

Hi, Jotter.


Now that I've used SwapDV for a while (I've got a 320GB RAID 5 array on my 'ReplayServer') I've noticed some things that might improve the product:


1. If there's any way to do it, make the show's recorded times editable. This would let me take reruns and fit them so that they show up in the correct order in the guide.


2. Make a 'default' sort order in the guide, or set up several options for people to pick from. My favorite would be by 'channel', then secondary sort by 'record date'. That way they'd show up in SwapDV in the same order as in the Replay guide.


3. Remote delete would be awesome...but might be really difficult to implement. (I can't help it...I see that 'delete' option on the Replay UI and I'm just itching to use it.) I don't want this often, but when I do, it'd be nice to save a trip to the server 'room'.


Just a few suggestions. Feel free to ignore.


----------



## rickster

I've just started using SwapDV and it is unbelievable - totally validates my RTV4K purchase! Thank you!


A couple of questions / issues:

1. When I am importing shows to my SwapDV library, the RTV4K starts to skip and stutter if it is playing a recorded show or playing live. Whether it is playing anything or not, response to the remote becomes excruciatingly slow. Essentially I've had to limit imports to times when the RTV is not otherwise in use. Is there some way to limit the resources the import uses so the RTV is still usable during imports? I'm on a 100MB lan thru a Linksys router.


2. When I first started using it, the RTV was on DHCP. I've since set up a fixed IP address for the RTV. Now when I do "File, Remote Replays" the original IP address still shows up along with the new fixed IP address. How can I get rid of the old one?


3. I notice under "Library server, Configuration" it has assigned a serial number. Can I use this serial number to register my SwapDV and use it to Internet Share the shows I've stored on my PC? This would eliminate at least part of the reason for needing the ability to export shows back from the SwapDV library to the RTV. Of course there are other reasons.


4. If I change the root directory under "Library server, Configuration" what happens? Does it create a new, separate library? Or is it additive to the original library? If it is a new one, can I switch back and forth at will? Can I run 2 servers simultaneously serving up both sets of shows from both directories?


Thanks for everything!


Rick


----------



## screamitus

Jotter, I'm building a simple app that lets someone view and then play, on the PC, shows that I offloaded using the SwapDV app. It's for my kids (and anyone else here) so they don't go mucking up all my shows and guide files. Do you have a data description breakdown of the rgd files you create? Do you modify it from the raw import (I think you do from past reading). My problem is that the show name and show desc offsets seem to be inconstent. In my attached rgd files, you can see the show name start offset on one is at 696H and the other one is at 68eH. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks. Great product!!

 

rgd files.zip 1.115234375k . file


----------



## Beartums

Great job, jotter. I've only been using it for a couple of days, but it is an excellent tool. Thanks.


A question: Is there any way to import non ReplayTV mpgs to SwapDV? I haven't been able to find any (I can copy another mpgs rgd file, but it seems copying an ndx file doesn't work).


Thanks


----------



## screamitus

Jotter, would you consider opening up the SwapDV interface either COM or DLL for automation? I (we) could build our own custom interfaces. Very cool!


----------



## jtl

It's a waste of time reverse engineering this when we should just be able to look in the source code and see, but...


a .rgd file has a silly #### header, followed by what GuideParser calls a tagGuideHeader (808 bytes), a ReplayChannel struct (624 bytes), followed by a ReplayShow (404 bytes), followed by a silly #### tailer.


if the Parts flag is set, there's an 8 byte parts struct preceding the title. If thet movie flag is set, there's a 16 byte movie struct preceding the title. If both are set, they're in the order 'parts, movie, strings'.


If you check out the latest ReplayPC source code, you should be able to parse the whole thing with:
Code:


Code:


FILE * fp;
unsigned char buf[1876], * p;
fp = fopen(rgdfilename, fp);
fseek(fp, 98); /* skip ### header */
fread(buf, 1876, 1, fp);
p = buf;
parse_guide_header(&p, &h);
parse_group_data(&p, &gd);
parse_replay_channel(&p, &rc);
parse_replay_show(&p, &rs);

printf("The title is: %s\
", rs.program.cg2_program.datablock + rs.program.cg2_program.title_offset);


----------



## screamitus

I hear you. What a pain on the $#@$. Brings me back to my ol' Cobol days trying to figure out some old flat file. Any way someone could shine the light a little on the section around offset 1006. as JTL pointed out this effects the offser further on. What are these flags? how many are there? what are the values? Any help would be appreciated. I really feel like I'm reinventing the wheel here.


----------



## jtl

offset 1006 - 98 (# header) = 908; 908 - 808 (sizeof tagGuideHeader) = 100; so 1006 is offset 100 in ReplayChannel -- which is in the middle of the label, no flags there or particularly close.


The flags value I was talking about is at offset 0 in a FixedProgramRecord; there's a FixedProgramRecord at offset 16 in a Program; there's a Program at offset 104 in ReplayShow. There's a ReplayShow at offset 116 in ReplayChannel. There's also a ReplayShow all on its own in the rgd file.


The two ReplayShow structs in the file are at

98 + 808 + 116 = 1022 (the one contained inside the ReplayChannel record) and 98 + 808 + 624 = 1530 (the one on its own). The program flags word is at offset 104 + 16 = 120 in the ReplayShow...so, there are flags at 1126 and 1546.


Now that we've *found* the flags, what do they mean?

http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/view/Replay/RnsGetCG2 documents them (and the rest of the FixedProgramRecord, although it doesn't yet call it that), for now. I haven't figured out how best ot document the interlocking structs used in the RNS and Guide snapshot structures, so that will likely be moving.


The important ones just for parsing are: 1


----------



## screamitus

Thanks for all this. I'm starting to get a handle on it. I'd love to paste in your parser code. Unfortunately, I started this app in VB 6 thinking I could slap something together quickly. With my limited knowledge of C++ I'd take me a year to write it...and you probably know how well VB handles binary files... Perhaps one of you big boys could wrap the parser code into a dll so us lazy VB coders could access it.


----------



## jtl

Packaging it as a .so would be trivial, so I'd think packaging it as a .DLL would be too -- that's probably not enough, by itself, to allow access from VB though? Wouldn't it need to expose a COM interface or somesuch?


Todd, who's really not a Windows guy


----------



## NoFreakinWay

It doesnt necessarily need a COM interface. The plain DLL's for windows should work. You just have to add the function definition in VB. If someone will email me the c/C++ source I'll have a look and see if I can bundle it up.


NFW


----------



## screamitus

COM would be best but it would be mocho work for you. It would also be windows only. A static dll with published functions would work as well. VB can do callbacks as well if need be.


----------



## jotter

Hi,


Sorry I haven't been contributing lately - busy with work stuff. However the up-side of the busy at work stuff is that I'm going to start working at using SwapDV in a project where I work so I can spend lots more time on it - and I'm currently working with our organization to decide on an appropriate Open Source license. When that happens I'll let you all know where to go...


...and we can all work together to build the COM wrappers you desire, port it to a Swing GUI, make it bind to the correct network cards, and integrate a P2P client/network just for a start!


Thanks for all of the great feedback and contributions.


More info soon...


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Hi,


Just reading over the thead here and I thought I'd remind everyone that SwapDV is really plain Java packages with a sprinkle of WFC on top.


Turning various parts of it into components is relatively straight forward, certainly in COM/DLLs, even Java beans. It does need a serious clean up though but see my previous post on whats on the horizon.


Jonathan


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*Hi,


Just reading over the thead here and I thought I'd remind everyone that SwapDV is really plain Java packages with a sprinkle of WFC on top.


Turning various parts of it into components is relatively straight forward, certainly in COM/DLLs, even Java beans. It does need a serious clean up though but see my previous post on whats on the horizon.


Jonathan*
You keep saying that...but doing it requires source, which so far nobody but you has. If that changes, great! But until it does, I'm going to keep pointing it out when it's relevant.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*Hi, Jotter.


Now that I've used SwapDV for a while (I've got a 320GB RAID 5 array on my 'ReplayServer') I've noticed some things that might improve the product:


1. If there's any way to do it, make the show's recorded times editable. This would let me take reruns and fit them so that they show up in the correct order in the guide.


2. Make a 'default' sort order in the guide, or set up several options for people to pick from. My favorite would be by 'channel', then secondary sort by 'record date'. That way they'd show up in SwapDV in the same order as in the Replay guide.


3. Remote delete would be awesome...but might be really difficult to implement. (I can't help it...I see that 'delete' option on the Replay UI and I'm just itching to use it.) I don't want this often, but when I do, it'd be nice to save a trip to the server 'room'.


Just a few suggestions. Feel free to ignore. *
(1) is possible, but requires some work... (the shows record time is the way the guide (and the replay box) uniquely identify the show)


(2) sounds like a good idea


(3) I haven't implemented it (yet) although I've seen examples around this forum on what the command looks like (and of course the SwapDV server gets that request from the box when you press "delete"). Of course one of the important questions is whether you WANT to allow anyone to delete the show who happens to use your replay box (esp. if you are using SwapDV as a sort of archival backup system). Anyway, it should be implemented!


No ideas ignored... 


Jonathan


----------



## screamitus

jtl, it sounds like Jotter has some commercial aspirations for the SwapDV which could explain the lack of source code. That's cool, we all have to make a buck. As more and more of us continue hacking and sharing code for the Replay though, I'm sure more good stuff will continue to flow. This is very exciting!


----------



## RandyRazor

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


(3) I haven't implemented it (yet) although I've seen examples around this forum on what the command looks like (and of course the SwapDV server gets that request from the box when you press "delete"). Of course one of the important questions is whether you WANT to allow anyone to delete the show who happens to use your replay box (esp. if you are using SwapDV as a sort of archival backup system). Anyway, it should be implemented!


No ideas ignored... 


Jonathan*
How about adding the feature but allowing a particular show to be "preserved" on the SwapDV side so it can't be deleted from the ReplayTV side?


Randy


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by screamitus_
*jtl, it sounds like Jotter has some commercial aspirations for the SwapDV which could explain the lack of source code. That's cool, we all have to make a buck. As more and more of us continue hacking and sharing code for the Replay though, I'm sure more good stuff will continue to flow. This is very exciting!*
Unless the rest of us decide we want to make a buck off it too, and stop sharing our knowledge...


SwapDV may well be very slick, but would it exist at all without extract_rtv, ReplayPC, Replayer, and GuideParser?


----------



## screamitus

I'm in complete agreement with you. I was just trying to be a nice guy


----------



## MasterK

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Unless the rest of us decide we want to make a buck off it too, and stop sharing our knowledge...*
I think you may be jumping to conclusions here. While, jotter did say he was going to be using SwapDV at work he also said:

Quote:

*I'm currently working with our organization to decide on an appropriate Open Source license. When that happens I'll let you all know where to go...*
It is not prudent to release source code without a licence of some sort. If it is released without ANY licence or copyright information, someone else could take the code and do whatever they wanted to with it.


Trying to decide about what Open Source license to use does not sound like the a bad guy to me. Just like someone doing things right.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by MasterK_
*


I think you may be jumping to conclusions here. While, jotter did say he was going to be using SwapDV at work he also said:




It is not prudent to release source code without a licence of some sort. If it is released without ANY licence or copyright information, someone else could take the code and do whatever they wanted to with it.


Trying to decide about what Open Source license to use does not sound like the a bad guy to me. Just like someone doing things right. *
Err, yes, thanks MasterK.


I am actively seeking to make this more available to everyone but, as pointed out above, it ISN'T as simple as just throwing the source code out, and the way I want to go is Open Source. The differences between Open Source licenses *are* significant, and I'm working with people to sort out the right one.


So please be patient a little while longer - we're still working on it!


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by screamitus_
*jtl, it sounds like Jotter has some commercial aspirations for the SwapDV which could explain the lack of source code. That's cool, we all have to make a buck. As more and more of us continue hacking and sharing code for the Replay though, I'm sure more good stuff will continue to flow. This is very exciting!*
No no no no no. Please read the Open Source bit!


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*You keep saying that...but doing it requires source, which so far nobody but you has. If that changes, great! But until it does, I'm going to keep pointing it out when it's relevant.*
Ok, fair enough. Hopefully the source problem will be resolved soon (in the next week or so I hope)


Jonathan


----------



## screamitus

Anyone have success in packaging one of the parsing functions (from replayPC or some other open source) into a public dll yet? I'm dying for it. I've got a little VB client player all ready but my parsing code sucks and doesn't work reliably.


----------



## jtl

Lee Thompson contributed some Windows/Visual C packaging materials (project files and the like); I checked them in yesterday. I don't know if they build the library as a DLL or not. And I mailed the whole kit & kaboodle to NFW this morning, for him to see if he can do whatever magic it takes to make it VB accessible.


----------



## screamitus

jtl, you're the man!


----------



## GadgetGuy

Has anyone been able to do streaming with the latest SwapDV running on a low end Windows box, like a Pentium 166?


----------



## Mystic1

Hey jotter,


just wonder if there's been any change in status on posting source?


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Mystic1_
*Hey jotter,


just wonder if there's been any change in status on posting source?*
Good timing!


Hopefully it'll go out later today/tomorrow on sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/swapdv/ 


... with the following big changes:

* Swing interface for cross-platform support (due to popular demand  )

* Protection for some shows


As some of you know its a combination of the new interface and licensing checks which have slightly slowed this source posting down until now.


I'd like to invite everyone to go there and add to the feature requests, and bugs and so on!


Thanks everyone (esp. jtl) for the help, support, and ideas - hopefully we can get rolling on the next generation replay/tivo/... application.


Jonathan


----------



## Mystic1

VERY Cool! A great big THANKS to you jotter !!


----------



## Larry Stewart

Hey Jotter (aka Jonathan),

Should I be able to run 2 SwapDV servers at the same time. When I try, I see one or the other, but never both. I was pretty careful to change the configuration page (different name, s/n's etc). These are running on 2 different computers with 2 different IP addresses.


I LOVE THIS PROGRAM!!!!!!


----------



## samarai

Is it possible to edit the .mpg file which SwapDV creates (after import from the ReplayTV), then put it back into the SwapDV folder (overwriting the original .mpg file) to make it available for viewing on the replay TV?


I tried it using Womble to edit out the commercials, and it won't work... my guess is that the .mpg format is a bit different, and ReplayTV hangs up on it.


Has anyone had any successes editing a show (or creating a new MPEG-2 file) and putting it in the SwapDV folder (along with the index and guide files?) for access from the ReplayTV?


Thank you! 

Sam


----------



## screamitus

hmmm. Two days now and nothing on souceforge....


----------



## krlanes

Great program!!!


I have two questions. Hope they are easy ones.


1) Can I upload a MPG file that was not created on the RPTV? I am thinking that I could take my DIVX files and I convert them to a MPEG and watch it using the ReplayTV


2) I tried SwapDV on my W2K machine and it worked fine. When I tried it on my WinXP machine I get "unable to start the applictaion--the Java Virtual Machine cannot be loaded. Class not registered". Add/Remove PGMs shows that Java 2 Runtime Environment Standard Edition v1.3.1_02 is installed. Do I need something different? Do I need to say an Incantation before invoking Swapdv?


Thanks


Kurt


----------



## krlanes

Ok


I found the answer to my own questions. You must download Microsoft VM to run Java as this is not included in XP.


Kurt


----------



## krlanes

I finally got everything up and running (correctly?) I have run Swapdv on my 2K+ Athlon and on my P3 Laptop. These are all are connected on a 100M network thru a Linksys router to the RTV4040.


Transfers from the RTV to the PC or Laptop proceed at a snails pace of ~165KB/s. Transfers from the Laptop Swapdv to the Athlon run at ~2MB/s.


Any ideas as to what is wrong?


Thanks


Kurt


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Nothing is wrong....


----------



## screamitus

Hey NFW, did you ever have success wrapping up that code into win dll's? I'm tired of waiting for Jonathan to release his SwapDV code.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Still havent had a chance to even look at it!! Sorry, just some personal things that came up recently has kept me kinda busy, and work is getting very busy too. As soon as I can.....


----------



## jtl

If someone else wants to give it a try before NFW is able, the up-to-date ReplayPC source is available via anonymous CVS, or from me in mail if you don't have CVS running.


----------



## pic_micro

Hi Jtl,


would you mind sending me the code? My email is pic_micro at hotmail dot com.


Thank You


----------



## TanRanger

Why do the files have to have the RTV's silly names when they aren't on the RTV anymore? Shouldn't SwapDV be able to "spoof" the funny file names? I mean, 43215143.mpg is awfully similar to 432456457.mpg and neither one of them is obviously the latest episode of The Lone Ranger. So why not save the files with filenames based on the show title/episode and have the software tell the RTV that it's 432635623.mpg instead.


Basically, If I want to watch The Lone Ranger from my laptop (across the LAN off the SwapDV machine) I have to browse over to the shared folder and open 43216346.mpg or something. I'd have to run SwapDV on the laptop to get the filenames but then I'd have to transfer the file through SwapDV to the laptop... but I don't want to save the file to the laptop... I just want to play it across the LAN.


So how bout it?


(BTW, awesome prog. of course :0)


----------



## screamitus

I wrote a little windows app that let's you do just what you want. You're welcome to it. It's not perfect. I've been wrangling with the guide snapshot file format so it doesn't get certain fields very well like movie length or date recorded but my kids just love the thing. http://www.screamitinc.com/downloads/WinReplay.EXE


----------



## TanRanger

Little?! It's 4 Megs! Heh heh. SwapDV is under 100K zipped. ;O)


----------



## screamitus

It's got all the runtime crap in the install. If it's too big for you and you don't want it....well... Build you're own!


----------



## screamitus

...and another thing Ranger Boy, why don't you attempt to contribute to the efforts here instead of complaining about them. Nobody's getting paid here.


----------



## BarryLawton

I just got my replay back from warranty repair and started playing swapdv. Have noticed that it uses 100% of the processor on my server PII 400 and my laptop PII 800. Is that normal? What is it doing? Thanks


Barry


THIS IS GREAT SOFTWARE!


----------



## TanRanger

Screamitus -


Hey man, I didn't mean any offense. I thought my post made my light-hearted attitude obvious (I said "Heh heh" and I included a winking smiling face). I certainly DO appreciate everyone's efforts... your's included.


I wasn't complaining. I was just teasing you about your prog.'s filesize because I noticed that it was larger than the program it was complimenting.



I have never managed to program anything more significant than a rock-paper-scissors game despite many attempts to learn languages from logo, basic, basica, gwbasic, qbasic, quick basic, visual basic, pascal, c, c++, visual c++, java, fortran, x86 assembly, and even assembly for Palm PDAs and Texas Instruments calculators.

If I could program my way out of a wet paper bag I would be contributing as often as possible... but because I'm trapped in the "I'm not a programmer" idiom, I am afraid all I can contribute are observations and comments. The last thing I would do is snub someone's programming efforts... because I know how difficult and time consuming it can be (especially for me as you can now see).


Thank you for your program. Would you mind if I offer some constructive comments about it?


1. It doesn't work. Specifically, It doesn't play videos (I'm using Zoom Player). It launches Zoom Player fine but that's the end of it. I have not tested it with Windows Media Player.


2. It has a bug in the menu. All of the program titles are truncated. Err.. Specifically, I see all of the letters in the program names except the first few letters of each entry in the episode name column. "West Wing" becomes " Wing" (I realize you did previously mention this was an issue.)


3. I can see episode names and descriptions for some programs, but not show titles. (same comment as in #2)


4. Perhaps the window could be maximizeable rather than being forced to that specific size. The ability to minimize it would also be nice.


5. The description of the epsiode is given in the menu, but then given again at the bottom when the episode is highlighted. This does not seem to contribute much. Perhaps the description column in the menu could be replaced with the episode column, and the episode column could be replaced with the show title column. (uh... same comment as #2 and #3)


6. The recorded date column is lying.


7. So is the duration column. I assume these are not yet implemented fully and are displaying values simply as proof of concept.


8. There are some peculiar numbers at the end of many program descriptions... is this from reading past the last delimiter in the guide file?


9. Your application currently allows me to modify the episode name (or show title) for some reason. The name of course does not change in the guide file and it reverts to what it was when I restart your program. Remove this 'feature?" Or implement fully?


10. You say "press F5 to refresh." This is VB... why not give us a button?


11. The "Video Player" button which allows us to specify which player to use is the type of thing I would expect to find in a menu instead... also, maybe say "Select Video Player" or something instead?


12. The component that allows us to browse to the folder we want to play from is another example of something I might expect to find in a menu instead. In fact... I'd actually prefer to see a semi-colon delimited string (created by browsing to each folder of interest) that would allow us to include multiple folders (even on multiple drives) to be included in the list. Ex: multiple SwapDV servers can all appear in one list if the user has mapped the appropriate network drives. I like the way Limewire has accomplished something similar.


13. The play button could have a little right-pointing triangle in it to be more intuitive (like a VCR play button). Though green is certainly a good color... it's not like anyone will have to hunt for the button as it is.



Ok... those are just my first suggestions on where I (for one) would hope the next version would do it differently. On to the good points:



1. The program exists. This is the most crucial step. We all thank you for your time and trouble in writing it.


2. It almost works. That's pretty cool! A little debugging is still needed though you did mention that that was the case.


3. Interface is good. Very intuitive. You don't need a help file to use it at all.


4. Little icon (your creation?) is pretty cool too. Color goes nicely with the SwapDV icon. Heh heh.



Ok? Am I doing my part or just being a nuisance? Does making a little list like that count as constructive criticism? Does the time and attention I have given you and your program ammount to a compliment? I'm on your side man. We all are (we non-programmers). Keep up the good work. If it weren't for folks like you and Jon (jotter)... we'd all be stuck with some really overpriced VCRs.


----------



## TanRanger

Wait a second... why do you even need to have a "Select Video Player" button at all?! The operating system has a default for handling MPGs anyway. The only reason I can think of is because we have to use the Elecard codec to play the raw RTV MPGs. If we wanted to use one player for all MPGs (like WMP) and another for RTV MPGs, I guess that would make sense... but I don't think most people will want to use separate players like that.


Also... I don't know much about how the OS deals with default codecs, but I've noticed the Elecard codec has become the default for MPGs regardless of the player I use... so maybe there isn't any reason for the button after all.


Just have the program launch the MPG file as though it were an external application. Wouldn't that work? (remember, I'm no programmer).


----------



## TanRanger

Oh yeah... and you have an installer (WISE Installer)... but how about an uninstaller?


----------



## screamitus

The 'uninstaller' is in the "Add or Remove Programs" in your control panel


----------



## Mystic1

Ok, we've been properly teased by the project creation on SourceForge... when does the source actually appear???


----------



## screamitus

Ditto


----------



## BarryLawton

I had IIS running on both machines. I should have looked more carefully. I cant seem to get my replay to see my swapDV if i use anything other than port 80. Thougts here?


----------



## jtl

um...don't do that, then?


Actually, has anybody tried sending SSDP messages that include a port in the LOCATION, and a Device_Descr.xml with a port in the URLBase? I think we may have all been assuming it wouldn't work (and that's the way to bet, yes), but it's worth at least trying if nobody has.


----------



## BarryLawton

This would be cool for those of us with wives who complain about the number of machines in the house....


----------



## jtl

You may be able to assign multiple addresses to the same machine, and give SwapDV one and IIS the others. I don't know if what versions of Windows can do that (the server products certainly should be able to), whether IIS can be told to stick to a subset of the addresses, or whether Java's networking API exposes what SwapDV would need, to do that.


ReplayServer + Apache works just fine on one machine, on Linux...


----------



## BarryLawton

I tried to bind the website to one address. This works. But when I start swapdv it seems to bomb out. As a matter of fact you cant start the web service with swapdv running, period. The swapdv seems to be grabbing all the addresses no matter what I put in the config. I have tried it both ways and it still does not work. hmmmmm.


----------



## jtl

Sorry, I wasn't very clear -- I knew that SwapDV, as is, binds all the addresses. What I don't know is whether java supplies a way that that could be fixed, if and when the source code is ever released or Jotter gets to it.


----------



## klaatu

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Actually, has anybody tried sending SSDP messages that include a port in the LOCATION, and a Device_Descr.xml with a port in the URLBase? I think we may have all been assuming it wouldn't work (and that's the way to bet, yes), but it's worth at least trying if nobody has.*
I added a port to the UPnP alive message an the replay ignored it. Actually, I seem to remember (it was a while ago) that it ignores the entire 'Location' header. I really don't like having to run my server on port 80 (especially during debug). At some point I'll have to use iptables to map 80 to some other port.


----------



## TanRanger

Yay! Version 1/2 with lots of sources!


  :-D


----------



## Mystic1

Ok, what I am I missing? I downloaded the files from Sourceforge, extracted the jar file, opened the jar file in Jbuilder, and I can see all the classes, etc, but each one says method implementation not available. i.e. it can only show me the procedure and functions, and global declarations. So am I not understanding something (entirely possible as I'm not expert with java). Will these files not load in jbuilder? what IDE do I need to see the actual source code? Can anyone explain this to my dull wits? thanks in advance to any who try...


----------



## jptsetme

A JAR file does not ordinairily contain source code. Although it can countain source, its primary purpose is to store class files, which are the compiled output of java source files. Although the analogy isn't quite correct, a JAR file is closer to a DLL than it is to a .cpp file.


The source code does appear to be checked in to Source Forge -- it's under CVS, and you can acess it with anonymous CVS. There are instructions on http://sourceforge.net


----------



## jotter

As you have all noticed we've finally got the sources out.


I'm very sorry for the delay but a last minute very wierd bug slowed us down by a couple of days and the Swing interface was more difficult than expected. I wanted to put something out that was working (mostly)!


It would be really useful for me/us all if feature requests, bug reports etc could be put into the SwapDV sourceforge forums as that would help to keep track of it all.


Obviously one of the big reasons to put this out is to get other people involved in the code. So if you have any ideas or directions you'd like to see explored (or explore yourself) please get in touch and we'll try to help/coordinate stuff.


The URLs again:

Project page (you can get to everything from here):
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/swapdv/ 


More specifically, download page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...group_id=50010 

CVS sources:
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=50010 


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by TanRanger_
*Why do the files have to have the RTV's silly names when they aren't on the RTV anymore? Shouldn't SwapDV be able to "spoof" the funny file names? I mean, 43215143.mpg is awfully similar to 432456457.mpg and neither one of them is obviously the latest episode of The Lone Ranger. So why not save the files with filenames based on the show title/episode and have the software tell the RTV that it's 432635623.mpg instead.


Basically, If I want to watch The Lone Ranger from my laptop (across the LAN off the SwapDV machine) I have to browse over to the shared folder and open 43216346.mpg or something. I'd have to run SwapDV on the laptop to get the filenames but then I'd have to transfer the file through SwapDV to the laptop... but I don't want to save the file to the laptop... I just want to play it across the LAN.


So how bout it?


(BTW, awesome prog. of course :0)*
The numbers in the files correspond to the programs record date - its a unique key which the ReplayTV uses in the guide to map between the guide entry for the show and the underlying file.


It would be possible to make the names more sensible but then we'd be introducing another mapping scheme which may have conflicts in resolving the files from the guide, or we'd need to store a separate index for the filename to the record date.


A better solution would be make SwapDV do what you want to do with the underlying files on the file system. For example, is the reason you want to see more useful titles that you want to play the mpeg back on the PC? If so we should integrate some Java mpeg player into the package... Volunteers? 


Jonathan

Well you could but then you'd need some


----------



## cosmology_guy

First, jotter: it's been said before, but thanks for

making this thing - its really a great tool.


Next, I have a question for folks: I'd like to use SwapDV

to go the other direction: taking my MPEG2s that I've downloaded

from the internet (legal ones!) and pushing them into

the SwapDV library so they can be played on my Replay.


To do this the MPEG has to be renamed to correspond to the

101nnnnnn.mpg naming convention...but the real kicker

comes in creating the ndx and rgd files. I opened some sample

files up with a hex editor, and the rgd file is easy to understand:

program name, episode name, description, and file size. The

ndx file is more opaque. I'm assuming that the ndx file is a

series of in/outs representing the commercial skip points

on the mpeg - but I am just guessing.


So, the REAL question:


Is there a utility out there that will take a garden variety

MPEG, and generate the appropriate ndx and rgd files so

that I can import them into SwapDV?


Thanks in advance for the answer(s).


- cosmology_guy


----------



## jtl

The kicker is *not* in creating ndx and rgd files, unfortunately. Given an appropriate mpeg file, I can make an ndx file -- but it doesn't help a damn bit, because the only 'appropriate mpeg file's are the ones created by the 4k. (and if you think the rgd file is much simpler than the ndx file, it's just because you haven't looked closely enough at either -- see http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/view/Replay/Ndx for information on the ndx files; the current ReplayPC source tree includes a 'build-ndx' executable; see http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/vi.../GuideSnapshot for information on the snapshot guide format -- a SwapDV rgd file is just one of these, with the ASCII header and footer from the transfter protocol intact, and with only one channel and one show included. I don't think anybody's written anything to build one from scratch yet, but that's just because there's no point yet, not because it's hard, given what we know now.


----------



## samarai

...so is anyone working on a "normal mpeg" to "r4k appropriate mpeg" converter? Perhaps Jotter can incorporate it into the next release of the most awesome swapdv program? 


Sam


----------



## cosmology_guy

...ok, thanks for the background info... from what you've

told me, and from what is written at http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/view/Replay/Ndx, 

neither the ndx or the rgd is particularly difficult. (Examining

the extrapolated data structure given at the URL above,

the ndx file *is* primarily used for determining commercial

in/outs for skipping during playback, as well as macrovision

codec data - the "timestamp," incidently is most likely

used as a seed number for the macrovision decoder... does

it ever appear as all 0's?)


What I am confused about is this notion of 'appropriate mpeg

file's...created by the 4k." This doesn't make a lot of sense

to me. An MPEG-2 file is an MPEG-2 file. Any MPEG decoder

should read a file created by someone else MPEG encoder.


I just did the following experiment - I took an MPEG-2 file

from an independent source, and I recorded it on

my Replay by feeding it into the composite in jacks, and

doing a manual record. Then I diff'ed the first

100K of the MPEG created by the Replay (lets call

it MPEG'), and the original MPEG - and there was no difference.


Next, I took the ndx and rgd of the MPEG' file, mated them

with the original MPEG file and imported the whole sheebang

into the SwapDV library.... end result? The non-native MPEG

file played over my Replay. That all leads me to believe that

the issue lies with the ndx file, not the MPEG encoding itself.


Why the assumption that they the Replay only accepts "special"

MPEGs? Is this established somewhere in Replay-lore, or is

it just an assumption? It really does seem like the key is making a

proper index file that has appropriate information for the

associated MPEG.


Oh - while I am at it, one more question. In the rgd file, there

is a field for "file length." What is the unit for that length?

words? bytes? seconds?


...I really want to try and figure this out - being able to push

non-native replay MPEGs into SwapDV (and, therefore, into

a format that Replay can live with) would be extremely useful.


Thanks for any help you can give me in advance.


- CG


----------



## KenL

Agreed. jtl what are the odds of cleanly converting other mpegs to 4K compatibility?


----------



## jtl

I don't think I've ever seen an all-zero timestamp, but I'm not positive. It certainly doesn't start over at 0 with a new recording.


I think the ndx file is used for general random-access; it's not just for commercial skip, since a (similar but different-format) ndx file was used in pre-4k models, before commercial skip was an issue.


The "an mpeg-2 is an mpeg-2" theory doesn't hold up well if you look more closely at the format -- there's program stream vs transport stream; choice of resolution; choice of color space; choices of bitrate both for audio and video; constant or video bitrate; packet size; packet interleaving; choice of exactly which frames to encode as I, B or P frames.


A full mpeg-2 decoder should be able to handle any combination of these -- but the Replay wasn't sold as a full mpeg-2 decoder Several of us have tried repeatedly feeding it MPEGs from other sources (including earlier Replay models) without success. My theory is still that the demultiplexor makes assumptions about the (unusual) multiplexing pattern the 4k uses, with lots of video packets together, followed by a few audio packets, all within a pack, with one pack per GOP. The ndx structure only makes sense with that kind of multiplexing format, which is one of the reasons I think that's a requirement.


Given all the choices that have to be made when building an MPEG, not to mention the blocking and rounding done during the encoding, I would be shocked if a re-encoded mpeg was bit-for-bit identical with the original, even if the same encoder was used both times.


what did you use to determine there was no difference?


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by KenL_
*Agreed. jtl what are the odds of cleanly converting other mpegs to 4K compatibility?*
If the problem is just the multiplexing, I still think it should be possible to do with just a re-multiplexor, which wouldn't affect quality and should be pretty fast But I haven't made it work yet, and as far as I know nobody else has (although someone else is working on it and has gotten one frame displayed!).


For a source MPEG with a resolution or encoding bitrate the Replay doesn't use, I'm *guessing* you'd have to re-encode, with all the quality & time issues that implies.


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by cosmology_guy_
*In the rgd file, there

is a field for "file length." What is the unit for that length?

words? bytes? seconds?*
Which field do you mean? I can't find any field I called "file length". There's ReplayShow.seconds, which is in seconds. There's ReplayShow.index_size and ReplayShow.mpeg_size, which are the size of the ndx and mpeg file, in bytes, but can be left as 0 unless you're doing InternetVideoSharing. There are lots of record lengths, all of which are in bytes.


----------



## KenL

Well I guess I like those odds @ this point. I have quite a few mpegs sitting around (not what you're thinking) I just haven't gotten them onto DVD (CDR) and it would be super to just pop them into the AV loop through the 4K transport. I hope we can nail down the nascent specifics of the "4K mpeg" so we could even re-encode if needed.


Maybe this is our next holy grail?


----------



## cosmology_guy

...you caught me right as I was going to bed....but this is

too interesting.  I'll pay for it in the morning I suppose.


Thanks for responding so quickly, jtl - just FYI, I worked in

video encoding and graphics for quite a while - so I'm not a

newbie with all of this.


Of course you are right when you say "all MPEGs are not

created equal," but what you are really saying is that

the Replay people didn't create an MPEG-2 codec that follows

the standards. I doubt they did that by accident, but it probably

wasn't to try and keep foreign MPEGs out, either - they probably

stopped at "good enough" on the original MPEG units, and never

changed. That does suck, but it doesn't make the situation

impentetrable - we can probably write a "translator" that just

repackages the video packets into whatever pattern the

Replay is looking for...


...however, as I stated earlier - I was able to feed in a

native MPEG-2 file to the SwapDV using the method I outlined

previously. The source of the MPEG was the output

of an AVI-to-MPEG translation using a digital video editing

package I own. I used a binary diff and examine blocks of the

code using a hex comparitor to determine that the MPEG' and MPEG

file were the same...and I only compared the first 100K of the file.

Nonetheless, the non-native file played on the replay using the

native NDX.


As far as the ndx itself is concerned - you are probably right -

there's more in there then just commercial skip in/outs, and

it probably is used for random access to blocks of data...and,

there is definitely macrovision stuff in there, I recognize the

signatures. (Although if you've never observed a timestamp

consisting of 0's, that's probably not the seed data.)


The file length information is encoded in the RGD files..

near the beginning starting at word x34. It's pretty

strange because it seems to ALWAYS be set to the

value 1876 (decimal) regardless of the length of the

show. Well, to be fair, I only looked at a 60 min and 120

min show - but in both of those cases it was set to 1876.

1876 doesn't divide nice and neatly into anything... so I

don't know if that length is in words, bytes, seconds or

fortnights!


(Can I go to sleep now?  )


- CG


----------



## cosmology_guy

...oh, a missing piece of info: when I recorded the

non-native MPEG onto the Replay - I played it out through

my PC's composite out - so it went:

AVI->MPEG-2 --->> composite --->> Replay


- CG


----------



## jtl

Quote:

_Originally posted by cosmology_guy_
*...however, as I stated earlier - I was able to feed in a

native MPEG-2 file to the SwapDV using the method I outlined

previously. The source of the MPEG was the output

of an AVI-to-MPEG translation using a digital video editing

package I own. I used a binary diff and examine blocks of the

code using a hex comparitor to determine that the MPEG' and MPEG

file were the same...and I only compared the first 100K of the file.

Nonetheless, the non-native file played on the replay using the

native NDX.*
This still seems so *incredibly* unlikely, I have trouble believing it. It means the Replay used exactly the same resolution as the original, its variable bit rate chooser chose exactly the same bitrates to use on every frame, its multiplexor multiplexed the same way (and as I said, I haven't seen any mpeg from any other source that are multiplexed much the same way at all -- what was the multiplexor for the original?) -- *and*, there was *no* degradation on the digital/analog conversion, composite cable, and analog/digital conversion.


Can you make the MPEGs available?

Quote:

As far as the ndx itself is concerned - you are probably right -

there's more in there then just commercial skip in/outs, and

it probably is used for random access to blocks of data...and,

there is definitely macrovision stuff in there, I recognize the

signatures.
Do you mean, you know what the 'fe', '03' and count fields mean?

Quote:

The file length information is encoded in the RGD files..

near the beginning starting at word x34. It's pretty

strange because it seems to ALWAYS be set to the

value 1876 (decimal) regardless of the length of the

show.
As bytes, that's the size of the snapshot header, group header, one replay channel struct, and one replay show struct -- ie, the expected size of a single-channel/single-show snapshot file -- I'm still not sure what you're looking at (part of the ascii header, maybe? that's not really part of the file format, that's part of the file transfer protocol; I don't know why SwapDV leaves/puts it there)


----------



## screamitus

That 1876 he taking about is in the garbage header ascii right in the beginning of the rgd file.


----------



## cosmology_guy

Hi guys -


Hate to do this to you in the middle of the discussion - but I'll

be on a business trip until tuesday. jtl: when I come back, I'll

answer all your questions and post the MPEG somewhere for

you to examine (It's big, tho.) Fred: garbage ASCII? You mean

those ASCII headers in the file are not used by anything? Poop!


See you all in a few days -


- CG


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*The kicker is *not* in creating ndx and rgd files, unfortunately. Given an appropriate mpeg file, I can make an ndx file -- but it doesn't help a damn bit, because the only 'appropriate mpeg file's are the ones created by the 4k. (and if you think the rgd file is much simpler than the ndx file, it's just because you haven't looked closely enough at either -- see http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/view/Replay/Ndx for information on the ndx files; the current ReplayPC source tree includes a 'build-ndx' executable; see http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/vi.../GuideSnapshot for information on the snapshot guide format -- a SwapDV rgd file is just one of these, with the ASCII header and footer from the transfter protocol intact, and with only one channel and one show included. I don't think anybody's written anything to build one from scratch yet, but that's just because there's no point yet, not because it's hard, given what we know now.*
SwapDV builds the rgd from scratch, sort of. If you take a look at the source you'll see the "missing" fields I don't know the values for. Also, SwapDV copies the "unknown" bytes across when moving or editing shows. However, to actually change and construct the guide you only really need to keep track of a few pointers in the rgd header itself - and one of the the wierd discoveries I found is the need to save the show entries out in the same order as the "instance" value they contain - otherwise moving up and down the show listings on the replay is a very strange experience.


----------



## mudtoe

Hi:


I just tried the java version of SwapDV out, and it's pretty neat. I have a couple of questions though. When you play something back through the server at high quality, is the throughput necessary to keep the show from being jerky near 10 megabits? I ask because I have my Replay TV connected through a pair Netgear PE102 bridges which allows the use of the house's phone line to extend your LAN. My main computer (where I was running the SwapDV server) , the firewall, and the Internet cable modem are on the other side of the bridge. This works fine for what the ReplayTV normally needs, and I also use it to put a 802.11b wireless access point at a more advantagous spot in the house.


However, when I replayed a high quality show through it, it was very jerky, so I think I'm short of bandwidth. I'm sure that the PE102 gives something less than the full 10 megabits it promises. I noticed that it took about an hour to upload an hour show recorded at high quality, so I'm figuring I'm about at the bandwidth limit.


My second question concerns a request for a potential enhancement. I have a Maxattach Maxstor 4000 network attached storage device in my configuration, which has 320gb of storage on it. This would be perfect to store uploaded shows. However, there is one difficulty. The 4000 model, which was one of the earlier ones, uses a Unix type operating system, and consequently cannot store files larger than 2gb in size. The later models started using Win2K and overcame this problem, however the 4000 models cannot be upgraded to Win2K. I was wondering how difficult it would be to put a setting in SwapDV to limit the size of the mpg files, and break them up into pieces if they exceed a certain size. This would also be nice for people who want to transfer the files over the Internet, so that a failed transfer wouldn't have to start all the way at the beginning of a huge file.


In any event, even if you can't help me, I wanted to say this is one slick piece of software.


Mudtoe


----------



## jswright

 http://www.firedaemon.com/ 


freeware utility to setup a program to run as a service under NT / 2000 / XP


----------



## Robert Simandl

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong here?


I can copy from my 4160 to my SwapDV with no problem whatsoever.


I can call up my SwapDV's content guide from my 4160, also with no problem.


But when I try to actually play a SwapDV show from the 4160, I get an error message "unable to contact remote machine, please verify the machine is connected to the network and try again."


Any idea what my problem is (OTHER than needing to get a life, that is )?


Thanks....


----------



## nystratton

Anyone know how to solve this problem? I am running on redhat.


[[email protected] Video]$ java SwapDV.jar

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: SwapDV/jar


-Nathan


----------



## Thenollyon

Nathan,


I am receiving the same error here on Windows XP. I have tried both .051 and .050 with the same results.


(Of course I had to repost this since the post from last night was pulled by someone)


----------



## videogeek

I am using 0.51 under XP


When I right click on a show and select 'Import show to my SwapDV Library' I get the pull down box with the Channels. I select a Channel and I see the message 'Processed response body OK' in the bottom field of the Content Guide - but nothing happens. No show is transfered.


If I select to save a show as Replay or PC mpeg the shows are transfered.


Question #2

Shows transfered as PC mpeg play back with lot's of mpeg artifacts (blockiness all over) on my PC - but they play fine on the 4040.


Any ideas?


----------



## aslagle

I'm having a problem with the new .jar version of SwapDV (0.51). Basically, the program will run, but my Replay will not recognize it.


The older .exe runs like a champ.


Oh, yeah - WinXP, JRE 1.3.1, 256MB RAM.


----------



## jptsetme

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*Anyone know how to solve this problem? I am running on redhat.


[[email protected] Video]$ java SwapDV.jar

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: SwapDV/jar


-Nathan*
Try


java -jar SwapDV.jar


If you don't specify -jar, you're telling java to execute a class file (not a class withing a jar file.) Specifically, jar.class in the SwapDV package.


--Joe


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by jptsetme_
*


Try


java -jar SwapDV.jar


If you don't specify -jar, you're telling java to execute a class file (not a class withing a jar file.) Specifically, jar.class in the SwapDV package.


--Joe*
Joe, you rock, thanks, I can run it on Linux now.


-Nathan


----------



## nystratton

I have a old guied file (and a lot of saved video) from my first dump of my replay. The guid works under replayserver and java replayer, but I can't get it to work with SwapDV. I have tried to play with ASCII headers and footers, but can't get it SwapDV to like it.


I have attached the gide file, I am willing to pay if you can get it to work with SwapDV.


-Nathan

 

guide.zip 21.171875k . file


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_

*Hi,


The SwapDV application allows you to manage your own digital video library, based on content backed up from from your replay TV. It combines the functionality of a replay client (Yet Another Replay Client), a replay server (Yet Another Replay Server) and a replay guide editor *
*
Here's an update:

SwapDV 0.52 and source code released. Go to http://swapdv.sourceforge.net to download the new version and/or sources.


Main changes:


- Uses UPNP to detect ReplayTVs or other SwapDVs on the local network.


- Sorting of tables by clicking on the header now works.


Jim.*


----------



## Larry Stewart

Quote:

_Originally posted by ozone_
*I've noticed a significant number of video interrupts when attempting playback from a SwapDV server stream to a 4000. The symptoms are the appearance of a blue screen with the message "video unavailable". The blue screen remains for approximately 2 to 3 seconds and then the video stream will proceed. I've experienced this condition consistently since installing the last two revs of SwapDV with an interrupt interval of approximately every 10 to 15 minutes. I'm running 100 on the network, hence I don't believe the network is necessarily the bottleneck. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? Jotter, is there possibly something in the server that could be causing this?*
What kind of network switch are you using?


----------



## rod279

When pulling from my 4160 and saving as a PC mpeg I can not change file directories in the "save as" selector box.


This problem exists in .51 and in .52 but not .22 (the last version I ran before .51)


Is this a java problem, or is anyone else seeing this?


Thanks,


Rodney


----------



## jorgy

I have a couple questions about Swap DV. I've had my ReplayTV for about a month now, and have been using ReplayPC to pull down files. However, yesterday I started playing wiht SwapDV and am very impressed! Nice job!


First, when I was downloading to my server from my replay, it hung the box, then did the 2 minute restart routine. I've had that happen before, but when it came back, more than 80% of my shows were gone! I didn't think it would be possible for an external process like SwapDV to nuke my shows, but apparently it did. :-( Has anyone else seen this?


Secondly, I tried to edit the master .rgd file since I had mis-typed the name of the channel. I broke things badly, and ended up losing the shows that I had downloaded to my SwapDV server. Is there a way, given all of your .mpg, .ndx, and .rgd files, to "import" them back into your SwapDV server?


Finally, what are the chances for a command line version? I'm a UNIX junkie and would like to be able to script some things.


Thanks for a great tool!


Eric


----------



## rod279

Quote:

_Originally posted by jorgy_
*I have a couple questions about Swap DV. I've had my ReplayTV for about a month now, and have been using ReplayPC to pull down files. However, yesterday I started playing wiht SwapDV and am very impressed! Nice job!


First, when I was downloading to my server from my replay, it hung the box, then did the 2 minute restart routine. I've had that happen before, but when it came back, more than 80% of my shows were gone! I didn't think it would be possible for an external process like SwapDV to nuke my shows, but apparently it did. :-( Has anyone else seen this?


Secondly, I tried to edit the master .rgd file since I had mis-typed the name of the channel. I broke things badly, and ended up losing the shows that I had downloaded to my SwapDV server. Is there a way, given all of your .mpg, .ndx, and .rgd files, to "import" them back into your SwapDV server?


Finally, what are the chances for a command line version? I'm a UNIX junkie and would like to be able to script some things.


Thanks for a great tool!


Eric*
I too had this problem. I was pulling a show from the replay to the server and the replay rebooted. When it came up the only show that was left was the one that I was trying to copy. Lost about 20 shows that time.


Hasn't happened since though..


-Rodney


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by rod279_
*When pulling from my 4160 and saving as a PC mpeg I can not change file directories in the "save as" selector box.


This problem exists in .51 and in .52 but not .22 (the last version I ran before .51)


Is this a java problem, or is anyone else seeing this?


Thanks,


Rodney*
Hi Rodney,


One of the big changes for 0.5 was to use platform independant graphics libaries. Unfortunatly, this changes the format of the file chooser to be less friendly. Clicking on the folder icon in the chooser should change the directory.


Jim.


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by jorgy_
*I have a couple questions about Swap DV. I've had my ReplayTV for about a month now, and have been using ReplayPC to pull down files. However, yesterday I started playing wiht SwapDV and am very impressed! Nice job!


First, when I was downloading to my server from my replay, it hung the box, then did the 2 minute restart routine. I've had that happen before, but when it came back, more than 80% of my shows were gone! I didn't think it would be possible for an external process like SwapDV to nuke my shows, but apparently it did. :-( Has anyone else seen this?


Secondly, I tried to edit the master .rgd file since I had mis-typed the name of the channel. I broke things badly, and ended up losing the shows that I had downloaded to my SwapDV server. Is there a way, given all of your .mpg, .ndx, and .rgd files, to "import" them back into your SwapDV server?


Finally, what are the chances for a command line version? I'm a UNIX junkie and would like to be able to script some things.


Thanks for a great tool!


Eric*
Hi Eric,


The replay will reboot itself if you attempt to download more than four shows at the same time .


We plan to put scheduling code into SwapDV to limit the number of concurrent downloads from each replay box.


You can import shows into SwapDV from files. Right-click on a channel and select "Import show from library files" and then choose a .rgd, .ndx, or .mpg file.


Someone on Sourceforge offered to work on a command line version, so that may be available in the future.


Jim.


----------



## rod279

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimv_
*


Hi Rodney,


One of the big changes for 0.5 was to use platform independant graphics libaries. Unfortunatly, this changes the format of the file chooser to be less friendly. Clicking on the folder icon in the chooser should change the directory.


Jim.*
I've tried that with no success. It defaulst to "my documents" and won't let me change it via any icons. When I click the desktop icon or any other icons on the left nothing happens. If I click the folder drop down, and then click a dir, it just goes back to the default.


Any other tips?


-Rodney


----------



## pmcneill

Quick SwapDV question -- I've downloaded a bunch of mpg/ndx file with ReplayPC, but they don't import into SwapDV 0.52, saying it can't find the RGD bit. Is there anything I can do? Or should I just work on setting up apache and ReplayServer?


----------



## jorgy

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimv_
*


Hi Eric,


The replay will reboot itself if you attempt to download more than four shows at the same time .


We plan to put scheduling code into SwapDV to limit the number of concurrent downloads from each replay box.


You can import shows into SwapDV from files. Right-click on a channel and select "Import show from library files" and then choose a .rgd, .ndx, or .mpg file.


Someone on Sourceforge offered to work on a command line version, so that may be available in the future.


Jim.*
Ahh... Yeah, I was downloading 4 shows when it happened. The scheduling code would be nice!


I tried the import, and it worked flawlessly. I think I'm going to burn the rgd, ndx, and mpg files to CD to archive a show, and then if I ever lose a disk, re-import it to my SwapDV server. This is so cool!


Finally, I can't remember where I saw the discussion of importing non-replay generated mpegs, but is this possible? Could someone please point me to the discussion? Thanks.



Eric


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*Quick SwapDV question -- I've downloaded a bunch of mpg/ndx file with ReplayPC, but they don't import into SwapDV 0.52, saying it can't find the RGD bit. Is there anything I can do? Or should I just work on setting up apache and ReplayServer?*
The next release of SwapDV should allow you to import a show you've download with only the .ndx and .mpg parts - so hopefully you'll be able to try-out SwapDV with your ReplayPC/replayer downloaded files.


Actually, you can import them ANYWAY by making a copy of the .rgd file (presumably you're using with ReplayPC) and renaming it to the same "number" as the other parts of the show. Then simply import it in SwapDV.


Jonathan


----------



## jmaver

I am having exactly the same problem. I have rebooted my replays, but that doesn't allow them to pick up the replay server either. Any ideas?


Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*I'm having a problem with the new .jar version of SwapDV (0.51). Basically, the program will run, but my Replay will not recognize it.


The older .exe runs like a champ.


Oh, yeah - WinXP, JRE 1.3.1, 256MB RAM.*


----------



## aslagle

Quote:

_Originally posted by jmaver_
*I am having exactly the same problem. I have rebooted my replays, but that doesn't allow them to pick up the replay server either. Any ideas?
*
Actually, I noticed that the .jar file was starting the server at program launch (which is good). When I stopped and restarted the server, my Replay could see it. (This is using version 0.51).


Could this be related to the UPnP bug?


----------



## jmaver

With .52 it seems to be working fine now.


Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*


Actually, I noticed that the .jar file was starting the server at program launch (which is good). When I stopped and restarted the server, my Replay could see it. (This is using version 0.51).


Could this be related to the UPnP bug?*


----------



## Basu

So I got the latest SwapDV (0.52) and it won't let me choose 'export to files' on locally-saved files. I have to run another copy of SwapDV from another PC, connect it to the first, and save the data that way. Am I missing something? Or is the feature just not implemented (to export local files to importable files)?



--Brennan


----------



## NoFreakinWay

I am not running a java enabled system, nor do I wish to. The source code

on sourceforge is the java code for the .jar version of SwapDV. jotter, when

you first made SwapDV it was an executable file. Is that source code available(maybe the project file oo), or did you just use the same code with J++ and compile it into an exe file. I was thinking of making a C# version of SwapDV but I am not sure about the conversion from java.


Thanks.


----------



## Eug

I'm trying to use SwapDV and I'm having a problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention in this thread.


I'm running Windows XP with the MS JVM. When I try to run SwapDV from it's .jar file, Windows doesn't know what to do with it. I tried installing the Sun JVM without its IE component, and then SwapDV runs but IE thinks it has no JVM. Installing the IE component of the Sun JVM helps with that, but everything looks incredibly ugly compared to how it gets rendered in the MS JVM.


So... can anyone tell me how I can get SwapDV to run in the MS JVM?


Thanks.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*I am not running a java enabled system, nor do I wish to. The source code

on sourceforge is the java code for the .jar version of SwapDV. jotter, when

you first made SwapDV it was an executable file. Is that source code available(maybe the project file oo), or did you just use the same code with J++ and compile it into an exe file. I was thinking of making a C# version of SwapDV but I am not sure about the conversion from java.


Thanks.*
To some extent I agree with your opinion about Java, not for language reasons (C# is VERY similar), but for GUI reasons. However, there are *good* reasons why we've decided on Java and Swing for the GUI, rather than Java and WFC which was my initial version. The largest is that I received MANY MANY requests from Unix and Mac users for a port, and since we want as many people as possible to run SwapDV this combination made the most sense. This way all Windows/Unix/Mac people to share a common code-base, and any development effort anyone puts in gets the maximum audience - which is very nice!


I would be really pleased if you could spare some of your conversion effort to help SwapDV become better and more useful in this form which I believe most people want.


A third UI which I explored for a little while is an HTML one. This would also be pretty useful for a number of reasons (remote admin of your SwapDV server etc.) but would require some beefing up of the web server aspect of SwapDV.


The 0.22 GUI was entirely WFC in J++ but the underlying packages were all the same. J++ allows packaging into the exe (which I presume is just a wrapper for calling the MS JVM on the contents of the "exe"). For a port, its probably just as easy to go from the current version.


Jonathan

([email protected])


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Eug_
*I'm trying to use SwapDV and I'm having a problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention in this thread.


I'm running Windows XP with the MS JVM. When I try to run SwapDV from it's .jar file, Windows doesn't know what to do with it. I tried installing the Sun JVM without its IE component, and then SwapDV runs but IE thinks it has no JVM. Installing the IE component of the Sun JVM helps with that, but everything looks incredibly ugly compared to how it gets rendered in the MS JVM.


So... can anyone tell me how I can get SwapDV to run in the MS JVM?


Thanks.*
The new version of SwapDV only runs under Suns JRE. I'm not sure you need the IE component installed (I'll have to check that). The interface is now written in Swing. I agree it looks (a little) worse but now Unix and Mac people will be able to run SwapDV servers (which is a good thing!).


Your version should look similar to the screenshots on www.swapdv.net - could you have a look and let us know?


Thanks

Jonathan


----------



## Eug

Let me clarify...


It's not that SwapDV looks ugly in the Sun JVM. That I can live with. It's the fact that if I use Sun's JVM in IE, every java applet looks ugly. And if I have the Sun JVM installed at all, the MS JVM doesn't work.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Eug_
*Let me clarify...


It's not that SwapDV looks ugly in the Sun JVM. That I can live with. It's the fact that if I use Sun's JVM in IE, every java applet looks ugly. And if I have the Sun JVM installed at all, the MS JVM doesn't work.*
Ahhhh. I see.


For people that have already installed SwapDV and the Sun JRE, could someone clarify that SwapDV will work WITHOUT installing support for IE/NS?


Thanks

Jonathan


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by Basu_
*So I got the latest SwapDV (0.52) and it won't let me choose 'export to files' on locally-saved files. I have to run another copy of SwapDV from another PC, connect it to the first, and save the data that way. Am I missing something? Or is the feature just not implemented (to export local files to importable files)?


--Brennan*
It wasn't implemented in 0.52, but is in 0.53 (released today). Please try it out and let us

know how you get on.


Jim.


----------



## pmcneill

Has anyone tried using SwapDV on a linux box with multiple ethernet cards (trying to save some debugging time on my end tonight)? I told it to bind to the IP on my internal network, but my replay doesn't see it, nor does SwapDV get the UPnP info from the replay. When I run SwapDV on my laptop (virtually identical setup to the desktop, sans second ethernet card and routing), everything works perfectly. thanks


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*Has anyone tried using SwapDV on a linux box with multiple ethernet cards (trying to save some debugging time on my end tonight)? I told it to bind to the IP on my internal network, but my replay doesn't see it, nor does SwapDV get the UPnP info from the replay. When I run SwapDV on my laptop (virtually identical setup to the desktop, sans second ethernet card and routing), everything works perfectly. thanks*
Hi,


The server will only bind to one address, which is the primary address of the machine by default, but can be changed through the "Library Server -> Configuration" menu. UPnP broadcasts that are sent out with this address. The latest (0.53) version allows a configuration file to be specified on the command line, so that multiple instances of SwapDV can co-exist on a machine.


Jim.


----------



## jorgy

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


Ahhhh. I see.


For people that have already installed SwapDV and the Sun JRE, could someone clarify that SwapDV will work WITHOUT installing support for IE/NS?


Thanks

Jonathan*
Well, I'm using SwapDV and I haven't installed support for IE/NS. However, I am using Linux.


----------



## jotter

Hi,


SwapDV 0.53 is now available.


Changes include:

* Added upload tab to monitor outgoing requests

* Added basic Drag n Drop for copying shows and moving their channels.

* Added Play to show popup menu

* Implemented Export to files in show popup menu

* Import of shows can handle shows without .rgd files

* Copying of big files takes place in a separate thread

* Command-line option for specifying configuration file


Many thanks to Matthew Dharm for the command line patch.


Get it SwapDV 0.53 


For more information on SwapDV, please go to www.swapdv.net. 


Questions? Comments? Feature requests? Please post them here, or on the sourceforge forums , or email [email protected] 


Thanks

Jonathan (Jotter)


----------



## pmcneill

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimv_
*

The server will only bind to one address, which is the primary address of the machine by default, but can be changed through the "Library Server -> Configuration" menu. UPnP broadcasts that are sent out with this address. The latest (0.53) version allows a configuration file to be specified on the command line, so that multiple instances of SwapDV can co-exist on a machine.
*
I have set it to bind to the internal address, and that's reflected in both the ini file and the configuration pane. I'm still not seeing it on the replay .. any other ideas?


----------



## aslagle

Jotter, the bug where cancelled downloads show up in the guide has shown up again (as of 0.52).


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*Jotter, the bug where cancelled downloads show up in the guide has shown up again (as of 0.52).*
I believe that this is fixed in 0.53, which you can get directly from www.swapdv.net now.


Jonathan


----------



## jcovert

I just ran this on MacOS X 


There are two ways to start it:


1. Just double click on it. Starts as a client only, because a regular user can't open port 80.


2. From "Terminal", enter the Unix command

% sudo java -jar SwapDV.jar

and respond with an administrator password. This will allow the server to start as long as you're not already running Web Sharing (Apache or some other httpd).


Basic functions seem to work; it finds my Replay, downloads the Replay Guide, and my Replay can see it and its empty guide.


However, since Macs don't have a Right Mouse button, the all important Right Click doesn't work. Normally, Mac applications use "Click and hold" in place of Right Click, with whatever Right Click would do appearing after you hold the mouse button down for a second or two.


Addendum (an hour or so later): I managed to get everything to work. Command-click will bring up the necessary menu that you would get with right click. However, since Command-click is used to select multiple items or to deselect, you have to Command-click with nothing selected in order to get the menu. (If you have something selected, you can use command-click to deselect it.) It would be nice to get click-and-hold to work instead of Command-click. (Apparently this needs to be done by Apple in the Java Run-time.)


Another note: don't try to operate as a server via an Airport connection. The performance is just not good enough to work properly. Not sure if it's my card or my first generation base station, but I got choppy performance, couldn't stop, and basically had lots of problems. Once I hooked up a wired connection things worked perfectly.


And one more thing: The downloaded .mpg files can be played on MacOS X with the VLC application available from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/macosx.html 


/john


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*


I have set it to bind to the internal address, and that's reflected in both the ini file and the configuration pane. I'm still not seeing it on the replay .. any other ideas?*
Hmm,


does netstat -a show it listening on port 80?


Can you connect to your self by specifying the

internal IP address in the "connect to ..." box?


Is the internal address on the same network as the ReplayTV, or if no, is multicast routed between the two?


Jim.


----------



## madSkeelz

The UI problems with SwapDV on MacOS X [e.g. command-clicking to reveal the contextual menus] are Apple's fault. Until they improve the JVM, it's going to work the way it does now.


----------



## pmcneill

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimv_
*

does netstat -a show it listening on port 80?


Can you connect to your self by specifying the

internal IP address in the "connect to ..." box?


Is the internal address on the same network as the ReplayTV, or if no, is multicast routed between the two?
*
Both netstat and telnet confirm that it's binding correctly, and I can connect to the replay from swapdv's connect to feature. Everything's on the same internal network, with eth1 in my desktop as 10.0.3.1 and a dhcp server, and the replay as 10.0.3.10. eth1 in the desktop, except for the ip, is configured identically to the ethernet card on my laptop where swapdv works as expected.


----------



## mdharm

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*


Both netstat and telnet confirm that it's binding correctly, and I can connect to the replay from swapdv's connect to feature. Everything's on the same internal network, with eth1 in my desktop as 10.0.3.1 and a dhcp server, and the replay as 10.0.3.10. eth1 in the desktop, except for the ip, is configured identically to the ethernet card on my laptop where swapdv works as expected.*
What about firewalls? Any firewalls/ipchains running that might block the UPnP from working?


Hrm... just because the server is running, does that necessarily mean that the broadcaster is running, too?


Matt


----------



## pmcneill

I am using ipchains, but it's configured for NAT and not as a firewall. Is it possible it's receiving the UDP packets for UPnP and passing them on/dropping them? I'm no expert on ipchains, knowing only enough to make the desktop share my connection.


----------



## mdharm

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*I am using ipchains, but it's configured for NAT and not as a firewall. Is it possible it's receiving the UDP packets for UPnP and passing them on/dropping them? I'm no expert on ipchains, knowing only enough to make the desktop share my connection.*
Why don't you post your ipchains configuration?


Matt


----------



## pmcneill

I'm actually using iptables (just checked more carefully).


Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT)

target prot opt source destination


Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT)

target prot opt source destination

MASQUERADE all -- anywhere anywhere


Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)

target prot opt source destination


I've tried turning that off to no avail. I'm probably going to dig in to the code tonight and see what's going on.


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by mdharm_
*


Hrm... just because the server is running, does that necessarily mean that the broadcaster is running, too?


Matt*
The broadcaster should run all the time (the same thread handles sending and receiving broadcasts).


Jim.


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by pmcneill_
*I'm actually using iptables


...


I've tried turning that off to no avail. I'm probably going to dig in to the code tonight and see what's going on.*
It's possible that the replayTV remembered the old IP address as being associated with the UUID and serial number of your SwapDV. You could try rebooting the ReplayTV, or changing the UUID and serial number of the SwapDV from the "Library Server -> Configuration" menu. Does UPnP work the other way around, with the ReplayTV showing up in the "File -> Connect -> Local" menu of the SwapDV?


Jim.


----------



## pmcneill

Jim -- it doesn't seem to be any of those. I've changed the UUID/serial number with no success, and the replay's not listed under local boxes.


In any event, I got everything to work by NFS mounting my media drive on my laptop and running SwapDV from there.


----------



## jptsetme

Quote:

_Originally posted by Eug_
*Let me clarify...


It's not that SwapDV looks ugly in the Sun JVM. That I can live with. It's the fact that if I use Sun's JVM in IE, every java applet looks ugly. And if I have the Sun JVM installed at all, the MS JVM doesn't work.*
I'm lurking from France (just for a year), so forgive me if I'm offbase (since I don't have a Replay that takes SECAM, plus all the TV here is in French [what's that all about?? ])...


SwapDV is not a Java applet, it's a Java application. As such, the JVM flavor used by IE applets has nothing to do with the JVM used by SwapDV. The recent Sun JDK/JRE installs have included Sun's "Java PlugIn" (which ironically uses ActiveX to operate within IE.) The Java Plugin does not replace the Microsoft VM, it simply sits in front of it.


So -- If you want to use the MS VM for applets in IE and the Sun JVM for Java applications, you should be able to simply disable (or uninstall) the Java Plugin. (There's a Control Panel applet for it in windows that you can use to disable it.) You may also want to check the Internet Options -> Advanced settings to make sure the MS VM is enabled (depending on what version of IE you have.)


Again, I haven't tried this, but I think it should work.


--Joe


----------



## Wasatch Rider

I haven't seen this addressed (if it is could someone point me to it). Can you use SwapDV to pull shows and guide info from a replay 2020? If I stick the drive in my computer will swap recognize it? I have an almost full 100gig drive in my 2020 that I want to put into a SwapDV server so when my 4040 arrives I can watch those shows through the 4040.


----------



## jorgy

Well, I was able to use SwapDV to backup all of my shows before I upgraded my 4040 to a now 4160 (actually, 4135 since the BIOS of the machine wouldn't recognize anything about 135G, but that's another story). I had tried to do a dual-drive upgrade but had lots of problems, like a lot of folks here.


I'm using Linux to run SwapDV, and I found it inconvenient to have to start up SwapDV, especially as root to bind to port 80, and then leave it running on a display somewhere. So my small contribution to the community here is a little trick to allow you to start up swap DV and leave it running on a server, and also allow you access to the GUI to transfer files.


The key is to use VNC. it's located at VNC .


Configure a vncserver on servername:1, add the "java -jar SwapDV.jar" to the ~/.vnc/xclients file. Then when the vncserver is started, so is SwapDV.


To connect to your virtual server with SwapDV running on it, simply type "vncviewer servername:1". Then you can use the GUI to transfer files, etc., and then close the vncviewer session while SwapDV continues running in the background, acting as a server.


So that's just my .02 worth - hope it helps someone.


Thanks to everyone here, especially Jotter.


Eric


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jorgy_
*Well, I was able to use SwapDV to backup all of my shows before I upgraded my 4040 to a now 4160 (actually, 4135 since the BIOS of the machine wouldn't recognize anything about 135G, but that's another story). I had tried to do a dual-drive upgrade but had lots of problems, like a lot of folks here.


I'm using Linux to run SwapDV, and I found it inconvenient to have to start up SwapDV, especially as root to bind to port 80, and then leave it running on a display somewhere. So my small contribution to the community here is a little trick to allow you to start up swap DV and leave it running on a server, and also allow you access to the GUI to transfer files.


The key is to use VNC. it's located at VNC .


Configure a vncserver on servername:1, add the "java -jar SwapDV.jar" to the ~/.vnc/xclients file. Then when the vncserver is started, so is SwapDV.


To connect to your virtual server with SwapDV running on it, simply type "vncviewer servername:1". Then you can use the GUI to transfer files, etc., and then close the vncviewer session while SwapDV continues running in the background, acting as a server.


So that's just my .02 worth - hope it helps someone.


Thanks to everyone here, especially Jotter.


Eric*
Eric,


Thanks for the tip. We have a kind volunteer who is working on a "command-line" only version which can run without a GUI, so it should be able to run simply on boot-up. Hopefully that will help too when we get it finished.


Thanks

Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Wasatch Rider_
*I haven't seen this addressed (if it is could someone point me to it). Can you use SwapDV to pull shows and guide info from a replay 2020? If I stick the drive in my computer will swap recognize it? I have an almost full 100gig drive in my 2020 that I want to put into a SwapDV server so when my 4040 arrives I can watch those shows through the 4040.*
Hmmm. Well I'm not sure how the 2020 stores the files on the disk, nor if the Mpeg2s are compatible. However if the 2020 disk has .mpg files with 101nnnnnn.mpg type names then you can probably recover and re-integrate everything. The problem will be in the unknowns (mpeg2 compatible?, ndx files for the mpg? (if not just copy one and rename it), replay guide file with the show information is probably a different format so you'll have to edit by hand all the show entries)


So its possible. Once you have the drive in-place, please contact me by email ([email protected]) or use the various mail lists on www.swapdv.net, and we'll see what we can do...


Jonathan


----------



## cfdel

Sorry this question is a little off base, but I just wanted to see if anyone has encountered a problem that I am having with SwapDV talking to my ReplayTV 4040.


Sometimes (seemingly for no apparent reason) when I pull an MPG off of the Replay, it will not play properly on the computer. It plays super fast and a little jumbled. It really looks like a codec problem, but I am using the elecard one that everyone recommends, and usually have no problem at all. I have tried everything that I can think of really, and it just seems that randomly I get this behavior.


Other then that little problem, everything seems to work wonderfully. It is just annoying because it is so unpredictable. I mean, not being able to pull just one episode of Greg the Bunny off my Replay in perfect format will ruin the whole archive I am trying to build 


I have had this problem since version 0.15 of the J++ version, and am now using the Java 0.53 version.


Any ideas would be much appreciated! Been following this forum since the beginning. Thanks in advance!


-Christian


Oh yeah, one last thing to mention... If I import the show that will not properly on the PC into SwapDV and play it back on the ReplayTV from there, it plays perfectly. Just on the PC, it will not play right. Weird!


----------



## jotter

SwapDV 0.54 available.


New in this release

* Numerous small bug fixes

* Re-designed menu system


Go to www.swapdv.net for more information and download


Coming soon: built-in gnutella support


Cheers

Jonathan


----------



## asinshesq

OK, I know I must be doing something really stupid, but...


I can't seem to get swapdv to run. I started by downloading and installing Microsoft JM (maybe that was a big mistake)? Then, I realized that I should have used the Sun version, so I downloaded and installed Sun's JRE v 1.3.1_03. But now, when I try to open SwapDV.jar, nothing happens. Any advice?


----------



## nystratton

Is anyone else having problem with 4K stability when using SwapDV? It happens mostly when I the mpg or ndx file does not exist on the server, but it also happens with valid files sometimes.


-Nathan


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*OK, I know I must be doing something really stupid, but...


I can't seem to get swapdv to run. I started by downloading and installing Microsoft JM (maybe that was a big mistake)? Then, I realized that I should have used the Sun version, so I downloaded and installed Sun's JRE v 1.3.1_03. But now, when I try to open SwapDV.jar, nothing happens. Any advice?*
I'm happy to quote myself (my favorite source). Anyway, when I downloaded JRE 1.4 that seemed to fix everything so it's working now. But when I tried to donwload my first show from replay 4000 to my pc, I'm getting a transfer speed of only about 1.6 mbps. That doesn't seem right -- anything I should be doing to speed things up?


----------



## asinshesq

Oh wait, maybe that's 1.6 Megabytes rather than megabits? Still seems slow, though. Doesn't the Replay 4000 have a 100 mbps ethernet connection?


----------



## Ed Rempalski

I get 2.5 meg/sec thats about tops on the download, the Replay just doesn't dole it out any faster.. and at that it gets flakey if it's recording/playing at the same time as well.


----------



## jptsetme

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*OK, I know I must be doing something really stupid, but...


I can't seem to get swapdv to run. I started by downloading and installing Microsoft JM (maybe that was a big mistake)? Then, I realized that I should have used the Sun version, so I downloaded and installed Sun's JRE v 1.3.1_03. But now, when I try to open SwapDV.jar, nothing happens. Any advice?*
How are you trying to open it? Double clicking on the JAR file? It could be a windows association problem. Try launching it from the commandline, and first, make sure the correct version of java.exe is getting picked up.


java -ver


(verify that it's Sun's 1.3 JVM) and then


java -jar SwapDV.jar


If it doesn't work, something should still certainly happen (like printing an exception or something.)


--Joe


----------



## jarzynka

I just "upgraded" from Win98SE to Windows XP and there's a huge difference in using SwapDV to extract MPEG files to the PC. Under Win98 I was only getting about 1.4-1.5MB/sec, but with XP I'm now getting 2.6-2.7MB/sec. This has been the max transfer rate reported by several others from the ReplayTV 4000. Apparently, non-NT versions of Windows must have huge overhead in TCP protocols, etc!


----------



## asinshesq

OK, when I stop replay from doing anything else (e.g. pause a recorded show), I get a steady transfer rate of 2.9 MB/sec using XP. But everyone is right that things get very flakey if I try to do anything on the replay while downloading (e.g. if I go to replay guide, it always immediately crashes and reboots). If the software emulates another replay 4000, why is it so temperamental? I assume that when you have two 4000's in the same house they don't crash each other when streaming, do they?


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*Oh wait, maybe that's 1.6 Megabytes rather than megabits? Still seems slow, though. Doesn't the Replay 4000 have a 100 mbps ethernet connection?*
Yep its BYTES not bits, hence the capital B ;-)


The speeds are lower than you may expect anyway but, as pointed out, its a replay IO problem.


Cheers

Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*OK, when I stop replay from doing anything else (e.g. pause a recorded show), I get a steady transfer rate of 2.9 MB/sec using XP. But everyone is right that things get very flakey if I try to do anything on the replay while downloading (e.g. if I go to replay guide, it always immediately crashes and reboots). If the software emulates another replay 4000, why is it so temperamental? I assume that when you have two 4000's in the same house they don't crash each other when streaming, do they?*
Hmmm. We've got a few Replays here. Can you send me the sequence that causes the crash? Is it something like:


* start playing something on the replay box. pause it.

* xfer a file from the replay

* re-start the show, or hit menu


?


The actual show transfer doesn't require any impersonation of a replay box (well not much), just a simple HTTP connection. The replay network stack IS very flakey however - if you have more than 4 simultaneous requests you'll crash the box.


Jonathan


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*

Can you send me the sequence that causes the crash? Is it something like:


* start playing something on the replay box. pause it.

* xfer a file from the replay

* re-start the show, or hit menu


?


The actual show transfer doesn't require any impersonation of a replay box (well not much), just a simple HTTP connection. The replay network stack IS very flakey however - if you have more than 4 simultaneous requests you'll crash the box.


Jonathan*
Getting an answer from THE MAN himself. I'll join the crowd and say this is great stuff.


Anyway, I've just started playing with SwapDV, but something like the following seems to induce a reboot every time:


1. Watch anything on the Replay (I think it will happen regardless of whether it is live or a recorded show, but I'll confirm that tonight).


2. Begin to download a recorded show into SwapDV.


3. While that show is downloading into SwapDV, press the Replay Guide (I think it will happen by pressing Replay channels too, but again I'm not sure and I'll check tonight).


Once I do that, the TV screen goes black (I never get to the Replay guide screen) and then a bit later the unit reboots.


I've never tried downloading any more than one program at a time, so I haven't hit the four show limit that various people have referrred to.


I'm also having trouble using my replay to find shows on the SwapDV server, but I read this entire thread this morning (it's long now!) and I've got a number of leads to try tonight when I begin to play again.


By the way, once I get things to work normally, have people found that they can use the replay relatively normally while download a single show?


----------



## Mystic1

I've had the units (I have 2) crash easily when trying to stream more than one show at a time. Also, like everyone else already reported, if you try to watch a show, while downloading, while recording - lockup, then reboot!


The only thing I can think of to make it more stable is to force the SwapDV to pull files SLOWER. I suspect that the overhead of i/o management on the RTV at a high speed is too much and/or not being controlled properly. Since WATCHING a streaming show from another unit doesn't require that high a bandwidth, the RTV programmers probably didn't put much effort into bulletproofing that code. If we add an option on the download to SLOW down the pull rate, it should allow the RTV the time it needs to process the other commands. Won't get your stuff off any faster, but may keep your box from getting corrupted (which will happen after enough crashes ! ).


----------



## jtl

Is SwapDV making HTTP/1.0 or 1.1 requests? The chunking done in a 1.1 response might well help the threading -- if a lock is held during a response, a large 1.0 response could easily hold a lock much much too long.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Is SwapDV making HTTP/1.0 or 1.1 requests? The chunking done in a 1.1 response might well help the threading -- if a lock is held during a response, a large 1.0 response could easily hold a lock much much too long.*
Its making 1.1 requests (although through a custom HTTP requester not Javas) and then just receiving the chunked response from the replay and (decoding the chunks) saving to disk.


Could you elaborate on the locking around chunks?


Im curious as to how you would throttle the input stream. Cause the thread to sleep a little between blocks to cause the Replay's TCP/IP to block periodically?


Jonathan


----------



## jtl

The locking is a guess -- I haven't been able to find it in the code. I do have emailed reports that downloading shows using HTTP/1.0 while a recording starts is a 100% way of crashing the Replay, though, and switching to 1.1 helped that quite a bit.


The idea is, when a 1.1 request is being handled, the HTTP server thread can call into the request handler separately for each chunk; if the request handler needs to lock something, it may be able to lock, read, unlock, return; a 1.0 request, without any chunks, may be forced to do lock, read, write, read, write......, unlock. if the lock is *also* needed by the main AppShell thread for starting a recording (or other things), it would block until either the 1.1 chunk, or the whole 1.0 resonse, was handled. Waiting till the 1.0 response ended would likely be long enough to trigger the watchdog timer, forcing a reboot.


I should stress that that's hypothetical -- there definately are separate threads, and mutexes used for locking, but I haven't found any that httpfs_readfile might be locking, and I don't completely understand the interface between the http handlers and the http server, especially with regards to how the handler returns data to the server/sends data to the client.


You could throttle the input stream just by sleeping a little, yes; that would lead to data getting stacked up a little in the OS receive buffers, which would lead to ACKs being delayed, which would lead to the server sending more slowly. replaypc/httpfs (in CVS) has been doing this for a while, and I haven't had any reports of crashes since then, but I'm not sure how many people are using it.


----------



## epete

I recently loaded Java j2re-1_3_1_03-WIN.EXE and SwapDV. It worked great for one day. After performing a simple scandisk and defrag, I was unable to get the server protion of SwapDV to work anymore. (Probably unrelated to the scandisk and defrag, but very strange)


The message that SwapDV gives me is


Failed to start server. SwapDV cannot start a server on port 80, and will be unable to share video. Cannot assign requested address: JVM_Bind.


Do I have some other server running that is conflicting with SwapDV? How do I check and shut off?


I have already uninstalled and reinstalled Java and get the same error. Any ideas?


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by epete_
*I recently loaded Java j2re-1_3_1_03-WIN.EXE and SwapDV. It worked great for one day. After performing a simple scandisk and defrag, I was unable to get the server protion of SwapDV to work anymore. (Probably unrelated to the scandisk and defrag, but very strange)


The message that SwapDV gives me is


Failed to start server. SwapDV cannot start a server on port 80, and will be unable to share video. Cannot assign requested address: JVM_Bind.


Do I have some other server running that is conflicting with SwapDV? How do I check and shut off?


I have already uninstalled and reinstalled Java and get the same error. Any ideas?*
I had the same message. I did two things to fix it (I'm not really sure which one did the trick, but togther it worked): First, I went into the Sun java control panel (you can find that in the usual windows control panel) and unbound internet explorer from the java applet. Second, I went into the advanced tab in the internet explorer tools menu and disabled the Microsoft JM entry. I suspect that I didn't need to do the second part (disabling Microsoft JM), but you can experiment with it.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*


I had the same message. I did two things to fix it (I'm not really sure which one did the trick, but togther it worked): First, I went into the Sun java control panel (you can find that in the usual windows control panel) and unbound internet explorer from the java applet. Second, I went into the advanced tab in the internet explorer tools menu and disabled the Microsoft JM entry. I suspect that I didn't need to do the second part (disabling Microsoft JM), but you can experiment with it.*
The error indicates the port 80 on your machine is being used by another program. This typically is a web server (like IIS or Apache) as port 80 is the standard HTTP port.


I'm surprised that doing anything with the Java control panel fixed it. I'd be interested to hear from other people who had the same problem and it was related to these fixes!


Having said all that, I'm glad you sorted your problem out asinshesq!


Jonathan


----------



## DrDeriv

Is it possible to use SwapDV from outside one's LAN that is protected by a Linksys router w/firewall? Say if I am at work with a high speed connection and want to download a short video or whatever. If so, do I just use the same port that I am forwarding right now so that other Replay's can send shows? And if that's the case, how do I set the port number so SwapDV knows which one to use?


----------



## epete

Jotter


I was hoping you wern't going to say the cause is IIS or Apache. I do not have either running or loaded. I also tried asinshesq's suggestion with no luck as well. It was worth a try.


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by epete_
*Jotter


I was hoping you wern't going to say the cause is IIS or Apache. I do not have either running or loaded. I also tried asinshesq's suggestion with no luck as well. It was worth a try.*
Sorry to hear that. You mentioned using Sun Java version 1.3.x. How about trying Sun Java version 1.4, which is the one I've got running.


----------



## jtl

Is there not a windows tool which can tell you what program has a port open?


----------



## Mystic1

How about a proxy service? anything like that running?


----------



## jimre

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*Is there not a windows tool which can tell you what program has a port open?*
On Windows XP, yes:


netstat -a -o


This will give you a list of listening ports (-a) and which process ID has them open (-o). Find the process ID of the open port you want, and then run Task Manager to match the process ID to a running program.


I believe the -o option is new in XP. With earlier versions of Windows, you probably need some 3rd-party app to find the process ID for an open port.


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimre_
*On Windows XP, yes:


netstat -a -o


This will give you a list of listening ports (-a) and which process ID has them open (-o). Find the process ID of the open port you want, and then run Task Manager to match the process ID to a running program....*
The resulting screen flies by and closes before it can be read; how do you capture what's on it?


----------



## jmaver

You can either add redirection to a text file to look at or run the command in a command prompt. The easiest is probably the redirection:

netstat -a -o > c:\

etstat_dump.txt


----------



## asinshesq

Yeah, I figured that out after I posted. Running from the command prompt in a 'dos window' (or what ever it's called in XP) works fine.


----------



## epete

I am running Win98 at home. I tried this command at work on my Win2K but it seems the -o switch is not available. I am assuming it will be less helpful in Win98. I also don't think Win98 supports a very detailed task manager.


I think there is a way I can step through the sartup and control which applications boot after restarting the system. I dont remember how to do that. Anyone know? I can then isolate by trial and error.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by DrDeriv_
*Is it possible to use SwapDV from outside one's LAN that is protected by a Linksys router w/firewall? Say if I am at work with a high speed connection and want to download a short video or whatever. If so, do I just use the same port that I am forwarding right now so that other Replay's can send shows? And if that's the case, how do I set the port number so SwapDV knows which one to use?*
Its definately possible and there are several possibilities. SwapDV defaults to using port 80. If you opened up 80 on your firewall (TCP/IP) for the machine with SwapDV on then you can just access it using your normal IP address in the "Connect to" dialog.


If you don't like port 80 then you can change that in the SwapDV server config form. However if you don't run on port 80 then the ReplayTV's on the same network will not work with the SwapDV server - but maybe thats not a problem.


Another related option is the "Proxy" functionality which makes SwapDV broadcast the presense of another SwapDV/ReplayTV on another network. This is probably most useful if you KNOW you have a high speed SwapDV/ReplayTV connection but its on a different network and the UPnP packets aren't being forwarded between the networks.


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by epete_
*I am running Win98 at home. I tried this command at work on my Win2K but it seems the -o switch is not available. I am assuming it will be less helpful in Win98. I also don't think Win98 supports a very detailed task manager.


I think there is a way I can step through the sartup and control which applications boot after restarting the system. I dont remember how to do that. Anyone know? I can then isolate by trial and error.*
Try installing and running Inzider (from http://www.ntsecurity.nu/toolbox/inzider/ ). It should list the ports being used by processes (and even give you the program running that process).


Hope that helps!


Jonathan


----------



## DrDeriv

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_ *


If you don't like port 80 then you can change that in the SwapDV server config form. However if you don't run on port 80 then the ReplayTV's on the same network will not work with the SwapDV server - but maybe thats not a problem.
*
I'm not using port 80, as I figured it would be used for other stuff. I've got my Replay set up to use port 14000 and have my Linksys set to forward that port to the Replay. Sending and receiving shows from my actual Replay to another actual Replay outside my LAN works. So I tried putting in my router's outside IP and port 14000 in SwapDV's "Connect to" dialog, as you suggested, but nothing happened. I also tried that putting that same data into the proxy setting. Not really understanding it all (I think that's pretty clear!), I'm not sure what I need to fix/do in order to get it working. Any further help you can give would be appreciated.


Thanks Jonathan!


----------



## eugened

Hi,

Yesterday night I started to download 3 show from my replayTV unit using

SwapDV. also I completly forgot that I scheduled something else to record.

As a result, my ReplayTV crashed. I lost all replay channels and previously recorder shows. So my replay channles now looks like on a brand new unit.

When I try to schedule to record the same show I previously had in my channels, it told me about recording conflict. So I suppose that some information about my old channels are still somewhere on the unit disk.

My questions here are:

Is it possible to get my old channles or show back? If not, is it possible to clean up hard drive without opening the box, so it will not alert me about

channels that already gone.

In what mode should I put ReplayTV unit when downloading files-

bypass, return to live or something else? I guess I can not watch recorded show neither write during downloads.


thanks

Eugene


----------



## Mystic1

Same thing happened to me. After extensive conversations with SB, we came to the conclusion that we had to 'restore the unit to it's factory default settings'. Essentially, there's an option that will restore the factory defaults. When you do this is reformats the storage partition of the drive which will wipe out any of the old conflicts and start you fresh.


For future: NEVER download more than 1 (2 at MOST) shows using swapDV at a time. I now limit my downloads to 1 at time - just in case. Also, if the replay starts to record a show while you're trying to download, it will likely cause problems ranging from unsynced sound, to rebooting. Since I started limiting to 1 show at a time, I haven't had the drive corruption that had occured previously.


AFAIK - there's no way to recover what was already there... though someone else may have come up with something recently that I don't know of.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by eugened_
*Hi,

Yesterday night I started to download 3 show from my replayTV unit using

SwapDV. also I completly forgot that I scheduled something else to record.

As a result, my ReplayTV crashed. I lost all replay channels and previously recorder shows. So my replay channles now looks like on a brand new unit.

When I try to schedule to record the same show I previously had in my channels, it told me about recording conflict. So I suppose that some information about my old channels are still somewhere on the unit disk.

My questions here are:

Is it possible to get my old channles or show back? If not, is it possible to clean up hard drive without opening the box, so it will not alert me about

channels that already gone.

In what mode should I put ReplayTV unit when downloading files-

bypass, return to live or something else? I guess I can not watch recorded show neither write during downloads.


thanks

Eugene*
Eugene,


Im sorry to hear about the crash 


For everyones benefit I'll re-iterate that the ReplayTV box CANNOT handle more than 4 simultaneous requests. Downloading 3 shows actually causes 6 requests (one for the mpg and one for the ndx for each show). On the online docs we only recommend 1 show at once.


The next version of SwapDV will differentiate between SwapDV servers and real ReplayTV boxes and (a) slow the download which should allow you to watch / record at the same time (b) limit the number of outgoing connections to the replay box.


Following that version we are hoping to add a scheduler to allow you to automate backup etc. from the Replay.


If you still have the shows on disk you can manually get them using the older 0.22 version of SwapDV using the remote file browser, and then re-import them into the new version (we didn't re-implement the file browser as I didn't think it was useful - until now). I think ReplayPC can also allow you to grab files manually too.


Jtl, any ideas about the hard-drive problem here?


Jonathan


----------



## jorgy

Hi,


So I've experienced more than my share of reboots trying to grab off video from my replay, and it seems like if you do anything (watching, recording, channel guide) while snagging with SwapDV it will cause a reboot. But I can live with that. The problem that I'm having is that after a reboot, sometimes shows are missing - typically shows that have been recorded recently. I sometimes even have trouble going into the channel guide and setting it to record those shows, getting a "failed to create channel" error.


My question is this: Is there a way to tell the replay to "sync" itself, so that if it does reboot, I won't lose anything? I'm from a UNIX background so the idea of typing "sync;sync;sync;reboot" to flush the buffers is common to me.



Thanks,


Eric


----------



## jtl

ReplayPC can download any file that's still there -- one earlier report made it sound like a similar crash deleted the video files as well.


I'm puzzled -- I've had *way more* than my share of crashes, but haven't ever lost a recorded show. If something's recording when it crashes, when it comes back up the recorded bit (minus the last few seconds, maybe) is still there, even.


I suspect most of my crashes have been unhandled-exceptions, though, while these massive-download triggered ones are probably watchdog...the replay app tries really really hard to keep all the guide info consistent. Maybe it's getting starved at really really bad moments and can't get any cpu time at all to run to clean up what it was working on.


There is a sync shell command, but if the watchdog tickler can't get cpu time, then neither will the shell.


----------



## eugened

************************

After extensive conversations with SB, we came to the conclusion that we had to 'restore the unit to it's factory default settings'. Essentially, there's an option that will restore the factory defaults. When you do this is reformats the storage partition of the drive which will wipe out any of the old conflicts and start you fresh.

***************************************

Is this procedure documented somewhere? Is it safe to do? How hard it to perform?

I guess it should be some combination of keys. Probably I will have to do

this if conflicts will prevent me from recording. Also, where to get SwapDV

old versions?


thanks


----------



## Mystic1

When I lost all my shows, even though the older SwapDV and other programs 'saw' the listing for some (not all) of the lost shows, they couldn't retrieve ANY of them. In addition, I had blank channels (blocks that are supposed to display the name of a show programmed to be recorded but had nothing) and I couldn't delete them.


One of the FAQ's lists the codes that get you to the various menus. I don't recall which one got the restore factory defaults... either 243-zones, or 777-zones, maybe 611-zones or 411-zones? check the FAQs - or maybe someone else in the forum will know.


----------



## asinshesq

Quote:

_Originally posted by Mystic1_
*One of the FAQ's lists the codes that get you to the various menus. I don't recall which one got the restore factory defaults... either 243-zones, or 777-zones, maybe 611-zones or 411-zones? check the FAQs - or maybe someone else in the forum will know.*
777-zones gets you to the screen that allows you to restore factory defaults. I wouldn't have thought that doing so would be risky, but others will chime in if they disagree. By the way, 243 zones gives you lots of different options like displaying the memory meter, doing a manual connection to the replay server, claw foot portal, etc. 411-zones gives you build information, time from last reboot, etc.


----------



## eugened

************************

After extensive conversations with SB, we came to the conclusion that we had to 'restore the unit to it's factory default settings'. Essentially, there's an option that will restore the factory defaults. When you do this is reformats the storage partition of the drive which will wipe out any of the old conflicts and start you fresh.

***************************************

Is this procedure documented somewhere? Is it safe to do? How hard it to perform?

I guess it should be some combination of keys. Probably I will have to do

this if conflicts will prevent me from recording. Also, where to get SwapDV

old versions?


thanks


----------



## Mystic1

The procedure is easy, and safe. It will however wipe out ALL your current recordings and programming. It WON'T wipe out your internet identity, or reg #'s. It WILL force you to go thru setup just like when you bought it.


while watching a broadcast channel (not a recorded show), enter 777 and hit the zones button. You will see a menu that has a selection to "Restore Factory Defaults" - it will then reset the recording partition, and reboot and step you thru the 'first time setup' process again. Then you're good as new.


----------



## jarzynka

Hi Epete-


I came across your post today, because, all of a sudden, I started running into the same problem. As it turns out, it wasn't my Sun Java VM (1.4.0) or MSIE 6.0 (under XP) problem at all.


I have a LinkSys router and use DHCP for one PC and one Replay4000. The LinkSys has always given me xx.xx.xx.100 for the PC and xx.xx.xx.101 for the Replay. Someone mentioned that LinkSys uses the MAC address on the units when renewing DHCP IDs.


Since today was very windy here in NH, I lost power at some point while I was away at work. Everything was working fine when I got back home, but after the power failure the Replay automatically boots back up while my PC doesn't. Since the LinkSys also lost power, the Replay got the .100 address and the PC (powered up last) got the .101.


So, in running SwapDV, I kept getting the JVM_Bind Port 80 error. I followed all the instructions on here to look at ports, etc, but nowhere was port 80 being used. I didn't realize my IPs got switched by the router until I tried to FTP into my PC. On the router, I have port 21 forwarded to .100 (usually PC IP) and 80, 53 and 123 forwarded to .101 (for the RTV) Since the IP numbers were switched, the router was claiming port 80 (for forwarding to .101) and that's why I was getting the JVM error.


While this was a minor problem, it could have been a big one had my PC FTP server been down for a while! I don't think RTVs care for I/O on FTP (port 21!) 


Sorry for the long post, I really need to learn to condense my words! Maybe I have a future as a manual writer??? Good luck, I hope this helps!


----------



## holyunion

I'm having two problems:


1. When I select "Download to my SWAP DV", I get an error message. Why is this? I'm using J2E 1.4, WinXP, lastest SWAP DV.


2. When I download mpeg for PC, it works but I'm only getting 2.6MB/s on my 10/100LAN (Linksys Router). Why so slow?


----------



## videogeek

I have mobile trays in my PC and just installed Win2000 and the latest SwapDV on a new hard drive - besides the Win2000 upgrades from Microsoft and the elcard plug I have nothing else installed on it.


Could connect immediately and downloaded 2 shows to my completely new NTFS formatted D drive. The shows play back fine on my PC.


The 4040 also sees the PC but when I try playing one of the shows it tells me it can't connect. If I hit play 2 or 3 times the 4040 crashes and re-boots.


Any idea?


----------



## pmcneill

videogeek -- how big is the file you're trying to play? I've had similar issues on linux with files > 2GB. From looking at the source, it looks like FileInputStream is the culprit (in my case at least).


----------



## videogeek

It was a small test file - only 130MB.

But I found out what gave me the error. A Mac on the network had the same IP and that messed up everything. What I don't understand is how my Netgear RT314 would give the same IP to 2 computers .... go figure.

I could only solve the problem by re-formatting the drive, installing Win2000 again, and do a 777-Zones on the 4040. I now manually set every IP and all seams to work perfect.

I made the Win2000 drive for working with SwapDV and the 4040 - no other stuff will go on that drive. I had SwapDV working on XP but I got more and more corrupt files, mpeg artifacts, and connecting problems - most likely because I had to many apps and games installed on that drive. Now I am going to make another boot drive with Win ME for gaming only - I believe all should work fine after.


Now I only wish I can soon transfer files back to the 4040 from SwapDV - would sure make my day


----------



## nickbcat

SwapDV is a great service to the ReplayTV community, My Completement to the Creator, Jotter.

I have a 10/100BaseT network, some how when download a show from the ReplayTV to MySwapDV, the downloading speed is very slow 18-20 K/secs. Did I do something wrong? Please Help. Thanks


----------



## videogeek

nickbcat - looks like your network is on a hub and not setup behind a firewall and is going through cable or DSL (easy to see if the lights on your modem blink when you transfer a file with SwapDV) - if this is the case make a search for RT314 and buy it refurbished from Netgear on eBay


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by holyunion_
*I'm having two problems:


1. When I select "Download to my SWAP DV", I get an error message. Why is this? I'm using J2E 1.4, WinXP, lastest SWAP DV.


2. When I download mpeg for PC, it works but I'm only getting 2.6MB/s on my 10/100LAN (Linksys Router). Why so slow?*
Whats the error you're getting? Please email me ([email protected]) or private message me, or post the info here (or preferably on the sourceforge site) and Im sure everyone will try to help 


The speed is fine. Thats BYTES not bits and its limited by the Replay network card (or I/O) not your network.


Cheers

Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by nickbcat_
*SwapDV is a great service to the ReplayTV community, My Completement to the Creator, Jotter.

I have a 10/100BaseT network, some how when download a show from the ReplayTV to MySwapDV, the downloading speed is very slow 18-20 K/secs. Did I do something wrong? Please Help. Thanks*
Ouch. That is VERY slow, and I haven't seen this problem before. How is your network set up? Are you sure that network traffic isn't going outside your network for some wierd reason and then being routed back in?


Hmmmm.

Jonathan


----------



## epete

jarzynka:


Thanks for the heads up. I also have a Linksys with DCHP. The IPs tend to update even when my ReplayTV reboots (frequently). That would explain the reason that the Java error looks intermittant. I will try this when I get home.



Jotter:


I was unable to get the software that you suggested to run on my PC. I will try to launch it at work today.


Evan


----------



## Rich A

Would an average of 5 minutes per Gigabyte of Replay Mpeg be reasonable for off-load times?


----------



## jimre

No, I don't think anyone's seen transfer times quite that fast. The fastest reported speeds have been around 2.9Mbytes/sec, which means at least 6 min per GB best case, and probably slower than that on average. We believe the transfer speed limit is probably due to the Replay's disk and/or network I/O speed (which is fast enough for a couple real-time streams, but not much more than that).


----------



## nickbcat

VideoGeek, and Jotter.

My setup is followed:

1. DI-704P Router, DHCP Enabled (10/100BaseT)

2. DCM-200 CableModem

3. WinNT-PC equipped with NIC-10/100BaseT

4. W2K-PC equipped with NIC 10BaseT


When transfer from PC-to-PC, the transfer rate is very fast as expected. However, when going from ReplayTV to PC via SwapDV, the transfer rate is very slow, max out at 20K/secs.


Thanks for any help, you guys can provide.

Nick


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimre_
*No, I don't think anyone's seen transfer times quite that fast. The fastest reported speeds have been around 2.9Mbytes/sec, which means at least 6 min per GB best case, and probably slower than that on average. We believe the transfer speed limit is probably due to the Replay's disk and/or network I/O speed (which is fast enough for a couple real-time streams, but not much more than that).*
I have been able to get faster then that with a cross over ethernet cable (switch w/green green and w/orange orange) from a 4K directly into my Linux video server.


-Nathan


----------



## pio!pio!

Quote:

_Originally posted by nystratton_
*


I have been able to get faster then that with a cross over ethernet cable (switch w/green green and w/orange orange) from a 4K directly into my Linux video server.


-Nathan*
are you using the latest sun java virtual machine? cuz it doesnt look like a hardware problem unless the cable from your rtv to the router is damages or has lots of electrical interference (Quite possible)


If you don't think it's your software, check the ethernet cable from the router to replaytv and make sure there i no damage to it and that there are no power cables near it (data cables are OK) so for instance if your ethernet cable is running alongside the power cable for your rtv or something there is a possibility that electrical interference may occur


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by nickbcat_
*VideoGeek, and Jotter.

My setup is followed:

1. DI-704P Router, DHCP Enabled (10/100BaseT)

2. DCM-200 CableModem

3. WinNT-PC equipped with NIC-10/100BaseT

4. W2K-PC equipped with NIC 10BaseT


When transfer from PC-to-PC, the transfer rate is very fast as expected. However, when going from ReplayTV to PC via SwapDV, the transfer rate is very slow, max out at 20K/secs.


Thanks for any help, you guys can provide.

Nick*
Hmmm. Well there are two things to try.


First, disconnect your cable modem from the router and make sure that you can still transfer stuff (and if the speed is still bad).


Second, have a look at the logging window in swapdv and check that it's not writing out lots of exceptions. It shouldn't be but its worth checking.


Actually a third thing (as already suggested) is to try some different cable between your router and the replaytv just in case thats gone bad.


Its a bit puzzling...


Jonathan


----------



## aslagle

Jotter, I've been using SwapDV for a while now, and have archived approximately 125 GB of shows on my server. The only problem is, the guide is increasingly difficult to move through.


I've noticed that all of the archived mpegs show up in 'all shows'...but to my knowledge, you can't change this.


Is there a way to get the mpegs to show up in different categories? And to make new categories on the server?


Thanks!


----------



## stm

I just got my RTV4k about a week ago mainly because of its networking capabilities. I guess the final decision came when I realized that somebody was already working on a server that would allow me to maintain a large archive without having to upgrade the HD in the box. Not that I would mind doing that, but I think using a server is so much more elegant and makes the best use of my existing 180GB RAID5 Win2k Server & 100Mb home network 


Having said that, great job jotter and co. This is awesome! Please keep up the good work.


Here are some general observation, feedback, ideas,... most of this has been discussed before...


- typical download speed is about 2.7MB/s on a switched 100Mb

- my 4k froze a couple of times when watching a show and downloading from the RTV to SwapDV at the same time; a reboot would bring the RTV back to life without any data loss, although my wife got irritated since she was watching the show 

- perhaps there should be some throttling parameter on the SwapDV side to avoid overloading the RTV

- playing streams from the SwapDV server works great, but I noticed "no video signal detected" problems when rewinding at more that 4x; the signal recovers when returning to playback mode


- I would really like to run this as a NT service with a HTML interface. Another nice side effect of an HTML UI would be that it could be user customizable (pseudo skins).

- I've found this page that talks about making a JAVA app a NT service http://www.kcmultimedia.com/javaserv/ but I figure this is somewhat moot until there is some way to "remote" the UI.

- Scheduling downloads and remote deletes would be great.

- Of course, I'm also curious if somebody figures out how to convert conventional MPEGs into RTV readable content.


anyway, that's all for now - look forward to future versions - stefan


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*Jotter, I've been using SwapDV for a while now, and have archived approximately 125 GB of shows on my server. The only problem is, the guide is increasingly difficult to move through.


I've noticed that all of the archived mpegs show up in 'all shows'...but to my knowledge, you can't change this.


Is there a way to get the mpegs to show up in different categories? And to make new categories on the server?


Thanks! *
I am having the same problem. I have about 850 gigs of shows and the guide is very very slow.


-Nathan


----------



## JasonKJennings

Mac OS X 10.0.4 and SwapDv?


Just got access to OSX 10.0.4 (not sure why it won't get 10.1), but I can't seem to get SwapDV to run.


Any suggestions. I've tried dowloading the source and the SwapDV.jar file and:


1- double clicking on the file (just tells me no app to run the file)

2- running the terminal app and typing in java -jar SwapDV.jar (while the file was on the desktop, in its folder on the desktop, about everything I could think of. Just get a file not found error and gobbley **** which means nothing to me but might to somebody knows what they're doing)


While I know next to nothing about OS X yet, it did come factory installed and seems to be working fine.


Can anyone confirm that SwapDV will run on 10.0.4 instead of 10.1?


Any suggestions.


RePhoto did open and run (thrilled to be able to put pics on my replay!)


----------



## dkan24

Jotter,


when SwapDV first came out, I gave it a try. I could not get it to work, and was happy just using replayer. At the time, I just wanted to extract some shows to burn to disc.


But now, after building my HTPC I have found that SwapDV is the way to go. I realized this b/c the PC cannot play the mpeg2 file as well as the replay. I tried numerous codecs, including the elecard, and they all were not as good as the replay.


So I installed SwapDV, and at first it didn't work. I had set up the directory as video- movies. I switched it to just replay, and then it worked. It worked great. Such an awesome program. Thank you so much!


I haven't kept up with this (very long) thread. If these things have been said before, then I am sorry and I underdstand you are doing everything you can to make this program great.


Here are 2 features I would want the most.


1.) SwapDV to minimize into the system tray. I already have it starting up at startup, but then when I minimize it, it goies to the taskbar. Out of the way on the system tray would be even better.


2.) Scheduled transfers. I would love for it to always check my "movies" channel on the replay, and download anything that it doesn't already have in it's channel. It could do this evry night at 3 am.


I am sure that somewhere in these 20 pages both these things have been said numerous times. I just wanted to see if you were working on these, or if they are not that important to you.


But basically, I wanted to use this post to say thank you. The program has come such a long way in the 3 months since you wrote it. This is the reason I pre-ordered my replay. Thank you.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by aslagle_
*Jotter, I've been using SwapDV for a while now, and have archived approximately 125 GB of shows on my server. The only problem is, the guide is increasingly difficult to move through.


I've noticed that all of the archived mpegs show up in 'all shows'...but to my knowledge, you can't change this.


Is there a way to get the mpegs to show up in different categories? And to make new categories on the server?


Thanks! *
Yes to both. The underlying SwapDV guide editing code supports category editing but we haven't really moved anything into the user interface. I'll add this as a feature request on the swapdv open source site and hopefully we can try something in the next release or two.


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by stm_
*I just got my RTV4k about a week ago mainly because of its networking capabilities. I guess the final decision came when I realized that somebody was already working on a server that would allow me to maintain a large archive without having to upgrade the HD in the box. Not that I would mind doing that, but I think using a server is so much more elegant and makes the best use of my existing 180GB RAID5 Win2k Server & 100Mb home network 


Having said that, great job jotter and co. This is awesome! Please keep up the good work.


Here are some general observation, feedback, ideas,... most of this has been discussed before...


- typical download speed is about 2.7MB/s on a switched 100Mb

- my 4k froze a couple of times when watching a show and downloading from the RTV to SwapDV at the same time; a reboot would bring the RTV back to life without any data loss, although my wife got irritated since she was watching the show 

- perhaps there should be some throttling parameter on the SwapDV side to avoid overloading the RTV

- playing streams from the SwapDV server works great, but I noticed "no video signal detected" problems when rewinding at more that 4x; the signal recovers when returning to playback mode


- I would really like to run this as a NT service with a HTML interface. Another nice side effect of an HTML UI would be that it could be user customizable (pseudo skins).

- I've found this page that talks about making a JAVA app a NT service http://www.kcmultimedia.com/javaserv/ but I figure this is somewhat moot until there is some way to "remote" the UI.

- Scheduling downloads and remote deletes would be great.

- Of course, I'm also curious if somebody figures out how to convert conventional MPEGs into RTV readable content.


anyway, that's all for now - look forward to future versions - stefan*
Well first of all if anyone would like to have a go at providing an HTML UI then please go to the swapdv open source project on sourceforge and join in the programming fun!


The 2.7 is the normal speed I've seen for downloading a show. Its limited by the replay itself.


The next version of SwapDV, hopefully out today, will throttle downloads down to 600KB/s, and limit the connections to 2 per replay box. This is configurable in the .ini file but I'd recommend people leave it alone...


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

*The new version of SwapDV is out*. Grab it via www.swapdv.net 

Whats new for 0.6:


SwapDV 0.6 contains *significant new functionality*:


* *Video searching*: Search for video on other SwapDV applications using built-in Gnutella support

* *Public/private show access control*

* *Download throttling* and connection limits to ReplayTVs (to avoid reboots)

* Look and feel better: *Icons...*

* Drag and drop improved

* Auto-detection of swapdv vs. replaytv servers

Fixed:

* Downloading should no longer crash the replaytv while you are recording and watching at the same time

* Multicast messages sent from same IP as SwapDV server

* Bind error during server restarts fixed

* Tables sort correctly

* Numerous smaller things!

Notes on Gnutella support:

* The SwapDV application now joins the Gnutella network and can find videos on other SwapDV applications (only).

* Shows marked "public" can be searched on and downloaded by others. You can search using the shows standard criteria (title, episode, actor, director...)

* Shows NOT marked public are only available to "auto-detected" replaytv and swapdv servers (i.e. those on the local network)

* You must make port 80 (or the port you've specified for your SwapDV server) open on your firewall to enable download of search hits

* Gnutella support can be turned on or off by going into Sharing->Advanced->Server configuration->P2P sharing

* Shows with Macrovision protection will not be shared


----------



## aslagle

The only problem I've found with 0.6 is that when you download a show, the Channel dialog comes up with nothing showing until I click on the space for a control...then it shows up. Weird.


Nothing has changed since the last version, I simply dropped in the new .jar file.


----------



## acourvil

Although I greatly appreciate all of the work that has been put into SwapDV, I'm not sure that adding Gnutella support is a good idea, especially given the litigation that Replay is facing.


----------



## screamitus

OK. Can someone who's good with the Microsoft world of Java help me wrap the SwapDV java classes into COM objects. I'd really like to do some neat windows tricks and features to SwapDV. Most notability a work around to Java's ah...less-than-this-century UI capibilities. I would love to build a robust automatic scheduling feature using both the internal ReplayTV downloads and searches out to Gnutella P2P networkl. Also, giving it a HTML interface would really extend the usefulness of SwapDV.


I've got VS.net. Please somebody help me out. We can do this via SourceForge and all that..


----------



## abrimberry

jotter,


Thank you for making this available to us. I'm sure you hear alot of complaints, but your efforts are appreciated. Thanks.


Andrew


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by abrimberry_
*jotter,


Thank you for making this available to us. I'm sure you hear alot of complaints, but your efforts are appreciated. Thanks.


Andrew*
Thanks for the comment. I would like to point out that there are many people who have helped to grow SwapDV and continue to work on it, not just me. Check out the contributers.txt file for some of them.


Thanks

Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by screamitus_
*OK. Can someone who's good with the Microsoft world of Java help me wrap the SwapDV java classes into COM objects. I'd really like to do some neat windows tricks and features to SwapDV. Most notability a work around to Java's ah...less-than-this-century UI capibilities. I would love to build a robust automatic scheduling feature using both the internal ReplayTV downloads and searches out to Gnutella P2P networkl. Also, giving it a HTML interface would really extend the usefulness of SwapDV.


I've got VS.net. Please somebody help me out. We can do this via SourceForge and all that..*
Hi screamitus,


Nice to hear from you again.


You could probably manage this yourself if you've got Visual J++ as that basically allows you to make COM objects from classes. You don't have quite the control over the nuances of the COM object creation but they do work (I've used them in other projects). Of course it would be best to do this within the sourceforge project so the COM objects would mirror the current code-base. Really most of the underlying classes should be "beanified" to a greater extent which would help COM wrapping (volunteers?). Drop me some email ([email protected]) and I'll point out the way to do the COM wrapping.


I agree to some extent with the UI comment (the original SwapDV was entirely WFC UI) but I finally came to believe that having people on every platform being able to run SwapDV (Unix/Mac/PC...) was more important than some nicer UI features.


A developer is looking at the scheduler for backups, searches etc. and has apparently made good progress (although I havent seen it yet)...


That said, an HTML UI is looking like a more and more nice feature (although of course the UI would be even worse than Swing) and could co-exist with the Swing UI easily. I tried to find a VERY small and compact Java-based web server which would serve JSP pages (for example) but without much success (although I didnt try that hard). We could just extend the current mini-web server I made to return HTML but of course editing these becomes painful as its close to the code itself.


If you (or anyone) would like to try to develop such an interface please join in the fun on sourceforge and join the devel mailing list.


Jonathan


----------



## Eug

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


entirely WFC UI) but I finally came to believe that having people on every platform being able to run SwapDV (Unix/Mac/PC...) was more important than some nicer UI features.

*
Any chance that that philosophy will get extended at some point to allow it to run on the MS JVM?


----------



## NoFreakinWay

jotter,


Since I havent had the time to even start to look at wrapping those java classes up I decided to get the Sun JRE(blech) and install it so I can use the latest SwapDV. I did that and I cannot use it without it rebooting my replay. Here's what I found out:

With .6 (or whatever the current version is) running I go to my replay and scroll up to select the replayserver, then select the repaly and back to the server, it reboots EVERYTIME. The funny thing is I use the old .22 version and I do not have any problems at all. The guide was built by the .22 version and has been built up on that version. Could that be the reason that .6 version keeps choking??


Thanks


----------



## mschoneman

I'm seeing the exact same symptom. The first time I get information from SwapDV it seems to work fine, but the next time I hit the replay guide for it, there goes my ReplayTV.


----------



## aslagle

Seems to be a recurring problem here as well...last night I did it while recording a program...


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Thats how I found it too.


----------



## quartrj

Quote:

_Originally posted by jarzynka_ *

I have a LinkSys router and use DHCP for one PC and one Replay4000. The LinkSys has always given me xx.xx.xx.100 for the PC and xx.xx.xx.101 for the Replay. Someone mentioned that LinkSys uses the MAC address on the units when renewing DHCP IDs.
*
I have a LinkSys router as well and the DHCP service it provides is great when used appropriately. I am an IT professional and have managed several Networks for the companies I have worked for, DHCP services is a great tool for managing TCP/IP addresses. However it is always best to manually assign TCP/IP addresses to servers, printers and any device that you will regullary communicate with via it's TCP/IP address. I have configured my LinkSys router to assign addresses starting with .100 and have manuall assigned devices with other addresses (i.e. my Replay 4k is using the .30 address.)


You can let your Replay obtain an address via DHCP and then make a note of all of the information like the default gateway and DNS servers. This is what I did and it hasn't failed me yet.


----------



## asinshesq

Maybe I missed this somewhere, but although SwapDV allows a Replay unit to stream a show from the pc as though it were another Replay unit, it doesn't seem to support 'sending' shows back to the Replay unit so that they end up on the Replay hd. I realize I'm about to demonstrate my complete ignorance of how this all works but: Given that SwapDV in effect poses as a Replay unit and that Replay units can send shows, why is this difficult as a technical matter?


----------



## jtl

The two protocols (LAN streaming and IVS sharing) are totally and completely distinct. It isn't (mostly) that IVS sharing is more difficult than LAN streaming, it's just that it's *different*, and SwapDV only implements one of them.


See
http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/vi...anVideoSharing and http://www.molehill.org/twiki/bin/vi...etVideoSharing 


There is a wrinkle in IVS sharing that makes it harder to emulate without causing problems -- the name resolution (mapping the 00055-09166-xxxxx numbers to IP addresses, ports & machine names) goes through a Replay server. A client that wanted to implement IVS would need to register with that server, and thus would need an ISN; if it wasn't globally unique, it would Interact Poorly with whoever else is using that ISN. SInce we don't know how Replay assigns ISNs (at least, don't think we know -- anyone?), that's hard to do without using something completely outside the range we've seen -- ie, not starting with '00055'. Using Replay's servers for this may or may not put them in a bad legal position, and they may or may not choose to modify the servers to validiate that registered ISNs are actually valid...


The alternative is to write your own rddns server (easy enough) and get the Replays in question to use it (doable, not as easy), and accept that now they can't send shows to anybody else (or make the server a smart proxy, also doable but not as easy).


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by asinshesq_
*Maybe I missed this somewhere, but although SwapDV allows a Replay unit to stream a show from the pc as though it were another Replay unit, it doesn't seem to support 'sending' shows back to the Replay unit so that they end up on the Replay hd. I realize I'm about to demonstrate my complete ignorance of how this all works but: Given that SwapDV in effect poses as a Replay unit and that Replay units can send shows, why is this difficult as a technical matter?*
Yes, as jtl expertly explained its a completely different matter and would require a substantially bigger infrastructure to support it. As it stands, tools like SwapDV or ReplayPC mean you don't NEED to put the show onto your replay, as its almost the same thing - just change the "replay" box you're looking at and play the show back on your TV.


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Eug_
*


Any chance that that philosophy will get extended at some point to allow it to run on the MS JVM?*
Ahhh, I can't win. The old SwapDV was all MS JVM+WFC, the new one all Java+Swing 


Its basically a trade off between where to put your effort to reach the most people. I would welcome and support any developer who wanted to take it back to the MS JVM (although the lack of support for newer Java classes would be a pain). Equally an HTML UI would also be great. The current code, while still a little messy in places, separates the UI from the underlying useful bits (the server, client, guide etc.) so new UIs should always be possible...


Cheers

Jonathan


----------



## Eug

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


Ahhh, I can't win. The old SwapDV was all MS JVM+WFC, the new one all Java+Swing *
Pardon my ignorance, since I know absolutely nothing about Java, but I take it this Swing thing is something that only works on Sun's JRE?


And is that purely a UI thing or is it involved in the actual function of the program?


----------



## jorgy

Hello,


Just to add another data point, I too am having problems with 0.6. After upgrading from 0.53, I have had no reboots when downloading video, but when switching the channel guide to the SwapDV box, I got a reboot. :-(



As far as java, I want to make sure that the people out there using MS Windows (cr*p) realize that there are people out here who are using SwapDV on other platforms very happily. I want to thank Jotter and the gang for making sure that their application runs flawlessly on other platforms. If this means having to use the Swing user interface, fine. I'm sure this also makes it easier on their side since there is only one codebase to maintain.


Eric


----------



## Eug

Quote:

_Originally posted by jorgy_
*Hello,


Just to add another data point, I too am having problems with 0.6. After upgrading from 0.53, I have had no reboots when downloading video, but when switching the channel guide to the SwapDV box, I got a reboot. :-(



As far as java, I want to make sure that the people out there using MS Windows (cr*p) realize that there are people out here who are using SwapDV on other platforms very happily. I want to thank Jotter and the gang for making sure that their application runs flawlessly on other platforms. If this means having to use the Swing user interface, fine. I'm sure this also makes it easier on their side since there is only one codebase to maintain.


Eric*
Wow, what that's some intelligent commentary. First off, thanks for mentioning that Windows is crap, because your like or dislike of a particular family of operating systems is so relevant to the topic.


Second, your point about SwapDV running happily on other platforms is about as useful as if someone had talked about it running happily on Windows back when that was all it would run on.


Oh, wait, I guess because YOU don't like Windows, those who do don't matter.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Eug,


Well said, you beat me to it.

The last thing we want around here is a MS/NIX war. Lets just stay on the SwapDV application issues OK (Jorgy)!!


----------



## acourvil

Staying on the SwapDV topic, I'm also getting reboots on v .60 switching the channel guide to the SwapDV server. I'm running SwapDV on Win2k w/ Java 2 runtime 1.4.


----------



## nystratton

Quote:

_Originally posted by acourvil_
*Staying on the SwapDV topic, I'm also getting reboots on v .60 switching the channel guide to the SwapDV server. I'm running SwapDV on Win2k w/ Java 2 runtime 1.4.*
Odd, have you tried switching to Unix? It is working fine on both of my servers from 3 of my 4Ks.


-nathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by acourvil_
*Staying on the SwapDV topic, I'm also getting reboots on v .60 switching the channel guide to the SwapDV server. I'm running SwapDV on Win2k w/ Java 2 runtime 1.4.*
This is for everyone experiencing reboots with 0.6. There is a bug in 0.6 causes a reboot when you return to the same SwapDV guide listing more than once. (SwapDV should reply and say the guide hasn't changed but its returning the same guide again). The replay boxes don't handle this (why I dont know - but they don't).


I've got a fix in place and I'm testing it a little more now. There should be a new release tomorrow.


On a related note the download throttling should be restricting downloads from the replay boxes to 600KB/s (and 2 connections). Are people seeing this?


Sorry for the bug. You should probably go back to 0.54 in the meantime.


Jonathan


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Eug_
*


Pardon my ignorance, since I know absolutely nothing about Java, but I take it this Swing thing is something that only works on Sun's JRE?


And is that purely a UI thing or is it involved in the actual function of the program?*
Yes, "Swing" means the set of widgets and classes that you can use to build cross-platform UIs. The underlying code is still MS Java workable (I think) but the UI would need to change completely. Instead of a Windows one, an HTML interface would probably benefit just as many people (probably more as many people want to run SwapDV as a service etc. without a GUI).


A comment on the Unix/Windows discussion. I actually like Windows and the whole WFC widget set and Win32 API is great - which is what version 0.22 was and consisted of (and there is a lot to be said for writing something that 80+% (or whatever) people can run natively). However, I recieved many many requests for SwapDV on different platforms and porting it to Swing has meant that SwapDV *is* getting more use (and therefore more tested and stable) by being wholey Java now (and whoever said something about a single code-base is completely right). In addition the changes in Suns 1.4 JRE mean it looks at least a little more windows like too. The shortcoming is the lack of OS specific functionality which is a pain. Even an HTML interface will probably bring IE vs. netscape issues up 


Jonathan


----------



## NoFreakinWay

jotter,


Whats the chance of getting the version .22 source code from you?? It'll give us a jump start on making a MS front end on top of the java classes.


----------



## Eug

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


(probably more as many people want to run SwapDV as a service etc. without a GUI).

*
That would be ideal. I was going to suggest that, but I didn't think that a java app could run as a service.


----------



## TanRanger

Uh... what say you folks about the inclusion of gnutella features in SwapDV just as all this legal stuff is starting to get exciting? Is this a feature we absolutely cannot wait (a little while) for? Gnutella = napster as far as members of the legal profession can tell. Sort of a black mark, or a warning flag?


----------



## acourvil

>>On a related note the download throttling should be restricting downloads from the replay

>>boxes to 600KB/s (and 2 connections). Are people seeing this?


Yes, it looks like that's working correctly.


----------



## TanRanger

Throttling works fine in .60. Starts at about 620kBps and settles down to 599 after a few seconds.


1) Why do we want throttling? To prevent BadThings(tm)?

2) .54 downloads at 2.6MBps for me, but my RTV seems to be unusable while it xmits at this speed. Is this the problem throttling aims to fix?

3) Why only 2.6MBps when the RTV (and my PC and switches and cabling) are 10/100Mb? (Or is this just a case of 'your milage may vary?')

4) Why not double the limit to 1.2MBps when only one file is downloading?

5) If the maximum simultaneous files is four, but each program consists of two files... why not simply download the NDX and then the MPG one at a time, so that only one file per program is ever being transferred?*


*I've had success downloading 3 programs at a time by the following:

Start grabbing 2 programs. When the NDXs are done and only the 2 MPGs are in transit, I begin the third program. This briefly brings my file count to 4 but it drops down to 3 when the 3rd NDX completes. If MPGs didn't begin downloading until after their corresponding NDXs had completed (ie. download NDX and MPG in serial rather than parallel), I should think it would be possible to download 4 programs simultaneously without blowing up the RTV. Whadayathinkaboudit?


----------



## aslagle

AFAIK, the throttling was implemented to prevent the Replay becoming 'unusable' when streaming content off of it.


As a side benefit, you can now 'queue' all of the programs you want to transfer, and SwapDV will transfer them in order as soon as a space opens up. I'd rather have that than the faster speeds, frankly.


----------



## jimre

Quote:

_Originally posted by TanRanger_
*3) Why only 2.6MBps when the RTV (and my PC and switches and cabling) are 10/100Mb? (Or is this just a case of 'your milage may vary?')*
2.6-2.9 MBytes/sec (or 20-25 Mbits/sec) appears to be the max i/o rate that the Replay hard disk & network hardware can sustain, regardless of what kind of network you have.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by TanRanger_
*Uh... what say you folks about the inclusion of gnutella features in SwapDV just as all this legal stuff is starting to get exciting? Is this a feature we absolutely cannot wait (a little while) for? Gnutella = napster as far as members of the legal profession can tell. Sort of a black mark, or a warning flag?*
This is a good point but there are sites like planetreplay (a nice site incidentally) who have been doing show exchange for a while (albeit SLIGHTLY less automated), and in reality if you want a show or movie then (I imagine) using Morpheus/Gnucleus will give you access to far far far more content than anything people with SwapDV have.


Jonathan


----------



## jorgy

Geez, so sorry that I offended anyone for saying that windows is crap. That is off-topic.


But it is just sooo sweet that SwapDV will work on many different platforms. I'm sorry that it doesn't look pretty on your windows boxes, and wanted jotter to "enhance" it to use the proprietary MS JVM, but that pushed me over the edge. Using Sun's Swing, if it makes it run on multiple platforms, is a FEATURE.


jorgy


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by TanRanger_
*Throttling works fine in .60. Starts at about 620kBps and settles down to 599 after a few seconds.


1) Why do we want throttling? To prevent BadThings(tm)?

2) .54 downloads at 2.6MBps for me, but my RTV seems to be unusable while it xmits at this speed. Is this the problem throttling aims to fix?

3) Why only 2.6MBps when the RTV (and my PC and switches and cabling) are 10/100Mb? (Or is this just a case of 'your milage may vary?')

4) Why not double the limit to 1.2MBps when only one file is downloading?

5) If the maximum simultaneous files is four, but each program consists of two files... why not simply download the NDX and then the MPG one at a time, so that only one file per program is ever being transferred?*


*I've had success downloading 3 programs at a time by the following:

Start grabbing 2 programs. When the NDXs are done and only the 2 MPGs are in transit, I begin the third program. This briefly brings my file count to 4 but it drops down to 3 when the 3rd NDX completes. If MPGs didn't begin downloading until after their corresponding NDXs had completed (ie. download NDX and MPG in serial rather than parallel), I should think it would be possible to download 4 programs simultaneously without blowing up the RTV. Whadayathinkaboudit?*
Yes, throttling prevents "bad things" - your replay becoming unusable why you're downloading at full speed and possibly reboots. You can change the speed and the connects by having a look through the swapdv.ini file - so you could do 1 at a time at 1.2MB/s.


I've had some reports that crashes are still happening at 600 so the next release may lower that further.


I'm actually slightly worried you managed to reach three programs at a time from a single replay - that could be a scheduling bug...


Point (4) is a good idea, I'll think about how we could do it.


Jonathan


----------



## Eug

Quote:

_Originally posted by jorgy_
*Geez, so sorry that I offended anyone for saying that windows is crap. That is off-topic.


But it is just sooo sweet that SwapDV will work on many different platforms. I'm sorry that it doesn't look pretty on your windows boxes, and wanted jotter to "enhance" it to use the proprietary MS JVM, but that pushed me over the edge. Using Sun's Swing, if it makes it run on multiple platforms, is a FEATURE.


jorgy*
I understand that you probably don't have time to thoroughly read the messages you're replying to in the brief period of time that your mom lets you use the computer, but if you go back and look, you'll see that this has nothing to do with "looking pretty", but has to do with running on all platforms (yes, even ones you don't like).


----------



## TanRanger

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*

I'm actually slightly worried you managed to reach three programs at a time from a single replay - that could be a scheduling bug...
*
FWIW, this was with 0.22 and I never tried it with any other versions (maybe with 0.50 unless that was a version for which the two file limit had been imposed already). I recall reading somewhere regarding .22 that we "should only transfer two programs at a time because each program consists of two files and the replay can only transfer four files at a time" (sorry, that's a pseudo-quote from memory). So if my recollection and that statement are both right... then we should be able to transfer four programs at a time as long as it's never more than four files.


Is it that the replay automatically responds to a transfer request for a program by sending both of the files at once? ...or can we make it send only one at a time? Or does it matter since we are limited by bandwidth anyway and may as well avoid massively fragmenting large files by parallel downloading anyway.


That suggests another question: does SwapDV do anything clever to avoid fragmentation when downloading two files at once? I believe some Gnutella clients and also the GetRight download manager begin each download by pre-allocating contiguous space for each file so that they do not overlap and fragment eachother. If we (rather, you. Je ne parl Java.) don't do this, and since there is a bandwidth limit anyway, why not impose a limit of only one file at a time at a higher speed. The queue effectively makes up for this.


In fact... there is another reason to lower the limit to only one file at a time: Some users have multiple RTVs and there may be other people in the house trying to stream files off the same ReplayTV that we are grabbing files from. This could easily result in BadThings and I don't imagine it's even possible to detect how many files the RTV is currently serving up.


Summary: I think the limit CAN be increased to four programs at a time but that it SHOULD be lowered to only one.


----------



## jtl

The requests are separate -- one request for the ndx file, one for the mpg file -- and the Replay doesn't even care if you ever ask for both.


----------



## jotter

Hi,


0.61 is available from www.swapdv.net for download. It hopefully fixes the newly introduced big bug causing replay TVs to reboot when the SwapDV guide is displayed a second time.


Thanks

Jonathan


----------



## TanRanger

Seems ok so far. 


Actually... When I fired it up I found P2P was enabled so when I disabled it I got an error saying port 80 was in use and the server could not start... So, uh... Fortunately when I clicked on "Start Server" from the Sharing menu, the server started up fine.


----------



## TanRanger

Regarding the Swapdv.ini file...


I had to go hunting to find it. For WinXP it's in "C:\\docs & settings\\YourNameHere\\" Every time I made changes to this file the changes were overwritten when I launched the server (whether I saved the changes while it was running or not). I temporarily solved my problem by setting the read-only attribute on the file. This is not great as now I can't save any setting from within SwapDV itself. Is this file supposed to be copied to the same directory as the Jar file or to the same folder that the MPGs are kept in or something like that?


(otherwise, your suggestion does work perfectly! Thanks a bunch. I've set my throttle to 1228800 and only 1 file at a time... works great!)


----------



## NoFreakinWay

That appears to have fixed the rebooting problem..

Thanks jotter.


----------



## TanRanger

I'm having trouble compiling 0.60. I think my CLASSPATH may need to be changed because I keep getting the old, familiar errors:
_

SwapDV-0.6-src/SwapDV.java [42:1] '.' expected

import StatusBar; // carat points at semicolon


SwapDV-0.6-src/ServerProperties.java [38:1] package ReplayServer does not exist

public ReplayServer.ReplayDetails details; // carat points at period


.

.

.


[98 more like the second one]


.

.

.


Note: Some input files use or override a deprecated API.

Note: Recompile with -deprecation for details.

100 errors

Errors compiling SwapDV-0.6-src._


I'm using Forte 3.0 (010925) CE with the latest JDK, SDK, JRE, Swing, blah blah... and I'm trying to compile from within Forte. All I've done is to extract into a subfolder of my filesystem mount-point and attempt to build. FWIW, this is all on a WinXP box.


Any ideas? Am I actually missing some additional packages I need to install?


----------



## GadgetGuy

How's the Gnutella feature working out?


----------



## foundation

So, I'm a first time user of swapdv 0.61 and it's working fine. It's tranferring at 600KB/sec (though it can due 2 programs each at 600KB/sec). I've got the ethernet running through a 10/100 switch. Does this seem slow?


If I could wish for one added feature, it would be the automatic extraction of every show from the replay to the htpc, (checking every half hour or so) That way I could have every thing not guaranteed and still get all my shows.


----------



## isc_grant

That's a great idea automatic extraction would really help maybe from a download channel that can be defined. To reiterate it would also be nice if I could select how many shows and how fast to download without going to the INI file. I agree that downloading one at a time should keep fragmentation down.

To all the people working on this I thank you. I have been using swapdv since .22. I was on this forum before I had a Relplay TV and you are the reason I finally got one.


----------



## GadgetGuy

Does anyone have a small file they can share I can use to test this feature?


----------



## foundation

This forum and the efforts of people here developing software was the reason I bought my replaytv. If the sonicblue people are reading this, these people are increasing your revenue. I'm not violating any laws either, I'm just using my computer hard drives as a much big central storage spot for my PVRs.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

jotter,


I just found another little bug. (i think) When I try to save off the mpg files (right click 'export show to swap files') it always extracts the show taht is at the top of the list. This doesnt cause much of a problem for me because I usually get the mpg directly off the hard drive. Just thought I'l let you know.


Thanks for the great proggy..


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*jotter,


I just found another little bug. (i think) When I try to save off the mpg files (right click 'export show to swap files') it always extracts the show taht is at the top of the list. This doesnt cause much of a problem for me because I usually get the mpg directly off the hard drive. Just thought I'l let you know.


Thanks for the great proggy..*
Thanks for the report... we'll take a look!


Jonathan


----------



## Foxtrot-Yankee

Hi, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to continue this thread for this or start a new one.


I loaded Java 2 1.4 on my 2000 Server machine last night. I started SwapDV .61 . When it starts, it asks me to pick a storage directory and I pick a directory on a mostly empty drive.


I pick some shows to d/l and I tell it to download them as a PC MPEG. It then show me a file selection dialog. The default for this is the "My Documents" folder for the current user. If I try to pick another directory, nothing happens. It won't switch out of the My Docs directory.


Everything else works fine and it will d/l without a problem to the My Docs dir. But, then I have to move them to another drive and that's a pain.


Am I doing something wrong or have I found a bug?


--Fox


----------



## mdharm

Quote:

_Originally posted by Foxtrot-Yankee_
*Hi, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to continue this thread for this or start a new one.*
Folks, why don't we take the SwapDV discussion to the mailing list set up for just this purpose:

[email protected] 


Matt


----------



## Robbo

I finally got around to loading up swapdv and must say it is an incredible piece of software. Great job and thanks.


I'd like to reiterate the request to have the software support categories (folders) to make it easier to find programs when you try to stream them back.


----------



## Roto

I've been lurking for a while and figured this would be a good thread for my first post because I never would've bought a 4040 if SwapDV didn't exist. I had to sell my 3030 because I cancelled my home phoneline and I was just going to use my PC with an All In Wonder card and a DVD-RAM/R drive, but that just wasn't as good as my Showstopper was. My only problem with SwapDV is it's causing me to buy more stuff I don't need 


Last week I finally burned a movie from the Replay to a DVD-R with no editing or repair utility. I was able to pull it off with *Ulead's DVD MovieFactory* That program rocks! Give it the mpg and burn away. It didn't try to force a re-encoding like DVD-it always wanted to.


I am getting a new motherboard and AthlonXP 1800+ to replace the P3/850 I also bought a Shuttle SV25 to stick the old cpu and ram into. I plan on eventually putting a couple of big drives in the Shuttle and just using it mostly for video storage. I'll be sure to tell you if it's any good.


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by Foxtrot-Yankee_
*Hi, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to continue this thread for this or start a new one.


Am I doing something wrong or have I found a bug?


--Fox*
Yes that's a bug, which will be fixed. It only happens wirh Java 1.4, though.


Jim.


----------



## jimv

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimv_
*


Yes that's a bug, which will be fixed. It only happens wirh Java 1.4, though.


Jim.*
Oops, I mis-quoted the original. This was in response to the question

about not being able to change directories when downloading.


Jim.


----------



## rrankins

Quote:

_Originally posted by Roto_
*...

Last week I finally burned a movie from the Replay to a DVD-R with no editing or repair utility. I was able to pull it off with Ulead's DVD MovieFactory That program rocks! Give it the mpg and burn away. It didn't try to force a re-encoding like DVD-it always wanted to.

...
*
Have you had any downloaded files that MovieFactory wouldn't accept? I'm having problems with some of the downloaded files from ReplayTV. MovieFactory gives me an error that the audio format is not supported (although, when I look at the File Info in the Add MPEG File dialog, it all looks okay - 48000 Hz, 16 bit stereo, Layer 2, 224 kjbps bitrate). It seems something might be corrupted in the audio header or something (when I try to look at the info with the MPEG Properties from MediaLab, it gives me an "Error in audio packet header" message). Other files work just fine.


I've tried downloading the problem files with SwapDV using all three methods, each with the same results. However, the files will still play fine on the ReplayTV unit and also with PowerDVD and Windows Media Player.


Anybody have any ideas why some files work fine and others seem to have problems with the audio stream? Is there an easy way to fix the audio stream information so it will work with MovieFactory?


-Ray


----------



## Judge

Is there anyway to have SwapDV span multiple drives? I have two 80GB Drives. One is now full because of this very cool app and now I would like to have it store and recognize files on both drives.


Thanks!


Judge


----------



## jimre

Quote:

_Originally posted by Judge_
*Is there anyway to have SwapDV span multiple drives? I have two 80GB Drives. One is now full because of this very cool app and now I would like to have it store and recognize files on both drives.*
You could use an operating system that supports multi-disk volumes (eg, where logical "Drive C" actually spans 2 or more physical disks) - such as Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, or various flavors of Linux.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by Judge_
*Is there anyway to have SwapDV span multiple drives? I have two 80GB Drives. One is now full because of this very cool app and now I would like to have it store and recognize files on both drives.


Thanks!


Judge*
Other that use some OS that allows it (see previous post - thanks Jimre), you currently can't do this. I'll have a think and see what can be done... (anyone else want this?)


Jonathan


----------



## screamitus

John, Yes. Although I have a 160...it's getting a little fat around the edges. Wouldn't mind adding another. Easly done to SwapDV. You could add this to the categories feature. Have the user specify a location for each category and wolla.


----------



## impatient

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


I'll have a think and see what can be done... (anyone else want this?)


Jonathan*
Yes. Spanning multiple drives and splitting files into multiple pieces to fit inside OS requirements have been feature requests on Sourceforge for months.


----------



## aslagle

Now, now...jotter's been doing this for no compensation, (and doing quite well, I must say) let's be a little patient.


Everything that the dev team has done has been worth the wait. We've got a wonderful app that does 90% of everything we want it to. I'm willing to wait a bit for the rest.


----------



## jtl

And you have source code now...


----------



## screamitus

Quote:

Yes. Spanning multiple drives and splitting files into multiple pieces to fit inside OS requirements have been feature requests on Sourceforge for months.
Your alias is aptly named... and jtl is right. You could always roll up your sleeves with the rest of us.


----------



## impatient

Quote:

_Originally posted by screamitus_
*


Your alias is aptly named... and jtl is right. You could always roll up your sleeves with the rest of us.*
I looked at the source and realized that my OO programming skills are non-existent. So, I will try to sit back and wait a little longer.


----------



## GadgetGuy

Most of your IDE RAID adapters have an option to span only and not provide fault tolerance. This is commonly called "RAID 0".

This one from buy.com is $32 and can handle up to 4 drives.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...318315&loc=101


----------



## screamitus

That's a good idea. Now if only someone invented a USB 2.0 RAID HD enclosure. That would be cool!


----------



## vrkalak

Quote:

_Originally posted by rrankins_
*


Have you had any downloaded files that MovieFactory wouldn't accept? I'm having problems with some of the downloaded files from ReplayTV. MovieFactory gives me an error that the audio format is not supported (although, when I look at the File Info in the Add MPEG File dialog, it all looks okay - 48000 Hz, 16 bit stereo, Layer 2, 224 kjbps bitrate). It seems something might be corrupted in the audio header or something (when I try to look at the info with the MPEG Properties from MediaLab, it gives me an "Error in audio packet header" message). Other files work just fine.


I've tried downloading the problem files with SwapDV using all three methods, each with the same results. However, the files will still play fine on the ReplayTV unit and also with PowerDVD and Windows Media Player.


Anybody have any ideas why some files work fine and others seem to have problems with the audio stream? Is there an easy way to fix the audio stream information so it will work with MovieFactory?


-Ray*
I too am having problems with certain replay files. I am using Womble and it too does not like the sound on certain files. PowerDVD will play most of them and I can edit them in PowerDirectorPro but, once I make a DVD out of one of these edited files the sound is out of sync with the picture. Files that Womble will play all edit just fine and the DVDs made from the Womble edited files are always in sync. Does anyone have any insight as to what is wrong with these files and better yet, how to fix them?


----------



## rrankins

Quote:

_Originally posted by vrkalak_
*


I too am having problems with certain replay files. I am using Womble and it too does not like the sound on certain files. PowerDVD will play most of them and I can edit them in PowerDirectorPro but, once I make a DVD out of one of these edited files the sound is out of sync with the picture. Files that Womble will play all edit just fine and the DVDs made from the Womble edited files are always in sync. Does anyone have any insight as to what is wrong with these files and better yet, how to fix them?*
I found a neat utility that seems to fix the audio problems that ULead MovieFactory kept complaining about with my replayTv MPGs. It's called PVAstrumento and I found it at www.offeryn.com. It goes through the file and rewrites it, fixing up header, audio synch, and GOP problems that it finds. Best thing about it, it's relatively fast (since it's not doing any conversion). Every MPG that Ulead didn't like initially, it had no problem with once I ran it through PVAstrumento.


Now, I wish I could figure out why each recording of "Final Fantasy - The Spriit Within" fails to download. They keep giving me an error that the download failed, and each time it happens at a different location. I've recorded it 3 different times and haven't been able to get a successful download of any of them.


-Ray


----------



## krlanes

Can there be something on port 80 that doesn't show up on netstat or inzider. My swap DV won't bind port 80 and I don't see anything. I verified that XP's remote desktop was not enabled but I am baffled because SwapDV was working fine.


Thanks


Kurt


----------



## t_tringle

Quote:

_Originally posted by rrankins_
*


I found a neat utility that seems to fix the audio problems that ULead MovieFactory kept complaining about with my replayTv MPGs. It's called PVAstrumento and I found it at www.offeryn.com. 
*
Rankins you bad boy, give credit where due, I pointed you to that file. 



TIMT


----------



## rrankins

Quote:

_Originally posted by t_tringle_
*


Rankins you bad boy, give credit where due, I pointed you to that file. 



TIMT*
To be honest, I've been following so many threads on the ReplayTV to DVD issue lately that I don't even remember where I found it originally. If it was you, my apologies for not giving proper credit (Although, in this thread, http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...readid=121468, you wrote that you would post some links for utilities later, but I don't recall ever seeing them 


Anyway, I also figured out one of my download problems. Fat32 doesn't like files more than 4GB in size. I was able to download one of the recordings of Final Fantasy to the Mac using SwapDV under OSX with no problem. Others still crapped out on me after about 750 to 800 MB downloaded (it was always in the same place on either the Mac or Windows 2000).


-Ray


----------



## dkan24

Everytime I plaback a movie using SwapDV, I get "Video Temporarily Unavailable". Is this normal? I get it every few mins.


I am running a Linksys Router which is auto sensing 10/100. My usual network speeds are very fast. When I transfer from the replay using SwapDV, I see speeds of 2.6 and sometimes 2.8.


Why does the video drop out so much? I am running XP on a 933mhz PIII with a very fast hard drive.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by krlanes_
*Can there be something on port 80 that doesn't show up on netstat or inzider. My swap DV won't bind port 80 and I don't see anything. I verified that XP's remote desktop was not enabled but I am baffled because SwapDV was working fine.


Thanks


Kurt*
2 things to look for:


(a) your IP address has changed. SwapDV keeps a record of the IP address for multiple NIC machines and unfortunately may keep using an old one even if youp IP address changes. Make sure the IP address in the config form is actually the IP address of your network card...


(b) you don't have access permissions to do this. You may need some level of permissions to run something on port 80.


Does that help?

Jonathan


----------



## nystratton

What is the max number of shows that people have tested with SwapDV? I am over 200 and things are getting very very slow.


-nathan


----------



## krlanes

Thanks jotter. The wrong IP was the problem... Working great now!!


Kurt


----------



## vrkalak

Quote:

_Originally posted by rrankins_
*


I found a neat utility that seems to fix the audio problems that ULead MovieFactory kept complaining about with my replayTv MPGs. It's called PVAstrumento and I found it at www.offeryn.com. It goes through the file and rewrites it, fixing up header, audio synch, and GOP problems that it finds. Best thing about it, it's relatively fast (since it's not doing any conversion). Every MPG that Ulead didn't like initially, it had no problem with once I ran it through PVAstrumento.


-Ray*
I tried the utility and it fixes the file so that all of my editing software no longer complain about the sound, however, the sound and video are terribly out of sync by the time I am half way thru the 1hr program. Is there a way to get the sound and picture back in sync?


----------



## holyunion

I used to love downloading an entire show in 3-4 minutes at 2.6M/s. Now, it takes forever at 600KB/s. How can I get it back to the faster speed? If I can't, I think it's a mistake to limit it. Make the onus for too much multitasking on the user, not limit the system to accomodate the user.


----------



## acourvil

You can change the setting in the SwapDV.ini file. I find 1.2M is a pretty good compromise.


----------



## epete

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*


2 things to look for:


(a) your IP address has changed. SwapDV keeps a record of the IP address for multiple NIC machines and unfortunately may keep using an old one even if youp IP address changes. Make sure the IP address in the config form is actually the IP address of your network card...


(b) you don't have access permissions to do this. You may need some level of permissions to run something on port 80.


Does that help?

Jonathan*


I wish I knew this before. I would have liked to had confirmed this was my problem. I finally reformated my drive and reloaded windows and all drivers. SwapDV is working great now.



As for the Video Temporarily Unavailable isue goes, I get that on SwapDV also. I asked about this a while ago and someone mentioned this may be caused by the Linksys Router and suggested an alternate brand router to try. I am hoping this is not the problem as I have several Linksys network components and hardwires throughout my home.


----------



## epete

Quote:

_Originally posted by holyunion_
*I used to love downloading an entire show in 3-4 minutes at 2.6M/s. Now, it takes forever at 600KB/s. How can I get it back to the faster speed? If I can't, I think it's a mistake to limit it. Make the onus for too much multitasking on the user, not limit the system to accomodate the user.*
It took me 1.5 hours to download a 1 hour High Quality program. It would be nice to be able to download this file at least as fast as its playback rate.


----------



## holyunion

Thanks for the swapdv.ini file info! Much appreciated.


----------



## Thenollyon

For those using the application under Windows, perhaps a feature to minimize to the system tray? Obviously other features are of greater importance but I thought I would throw it out there...


----------



## foundation

Is there an easy way to determine which files on the hard drive correspond with the show entries in swapdv?


----------



## screamitus

Anyone yet find a way (or a utility) that will let SwapDV load as a Win2000 service?


----------



## abaduck

Jotter,


Just visited the swapdv.net site and re-read something three time... MULTICS?! I'd love to run swapdv on Multics just for the hell of it, do you know something I don't? (i.e. the location of a functioning MULTICS emulator!!)


(I have ITS running here which is almost as odd...)


Couple more questions:


1. I never really thought about the Gnutella thing but I noticed my net connection was rather slow tonight... lo and behold people are actually using it! errrrrr how can I check to see what they're downloading? I can see their IP addys but not what they're doing...


2. Any progress on what is (for me) the 'holy grail' - the ability to take any old mpeg2 video (perhaps something pulled off RPTV in the 'elder days' when we just had simple download tools) and create a .rgd (and possibly some kind of .ndx) 'on the fly', to import the material into the RPTV/swapdv 'system'? At the moment there's no way to get 'foreign' material into the RPTV system except via the analogue inputs, this is the last major deficiency that needs to be remedied. IMHO.


Nice work, thanks!


Mike


----------



## t_tringle

Rankins, I was just kidding, besides, my bad if I forgot to post it, but I had posted it a few times, one of the problems with this forum being so busy is posts drop off a little fast.


Vrkalak, here is a link to a page with a bunch of programs and apps for mpeg tweaking. However the one you want it TIMEFIX.EXE.


IF you run your replay mpeg through Timefix.exe, it will fix the timecodes. After that you join it back together (because timefix will make two separate files if the timecodes are messed up, which they probably are if you are getting audio synch errors), with TMPEG's mpeg tools join feature, or another mpeg 2 joiner. Once thats done run it through PVASTRUMENTO and make sure that you select "Unconstrained", or DVD. I have found Unconstrained works better with a broader set of DVD authoring programs, but YMMV.


Thanks


Tim

http://www.pcphotovideo.com/favorite.htm


----------



## t_tringle

Vrkalak,


You don't want to select the Video CD feature, even if your eventual destination is VCD, this is supposed to be set based on the type of file you are converting. So use either Unconstrained or VCD.


TIVO USERS, you might want to use PVASTRUMENTO if you are trying to bring video over for this purpose as well (although TIVO won't allow it) the Video CD setting for PVASTRUMENTO after timefixing tivo files fixes the notorious audio synch problems with TIVO files.


Just an FYI for those interested in knowing that.


Thanks


TimT


----------



## vrkalak

Quote:

_Originally posted by t_tringle_
*Rankins, I was just kidding, besides, my bad if I forgot to post it, but I had posted it a few times, one of the problems with this forum being so busy is posts drop off a little fast.


Vrkalak, here is a link to a page with a bunch of programs and apps for mpeg tweaking. However the one you want it TIMEFIX.EXE.


IF you run your replay mpeg through Timefix.exe, it will fix the timecodes. After that you join it back together (because timefix will make two separate files if the timecodes are messed up, which they probably are if you are getting audio synch errors), with TMPEG's mpeg tools join feature, or another mpeg 2 joiner. Once thats done run it through PVASTRUMENTO and make sure that you select "Unconstrained", or DVD. I have found Unconstrained works better with a broader set of DVD authoring programs, but YMMV.


Thanks


Tim

http://www.pcphotovideo.com/favorite.htm *
I ran one of the mpegs thru timefix.exe and 10,000 lines later the log had

Total frames = 154490; Offset @ 4048656211

Total frames = 154505; Offset @ 4049023771

Total frames = 154520; Offset @ 4049393363

Total frames = 154535; Offset @ 4049760575

No breaks in the timecode! File did not need to be divided!


The file plays fine using the real one player, but in mpeg2vcr the sound is distorted and in PowerDVD the sound is at 1/2 speed. All the files that have trouble with the sound were recorded from IPBN the local public tv station. All the stuff I have been recording from A&E work fine. The file that PVAStrumento fixed the sound is now fine, but it is totally out of sync with the video. I am running XP and I have tried mpeg2vcr on Win98 SE but the results are the same.


----------



## t_tringle

vrkalak,


Some people have complained of Windows XP causing problems with replay video files and corrupting them when transferring over to the PC. I personally never saw this problem with any of the files I moved over, but who knows.


What setting did you use to convert over the original file using PVASTRUMENTO, you might want to try the other setting, ie if you use DVD, use Unconstrained.


It might have something to do with the quality of the original file as well. I usually only deal with High Quality files when transferring them.


Thanks


Tim


----------



## vrkalak

Quote:

_Originally posted by t_tringle_
*vrkalak,


Some people have complained of Windows XP causing problems with replay video files and corrupting them when transferring over to the PC. I personally never saw this problem with any of the files I moved over, but who knows.


What setting did you use to convert over the original file using PVASTRUMENTO, you might want to try the other setting, ie if you use DVD, use Unconstrained.


It might have something to do with the quality of the original file as well. I usually only deal with High Quality files when transferring them.


Thanks


Tim*
The files have the same problem when downloaded to my Win98SE machine and I used the Unconstrained setting on PVAStrumento. All files where recorded using the High setting. I read somewhere else that PVAStrumento has some problems so perhaps a newer version may be able to recover these files. The files in question are recordings of the British SciFi series Starcops which was only released on PAL video tape and once and a while gets shown on Public TV. I really hope to be able to preserve these on DVD. I currently have 3 successful ones (DVD) and 4 with the sound problems. There were only 9 episodes and the local station is already on its second time thru them.


----------



## MasterFU

I have the same problem, a lot of my mpegs have distorted sound opened in Womble. PVAstrumento doesn't usually fix em, Once in a great while one will work. I've tried all settings. I have asked womble about it and they asked me to ship them the MPEGs that are having the problem. So I'm mailing out one of the many that I have problems with. Hopefully they can help.


----------



## Rich A

I've been doing this ReplayTV mpeg file extraction for some time. (first with removable drives and the 2K and 3K RPTVs. Now by off-loading the Series 4K RPTV mpegs via the LAN.


Some things I have found:


That PVASTRUMENTO program never worked reliably for me. There was another thread here about it and a lot of guys trashed it.


I've found that the Womble is the fastest, easiest and most reliable editor for Mpeg in general. I never spend more than 15 minutes, going from a raw RPTV mpeg to an edited ready-to-burn DVD proper Mpeg.


Womble recently added a new Mpeg utility to fix broken time codes and a few other GOP related things. However the fix only worked with up to 2 GB files. The latest release ( xxx.12 ) has fixed that so now you can use that fix utility to repair some aspects of broken RPTV mpegs that are over 2 GB.


I've found the most reliable / trouble free environment to work in is Windows 2000 and an NTFS file system.


The quickest, easiest DVD authoring software out there is the SpruceUp DVD authoring package. Good enough for home DVD production. Supper easy and very intuitive. Reliable. and quick. Only problem is that Apple bought the program from Spruce Technologies and will not support it OR produce any PC version. I got mine before it became unavailable. You can of course search in "all the wrong places" and find it and a keygen to unlock it. The version you want is 1.1 (not 1.0) 1.1 has a fix added to allow it to work with the Pioneer DVD burners and others.


The best most trouble free way to author is to feed the authoring program separate elementary video and audio streams. Fully multiplexed program streams will sometimes not work where the same source supplied in the form of elementary streams will work fine.


If you have a good analog cable TV feed, (which is better for this type of work than a digital feed) then even the low quality RPTV mpeg is suitable and about equivent to a good SVCD disc quality. When using said low Q. RPTV mpegs and editing out commercials, you'll find you can fit six to seven edited one hour tv shows on a single 4.7 GB DVD. I also use the high Q. for those "special shows" and find you can fit 2 shows on a DVD in that format. The playback is outstanding on my stand alone DVD/TV system.


With SpruceUP you can also author "mini-DVD's which is DVD content onto CDR discs. The low quality RPTV one hour mpegs (after editing out commercials end up at 43.5 minutes) will easily fit onto one 650 MB CDR.


I've been doing this for years, (prior to the RPTV was using mpeg captured by an ATI video card) Trust me when I say, "I've been there, done that".


As to "how" I get the RPTV Mpegs off my 4080, I've gone a slightly different approach. While the SwapTV is a fine program, I've found that it was sort of "over-kill" for my purposes. All I want to do is to off-load the raw RPTV mpegs. So I made myself a quick little Visual Basic program that is sort of a "wrapper" for the quideparser and ReplayPC programs. It simply lists all the downloadable programs available on my RPTV with the titles and other information. And I just check off which ones I want and go for a coffee. Anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour or so (depending on the size, number and quality) all the files are transferred to my Win2k NLE computer. It's very easy and so far I've NOT had any problems with corrupted files OTHER than the common GOP audio time thing. (which womble fixes up in one to two minutes)


Note .. I make SURE that my off load session isn't going to be during any potential recording session or playback session on the Replay TV. I've found when off-loading a high quality "while" the RPTV was also encoding another high quality WILL occassionally corrupt either the one being recorded or the one being off loaded. Mostly it's the one being recorded, which you find out about when you off load it later and try to edit it.


My collection over the last 2/3 years has about 800 VCD, SVCD, and Mini-DVDs. And now about 25 DVDs. Started using a 1x CDR burner back in the beginning. Now with the cheap $1.25 DVD-R discs (in 100 bulk lot) and putting seven full Star Trek episodes onto one disc brings the cost down BELOW doing the same with CDRs. And the 352x480 2 Mb/s RPTV low quality is as good or better than my typical SVCD. You can see "my" typical svcd samples on my web page www.pcphotovideo.com under the SVDC/samples page. Soon I'll put up some RPTV samples as well. Digital source MPeg (like Dish TV etc) are not the best source for Mpeg editing in general. They are already compressed mpegs. Raw uncompressed studio quality cable video is the best. You "can" get decent final mpegs with digital feeds but you'll also find that if your analog video was also the best it could be that your final mpeg would be far superior.


The RPTV is an mpeg encoder. It works best with a GOOD analog signal. Of course if your Cable TV company gives you a choice of poor analog or decent digital, then obviously your best bet would be digital. I'm fortunate to have a full fibre optic analog cable feed that IS near studio quality.


Just posted this to provide hope and a bit of education to those of you just embarking on this RPTV to DVD adventure. Oh, and so far, of the 25 burned DVDs, not ONE coaster. And also so far, I haven't found a DVD player that would NOT play them.


Yes, I've been there .... and done that.


----------



## dkan24

RichA,


I have been using womble (version 3.0) for some time now with no problems. I recently tried to open up a file that was 3GB and it won't open. Is that normal? Do I need a higher version?


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by abaduck_
*Jotter,


Just visited the swapdv.net site and re-read something three time... MULTICS?! I'd love to run swapdv on Multics just for the hell of it, do you know something I don't? (i.e. the location of a functioning MULTICS emulator!!)


(I have ITS running here which is almost as odd...)


Couple more questions:


1. I never really thought about the Gnutella thing but I noticed my net connection was rather slow tonight... lo and behold people are actually using it! errrrrr how can I check to see what they're downloading? I can see their IP addys but not what they're doing...


2. Any progress on what is (for me) the 'holy grail' - the ability to take any old mpeg2 video (perhaps something pulled off RPTV in the 'elder days' when we just had simple download tools) and create a .rgd (and possibly some kind of .ndx) 'on the fly', to import the material into the RPTV/swapdv 'system'? At the moment there's no way to get 'foreign' material into the RPTV system except via the analogue inputs, this is the last major deficiency that needs to be remedied. IMHO.


Nice work, thanks!


Mike*
Well the multics reference was an inside joke - but basically any Java platform should run Swapdv... 


Answer to (1). Hmmm. Where did you see their "IP" addresses? In the tooltip popup or in the upload tab? If its the upload tab you should see what they are grabbing. If its just the gnutella tooltip, thats just gnutella peer connections - they aren't xferring anything. If you're unhappy with the network loads go to the gnutella config tab (in the server config) and reduce the number of incoming and outgoing connections. You can even lower the outgoing to 1 if you just want to connect to our gnutella hub.


(2) No progress [sigh]. This is as frustrating to you as it is to us. If anyone has time and effort to spend looking at this PLEASE let me know.


Jonathan


----------



## foundation

Rich A, thanks for the excellent post. A couple questions for you (or the crowd)


1) What DVD-R media do you use? Do you burn it at 2x?


2) Any plans to release your VB program or code?


3) Does anyone know a way to programatically determine if the replaytv is currently recording?


----------



## jtl

3. assuming you mean over the network, no, haven't seen sign of one.


----------



## Rich A

Quote:

_Originally posted by foundation_
*Rich A, thanks for the excellent post. A couple questions for you (or the crowd)


1) What DVD-R media do you use? Do you burn it at 2x?


I'm using the "cheap" DVD-R single sided 4.7 GB sold by CDRECORDABLE.COM. A lot of guys have trashed them pretty severely and had a lot of problems. I don't know why .. I've not had a single problem yet.


The answer could possibly be that I do burn at 1X (it's all I can do with my burner) I know a lot of the guys having trouble with those discs are using Pioneer DVD burners which I think can do 2x. Although the cdrecordable.com discs are rated at 2x I think some burners don't work well with that media at 2x. They often have "weekend" specials and sell a cake box of 100 for $125 . But do what I did first. Get a few samples before you make any big buy. Works fine for me .. but YMMV.


2) Any plans to release your VB program or code?


No it's really a kind of "kludge". I'd be embarrassed to let anyone see it  It's just something cobbled together in a format for fit my personal needs.


3) Does anyone know a way to programatically determine if the replaytv is currently recording?*
I pretty much know what is going to record and when. So I plan my off-loads accordingly. However it has surprised me on occasion and about 50 percent of the time when that happens, I end up with a glitched mpeg.


----------



## nickbcat

Please help locate SwapTV.ini

I want to change the download speed, and number of download.

And have version 0.61, however, cannot find the swaptv.ini anywhere. Do I have to manually create this file? If yes, then How?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by nickbcat_
*Please help locate SwapTV.ini

I want to change the download speed, and number of download.

And have version 0.61, however, cannot find the swaptv.ini anywhere. Do I have to manually create this file? If yes, then How?

Thanks in advance.*
Its in your profile folder (on Windows boxes), e.g. c:\\documents and settings\\yourloginname\\swapdv.ini


If its not there try a file search on "swapdv.ini" to locate it.


Jonathan


----------



## Robbo

My family room 4040 "lost" SwapDV from the Replay Guide (it was still there on the basement 4040). I restarted SwapDV and I could see SwapDv as a choice but none of the programs were listed (it was still showing fine on the other basement 4040) . I then did a soft reboot of the family room 4040 and after a few minutes the basement replay showed up as a choice on the guide and SwapDv came back, but again without any programs listed.


Any ideas on what is messing this up?


----------



## dkan24

I had the same problem once. I fixed it by creating another channel in swapdv. Then I moved evrything into that channel. Then deleted the old channel.


----------



## themarshall

I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I use the search (Using the Gneutella feature) and only find a few shows available, all on a 192.128 address. I'm not sure if I"m not searching right or need to add a server to teh Gneutella list or what I'm missing. I'm not sure if the people don't realize they're sharing or just don't want to share and therefore don't have their 'real' IP showing with that port forwarded to the 192.168 address. First time user, so go easy on me if I'm completely missing something


----------



## dkan24

I have thought of a feature that might be useful to some, and just wanted to see if there was any discussion of it.


I would like to archive some shows to disc, and watch them later on the replay using swapDV. I know that you can import the files into your library. But is there any way that it could do it on the fly? It takes a while to import from a cd-r. any way to speed up this process?


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by Robbo_
*... 4040 "lost" SwapDV ...


Any ideas on what is messing this up?*
I have the same or a similar problem. I didn't have the problem a few days ago. I wonder if the recent s/w update that ReplayTV did to my 4040 affected the compatibility w/SwapDV?


Anyone noticed any other funniness like this?


What's the easter egg code to find the changes to the s/w?


Max.


----------



## jtl

411 ZONE will show the version number. The update that most of us got (520411190 -- 4.1.1 build 190) shouldn't have any effect on swapdv.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*411 ZONE will show the version number. The update that most of us got (520411190 -- 4.1.1 build 190) shouldn't have any effect on swapdv.*
Yeah, you're right. It just suddenly came alive - don't know why it wasn't working before. Does it poll at certain intervals or something?


Anyway, I have the same version as you and it's working now.


Thanks.


Max.


----------



## jtl

It advertises at regular intervals -- every 20 minutes, I think.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jtl_
*It advertises at regular intervals -- every 20 minutes, I think.*
Hmm. Perhaps I just don't wait long enough sometimes..


Well, while you're here, perhaps you can answer this one...


Have you heard of a problem when exporting assets? Sometimes it seems that I try to export one show, and the resulting exported file is actually a different show. Is there a way to identify each asset in SwapDV with it's filename?


Max.


----------



## jtl

I dunno nuttin about SwapDV -- I may have answered the wrong question; it's the Replay that re-advertises. SwapDV probably does too, but I don't know that.


Last time I looked, SwapDV's .rgd files were ReplayGuide files with the ascii header and footer intact; if that's still true, then sure, the data's there -- a trivial program to remove the ascii headers, then feed the data to GuideParser would get it. A point and click way inside SwapDV? Dunno.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

Quote:

_Originally posted by dwater_
*


Hmm. Perhaps I just don't wait long enough sometimes..


Well, while you're here, perhaps you can answer this one...


Have you heard of a problem when exporting assets? Sometimes it seems that I try to export one show, and the resulting exported file is actually a different show. Is there a way to identify each asset in SwapDV with it's filename?


Max.*
I have this same problem, it appears to be problem with SwapDV. If you look closer, the video you did get was the first one on the list. The only way I know of to get the file name is to play it with Media Player and look at the filename in the Title Bar.


Hopefully the next SwapDV will have this fixed.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*


I have this same problem, it appears to be problem with SwapDV. If you look closer, the video you did get was the first one on the list. The only way I know of to get the file name is to play it with Media Player and look at the filename in the Title Bar.


Hopefully the next SwapDV will have this fixed.*
Ah,. glad to hear it isn't just me then.


I'm suprised it works when playing directly from SwapDV - I guess it doesn't actually do an export as such, so it doesn't tickle the bug.


I wonder if the SwapDV even know about it. It's kind of subtle...will you, or shall I?


Max.


----------



## NoFreakinWay

I have already mentioned this to jotter, so he is aware of it.


But, it couldn't hurt to remind him


----------



## dwater

Anyone know if there a web page somewhere which says how to use the Gnutella thing?


I have made 'public' all my world cup recordings, but when I search for them using Limewire, none of them show up.


How is this facility supposed to work?


Max.


----------



## jimmcq

SwapDV will only talk to other SwaDV clients, so you would never see them using Limewire.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimmcq_
*SwapDV will only talk to other SwaDV clients, so you would never see them using Limewire.*
Hmm. OK. How do I find assets on other people's machines?


I wonder why it can't make them available to Limewire etc? Is this due to copyright etc?


It would be nice if it would make an interface to my ReplayTV....


Max.


----------



## jimmcq

I've never actually seen the Gnutella portion actually work... it says that it connect to the Gnutella network sucessfully, but my searches never seen to return anything... Give me the exact "Show Title" and/or "Episode Title" of something you have made public, and I'll see if I can find it via a SwapDV search.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimmcq_
*I've never actually seen the Gnutella portion actually work... it says that it connect to the Gnutella network sucessfully, but my searches never seen to return anything... Give me the exact "Show Title" and/or "Episode Title" of something you have made public, and I'll see if I can find it via a SwapDV search.*
Show Title : Cracker

Episode Title : The Big Crunch

Minutes : 60

Created : May 31, 2002

Recorded : Jun 3, 2002

TV Channel : BBCA

TV Channel Label : BBC America

TV Channel : 162

Description : Cult members try to hide their leader's affair; Judith moves out; Fitz turns to Sgt. Penhaligon.


See if you can find that one.


I'll leave it running overnight and some of tomorrow.


Let me know if you can find anything.


Thanks.


Max.


You could of course try searching for 'World Cup' - I have recorded lots of those.


Max.


----------



## jimmcq

Yep, I see 5 episodes of "Cracker" including "The Big Crunch", and 22 shows of "World Cup Soccer".


None of them are downloadable though, apparently because you are using a non-routable IP address (192.168.x.x).


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimmcq_
*Yep, I see 5 episodes of "Cracker" including "The Big Crunch", and 22 shows of "World Cup Soccer".


None of them are downloadable though, apparently because you are using a non-routable IP address (192.168.x.x).*
Hmm. Yes, I see :


Recived query swapdv?title=Cracker&

Recived query swapdv?episode=World Cup&

Adding fxpal.swapdv.net:6346

Recived query swapdv?title=World Cup&

Recived query swapdv?title=World Cup&

Recived query swapdv?title=World Cup&

Recived query swapdv?title=World Cup&

Recived query swapdv?title=World Cup&


in the terminal I ran SwapDV from 


IP Address...hmmm...how can that possibly work then? I have forwarded (I think) port 6346...do I need to specify the address of my firewall, or something? Perhaps I should just try that....(pause)....Ok, try that.


Max.


----------



## jimmcq

I assume you're running NAT on the firewall... if you've got port forwarding taken care of then you should just need to tell SwapDV to use the firewall's IP Address on the Gnutella tab of Server Configuration... and don't forget to close and relaunch SwapDV or the change may not take effect.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimmcq_
*I assume you're running NAT on the firewall... if you've got port forwarding taken care of then you should just need to tell SwapDV to use the firewall's IP Address on the Gnutella tab of Server Configuration... and don't forget to close and relaunch SwapDV or the change may not take effect.*
Ah, I don't think I restarted SwapDV.


There you go, try that.


Max.


----------



## jimmcq

It now shows what appears to be the correct IP address but I still can't retrieve a file from there. I think you've got the server port wrong... you should be using port 6346 as the Gnutella port (at least that's the default).


It tells me that you're using port 80. If I right click on a show that Gnutella found and select "Connect to" it connects me to server called "Living Room" which I assume is the ReplayTV itself (as opposed to SwapDV). Is the Ecuador vs. Mexico game still on your ReplayTV?  As a test I tried retrieving a file from there and it appeared to begin donwloading fine, but I immeadiately canceled it so I wouldn't mess up anything on your Replay.


You might want to check your firewall config, and change it so that port 80 connections from outside do NOT get forwarded to Replay. Otherwise anyone and every can connect to it.


----------



## dwater

Quote:

_Originally posted by jimmcq_
*It now shows what appears to be the correct IP address but I still can't retrieve a file from there. I think you've got the server port wrong... you should be using port 6346 as the Gnutella port (at least that's the default).


It tells me that you're using port 80. If I right click on a show that Gnutella found and select "Connect to" it connects me to server called "Living Room" which I assume is the ReplayTV itself (as opposed to SwapDV). Is the Ecuador vs. Mexico game still on your ReplayTV?  As a test I tried retrieving a file from there and it appeared to begin donwloading fine, but I immeadiately canceled it so I wouldn't mess up anything on your Replay.

*
*


Both Cost Rica vs Turkey and Ecuador vs. Mexico were downloading from my ReplayTV while I've been out. I haven't made them 'Public' in SwapDV (yet). I also haven't deleted them from my ReplyTV. All the other ones are only on my PowerBook, so they should be OK.


SwapDV is set up to use port 80 so that it can connect to my ReplayTV, but the Gnutella part is set up to use 6346 (I haven't changed it), and that is the only port that is forwarded through my firewall and it is forwarded only to my Powerbook.

*
*Quote:*



You might want to check your firewall config, and change it so that port 80 connections from outside do NOT get forwarded to Replay. Otherwise anyone and every can connect to it.
That's the way that ReplyTV's can xfer shows to each other, isn't it? In any case, I don't have port 80 forwarded to anything, because I haven't wanted to xfer any shows. Must be something else - or some 'feature' of SwapDV...


Hmm. Strange. Anyway, I have to take my powerbook somewhere, so it'll be off line for most of the rest of the day.


We'll continue this later. Sounds like we might be able to get it to work.


Thanks.


Max.


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by themarshall_
*I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I use the search (Using the Gneutella feature) and only find a few shows available, all on a 192.128 address. I'm not sure if I"m not searching right or need to add a server to teh Gneutella list or what I'm missing. I'm not sure if the people don't realize they're sharing or just don't want to share and therefore don't have their 'real' IP showing with that port forwarded to the 192.168 address. First time user, so go easy on me if I'm completely missing something *
Hi,


Yes the reason is most people aren't configuring SwapDv with their correct (external) IP addresses so you can't find much downloadable content. You should be able to find and get stuff from fxpal.swapdv.net however as thats our server with non-commercial content on.


Although we recently improved the gnutella functionality a great deal, the new release of SwapDV (due soon) will no longer have the gnutella functionality.


Jonathan


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by NoFreakinWay_
*


I have this same problem, it appears to be problem with SwapDV. If you look closer, the video you did get was the first one on the list. The only way I know of to get the file name is to play it with Media Player and look at the filename in the Title Bar.


Hopefully the next SwapDV will have this fixed.*
Thanks for the reminder 


Jonathan


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## ocraven

Quote:

_Originally posted by jotter_
*Hi,


The SwapDV application allows you to manage your own digital video library, based on content backed up from from your replay TV. It combines the functionality of a replay client (Yet Another Replay Client), a replay server (Yet Another Replay Server) and a replay guide editor 


The application is for all platforms.


A small feature list:

* connect to a replay TV and browse its contents

* download mpegs (raw/modified)

* save and edit guides (raw/header stripped)

* import digital video into your local server, either from your replay TV or from your disk

* edit, add, remove shows and channels

* emulate a replayTV box on your local network

* "real" replay TVs can play back videos from your server




SwapDV 0.5 and source code released. Go to http://swapdv.sourceforge.net to download the new version and/or sources*
Aha! This could be what I'm looking for. I wasn't looking for your nifty opportunity to transfer shows between RTV and PC, though I may try that eventually. What I need is something much simpler, which may be a minor feature of your creation, the guide editor.


ReplayTV doesn't subscribe to the Canadian TV listings (even though their supplier, Tribune, does have them available. But if I could somehow reassign the Buffalo or Niagara Falls cable stations to the channels they are received on for the Toronto cable system, I'd have all but a few stray channels accessible with up-to-date program guides! So what I'm hoping to be able to do is regularly download a neighbor-town's listings, edit the guide to reassign the channel numbers as they occur locally in Canada, and then send the edited guide back to the ReplayTV. Would I be able to use SwapDV to do that? I know it's not your primary goal, but if it works as a side effect you can make many people happy!


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## jimre

Nope. You're talking about the *CHANNEL GUIDE* listings. I'm not aware of any way to edit those. SwapDV allows you to edit your PC's *REPLAY GUIDE* listing. This is the list of recorded shows stored on your PC. Not the kind of "guide editor" you're asking for...


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## ocraven

Ah, yes, I see. Thanks.


So that means this particular application allowsRePlay Guide editting (on the PC) and not Channel Guide editting. For those who have played around with these issues, though, does it at least seem like Channel Guide editting might be do-able?


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## jotter

Quote:

_Originally posted by ocraven_
*Ah, yes, I see. Thanks.


So that means this particular application allowsRePlay Guide editting (on the PC) and not Channel Guide editting. For those who have played around with these issues, though, does it at least seem like Channel Guide editting might be do-able?*
No. There is very little accessible information on the replay (accept for the shows and replay guide) and no easy way (short of taking the HDD out?) of getting at the channel listings stored in the replay. Even if you could remotely access the listings, work out how it was structured (no trivial task), work out how to edit it correctly with new information, there doesn't appear to be any way of putting the channel guide back.


I'd ask ReplayTV (or rather Sonic Blue) for some support with your problem.


Cheers

Jonathan


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## Robbo

Quote:

_Originally posted by dkan24_
*I had the same problem once. I fixed it by creating another channel in swapdv. Then I moved evrything into that channel. Then deleted the old channel.*
That fixed the problem. Thanks.


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## TomBowman

When I click on the link to download SwapDV, it goes to SourceForge.net with nothing in the window to download.


I look at the SourceForge site for information about SwapDV and see alot of talk, but again, no downloadable files.


Has support for this product been removed?


Thanks

TB


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## jgourd

SwapDV has been replaced by DVArchive


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## TomBowman

When I download the zip and the expand it using Winzip, I get about 8 files with "0" bytes in each.


Downloaded twice with same results. Downloaded the Compatible version and it exploded fine.


What ups?


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## TomBowman

I tried it on another PC and worked fine. Found out the version of WinZip I was using was 6.1. Downloaded version 8 and it work fine.


Sorry for the bad case of the Dummas#$%^&.


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## Branxx

Old versions of SwapDV can be found here .


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