1epgsearch(1) Epgsearch Version 2.4.0 epgsearch(1)
2
6 epgsearch - Searchtimer and replacement of the VDR program menu
7
9 EPG-Search can be used as a replacement for the default schedules menu
10 entry. It looks like the standard schedules menu, but adds some
11 additional functions:
12 - Commands for EPG entries with 5 built-in commands like 'show repeats',
14 'create search'. One can add own commands for other needs, like adding a
15 VDRAdmin auto-timer.
16 - Add up to 4 user-defined times to 'now' and 'next' and an optional
18 favorites menu
19 - Searching the EPG: Create reusable queries, which can also be used
21 as 'search timers'.
22 - Search timers: Search for broadcasts in the background and add a
24 timer if one matches (similar to VDRAdmin's auto-timers) or simply
25 make an announcement about it via OSD
26 - Avoid double recordings of the same event
28 * timer preview
29 * recognition of broken recordings
30 * fuzzy event comparison
31 - Progress bar in 'What's on now' and 'What's on next'
33 - Shift the time displayed by key press, e.g. 'What's on now' + 30 minutes
35 - Start menu can be setup between 'Schedule' or 'What's on now'
37 - background check for timer conflicts with a timer conflict manager
39 - detailed EPG menu (summary) allows jumping to the next/previous
41 event
42 - support for extended EPG info for search timers
44 - extension of the timer edit menu with a directory item, user
46 defined weekday selection and a subtitle completion.
47 - Timer conflict check, informs you over the OSD about conflicts
49 - Timer conflict menu, show detailed information about the conflicts
51 and let you resolve them
52 - Email notifications about search timer updates and timer conflicts
54 Parts of the sources are based on the repeating-ECG patch from Gerhard
56 Steiner, who gave me the permission to use them. Thanks for his work!
57
59 -f file, --svdrpsendcmd=file
60 the path to svdrpsend for external SVDRP communication (default is
61 internal communication, so this is usually not needed anymore)
62 -c path, --config=path
64 to specify a specific config directory for all epgsearch config
65 files, default is '<plugins configuration directory>/epgsearch'
66 -l file, --logfile=file
68 to specify a specific log file for epgsearch (default log file is
69 epgsearch.log in the epgsearch config directory)
70 -v n, --verbose=n
72 verbose level for log file. Value 0 means no logging. Other values
73 are 1 (general messages), 2 (detailed messages), 3 (planned for
74 extra detailed info for debugging purposes)
75 -r, --reloadmenuconf
77 reload epgsearchmenu.conf with plugin call. This can be useful when
78 testing customized menu layouts.
79 -m file, --mailcmd=file
81 the external command to be used for mail delivery. The default uses
82 'sendEmail.pl'. If you are using a different command or script make
83 sure that it has the same parameter interface as sendEmail.pl.
84
86 1. Description
87 1.1 Menu commands
88 1.2 Menu search
89 1.2.1 Menu edit search
90 1.2.2 Menu search results
91 1.3 Extended 'now' and 'next'
92 1.4 Menu setup
93 2. Search timers
94 2.1 'Avoid repeats' - internals
95 2.2 How do we compare two events?
96 2.3 How and when do we compare?
97 3. Usage from other plugins or scripts
98 4. Using extended EPG info
99 5. Replacing the standard schedule menu
100 6. Add-ons
101
103 At first glance EPG-Search looks like the schedules menu entry of VDR.
104 By pressing the key '0', one can toggle the bottom color keys to access
105 additional functions (the default assignment of the color keys can be
106 adjusted by setup):
107 1.1 Menu Commands
109 This menu displays commands that can be executed on the current item.
110 There are 8 built-in commands:
111 - Repeats: Searches for repeats
113 - Record
115 - Switch
117 - Create search
119 Switches to search menu and adds a new search with the name of the current
120 item (to avoid editing the name manually)
121 - Search in recordings:
123 Search the recordings for a broadcast with the same name
124 - Mark as 'already recorded':
126 This puts the selected event in the file epgsearchdone.data and instructs
127 epgsearch to avoid recording this event if an according search timer is set
128 to "avoid repeats". An already created timer will be automatically removed
129 with the next search timer update.
130 - Add/Remove to/from switch list?:
132 Controls the switch list. If there is an event in the switch list, epgsearch
133 will announce it and switch to the event before it starts. To access the
134 complete switch list, call 'Search/Actions/Switch list'.
135 - Create blacklist:
137 A blacklist is used to ignore events when using search timers. A search
138 timer can be setup to ignore events from arbitrary blacklists.
139 You can add your own commands to this menu by editing the file
141 epgsearchcmds.conf in the epgsearch config directory. There's a sample
142 conf file with some sample commands (see directory 'scripts', taken
143 from vdr-wiki.de, thanks to the authors).
144 The format of the file is the same as VDR's commands.conf or
146 reccmds.conf. When a command is executed the following parameters are
147 passed to it:
148 $1: the title of the EPG entry
150 $2: the start time of the EPG entry as time_t value (like in the
151 shutdown script)
152 $3: the end time
153 $4: the channel number of the EPG entry
154 $5: the long channel name of the EPG entry
155 $6: the subtitle of the EPG entry, "" if not present
156 To execute a command from the main menu you can also press its
158 associated number without opening the commands menu.
159 1.2 Menu search
161 Here you can add, edit, delete and execute your own queries on the EPG.
162 The usage and behavior of this menu is similar to VDR's timer menu.
163 1.2.1 Menu edit search
165 Most things in this menu are quite clear, so only some notes on:
167 - Search term:
169 The term to search for. If you like to search for more words,
170 separate them by blanks. Leaving this empty (combined with search
171 mode 'Phrase') will match anything. This is useful, if you search
172 e.g. for anything that starts between some times on a specific
173 channel.
174 With 'blue' you can also select a template for the new search. If
176 one of the templates is set to default, new searches will
177 automatically get the settings of the default template.
178 Note: fuzzy searching is limited to 32 chars!
180 - Search mode:
182 'Phrase' searches for the expression within the EPG. 'All words'
183 requires, that each word of the expression occurs in the EPG item.
184 'at least one word' requires, that only one word occurs in the EPG
185 item. 'Match exactly' requires, that your search term matches
186 exactly the found title, subtitle or description.
187 With 'Regular expression' you can setup a regular expression as
189 search term. You don't need a leading and trailing '/' in the
190 expression. By default these are POSIX extended regular
191 expressions. If you like to have Herl compatible regular
192 expression, simply edit the plugins Makefile and uncomment
193 '#REGEXLIB = pcre' to 'REGEXLIB = pcre' (you will need pcreposix
194 installed, comes with libpcre from www.pcre.org, but it's already
195 part of most distributions).
196 See also epgsearch(4) 'Description of the search process'.
198 - Use content descriptor
200 Some providers deliver content descriptors in their EPG, like
201 "Movie/Drama", "Documentation",...(available with vdr-1.7.11)
202 Select here the descriptors to search for. Multiple choice is
203 possible, that must match with all given descriptors (AND
204 operator).
205 - Use extended EPG info:
207 Only available if configured, see below 'Using extended EPG info'.
208 - Ignore missing categories:
210 If set to 'Yes' this tells epgsearch that a missing EPG category
211 should not exclude an event from the results. Caution: Using this
212 without any other criterions could flood your timers.
213 - Use channel:
215 Search only for events in the given channels interval, channel
216 groups or FTA channels only.
217 Channel groups (e.g. sport channels or Pay-TV channels) can be
219 managed with a sub-menu called with 'blue'.
220 ATTENTION: After changing the channels order please check the
222 settings of your search timers!
223 - Use day of week:
225 Besides the weekdays you can also set up a user-defined selection,
226 e.g. search only on Monday and Friday.
227 You'll find the user-defined selection in the list after Friday.
229 - Use blacklists:
231 Blacklists are a way to exclude unwanted events. Select only
232 global, one, more or all blacklists here. If any search result is
233 also contained in one of the selected blacklists it will be
234 skipped.
235 - Use in favorites menu:
237 Only available if turned on in setup. With this option you can mark
238 a search to be used in the favorites menu. The search results of
239 all these searches are listed in the favorites menu.
240 - Result menu layout:
242 Only available if you have defined more than one menu template for
243 search results in epgsearchmenu.conf. This option is used to assign
244 a different menu layout for the search results of this search.
245 - Use as Search Timer:
247 If set to yes, the plugin will do a background scan of the EPG in
248 certain intervals and add a timer, if there is a match. You have to
249 activate the 'search timers' in the setup. If set to "user defined"
250 one can specify time margins with key 'blue' where the search timer
251 is active or not.
252 - Action:
254 Default action is creating a timer for the search results. But you
255 can also choose to simply announce the found event via OSD as soon
256 as it is found or to automatically switch to the event before it
257 starts. It's also possible to get an announcement via OSD before
258 the event starts and to switch to its channel with 'Ok'.
259 - Serial recording:
261 If set to yes, the recordings will be stored in a folder with the
262 name of the broadcasting and the recordings itself will have the
263 name of the episode. If there is no episode name, the date and time
264 of the recording will be used.
265 - Directory:
267 Here you can assign a directory, where the recording should be
268 stored, e.g. 'SciFi'. Use the key 'blue' to select directory
269 entries already used in other search entries or given by entries in
270 the file epgsearchdirs.conf (simply place your directories here one
271 at each line without the leading video directory, also see MANUAL).
272 If your provider delivers extended EPG infos you can also use
273 variables like "%Genre%" or "%Category%" in your directory entry.
274 These are replaced with the current EPG info, when a timer is
275 created.
276 See also epgsearch(4) 'Using variables in the directory entry of a
278 search timer'.
279 - Delete recordings after ... days:
281 Some recordings should only be kept for a few days, like news. With
282 this feature you can tell epgsearch to delete them automatically
283 after ... days.
284 - Pause if ... recordings exist:
286 If the given numbers of recordings currently exists, then epgsearch
287 will not create further timers. After deleting one or more
288 recordings it will go on generating new timers.
289 - Avoid repeats:
291 If you don't want to record repeats, this feature tries to check if
292 an event was already recorded/programmed and skips it. Please refer
293 to the section 'Avoid repeats - internals' below before using it.
294 - Allowed repeats:
296 If you like to accept a certain amount of repeats you can give here
297 their number.
298 - Only repeats within ... days:
300 Give here the number of days a repeat has to follow its first
301 broadcast. 0 is equal to no restriction.
302 - Compare title:
304 When comparing to events then specify here if the title should be
305 compared.
306 - Compare subtitle:
308 When comparing to events then specify here if the subtitle should
309 be compared. With 'if present' epgsearch will classify two events
310 only as equal if their episode names match and are not empty.
311 - Compare description:
313 When comparing to events then specify here if the description
314 should be compared.
315 For comparison all parts of the description, that look like a
317 category value, are removed first. The remaining text will be
318 compared. If this is similar at the value of the next option
319 (regarding the Levinshtein-Distance algorithm) then it will be
320 accepted as equal.
321 - "Min. match in %:"
323 The needed minimum match of descriptions in percent.
324 - Compare date:
326 Sometimes an event is repeated many times within some period (day,
327 week, month,...), but one cannot distinguish the repeats based on
328 the EPG contents. So the only information is its time. To use this
329 for comparison select the appropriate period.
330 - Compare categories:
332 With the button 'setup' you can also specify which categories
333 should be compared. As with subtitles an event is different if it
334 has no according category value.
335 - Priority, lifetime, margins for start and stop:
337 Each search timer can have its own settings for these parameters.
338 Defaults can be adjusted in the plugins setup.
339 - VPS:
341 If set to yes, VPS is used, but only, if activated in VDR's setup
342 menu and if the broadcasting has VPS information.
343 - Auto delete:
345 to automatically delete a search timer if the following is true:
346 * after x recordings, or
348 * after x days after the first recording
349 Only complete recordings are counted. The deletion is executed
351 directly after the correspondig recording
352 To toggle the flag 'Use as search timer' without editing the search
354 entry you can use the key '2'. This will call directly the second
355 command of the command menu.
356 1.2.2 Menu search results
358 This menu displays the search results. A 'T' lets you know, that there
360 is already a timer for the event. A 't' means that there's only a
361 partial timer for it, as in standard schedules menu.
362 1.3 Extended 'now' and 'next' and favorites
364 By setup, one can add up to 4 additional times to extend the green
365 button, e.g. 'afternoon', 'prime time', 'late night'. Times, that are
366 already passed, are skipped (you will not get 'afternoon' at evening)
367 with the exception that a time will be displayed for the next day, if
368 it is less then 20h in the future. In these menus you can shift the
369 currently displayed time by pressing FastRew or FastFwd to move back
370 and forward in time. If you don't have these keys on your remote, you
371 can access this function by pressing '0' to toggle the green and yellow
372 button to '<<' and '>>'. This toggling can be adjusted by setup.
373 You can display a progress bar in 'now' and 'next'.
375 Furthermore you can enable in the setup an favorites list. You can
377 configure your searchtimers ("Use in favorite list") to display their
378 results in you favorite list. This list display event in the next 24
379 hours ordered by time.
380 1.4 Menu setup
382 1.4.1 General
383 - Hide main menu entry:
385 This hides the main menu entry 'search'. Attention: when the plugin
386 is assigned to key 'green' then hiding the plugin will give you
387 VDR's standard schedule menu (see below to avoid this).
388 - Main menu entry:
390 If not hidden, the name of main menu entry can be set here. Default
391 is 'Program guide'. Note: If you set it to something different from
392 the default then the main menu entry is no longer dependent on the
393 OSD language. Setting it back to default or empty restores this
394 behavior again.
395 - Start menu:
397 Select the starting menu 'Schedules' or 'Now'
398 1.4.2 EPG menus
400 - Ok key:
402 Choose here the behavior of key 'Ok'. You can use it to display the
403 summary or to switch to the corresponding channel. Note: the
404 functionality of key 'blue' (Switch/Info/Search) depends on this
405 setting.
406 - Red key:
408 Select if you like to have Standard ('Record') or 'Commands' as
409 assignment for key 'red'.
410 - Blue key:
412 select if you like to have Standard ('Switch') or 'Search' as
413 assignment for key 'blue'.
414 - Show progress in 'Now':
416 In the menu 'what's on now' you can display a progress bar, that
417 displays the progress of the current item.
418 - Show channel numbers:
420 Select this if you like to have a leading channel number before
421 each item in the EPG menus.
422 - Show channel separators:
424 Display channel group separators between channel in the menus
425 'Overview now',...
426 - Show day separators:
428 Display a day separator between events on different days in the
429 schedule menu.
430 - Show radio channels:
432 Also list radio channels.
433 - Limit channels from 1 to:
435 If you have a large channel set you can speed up things when you
436 limit the displayed channels with this setting. Use '0' to disable
437 the limit. If the current channel is above the limit, the limit is
438 ignored and all channels will be displayed again.
439 - 'One press' timer creation:
441 If set to 'yes' a timer is immediately created when pressing
442 'Record', else the timer edit menu is displayed.
443 - Show channels without EPG:
445 Display channels without EPG to allow switching or create a timer.
446 - Time interval for FR/FF [min]:
448 In the menus 'now', 'next', 'user def 1', ... you can shift the
449 displayed time by pressing FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control.
450 Adjust the amount of minutes to jump here.
451 - Toggle Green/Yellow:
453 If you don't have FastRew, FastFwd on your remote control, set this
454 to yes. When pressing '0' in the menus, this toggles the assignment
455 of the color keys and assigns e.g. '<<' and '>>' to 'green' and
456 'yellow'.
457 - Show favorites menu:
459 A favorites menu can display a list of your favorite broadcasts.
460 Enable this if you want an additional menu besides 'Now' and
461 'Next'. You can choose between displaying this menu before or after
462 the menus with user-defined times. Any search can be used as a
463 favorite. You only have to set the option 'Use in favorites menu'
464 when editing a search.
465 - for the next ... hours:
467 This value lets you adjust the timespan used to display the
468 favorites.
469 1.4.3 User-defined EPG times
471 - Use user time 1..4:
473 Add up to 4 user-defined times besides 'now' and 'next'.
474 - Description:
476 Name of the user-defined time, e.g. 'Afternoon', 'Prime time',
477 'Late night'.
478 - Time:
480 The associated time of the user-defined time.
481 1.4.4 Timer programming
483 - Use VDR's timer edit menu:
485 When programming a standard timer epgsearch uses an extended menu,
486 that also supports a directory item, user defined weekday selection
487 and subtitle completion. If you are using a patched version of VDR,
488 that also has an extended timer edit menu and like to use this menu
489 rather than epgsearch's then set this option to 'Yes'.
490 - Default recording directory:
492 This entry will be used in standard timer programming as default
493 directory. You can also use EPG category variables (e.g. 'My
494 Movies~%Category%~%Genre%'). When the timer edit menu is launched
495 epgsearch tries to replace all variables with the values found in
496 the description of the event. If not all variables could be
497 replaced then the directory item is left blank.
498 - Add episode to manual timers:
500 When manually adding a timer epgsearch can automatically add the
501 episode name to the timer file resulting in a sub-folder for the
502 later recording, that is named with the episode name. Choose here
503 how this should be done. 'smart' tries to recognize if this makes
504 sense. Therefore it checks the length of the event and skips the
505 subtitle if the event has more than 80min.
506 - Default timer check method:
508 Manual timers can be checked for EPG changes. Here you can setup
509 the default check method for each channel. The following methods
510 exist:
511 * no check
512 * by event ID: checks by an event ID supplied by the channel
513 provider.
514 * by channel and time: check by the duration match.
515 Not all channels provide a proper event ID, so you can setup the
517 default for each channel here. When programming a manual timer,
518 this default use used in epgsearch's own timer edit menu.
519 1.4.5 Search and search timers
521 - Use search timers:
523 If yes, the plugin makes a background scan of the EPG and adds
524 timers if it finds matching entries. This applies only to searches
525 that are marked with 'use as search timer'.
526 Search timers will always be created local, even if
528 SVDRPDefaulthost is set to a different host.
529 - Update interval:
531 The update interval of the background scan for search timers in
532 minutes.
533 - SVDRP port:
535 For VDR versions through 1.7.14, the default SVDRP port was 2001.
536 Starting with vdr-1.7.15 it was changed to 6419. If you want to use
537 a port other than the default, set it here to get the search timers
538 working.
539 - Default Priority:
541 Default priority of generated timers.
542 - Default Lifetime:
544 Default lifetime of generated timers.
545 - Margin at start/stop:
547 Default margins of generated timers.
548 - No announcements when replaying:
550 suppress event announcements while any replay is active.
551 - Recreate timers after deletion:
553 epgsearch remembers by default which timers where already created
554 by search timers and will not recreate them if they were removed.
555 To disable this behaviour set this to 'Yes'.
556 - Check if EPG exists for ... [h]:
558 If you get EPG content from external providers it is possible, that
559 something fails and some recordings are skipped because of the
560 missing EPG. With this function one can check if EPG content exists
561 for the next ... hours. With '0' the check is disabled.
562 - "Warn by OSD:"
564 Set this to 'Yes' to get warned via OSD.
565 - "Warn by mail:"
567 Set this to 'Yes' to get warned by email. Please configure the
568 email account in 'email notification'
569 - "Channel group to check:"
571 select hier the channel group to check. Perhaps you have to create
572 it before in 'channel groups'
573 - Ignore Pay-TV channels:
575 Set this to 'Yes' if you don't want to have events from Pay-TV
576 channels when searching for a repeat.
577 - Search templates:
579 Here you can manage search templates which can be used when
580 creating a search.
581 - Blacklists:
583 Here you can manage blacklists which can be used to suppress
584 unwanted events within a search. A blacklist can also be marked as
585 global. Since the default setting of a search timer for 'use
586 blacklists' is 'only global', this is a simple way to exclude
587 unwanted events form all search timers, except: If the search timer
588 has the option 'use blacklists: none' no blacklists are taken into
589 account. Also the search for repeats within the OSD ignores any
590 blacklists.
591 - Channel groups:
593 Here you can setup channel groups (e.g. Sport channels, Pay-TV
594 channels) that can be used as criterion in searches. The same can
595 be done in the search edit menu.
596 Important: if you get your EPG from external sources make sure that
598 search timer updates are disabled while your EPG is updated. The reason
599 for this is that epgsearch will remove timers without events assigned
600 to them. This situation can exist while the new EPG is feeded to VDR. A
601 simple way to disable search timer updates is to use the SVDRP command
602 SETS in your EPG update script:
603 svdrpsend plug epgsearch SETS off
605 <your EPG update script>
607 svdrpsend plug epgsearch SETS on
609 1.4.6 Timer conflict checking
611 - Ignore below priority:
613 If a timer will fail with a priority below the given value, you
614 won't get an OSD message about this and the conflict will be
615 classified as 'not relevant' in the conflicts overview.
616 - Ignore conflict duration less ... min.:
618 If a conflict will last only the given minutes it will not produce
619 an OSD message and the conflict will be classified as 'not
620 relevant' in the conflicts overview.
621 - Only check within next ... days:
623 Here you can specify the day range that should be used for the
624 conflict check.
625 - Check also remote conflicts:
627 If SVDRPPeering is active, conflicts for remote timers will be
628 checked, if set to "yes". For this to work epgseach-plugin has to
629 be active on the remote host too. Default is "no".
630 - After each timer programming:
632 This performs a conflict check after each manual timer programming
633 and - if the new/modified timer is involved in a conflict - pops up
634 an OSD message about it.
635 - "When a recording starts:
637 Set this to 'yes' if the conflict check should be performed when a
638 recording starts. In the case of a conlfict you get immediately a
639 message that informs you about it. The message is only displayed
640 if the conflict is within the next 2 hours.
641 - After each search timer update:
643 Specify here if you want to have a conflict check after each search
644 timer update. If set to 'No':
645 - every ... minutes:
647 performs a conflict check in the background every ... minutes and
648 informs about relevant conflicts via OSD. Set this to '0' to
649 disable this feature.
650 - if conflicts within next ... minutes:
652 - every ... minutes:
653 if you like to have a more frequent check and OSD notification
654 when a conflict appears within the given time, use this
655 feature.
656 - Avoid notification when replaying:
658 Set this to 'yes' if the don't want to get OSD messages about
659 conflicts if you currently replay something. Nevertheless messages
660 will be displayed if
661 the first upcoming conflict is within the next 2 hours.
662 Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section 'Working with the timer
664 conflict menu'.
665 1.4.7 Email notification
667 Please make sure, that 'sendEmail.pl' is in the path of your
669 executables and that the 'epgsearchupdmail.templ' and
670 'epgsearchconflmail.templ' exists in epgsearch's configurations
671 directory!
672 - Search timer notification:
674 Enable this, if you want to get an email notification, when the
675 search timer background thread has
676 - created a new timer
678 - modified an existing timer
679 - deleted a timer, that was void because of EPG changes or other user
680 actions.
681 (Also requires 'Use search timers' in the search timer setup to be
683 activated.)
684 - Time between mails [h]:
686 For search timer notifications one can set the minimum distance in
687 hours between the mails. As soon as this time has elapsed a new
688 mail is sent after the next search timer update. A value of '0'
689 means no delay and will cause immediate mail delivery.
690 - Timer conflict notification:
692 Enable this, if you want to get an email notification about timer
693 conflicts. The notification will only include 'relevant' conflicts
694 as specified in the timer conflict setup. epgsearch will always
695 send a new notification if there is any change in the current
696 conflicts.
697 (Also requires 'After each search timer update' or 'every ...
699 minutes' in the conflict check setup to be activated.)
700 - Send to:
702 The mail address of the recipient. Note: Some providers (like
703 Arcor) don't allow the same address for sender and recipient.
704 - Mail method:
706 You can choose between:
707 - sendEmail.pl: this is a simply script shipped with epgsearch, that allows
709 mail delivery also on systems without a configured mail server. Please
710 copy it to your $PATH
711 - sendmail: requires a properly configured mail system
712 - Email address:
714 Your full(!) email account address to be used for sending the mail.
715 - SMTP server:
717 The name of your SMTP server to be used for sending the mails.
718 - Use SMTP authentication:
720 Select 'yes' if your account needs authentication to send mails.
721 - AUTH user:
723 Specify the accounts username if your account needs authentication.
724 - AUTH password:
726 Specify the accounts password if your account needs authentication.
727 Note: The password is saved as plain text. You have to make sure on
728 your own that your system is safe and no VDR configurations files
729 are visible to non authorized persons.
730 After the account setup, check if it works with 'Test'. If you are
732 using 'sendEmail.pl' for mail delivery, there should be something like
733 'Email sent successfully' at the end of the test output. The test
734 function is not available for method 'sendmail'.
735 Also have a look at epgsearch(4), section 'Email notifications'.
737
739 This is quite the same as VDRAdmin's auto-timers, but needs no external
740 software. When you create a search, you can give it an option to use it
741 as search timer. Now the plugin scans EPG entries in certain update
742 intervals (->setup) in the background and creates timers if there are
743 matching entries. If you don't like to get a new timer, but only want
744 to be informed about the event set 'Announce only (no timer)' to yes.
745 Since these search timers are quite useful for serials, you can set the
746 option 'serial recording' in a search, which creates timers whose
747 recordings are stored in a folder with the serials name and whose
748 entries are named with the episode name. If there is no episode name,
749 the plugin names the recording with a date/time string.
750 To use search timers, you also have to activate them in the plugins
752 setup. Also edit the SVDRP port, if you are not using the default
753 2001.
754 If you want to trigger a background scan manually simply
756 touch /etc/vdr/plugins/epgsearch/.epgsearchupdate
758 This can also be part of your shutdown script. (Add here a sleep
760 afterwards to give the plugin the time to finish the scan.)
761 For more info about searchtimers please refer to epgsearch(4),
763 'Description of the search process' and 'How do Search Timers work?'
764 2.1 'Avoid repeats' - internals
766 This section explains the feature 'Avoid repeats' for a search timer.
767 Sometimes one cannot avoid double recordings of an event only by
768 setting the corresponding search criterions.
769 Therefore the feature 'avoid repeats' tries to check before creating a
771 timer, if the same event was already recorded in the past or if there
772 is a timer that records the same event. If so, there will be no new
773 timer for the event.
774 2.2 How do we compare two events?
776 To check if two events are the same there are many possible settings
777 for a search timer. You can choose the title, subtitle, description or
778 extended EPG categories within the description of an event to be
779 compared with the elements of another event.
780 This comparison is always done case-sensitive and for the whole term.
782 But the description of an event makes an exception of this. First all
783 text within the description will be truncated that looks like an
784 extended category entry, e.g. 'Rating: tip'. An extended category entry
785 is a line of text beginning with max. 40 signs, followed by ':' and
786 ending with max. 60 further signs. The reason for this cutting is that
787 some categories like the rating of an event are not part of the
788 description of the repeat of the same event.
789 The remaining text will now be compared by length. If the difference is
791 bigger then 90%, then we rate the description of the two events as
792 different. If not, we apply the Levinsthein-Distance-Algorithm (LD),
793 which makes a fuzzy text comparison. We accept the description of the
794 events as equal, if LD returns a match of more then 90%. Since LD is
795 quite runtime intensive (O(mn)), you should not choose 'compare
796 description' as the only comparison criterion, but combine it always
797 with other criterions.
798 2.3 How and when do we compare?
800 As already mentioned each search timer update checks search timers with
801 this feature for recordings in the past or an already existing timer
802 for the same event.
803 To remember past recordings epgsearch stores their info in the file
805 epgsearchdone.data. You can have a look at the contents of this file
806 calling 'show recordings done' in the 'actions' of the searches menu.
807 This file only stores info about recordings that are complete, i.e.
808 that started and stopped just in time. So a broken recording will not
809 be stored in this file and epgsearch will automatically try to record
810 the next repeat, if there is any.
811 How to use it?
813 As you see, the whole feature depends on the quality of the EPG. After
815 creating such a search timer, you should first check if it does what is
816 intended. Therefore the menu of search results has an additional mode
817 for the key 'blue' named 'Timer preview'. Here you can see, what timers
818 the next update would create. Existing timers are labeled with 'T',
819 future timers with 'P'.
820 Hint: If the programming results in a conflict simply disable the
822 conflicting timer in the timers menu. The next search timer update,
823 will try to program a different timer for the same event, if it exists.
824 When it works not correctly :-)
826 To get a better control of the programming or not-programming of the
828 timers when using this feature a log file was introduced. When starting
829 epgsearch with the command line option '-v n' where n is the log level
830 than you get additional info in the file epgsearch.log. Available log
831 levels are 0 (no logging) to 3 (extended logging). See also the manual
832 for the command line options.
833
835 See epgsearch(4).
836
838 Some EPG providers deliver additional EPG information like the type of
839 event, the video and audio format, cast,... in the content summary.
840 Note: This is different from the content descriptors introduced in
842 vdr-1.7.11, that are delivered as extra data with a common standard.
843 Unfortunately not all providers deliver this data, or the set wrong
844 descriptors. So you can use the approach of 'extended EPG info' here,
845 which is a way to extract that info from the content summary.
846 Using tvm2vdr or epg4vdr you can import this into vdr. To use this
848 information with search timers one has to configure it with the file
849 epgsearchcats.conf in the epgsearch config directory. The format of the
850 file is as follows:
851 ID|category name|name in menu|values separated by ','(option)|search mode(option)
853 - 'ID' should be a unique positive integer
855 (changing the id later on will force you to re-edit your search timers!)
856 - 'category name' is the name as delivered by the EPG provider, e.g. 'Genre'
857 - 'name in menu' is the name displayed in epgsearch.
858 - 'values' is an optional list of possible values
859 - 'search mode' specifies the search mode:
860 text comparison:
861 0 - the whole term must appear as substring
862 1 - all single terms (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
863 must exist as substrings. This is the default search mode.
864 2 - at least one term (delimiters are ',', ';', '|' or '~')
865 must exist as substring.
866 3 - matches exactly
867 4 - regular expression
868 numerical comparison:
869 10 - less
870 11 - less or equal
871 12 - greater
872 13 - greater or equal
873 14 - equal
874 15 - not equal
875 Sample files for epgsearchcats.conf are delivered with the plugin in
877 the directory 'conf'.
878 Simply copy the one that fits for you to the epgsearch configuration
880 directory filename epgsearchcats.conf and then have a look to the
881 search timers edit menu (after a restart of VDR).
882 Since setting up a new epgsearchcats.conf is a lot of work, I've added
884 a small tool 'createcats', that makes the biggest part of the job. It
885 should have been compiled with the plugin and exists in the sources
886 directory.
887 See createcats(1) for information about how to use it.
889 Internals: epgsearch scans the summary of an event for the category
891 name followed by ': ' for all categories that have a corresponding
892 value set in the search timer. The search is case sensitive regarding
893 the category name as also the value.
894
896 To use this plugin as a replacement for the default green key, simply
897 put the line
898 Green @epgsearch
900 in your keymacros.conf. If you don't like to get another plugin entry
902 in your main menu, first hide it by setup. Then you could use my
903 launcher-plugin and put the line
904 Green @launcher x
906 in your keymacros.conf, where x is the position of the Epgsearch plugin
908 within launchers menu listing.
909 Another approach is using a patch to VDR that replaces vdr's standard
911 schedule menu with epgsearch (vdr-replace-schedulemenu.diff.gz in the
912 patches subdir, thanks to the author Uwe/egal@vdrportal). When using
913 this patch the entry should look like
914 Green Schedule
916 This patch is already included in some patch collections, like the
918 Bigpatch.
919
921 epgsearch delivers 2 'mini'-plugins. Both require an installed
922 epgsearch (but epgsearch can be hided in the main menu):
923 - epgsearchonly:
925 For those who only want to use the search feature and/or search
926 timers or simply want to have a separate main menu entry for the
927 search feature. This plugin creates a main menu entry 'Search'
928 which calls epgsearch search menu. Activation in VDR start script
929 with "-Pepgsearchonly".
930 - conflictcheckonly:
932 The timer conflict check can also have its own main menu entry
933 which displays epgsearch conflict overview menu. It has a setup
934 option to display an information about the last check directly in
935 its main menu entry. Activation in VDR start script with
936 "-Pconflictcheckonly".
937 Have fun!
939 Christian Wieninger
941
943 See epgsearch(4) or read online
944 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README.DE>
946 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/README>
948 <http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch/MANUAL>
950
952 "epgsearch.conf(5)", "epgsearchcats.conf(5)", "epgsearchcmds.conf(5)",
953 "epgsearchdirs.conf(5)", "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)",
954 "epgsearchuservars.conf(5)", "epgsearchdone.data(5)",
955 "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)", "epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)",
956 "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)"
957
959 epgsearch.conf
960 Searchtimers. See "epgsearch.conf(5)".
962 epgsearchcats.conf
964 Categories, advanced epg. See "epgsearchcats.conf(5)".
966 epgsearchcmds.conf
968 EPG-commands, like the commands in commands.conf. See
970 "epgsearchcmds.conf(5)".
971 epgsearchdirs.conf
973 Pre-defined patches which can be selected while editing an searchtimer.
975 See "epgsearchdirs.conf(5)".
976 epgsearchmenu.conf
978 Configuration of the OSD menu layout. See "epgsearchmenu.conf(5)".
980 epgsearchuservars.conf
982 User defined variables. See "epgsearchuservars.conf(5)".
984 epgsearchdone.data
986 The done-data. See "epgsearchdone.data(5)".
988 epgsearchswitchtimers.conf
990 The switchtimers. See "epgsearchswitchtimer.conf(5)".
992 epgsearchblacklists.conf
994 The blacklist. See "epgsearchblacklists.conf(5)".
996 epgsearchchangrps.conf
998 The channelgroups. See "epgsearchchangrps.conf(5)".
1000 epgsearchtemplates.conf
1002 Templates for searchtimers. See "epgsearchtemplates.conf(5)".
1004
1006 Mike Constabel <epgsearch (at) constabel (dot) net>
1007
1009 Bugreports (german):
1010 <http://projects.vdr-developer.org/projects/plg-epgsearch>
1012 Mailinglist:
1014 <http://www.vdr-developer.org/mailman/listinfo/epgsearch>
1016
1018 Copyright (C) 2004-2010 Christian Wieninger
1019 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
1021 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
1022 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
1023 option) any later version.
1024 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
1026 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1027 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
1028 General Public License for more details.
1029 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
1031 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
1032 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Or, point
1033 your browser to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
1034 The author can be reached at cwieninger@gmx.de
1036 The project's page is at http://winni.vdr-developer.org/epgsearch
1038 The MD5 code is derived from the RSA Data Security, Inc. MD5 Message-
1040 Digest Algorithm.
1041perl v5.32.1 2021-02-19 epgsearch(1)