QNAP QPKG for DVR Record Engine

[demonrik]

I do however, use the HDHR Viewer plugin in Plex to get live channels off network so I would still be transcoding for that purpose. Part of my goal is to share my cable subscription with a friend using this setup.

Best thing to do is try it and monitor the cpu utilization.
DVR engine doesn't use much cpu, so you might be good with the i3 in your TVS

Bit if you see issues you might need to reconsider which server runs the Plex plugin

[demonrik]

0.5.0 pushed to github
https://github.com/Silicondust/dvr_install

Now can parse the logfiles.
It's not pretty just yet - that's coming soon. What is there is the parsing of the log file into the various sections ready for me to just build out the style. So should be a little easier now.
Next big thing I want to focus on is the start/restart/stop of the engine from the UI.

For the prebuilt qpkg on my GDrive https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9Rir ... 1dSa19abVU
Have also included todays 20160208atest1 DVR Engine build https://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewt ... 48#p188948

[joemillerftw]

I got my TVS finally and used your ready made qpkg from Google Drive. It was very simple and fast to get it up and running. I didn't have any trouble at all changing the recording path though the ui continues to state an error on the record path even though it works. I did notice when i did a stop / start from the app center, the icon to access the control ui disappeared from the qnap home screen. I was still able to access it from the app center though by clicking the open option.

Pretty solid so far. I'm looking forward to updates!

[demonrik]

I got my TVS finally and used your ready made qpkg from Google Drive. It was very simple and fast to get it up and running. I didn't have any trouble at all changing the recording path though the ui continues to state an error on the record path even though it works. I did notice when i did a stop / start from the app center, the icon to access the control ui disappeared from the qnap home screen. I was still able to access it from the app center though by clicking the open option.

Pretty solid so far. I'm looking forward to updates!

Cool - glad you like.
Can you remember what the error was on changing the RecordPath?
I'll look in to it anyway and see if I can see it

I never had the icon on the home screen - maybe it was briefly there.. Must look in to that and see what's going on with it being removed..

[joemillerftw]

Can you remember what the error was on changing the RecordPath?
I'll look in to it anyway and see if I can see it

I never had the icon on the home screen - maybe it was briefly there.. Must look in to that and see what's going on with it being removed..

I took a screenshot, take a look at the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzdHqW ... sp=sharing

[demonrik]

Can you remember what the error was on changing the RecordPath?
I'll look in to it anyway and see if I can see it

I never had the icon on the home screen - maybe it was briefly there.. Must look in to that and see what's going on with it being removed..

I took a screenshot, take a look at the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzdHqW ... sp=sharing

stange one - I will look in to it..
BTW - there is 0.5.0 on my google drive with the latest record engine..
To upgrade you simply install again.. it should NOT overwrite the RecordPath.

[demonrik]

Can you remember what the error was on changing the RecordPath?
I'll look in to it anyway and see if I can see it

I never had the icon on the home screen - maybe it was briefly there.. Must look in to that and see what's going on with it being removed..

I took a screenshot, take a look at the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzdHqW ... sp=sharing

agghh - D'oh!!
I figured it out.
I only updated the config file part, and forgot I need to dynamically adjust the parser for the logfile list. Right now it's hard coded.

0.5.1 is the first fix for this. It will at least remove the error for when you change the recordpath location away from my default and load the list of logfiles.
What's still outstanding is to update the list of logfiles once you change the recordpath location.. Coming later...

You can get 0.5.1 as ever from my google drive share https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9Rir ... Wh2NjRwNlE
Latest sources pushed to github as well https://github.com/Silicondust/dvr_install

[cetheridge30]

I as well wanted to express my thanks for building the QNAP package. I hope it doesn't go the way of most packages for QNAP in that someone is gracious enough to build it, then a system update breaks the package and then we are left scrambling to figure out how to make it work again because the original author has seemingly disappeared. I kid of course. I really like QNAP's hardware over synology's but their software needs a lot of work. I have a TS-469L and this is running surprisingly well and fast. I have been in IT for longer than I care to admit and I dabble with programming. I haven't been brave enough to learn how to create a QPKG but since so many are abandoned for the QNAP platform I am just about to the point of wanting to learn. Anyway... I say all that because I would be more than happy to test just about anything relating to this project.

Couple of things. When I loaded the latest package and open it in the dashboard, there are a ton of errors that pop up. If I scroll down to the bottom, I see the UI and the buttons appear to be working but the status of whether the DVR service is running or not just says connecting...

Also, would it be possible to see the current status of the service, say, if it is recording or not?

Finally, and this may not be the right place for this question but does anyone know if there will be an option for recording quality? I was testing this last night and while I am happy that the record quality is outstanding, it also makes for some HUGE files. I think 30 minutes of HD content was over 1.5 gig.

[demonrik]

I as well wanted to express my thanks for building the QNAP package. I hope it doesn't go the way of most packages for QNAP in that someone is gracious enough to build it, then a system update breaks the package and then we are left scrambling to figure out how to make it work again because the original author has seemingly disappeared. I kid of course. I really like QNAP's hardware over synology's but their software needs a lot of work. I have a TS-469L and this is running surprisingly well and fast. I have been in IT for longer than I care to admit and I dabble with programming. I haven't been brave enough to learn how to create a QPKG but since so many are abandoned for the QNAP platform I am just about to the point of wanting to learn. Anyway... I say all that because I would be more than happy to test just about anything relating to this project.

Happy to help.
Obviously I can't predict the future - but I have vested interest in running the DVR Engine on my QNAP so I'm going to try and keep investing in the package and the UI.
The good news is that SD through Nickk owns the dvr_install github project. So they own the end product and if I do dissappear the code is there and they or someone else can take it on.
On the firmware updates - the QPKG is very light because of the DVR engine binary.. so it shouldn't break as much as some other packages that depend a lot on the OS, kernel and other parts of QNAP. fingers crossed

Couple of things. When I loaded the latest package and open it in the dashboard, there are a ton of errors that pop up. If I scroll down to the bottom, I see the UI and the buttons appear to be working but the status of whether the DVR service is running or not just says connecting...

I've seen that once - it's something with the QNAP php on the latest 4.2 build. The next time you load the UI they dissappear so I lose them. It has to be something in QNAP caching somewhere - I just need to find it and fix.
The UI is still WIP and the status bar at the end isn't fully utilized just yet - so 'Connecting' is right. Once I get all the aspects of the engine controls, logfile parsing, etc.. I'll implement the status bar fully. I just use it for debug right now.

Also, would it be possible to see the current status of the service, say, if it is recording or not?

It's technically feasible, but not easy.. Right now the engine doesn't give me that info - I have to know the latest log file and parse it to find out if recording is under way.
I have lots of ideas where I could try and hook into the web interfaces of the HDHR devices and get from them the tuner status - which might be the better way of showing which tuners are currently active and which are free.

Finally, and this may not be the right place for this question but does anyone know if there will be an option for recording quality? I was testing this last night and while I am happy that the record quality is outstanding, it also makes for some HUGE files. I think 30 minutes of HD content was over 1.5 gig.

On Prime/Connect I don't think you have much choice on the quality. To do so will require some transcode service somewhere.. Not sure if DVR engine will ever support.
On Extend - you can set the internal transcode from it's web interface via my.hdhomerun.com

[cetheridge30]

Thanks for the reply! I do have the Extend, I am still new to this and wasn't aware that I could make those changes with it. Appreciate all your hard work and if there is anything I can do or test...

[demonrik]

been a while since I did any updates (concentrating on hdhr2plex), and I can't remember how long it is before topics get 'pruned' from the forums..
So thought an update on what's coming soon might be good

No new engine - but as soon as there is one I'll definitely include it.

I have the integration of the json from the HDHRs working. Am able to discover the HDHRs on the network, although the returned list includes ALL the HDHRs even ones that the DVR doesn't support. So a little more effort to separate out the 2 different types needed.
I can also identify it's IP address, and it's channel lineup.
So will include these plus links to the HTTP interface so you can see at a glance what HDHRs are available
Now just need to figure out how to represent it on the UI

Iv'e done some prototyping of the DVR engine activity. The record engine itself does let me know that the engine is running and I can find the latest log file and determine it's last modify time. The DVR does update this every 2mins even where there is no activity.. And my plan is to scan the latest log and dump the last line into the status bar as the current DVR engine status.

Delete log file is now working - but the need to fix an issue with the UI not updating fully (I think I know why)

I want to get the DVR engine stop/start/restart working before I do the next release.
I discovered that if you use the App Center controls to stop/start it removes the QTS Desktop icon when stop (some folks had reported this).. And the only way to get it back is to drag the app from the menu to the desktop.
Having the ability to stop/start from the UI will ensure that icon doesn't disappear.

So, some nice things coming.. Once done I will work on sexying up the logfile parsing, before concentrating on the overall UI look and feel.
Open to any other ideas.

BTW - I've seen people figthing/working with Synology.. I wish I had one to prototype. But anyone who can, feel free to reuse anything developed here to develop a synology package. The UI just needs a minor tweak (all in the config.php), but generally 95% of the project is reusable. Or if someone wants to provide me a remote SSH login to one, them PM me and we can see if we can quickly create.

[demonrik]

As promised a new update

0.5.3 is done and adds the following

• You can now delete log files in the RecordPath that you no longer want to keep around.
• Added the ability to discover your HDHR devices and provide the links to their Web interfaces, identify the models, and get a count of the channels. Limitation here is that right now the link to lineups is the JSON output and not the HTML.. fix to come in future version.
• Added capability to poke the dvr engine and get the status, and the latest line from the most recent log file and post in the bottom status bar. Is static for now, future version will include a dynamic update once every 2mins to match the update from engine to the log.
• Added capability to start/stop/restart the dvr engine from the UI - however, there is a known issue.. check out below for more details and workaround
• DVR engine version is now retrieved at runtime, so if you overwrite the record engine binary in the QPKG folder it will still detect the latest.
• Slight tweak to the UI
• Fixed updating the logfile list on changing the RecordPath
• Some general cleanups

Known Issues

• The DVR engine controls appear to not work. Problem here is that the engine appears to be doing something with userID and thus if the engine is started by UserID 0 (i.e. admin) then another user can't stop it - just query. Have pinged Nickk for more info to see what if it's me or the engine, but in meantime a workaround is to STOP the engine via the command line, then START the engine via the web UI. Once started by the Web UI you can stop/start/restart all you want until the next reboot
• The lineup URL for the HDHR provided by the device is just the link to JSON.. Need to fix this to the HTML interface page
• There is a bug with updating the UI link in /share/Web when upgrading. UI still works but user gets unneeded link in the UI folder

As ever - the QPKG binary (HDHomeRunDVR_0.5.3.qpkg) is up on my google drive at https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing
And the source is on github as part of the dvr_install project https://github.com/Silicondust/dvr_install

[cetheridge30]

Just installed the latest version and it looks great. Thanks for all the hard work!

I will let you know if there are any issues.

[demonrik]

Removed - see OP for correct version and link

[demonrik]

Removed - see OP for correct version and link