I wouldn't be surprised if this has been covered somewhere else but I don't really know the termonology to search for (I've tried and found nothing so far). I apologize in advance.

I pulled out my myth box's power cord during a recording by mistake. I plugged it back in, started it back up and finished the recording. I now have 2 recorded files with about 2 minutes missing in the middle.

Is there a simple way within myth to join part A to part B and have it still look and act like a one normal recorded program?

Thanks.

EDIT: Scroll down to see a recap of how I got it working if interested

This may give you something to go on but don't blame me if something goes wrong. If you find both files in the /myth/tv directory, try running:

This will make a single file with both videos in it. Then you should be able to edit the DB to reference the new file and delete references to the old files. I'm sure comm flags will be way off. BTW this only works for mpg's that are produced by encoders like the PVR-250's. You cannot concatenate MPEG-4's easily afaik.

cat works perfectly thanks. I always forget about it but am always amazed by it. Great idea.

Is there any howto/post that you know of about editing the database for something like this? I assume that I want to edit the recorded table, replace the file, and change filesize the db. Anything else that I might need to look at?

Thanks again.

You should be able to just delete one of the captures in the recorded table and change the filename to the newly created file on the other one.

Seemed to work, mostly. The problem is that myth thinks that the file is only a certain length so the timeline only goes to "1:18" when it really is more like "1:48". It will keep playing past the 1:18 mark but certain problems arise like video editing and myth crashing if I stop after 1:18 but before the end because it doesn't know what to do.

I assume there has to be some other length value to edit in the mysql tables.

In the DB, take a look at the starttime, endtime, filesize (maybe), progstart, and progend columns. Adjust them to fit the program and I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Edit: This is in the recorded table again.

I tried looking at those entries earlier and I set them to match other programs of the same type (this is a World Cup game so I have other games that are the exact same length) and it still doesn't work.

Both the starttime/progstart are set to 2006-06-14 08:55:00
Both the endtime/progend are set to 2006-06-14 11:00:00

I've also adjusted the filesize.

I think the problem might be with the video file itself, if that's possible. I opened it up with WMP and the time at the bottom seemed to be off. In WMP at 43:35 on the player's time the the time in the game was at 44:44. In Myth's internal player at 43:35 the time in the game was at 38:27. VLC (windows) also seemed to have a problem with the time.

Look for info about mythcommflag --rebuild. That may do the job for you. Until you have done that you will probably find that seeking wont work correctly when you get to the second recording.

Ah, I have been wondering about this myself. Here in Sweden TV4 has the bad habit of interrupting the movies with news. Since the news are present in the guide all movies end up in two parts.

But I have also experienced sometimes that when recording two shows in a row and they are a bit behind the first show will end a couple of minutes into the second...

So an ability to join and split recordings would be nice I think. (Splitting is not strictly necessary, you can always duplicate the file and then use cut-points to cut away the first/second half.)

Unfortunately, the process of stopping one recording and starting another results in a loss of data in between, so I think you will get a discontinuity in the resulting file when it switches from the first recording to the second.

It would be nice if myth could merge adjacent recordings on the same channel into one recording for you so that it only created a single file, and then allow you to split them into two recordings later, without the discontinuity.

This may not work so well for live-tv though.

Hi arzdb,

IF you have a pvr-350 the simple thing would be to rerecord it. Since the 350 is able to play while recording you setup a connection from tv out to line in. Set up a manual record and start it going. Then switch to watch recordings and hit play on first part, when it is finished you play the second part. It would not be real pretty but then again it isn't now.

At least your goal to have the two pieces as one is satisfied
Mike

Greg,

Now it believes the file is 2:10 in length, which is probably right (90 minute game + 15 minute half time + extra time). The problem is that once I pass the end of the first file, I can't move forward or backward normally. If I want to jump 10 seconds forward then it moves to the start of the file but goes to the end on the bottom timeline. If I don't touch it at all then it will continue to play normally.




mjl,

I have a 250 but tv-out on my video card I have s-video out so I might be able to work something out if I can't get it working right now. Good idea.[/code]

I got it working perfectly. All I had to do was to transcode it like I usually do to compress these 2 hour games from 4.5 gigs to 1.5-2.0 gigs. Presto, it is just like every other program I have with a glitch in the middle.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Recapping what I did:

1. Used cat to join the two together in /myth/tv
2. Edited the mythconverg database for the time of the recording, name and size of the file
3. mythcommflag --rebuild (optional?)
4. Transcoded to mpeg-4 (normal transcoding might work too, have not tested)