Existing WTV recorded shows

[mrrrk]

Hi

I've just bought a Flex Quatro and downloaded the Windows software with the intention of using it to replace our old, creaking Windows Media Center - still running on Windows 7 but crashing regularly!

HDHR all looks great but we have 100's of *existing* .WTV recordings from Windows Media Center that I *really* want to make available in the 'recorded' section of the HDHR Windows interface if I can.

I've tried using VLC Media Player to transcode a .WTV file to the same codecs that the .MPG files that HDHR produces but it doesn't show up if I place it in the defined Recorded TV folder (if I create a copy of a HDHR .MPG file, that *does* show).

What am I missing? Does there need to be some recognised metadata to be set on the file for HDHR to pick it up? I tried unsuccessfully to set showName, seasonNumber and episodeNumber using ffmpeg - but before I pursue this further, I wanted to ask here to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree.

I could try using Plex or something but I really don't want to if I can avoid it - gotta keep it as simple as possible for the non-techie users of the household!

Thanks...

[mrrrk]

...at the risk of answering my own question, I had some success with a trial version of MCEBuddy to convert a few files. Seems I also needed to restart the 'HDHomeRun RECORD' Windows service before the shows appeared.

I'd still be interested if anyone has any information on just what HDHR needs to see with regard to 'compatible' media files that show up in 'recorded'.

Thanks

[signcarver]

To be picked up by engine, the file must be an TS with a .mpg extension and have metadata in the first 64 ts packets... when you used vlc it knew nothing about metadata to put there. Also the engine should automatically pick such up but relies on notification from the os the directory changed, sometimes in a conversion process it gets the directory change notice prior to the metadata being there so restarting the engine picks it up.

[mrrrk]

If anyone's interested, and is a developer, I hacked together some C# that can read, change and write the metadata fields:

https://github.com/mrrrk/MpegMetadata

(it's probably not bulletproof and I take no responsibility if it screws up anyone's files - but it might be useful to someone!)