Tablo Ripper - Automatically download new recordings

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Nicely done, @CycleJ … everything in my list displays correctly! Appreciate all of your efforts in getting us up and running again. I was happy to be able to get you the information you needed.

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Thanks to everyone that helped me get it going again (you know who you are). I uploaded a proper release build to the download link, and I’ll continue to make “parsing the response” more robust once I’m upgraded to Tablo version 2.2.8

In the meantime, if you see any issues, please don’t hesitate to report them here. I still need to get back to working on the background service for the (unsupported) 16-bit version. If I’ve forgotten anything else, please send me a reminder.

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@CycleJ - If you hit your reset button quickly and then disconnect and reconnect your app (anything but Roku) it should pop up.

First of a thank you to CycleJ for creating this program.

I’m a new user to Tablo Ripper and wanted to try it out. I have been using Surlatablo and have been very happy with it.

I ripped a tv show using this program and then I ripped the same show using Surlatablo. I noticed a few things that were different when I examined the 2 files with MediaInfo. I hope maybe that I just did something wrong with Tablo Ripper.

I will post below the results of both files.

I noticed right off that Surlatablo includes the metadata from the TV show in the file. This helps greatly when Plex cannot match the show. It will use this metadata that it finds in the file to fill the fields in Plex.

The second thing that I saw was that the audio was very much different. Tablo Ripper was at 129kbps while Surlatablo was at 255kbps.

The video was exactly the same using either utility.

If I didn’t do anything wrong then I would like to add a feature request. The request is to add the metadata to the file. That would make Plex and myself very happy… :grinning:

Here are the MediaInfo reports:

The first one is from Tablo Ripper:

General
Complete name : I:\TV Shows\TV Shows\Dog Town - s01e13 - Parker and Barney.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 2.29 GiB
Duration : 35mn 16s
Overall bit rate : 9 297 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.2.100

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=30
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 35mn 16s
Bit rate : 9 160 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.147
Stream size : 2.26 GiB (99%)

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 35mn 16s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 129 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 32.6 MiB (1%)

Here is the MediaInfo report from Surlatablo file:

General
Complete name : Y:\Tablo Convert\TV\Dog Town, USA\Season 1\Dog Town, USA - s01e13 - Parker and Barney.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 2.32 GiB
Duration : 35mn 16s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 9 423 Kbps
Collection : Dog Town, USA
Album : Dog Town, USA
Track name : Parker and Barney
Genre : Reality;Animals
Description : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
Recorded date : 2015-11-07
Writing application : Lavf56.18.101
Comment : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
LongDescription : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
Part_ID : s01e13
TVNetworkName : KCWT-HD

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=30
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 35mn 16s
Bit rate : 9 160 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.147
Stream size : 2.26 GiB (97%)

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 35mn 16s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 255 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 259 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 64.3 MiB (3%)
Language : English

Again thank you for your hard work and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Sorry for the long post.

Phil

Just for completness, Surlatablo also identifies the language of the audio track and if combined with -C support via ccextractor, will embed a subtitle track which is also identified by language (the latter only working sometimes on a Roku forcing a lightweight transcode to get the subtitles… new version, releasing tonight, will always create a correctly named .srt file which (I believe) will always work on Roku even when using Direct Play.

@cjcox

That sounds great about the .srt file.

Now you just need to get the GUI out so we can get away from the command line… :sunglasses:

I do love me some Surlatablo… lol

I played around with metadata when I was originally working on TabloRipper, and couldn’t find a single case where it helped Plex match the show. In fact, the recommended directory structure seems to have no effect on matching either. The file name seems to be the deciding factor, so that’s what I went with.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200220687-Naming-Series-Season-Based-TV-Shows

There was an issue raised earlier in this topic about mismatching “Flash” because Plex needs a hint to pick the current series. Are you having issues?

This touches on another earlier discussion in this topic - FFMPEG options. I can’t claim to be a FFMPEG expert (far from it), but the options I’m using are designed to “copy all input audio and video streams without transcoding”. My goal is to make the ripped version match your input version quality, and to make ripping as fast as possible. The idea being that you control the quality in your Tablo settings, then can transcode to a different format/quality after ripping.

If you’re interested, please take a look at the TabloRipper log file and check the FFMPEG options I’m using. If you have recommendations on a better set of options, I’m interested in hearing about them.

Feedback is always welcome.Many of the best features have come from people that are using TabloRipper. Thanks :sunglasses:

@TabloTV
First off, my sincere apologies. Tablo version 2.2.8 creates perfectly well formed JSON responses. But you knew that already, I just had to play catch up.

But what 2.2.8 changes is where some of the metadata I’m using is located in your response object. My bad.

I’ve uploaded a new version of TabloRipper that fully supports 2.2.8 - hopefully everyone will notice and upgrade once their tablo gets your latest.

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@CycleJ - No worries! Glad we were able to get it all figured out.

Thank you for your reply. Especially on Thanksgiving day.

The time that I am seeing the advantage with having the metadata included is with shows that are not in the TVDB.org website.

You are right you do not need the metadata for Plex to name the show properly. But you do need the metadata in these situations.

I ripped Jerry Springer with Tablo Ripper and your program. Plex named the show just fine, but the air date and the description were not included in the plex listing.

I ripped the show with Surlatablo and all fields were filled in properly.

We had the same results with:

Rachael Raye (Wifes show. She needs the descriptions)
The Ellen Show
The Peoples Court
Jerry Springer
Dog Town, USA

Just to name a few. Basically day time shows.

More mainstream shows like NCIS Los Angeles are no problem. Since they have a current listing in TVDB.org they get all of the info with no problem.

I hope I made myself more clear this time. I’m not complaining at all. I just wanted you to know that day time shows need some editing when you add them to plex. Adding those 2 fields.

Besides that I wouldn’t change a thing. The program runs great.

Phil

Cool, that’s what I was looking for - a reason. Can you figure out the specific metadata tags that are helpful? If so, they’re easy enough to add.

I’m still using MCEBuddy before Plex, and I found a couple tags it supports. None of which were helpful.

PS - Never thought you’re complaining. You’re contributing! Thanks for that.

PS - start here?
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_Metadata

I wish I knew which tags were the culprit. All I know is what MediaInfo showed me. I’ll cut and paste the General section of the report so you can see the tags in use.

Your programs tags:

General
Complete name : I:\TV Shows\TV Shows\Dog Town - s01e13 - Parker and Barney.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 2.29 GiB
Duration : 35mn 16s
Overall bit rate : 9 297 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.2.100

Surlatablo’s Tags:

General
Complete name : Y:\Tablo Convert\TV\Dog Town, USA\Season 1\Dog Town, USA - s01e13 - Parker and Barney.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 2.32 GiB
Duration : 35mn 16s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 9 423 Kbps

This is the point basically were things change from your tags to Surlatablo’s tags:

Collection : Dog Town, USA
Album : Dog Town, USA
Track name : Parker and Barney
Genre : Reality;Animals
Description : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
Recorded date : 2015-11-07
Writing application : Lavf56.18.101
Comment : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
LongDescription : A dachshund has dental problems; a shih tzu has painful paws.
Part_ID : s01e13
TVNetworkName : KCWT-HD

End Of Tags…

As you can see the second report has quite a few added tags. I’m not sure which ones that Plex is picking up on, but it seems to work for day time shows.

I hope this helps.

Phil.

P.S. The full reports are a few posts up…

The episode name is also wrong most of the time.

Here is an example:

The People’s Court
The People’s Court - Double-Crossing an Expert Witness

The first line is the shows name & the second line should be the episode name.

For example:

The People’s Court
Double-Crossing an Expert Witness

I’m not sure but maybe that is controlled by the Album & Track Name Tags?

I know that Tablo Exporter used the description tag & my Plex did not pick up the description. Maybe the LongDescription Tag is also needed.

Heck I don’t know… I’m clutching at straws here… lol

Phil

P.S. I hope you don’t catch the software on fire… lmao

OK… I’ll download the new version and give it a try…

Was the description tag supposed to be the actual description or was it the episode name?

Mine has the episode name…

General
Complete name : I:\TV Shows\TV Shows\The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2015) - s13e56 - Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 3.34 GiB
Duration : 1h 5mn
Overall bit rate : 7 319 Kbps
Description : Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways
Writing application : Lavf57.2.100

The description did show up in plex But the episode name got messed up:

The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Elizabeth Banks, Ellie Goulding

The episode name should have been:

Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways

The full description was: (Might need the LongDescription Tag for this)

Elizabeth Banks (“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2”); Ellie Goulding performs; 7-year-old Kai Langer; guest DJ Stephen “tWitch” Boss.

That did work. Where the description is in Plex was the episode name…

P.S. Gotta grab a shower before heading to the parents house for turkey… Be back in a few…

It did the same as what I posted above. I need to figure out how to post a image on this forum. Then I can take a image capture of the Plex screen so you can see what I am talking about.

Wife is hollering at me that we have to go. I’ll talk to you later… Thanks for the help.

Here is the new tag that MediaInfo is showing:

General
Complete name : Y:\Tablo Convert\TV\The Ellen DeGeneres Show\Season 13\The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2015) - s13e56 - Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom
File size : 3.34 GiB
Duration : 1h 5mn
Overall bit rate : 7 319 Kbps
Writing application : Lavf57.2.100
LongDescription : Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways

Release year & Episode title are now messed up see picture below