my get_iplayer suggestions

[dinkypumpkin]

On 06/08/2012 11:22, Sam P wrote:
> Hi guys, i've been using v2.80 for a while but encountered the 4gb bug
> so i found v2.82 but that also has this bug. I have also encountered a
> few other annoying things so i have some suggestions:
>
> 1. in firefox the progress of downloads of hidden by the "transferring
> data from 127.0.0.1..." message as shown in this screenshot:
> http://i50.tinypic.com/2e52uj6.jpg - instead could you show the
> percentage completed to 2 decimal places e.g "82.22% completed" and have
> that displayed in the centre of the webpage and on the line below in the
> centre show the current speed in kb/s such as "download speed: 553kb/s".
> This would help me alot.

As has already been pointed out, that output comes from rtmpdump, not 
get_iplayer, so it can't be changed for the most part. rtmpdump can of 
course print progress as a percentage instead of a sequence of 100 
hashes. However, it would be impractical here. Remember that the web pvr 
just calls the get_iplayer script and pipes its output directly to your 
browser while downloading. If you let rtmpdump show progress as a 
percentage, your browser would just fill up with a huge series of 
progress updates scrolling out of the window. You could perhaps concoct 
some sort of Javascript machinery to get around that, but it doesn't 
seem worth the bother to me.

As for the progress message being obscured, that's obviously going to 
depend on the height of your window. Also apportion some blame to 
Mozilla for getting rid of the status bar and obscuring the corner of 
your window with a popup. To misappropriate Monty Python's The Meaning 
of Life: every pixel is sacred.

> 2. in that screenshot it shows the resolution but not the video or audio
> bitrate, is it possible that this info could be added?

Nope, that's rtmpdump.

> 3. as you are already aware the 4gb filesize bug is annoying, is it
> possible for the software to be updated to split files into 4gb chunks
> or is it possible to save the files using a different file system so
> that we can save files larger than 4gb as i'm using win7 x64 with ntfs.

This may not be the last time this comes up: It's not a bug in 
get_iplayer, and it's not known to be a bug per se in rtmpdump despite 
rash speculation, not least by me. It may just be a design limitation of 
rtmpdump, or it may have something to do with the configuration of the 
BBC servers. If anyone verifiably knows the real answer, they haven't 
posted it here.

Your filesystem is determined by your operating system, system 
configuration, etc. Nothing to do with get_iplayer.

As for breaking downloads into chunks, that is a solution that is mostly 
without a problem now that the Olympics are over. Archived HD programmes 
usually have lower bit rates than the Olympics streams, so you would 
rarely find one near 4 GB/GiB/WtfB.  That may of course change in the 
future, but automatically chunking large programmes would be incredibly 
unreliable. There is no guarantee that rtmpdump will finish a chunk, and 
the chunks will still have wonky timestamps that require some 
post-download munging. It all seems pretty user-unfriendly.

> 4. it would be great if on the screenshot you showed which video types
> are available for each video such as "Flashhd1, flashvhigh1" etc.

It would be pointless since you're already downloading at that point. 
get_iplayer works through your mode list from front to back and 
downloads the first available.  If none of your configured modes is 
available, you will see a message listing the ones that are available.

> 5. could you instead of showing duration as "9268.41" for a 2hr 34min
> show instead show: "2hrs 34mins 28secs" or "02:34:28"

Nope, that's rtmpdump.

> 6. when i download a show that is only currently available in low res
> then try to download the high res later i get this message:
>
> "Recording The Following Programmes
>
> * http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/live-video/p00w315g - -
> (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/live-video/p00w315g)
>
>
> INFO: Episode-only pid detected INFO: Trying pid: p00w315g using type:
> tv INFO Trying to stream pid using type tv INFO: pid not found in tv
> cache INFO: Olympic Gymnastics - Artistic - London 2012: Men and Women's
> finals (p00w315g) Already in history
> (C:\Users\Samlap/.get_iplayer/download_history) - use --force to override
> Recording complete"

That's what the "Force Recording" option is for.

> is it possible you can add these checkboxes on the webui saying
> "overwrite lower resolution recordings" and a "manual record additional
> hd recordings" or maybe bring up a an extra message on the error page
> saying "are you sure you want to download the flashhd1 recording as you
> have already downloaded this tv episode" and have a "yes" button.
>
> currently i delete the download history and rename the .mp4 file in
> order to do this which is a bit annoying. I don't know if the "force
> recording" option on the webui does this or not.

There is no need for extra UI. If you want to overwrite a programme with 
the web pvr, turn "Force Recording" on and delete/rename the old file. 
No need to delete the download history.

You may find it annoying to delete an SD file before re-downloading an 
HD version, but you're annoyed by the symptom rather than the cause.  If 
you want to know what recording modes are available before downloading, 
click on the Episode or Description column to bring up the detailed info 
for that episode.  For series recordings, use the "PVR Hold off period" 
option to maximise the chance that the HD version is available when you 
attempt to download it in a pvr run.  It's not completely guaranteed, 
but should work most of the time.

> 7. i don't know what changes in regards to recording types there have
> been made in v2.8.2 compared to v.2.8.0 but my recording modes on the
> webui say:
> "flashhd,flashvhigh,flashaachigh,flashaacstd,flashaudio,flashhigh,iphone,flashstd,flashnormal,realaudio,flashaaclow"

Drop "iphone" - no longer supported.

> which i believe is what i changed it to. Am i missing flashhd1, flashhd2
> or does flashhd cover that?

Yes

> what are the default modes on the webui on a
> clean install as i upgraded?

Drop "flashhd,flashvhigh" as well from the list above to get back to the 
default list.

> It would be great if there were checkboxes
> on the webui for which types you want get_iplayer to check for as a lot
> of new users only get low res shows and don't know how to get high res.
> It could look something like this:
>
> [X] Flash HD1 (1280x720) 3200kbps h264 [X] Flashvhigh1 (838x480)
> 1500kbps h264
>
> etc and have them all checked by default so that new users get 720p
> recordings of shows that are in hd.

It doesn't seem worth the extra UI clutter to me.  How often would you 
actually change your recording modes?  If you need to make a one-off 
change for a particular programme, you can queue an entry in the pvr 
list, edit its mode list, then do a pvr run.  It might be a good idea to 
expand the tooltip to at least list the possible values, though.

There may be a debate to be had about adding flashhd and/or flashvhigh 
to the default value of Recording Modes. I think it's a good idea to 
leave it up to users to actively elect to use up bandwidth downloading 
the larger video files, but that's just me. If anyone else has opinions 
on this, sound off.

> 8. does get_iplayer check your internet speed before choosing which to
> get as sometimes i get 704x404 and sometimes i get 1280x720 and this
> doesn't just happen when hd becomes available, sometimes i can get
> 1280x720 then 2 mins later i can only get low res. If this is a
> get_iplayer setting can i make it get the highest quality available or
> is it just the bbc's servers messing up?

get_iplayer can't check the speed of your connection. If you always want 
the best quality available, set Recording Modes to "best". If the best 
quality available for a particular programme varies over time, it's 
usually down to something at the BBC end.