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Scraper2VDR

scraper2vdr acts as client and provides scraped metadata for tvshows and
movies from epgd to other plugins via its service interface. The plugin
cares about caching the images locally and also cleans up the images if
not longer needed.

epgd itself uses the thetvdb.com API for collecting series metadata and
themoviedb.org API for movies. Check the websites of both services for
the terms of use.

1. Requirements

To run the plugin the following libaries have to be installed:

- VDR 1.7.x     
 - libmysql >= 5.07
 - uuid-dev
 - imagemagick or graphicksmagick

2. Installation, Configuration

To download the plugin from the GIT repository, do a

git clone http://projects.vdr-developer.org/git/vdr-plugin-scraper2vdr.git/

Install the plugin depending on your used distribution. During VDR
startup the following options can be set:

-i <IMAGEDIR>, --imagedir=<IMAGEDIR>  Set directory where images are stored
-m <MODE>,     --mode=<MODE>          mode can be client or headless (see below for 
                                      explanation).

3. Usage

The plugin starts an own thread during startup. This thread runs in the
background and performs the following tasks:

  • Update of events from Database: at startup and then every 2 minutes
    the successfully scraped events from the database are read. New series
    and movies are added to the plugin in memory storage structure, images
    are stored to the local filesystem if not available yet.
  • Update of recordings from Database: at startup and every 5 minutes
    the recordings stored in the database are read and analogous to events
    the series and movies are stored.
  • Scan for new recordings: at startup and every 5 minutes the VDR Recordings
    List is checked for new recordings. These can be a recently started
    recording or recordings newly mounted from a remote share. If new
    recordings are found, they will be stored in the database (including a check
    for a srapinfo file) and will be marked to be newly scraped. This is then done
    by epgd.
  • Cleanup: Each 10 minutes the local images directory will be cleaned up. If
    images for a series or movie are not needed anymore, because they don't
    appear each in the stored events or recordings, these images get deleted.

The described actions and some more can also be triggered by OSD or by svdrp:

  • OSD: Update Scraper Information from Database / svdrp UPDT:
    Force update from database
  • OSD: Update Scraper Recordings Information from Database / svdrp UPDR
    Force scanning of recordings in database
  • OSD: Scan for new recordings in video directory / svdrp SCVD
    Force scan for new recordings in video directory
  • OSD: Scan for new or updated scrapinfo files / svdrp SCSI
    Scan for new or updated scrapinfo files. This job is not triggered
    automatically by the plugin main loop. So if you create or modify
    scrapinfo files, this scan has to be triggered manually afterwards.
    During regular scans of recordings, only for new recordings a scan for
    a scrapinfo file is done.
  • OSD: Cleanup Recordings in Database / svdrp CRDB
    Trigger cleanup of recordings in database. This job is also not performed
    automatically in the plugin main loop and has to be triggered manually.
    Be careful that all necessary recordings are "known" by VDR when running
    this job. All remote shares with recordings which are relevant should be
    mounted. Otherwise not existing recordings get deleted in the database.

4. Recording Handling

As described each running scraper2vdr Plugin reports his recordings to
the epgd database, the epgd then checks these entries and tries to find
appropriate scraping information. epgd performs first a lookup for a
event in the database which belongs to the recording. If this fails, epgd
checks if another client has already reported this recording to the database.
After that, the scrapinfo file in the recording directory (if existing)
is checked. If nothing is successfull, a new scrap process for the name
of the recording is done. If in this case the length of the recording
is less than 70 minutes, a series recording is assumed, otherwise
the scraper searches for a movie.

In client mode both live epg and recordings metadata is loaded from the
database. In headless mode only recording metadata is loaded. This mode
is useful for headless VDRs so that recordings which are done from this
VDR during no other VDR client with running scraper2vdr Plugin is active
are not missed. The recording information is then written to the database
in time before the related and already reliably scraped event entry is
deleted from the database.

Format of scrapinfo file

If a recorded show is not correctly scraped because of whatever, it is
possible to place a file called scrapinfo into the recordings folder to
set the IDs manually. To get the IDs, you have to check

http://www.themoviedb.org/

for movies and

http://www.thetvdb.com/

for Series. The format of the scrapinfo file for series is:

series
id = <series id from tvdb.com>
episode = <episode id from tvdb.com>

The episode line can also be empty, then only the series without
information for the episode is scraped.

For series it is possible to place one common scrapinfo file
for the whole series. For that the scrapinfo file has to be placed
two folder levels higher relatively to the recording directory.
If a recording is placed in /video/series/episode/<date>.rec/
then the scrapinfo file has to be placed in /video/series/

For movies the format is

movie
id = <movie id from moviedb.org>

5. Service Interface

Other Plugins can and should request information about meta data from
scraper2vdr via a call to the provided service interface.

First the service "GetEventType" which expects a pointer to a cEvent or
a cRecording object as input variable has to be called. This call provides
the type of the event or recording (tSeries, tMovie, tNone) and the seriesId,
episodeId and movieId. If type is tSeries, movieId is 0 and vice versa.
With that then a second call to GetSeries or GetMovie with the appropriate IDs
provides all stored information for the series or movie in form of a cSeries
or cMovie object.

For further information just check the self explanatory services.h file.