Automatically take a screenshot to illustrate recordings

Cutter

Hi,
Is it possible for tvheadend to automatically take a screenshot during recordings to illustrate the recording's item in Kodi and other clients ?
I could not find any guide to do this.
Regards,

DeltaMikeCharlie

Cutter Is it possible for tvheadend to automatically take a screenshot

Automatically, not that I am aware of.

You could look into creating a script (Configuration -> Recording -> Digital Video Recorder Profiles -> Miscellaneous Settings -> Post-processor command) that runs after a recording is complete. That script could use something like ffmpeg to extract thumbnail images.

Once you have the thumbnails, you would need to know now Kodi or other clients expect to find the thumbnails in order to present them.

Cutter

Thanks. I've made a script that saves a screenshot of a completed recording. How to make Tvheadend use the saved image as the illustration for the recording and advertise it as such to Kodi?

Funkymonkey on IRC suggested to store each recording in its own subdirectory and to save the screenshot there, named as poster.jpg, but Tvheadend doesn't seem to use it.

There's a field named "image" in the GRID_COMPLETED API, I'm wondering how to fill it?

davep

Cutter There's a field named "image" in the GRID_COMPLETED API, I'm wondering how to fill it?

From a brief look at the code I believe that's intended for "Fanart" images. Look at Configuration -> Recording -> Profile -> Parameters; at the bottom there is a section of settings for downloading images from 'TMDB' or 'TVDB'.

I believe (untested) that XMLTV provides sample images with their EPG.

Cutter

The image field I was referring to is returned by the dvr/entry/grid_finished function of the API, not grid_completed, sorry. I can't edit my post.

Cutter

davep
Two fields are returned by the API: image and fanart_image. I wonder which one, if any, Kodi uses.

I'd prefer not to rely on TMDB / TVDB as they rarely provide images for recent airings in my country. The screenshot method would be more reliable IMHO.

Do you know how the TMDB / TVDB grabbers set the illustrations they find ?

davep

Cutter The standard Tvheadend distribution provides three extra files in /usr/bin/, tv_meta_tmdb.py, tv_meta_tvdb.py and tvhmeta. I don't speak Python but these appear to be the grabbers.

The "image" field in the dvr record is actually a URL.

Cutter

Thanks to your help I could make it work.

Create the two following files :
/usr/local/bin/postprocess.sh:

#!/bin/bash
DURATION=$(ffprobe -loglevel quiet -show_entries format=duration -of default=nokey=1:noprint_wrappers=1 "$1")
MIDDLE=$(bc -l <<< "$DURATION*0.5")
POSTER_PATH="${1%%.*}.jpg"
ffmpeg -y -ss $MIDDLE -skip_frame nokey -noaccurate_seek -i "$1" -frames:v 1 -q:v 2 "$POSTER_PATH"
tvhmeta --uuid "$2" --artwork-url "file://$POSTER_PATH" --fanart-url "" --debug --user YOUR_USERNAME --password YOUR_PASSWORD

/usr/local/bin/postremove.sh:

#!/bin/bash
rm -f "${1%%.*}.jpg"
echo "Removing recording image ${1%%.*}.jpg"
REC_PATH="${1%/*}"
REC_BASE="${REC_PATH##*/}"
while [[ $REC_BASE != 'recordings' && -n $REC_BASE && -d $REC_PATH && -z $( ls -A "$REC_PATH" ) ]]; do
  rm -rf "$REC_PATH"
  REC_PATH="${REC_PATH%/*}"
  REC_BASE="${REC_PATH##*/}";
done;

Make sure tvheadend has the rights to execute both scripts.
Plain authentication needs to be enabled in Configuration > General > Authentication type: "Both plain and digest".

Add the scripts to the recording profile: Configuration > Recording > Default profile:
Post-processor comand: /usr/local/bin/postprocess.sh "%f" "%U"
Post-remove command: /usr/local/bin/postremove.sh "%f"

Kodi now shows recordings with thumbnails: