I was testing using Infuse to playback a few movies recorded via Channels DVR. Their software wasn't able to resolve the filename with the timestamp in the name (placed there by Channels) so I went to the folder containing the files and removed the timestamp part of the name. Infuse now gets the proper metadata, etc. but Channels won't play the file any longer. Is this expected behavior? I assume Channels just no longer "sees" the recording . . .
Correct.
If you move/rename a file, how is Channels supposed to play it back, since the file it is looking for no longer exists?
I would hope it would use some other kind of "tagging". I didn't MOVE the file. It would be nice if Channels didn't use a non standard naming so that the files were more universally accepted.
While the TVE implementation and the Channels DVR are the main reason I continue to pay the subscription, I much prefer other apps for playback.
If you put the date time in parenthesis does Infuse still recognize it?
We are considering changes to our default file names for better compatibility
It's a matter of semantics. Technically, renaming a file and moving it are the same—at least on most systems. (In fact, on the command line in most Unix-like systems, including macOS, renaming a file is done with mv.)
I'll have to try that on the next movie I record. Will that not break Channels playback?
As you know, when recorded by Channels the name would be i.e., Movie (2020) 2020-09-18-1200.mpg
Infuse will PLAY it, it just can't get the metadata as there is no name match.
It’s not really convenient, but you can manually search for the movie in Infuse. It’s certainly not automatic but if you need a workaround for the time being, that should allow you to continue to use it in Channels since it doesn’t physically change the name.
I would ask that before Channels DVR changes the recording filename they do an Alpha and ask for feedback. It would break a lot of things us longtime Channels users are doing (Custom scripts, MCEBuddy, etc.), just to make it work with some third-party app that won't change its behavior. We can't even get Channels DVR to use custom remote access port numbers without requesting the devs change it for our installation.
Just to follow up, adding paranthesis to the date/time does not have any effect in Infuse. This appears to be a "movie" issue only . . . it only finds metadata for movie (year).filetype name conventions.