vsalvino / tvrip

TV ripper front-end for libdvdtee

tvrip

TV ripper that automatically records individual programs based on channel and EPG program guide.

Depedencies

• Any modern version of Python 3

• Compile a working build of libdvbtee

Installation

• Clone the repository.

• Scan for channels with:

  dvbtee -s -a0 > channels.txt
  

• Edit the globals at the top of tvrip.py to specify the path to dvbtee, the working directory where files will be saved, and the channel you would like to record (channel info can be found in channels.txt from previous step).

• Optional - an example systemd service (tvrip.service) is provided. Edit this file with the correct paths and enable it:

  sudo cp tvrip.service /etc/systemd/system/
  

Usage

Start a recording:

python3 tvrip.py

Or run the systemd service:

sudo systemctl start tvrip

This will read the EPG program guide, and automatically start/stop recordings based on the schedule of the selected channel. It will continue to create recordings indefinitely until stopped. If the EPG cannot be read, then it will record a continuous stream indefinitely until stopped.

The outputted .ts files are MPEG Transport Streams which contain a single program, plus captions, etc. To play them, use mplayer or ffplay.

Note: in order to update the EPG, it is re-scanned between recordings. This may result in a 5-30 second gap between recordings. Usually this timeslot is filled with commercials anyways.

Future ideas

• Config file to control program options.

• Support multiple DVB adapters to record simultaneously.

Post-processing:

• Remove commercials using black frame detection (ffmpeg)

• Extract captions to subtitles file.

• Convert finished recordings to mp4.

• Continuously read EPG while recording, to avoid having to re-scan it between recordings.