OliveTin for Channels: An Interface for Misc Channels DVR Scripts & Tricks

[bnhf]

@cyoungers

Is this what you expect if it ran correctly?

I did sneak a one time mode in there, though I oriented the script more to use on an ongoing basis.

If you exec into the container, and ls -la /mnt/dvr you should be able to tell if your network share directories are present. One of them would be "Logs". Also, if you go to your /dvr network share, there shouldn't be any directories more than 30 days old (which is the age I chose for this somewhat "undocumented" once mode).

For the future, I'll see if I can get the stdout feedback to be a bit more expansive.

[bnhf]

@bnhf

For the future, I'll see if I can get the stdout feedback to be a bit more expansive.

@cyoungers Thanks again for testing and helping to illuminate areas that can be improved in the various OliveTin actions!

Through a bit of hocus pocus, a log file will be created when running the Delete Channels DVR Recording Log Files script, and the first lines of it will be shown in stdout. When running this psuedo cron-style, the log file will be added to when additional deletions occur:

:test and :latest have been pushed, and are the same once again.

[cyoungers]

Happy to help with testing. Olivetin has developed into a nice collection of utilities. Thanks @bnhf!

[Fofer]

Inspired by this idea, could a button in OliveTin handle this sort of thing as well?

Send Message to Clients from Server

You can already do this with: POST /api/notify (Scroll to the bottom to see the format of the payload)

[bnhf]

@Fofer

Inspired by this idea, could a button in OliveTin handle this sort of thing as well?

Looks easy enough to send a notification to one particular client. But I think that begs the question, is there a way to send a single message to all active clients? Or to determine which clients are active, and then send messages to that list? I definitely like the idea!

EDIT: Maybe something as simple as an environment variable (defined at container start) containing an array of client hostnames (or IPs) to send the messages/notifications to?

EDIT2: The message disappears pretty quickly on its own (around 5 seconds), but it does seem to work to send successive messages to make it longer. So, I'm thinking we'd want to specify a display duration.

[bnhf]

@Fofer

Inspired by this idea, could a button in OliveTin handle this sort of thing as well?

And it's done! Pushed as bnhf/olivetin:test for now. You'll need to define a new environment variable, which is a space separated list of clients you'd like messages sent to using hostname or IP:

version: '3.9'
services:
  olivetin:
    image: bnhf/olivetin:test
    container_name: olivetin
    ports:
      - 1337:1337
    environment:
      - CHANNELS_DVR=${CHANNELS_DVR} # Add your Channels DVR server in the form hostname:port or ip:port
      - CHANNELS_CLIENTS=${CHANNELS_CLIENTS} # Space separated list of Channels DVR clients you'd like notifications sent to in the form hostname or IP
      - UPDATE_YAMLS=${UPDATE_YAMLS} # Set this to true to update config.yaml
      - UPDATE_SCRIPTS=${UPDATE_SCRIPTS} # Set this to true to update all included scripts
      - TZ=${TZ} # Add your local timezone in standard linux format. E.G. US/Eastern, US/Central, US/Mountain, US/Pacific, etc
    volumes:
      - /data/olivetin:/config # replace host path or volume as needed
      - /mnt/dvr:/mnt/dvr # replace /mnt/dvr to the left of the colon with your Channels DVR Server /dvr network share
    restart: unless-stopped
#volumes: # use this section if you've setup a docker volume named channels-dvr, with CIFS or NFS, to bind to /mnt/dvr inside the container
  #channels-dvr:
    #external: true

[bnhf]

@bnhf

The message disappears pretty quickly on its own (around 5 seconds), but it does seem to work to send successive messages to make it longer.

Based on this post from @eric, I've modified the Notifications Action Button to take advantage of the undocumented timeout option!

Send Message to Clients from Server

Thanks for the tip. I've modified the OliveTin-for-Channels Action Button accordingly!

[bnhf]

@bnhf

Based on this post from @eric, I've modified the Notifications Action Button to take advantage of the undocumented timeout option!

Had to revert, as the timeout option only works for Apple TV clients. Bummer, but the way I'm doing it has the same end result.

[Fofer]

Wow! This is awesome. And fast moving, look what I just saw.

Android TV/Fire TV Beta Notes

v2023.10.19.0044 • NEW: Add the timeout parameter for /api/notify to match iOS/tvOS

Perhaps revert back?

[bnhf]

@Fofer

Perhaps revert back?

Since this is part of the client API, we probably want to wait until this updated Android client rolls out? In the meantime, what I have going is basically the same thing. I'm limiting messages to 60 seconds, but we can expand that if desired.

[bnhf]

Here's my latest list of what's possible with OliveTin-for-Channels:

Send Message to Clients from Server

Add OliveTin and you'll have a super-charged version of what you've asked for, plus: Comskip on/off by channel List channels with Comskip off Manually add recordings Find Gracenote station IDs Fix YouTube thumbnails Download TwiT.tv guide data Generate channels list in CSV format Generate movie list in CSV format Scan/Prune local content Mark an episode for re-recording Channel lineup change notifications Generate filtered Channels DVR log List sources for a single channel Delete Channels DVR…

[Fofer]

@bnhf

Since this is part of the client API, we probably want to wait until this updated Android client rolls out? In the meantime, what I have going is basically the same thing. I'm limiting messages to 60 seconds, but we can expand that if desired.

Makes sense to me. In the meantime I just updated mine and was able to send notifications to three AppleTV's. Super cool, thanks for integrating this!

[chDVRuser]

I'll give it a try when I can select from my DVR's

OliveTin for Channels: An Interface for Misc Channels DVR Scripts & Tricks

That sounds like a winning idea. As long as you can view the [hostname or ip]:port on the dropdown.

[bnhf]

@chDVRuser

I'll give it a try when I can select from my DVR's

I haven't forgotten. There's just a bit more to it than I first thought. I have two DVRs myself, so I'm with you on the need.

I'm headed to Portugal next week for the first half of the Winter, so I'll start working on it there.

[Rice]

Don’t know anything about stacks so could someone please set me straight on my errors trying to deploy

[bnhf]

@Rice

Don’t know anything about stacks so could someone please set me straight on my errors trying to deploy

Either put your environment variables in the section below the editor (recommended), or get rid of the dollar sign and curly braces if you want to hardcode the values

In the env vars section, just put the var name on the left and value on the right:

You'll want the two true/false vars set to true though.

[Rice]

Success thanks!

[bnhf]

@chDVRuser

I'll give it a try when I can select from my DVR's

@chDVRuser Based on this list of current OliveTin features, could you give me your top few that you'd like to see support multiple DVRs?:

• Comskip on/off by channel
• List channels with Comskip off
• Manually add recordings
• Find Gracenote station IDs
• Fix YouTube thumbnails
• Download TwiT.tv guide data
• Generate channels list in CSV format
• Generate movie list in CSV format
• Scan/Prune local content
• Mark an episode for re-recording
• Channel lineup change notifications
• Generate filtered Channels DVR log
• List sources for a single channel
• Delete Channels DVR recording log files
• Send message to defined Channels clients

Since any script that lends itself to use with multiple DVRs will have to be modified, I'm going to roll them out a few at a time. And, I don't want to start with scripts that neither of us use. Anybody else with multiple Channels DVR servers, please feel free to respond on this.

[chDVRuser]

Thanks, based on how often I do these w/my scripts, I listed them in order from most to least often used.

Manually add recordings
Mark an episode for re-recording
Generate channels list in CSV format
Channel lineup change notifications
List channels with Comskip off
Comskip on/off by channel

I do use Find Gracenote station IDs, but it doesn't matter which DVR is used for that.

[bnhf]

Today, I'm adding a Docker-Compose generator of sorts. The idea is to have one place you can go to get the yaml needed to spin-up a container for any Channels DVR related extensions, including some "must have" utilities.

Too many Channels users are using docker one-liners in my opinion, which are harder to maintain, update and visualize. Not to mention you need to be at the console, or ssh'd into the machine Docker is running on to interact with it.

Portainer, as a webUI, makes a better companion to the Channels DVR webUI -- as they both can be run from anywhere on your LAN. Not to mention, anywhere in the world if you add Tailscale to the mix. Add Organizr to the equation, and everything related to a Channels DVR ecosystem can be found in a single browser tab.

Here are some screenshots of this new "Docker-Compose Examples for Channels & Related Extensions" OliveTin Action Button:

An easy one, like FrndlyTV:

And a more complicated one, EPlusTV, note that all of the environment variables are included in the Stack, and a ready to paste set of environment variables is output to "stderr". Those env var values can be put right into the Portainer-Stacks Environment variables Advanced mode, and then you can switch back to Simple mode to change from the defaults to whatever is appropriate for your situation: