Video Disk Recorder User's Manual

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Version 2.4

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* Remote Control Keys

The following remote control keys are used to control the VDR

operation. To keep the number of different keys as small as

possible, several keys have different meanings in the various

modes:

Key Normal VDR Channels Timers Edit/New Recordings Replay Audio

Up Ch up Crsr up Crsr up Crsr up Crsr up Crsr up Play Sel. track

Down Ch down Crsr down Crsr down Crsr down Crsr down Crsr down Pause Sel. track

Left Prev group - Page up Page up Decrement Page up Search back Sel. channel

Right Next group - Page down Page down Increment Page down Search forward Sel. channel

Ok Ch display Select Switch Edit Accept Play Progress disp. Switch & Close

Menu Menu on Menu off Menu off Menu off Menu off Menu off Menu off Menu off

Back - Menu off VDR menu VDR menu Discard VDR menu Recordings menu Close

Red - Record Edit On/Off ABC/abc Play/Commands(1) Jump -

Green - Audio New New Ins/Ovr Rewind Skip -60s -

Yellow - Pause live Delete Delete Delete Delete Skip 60s -

Blue - Stop/Resume Mark Info - Info Stop -

0..9 Ch select - Sort(2) Day(3) Numeric inp. Sort/Exec cmd(1) Editing -

In a numerical input field (like the response to a CAM enquiry) the keys 0..9

are used to enter the data, and the Left key can be used to delete the last

entered digit.

In a text input field (like, e.g., the file name of a recording) the characters

can be entered by pressing the numeric keys, the same way as on a telephone

keypad.

If your remote control provides additional keys, they can be used for the

following functions:

Info display information on the currently viewed programme or recording,

or on the current item in a menu

Play/Pause combined key to resume or pause replay, or pause live video

Play resume normal replay

Pause pause replay or live video

Stop stop replay

Record instant recording

FastFwd fast forward

FastRew fast rewind

Next Next/previous channel group (in live tv mode)

Prev or next/previous editing mark (in replay mode)

Channel channel up

Channel- channel down

PrevChannel previous channel

Power shutdown

Volume volume up

Volume- volume down

Mute mute

Audio select audio track

Subtitles select subtitles

Schedule \

Channels |

Timers | directly access the VDR

Recordings | main menu functions

Setup |

Commands /

User1...9 additional user defined keys for macro functions

(defined in 'keymacros.conf')

Note that in normal viewing mode (no OSD active) the color keys can have user

defined functionality, as configured in 'keymacros.conf'.

The default assignment is

Red Recordings menu

Green Schedule menu

Yellow Info

Blue Timers menu

(1) See "Sort Recordings" and "Processing Recordings" below.

(2) In the "Channels" menu the '0' key switches the sort mode through "by number",

"by name" and "by provider". Other numeric input positions the cursor to

the channel with the number entered so far. If there is no channel with that

number, nothing happens. While entering a channel number, the '0' key will

be treated as part of that number, not as a sort mode toggle. If no numeric

key has been pressed for more than one second, the number is reset and '0'

functions as sort mode toggle again.

(3) In the "Timers" menu, when on the "Day" item, the '0' key toggles between

a single shot and a repeating timer. If "Day" indicates a repeating timer,

the keys '1'...'7' can be used to toggle the individual days ('1' is Monday).

* Navigating through the On Screen Menus

The "VDR" menu can be called up with the "Menu" key of your remote

control unit. The "Up" and "Down" keys are used to select a specific

item. The "Left" and "Right" keys can be used to change options, and

the numeric keys allow direct input of numeric data. The "Ok" key

confirms any changes (or switches to a channel in the "Channels" menu).

The "Back" key goes back one level in the menu structure, discarding

any changes that might have been made in the current menu.

In the "Timers" menu, the current timer can be enabled or disabled with

the "Red" key. Enabled timers are marked with '>', timers

that are currently recording are marked with '#'. If a timer has the

"First day" set so that it will start recording only on the given date,

it is marked with '!'. The "Red" key toggles through the "enabled" and

"disabled" states, and for repeating timers that are currently recording

also a state that ends this recording prematurely and sets the "First day"

date so that it will record again the next time the timer hits.

"Ok" here opens the "Edit timer" menu.

Textual options, like channel names or recording file names, can be edited

by pressing the "Right" key (which puts brackets around the current

character as in "[R]TL"), selecting the desired character position with

"Left" and "Right", and changing the character with the "Up" and "Down"

keys. "Ok" then confirms the changes. The "Red" key toggles between

upper- and lowercase characters, while the "Green" key switches between

insert and overwrite mode. The "Yellow" key deletes the current character

(or the one to the right of the cursor in insert mode).

The "Red", "Green", "Yellow" and "Blue" keys have special meanings

in various menus and are listed at the bottom of the on-screen-display.

At any point in the menu system, pressing the "Menu" key again will

immediately leave the menu system (discarding any pending changes).

* The "Schedule" Menu

The "Schedule" menu implements VDR's "Electronic Program Guide" (EPG).

Select "Schedule" from the "VDR" menu and you get a list of all upcoming

broadcasts on the current channel.

"Up" and "Down" can be used to scroll through this list, and pressing "Ok"

displays detailed information about the selected programme. Pressing "Ok"

again (or pressing "Back") gets you back into the "Schedule" menu.

From the "Schedule" menu, the "Green" key opens the "What's on now?"

menu, which displays all programmes that are currently running on all

channels that broadcast their programme information on the current

transponder, or from channels that have been current lately (VDR stores

all information it gathers in an internal list). The more channels you

have been switching through lately, the longer this list will be.

The "Yellow" key opens the "What's on next?" menu, which lists all

programmes that will start next on all channels.

Inside the "What's on now/next?" menus the "Green" key toggles between

the "Now" and "Next" display, and the "Yellow" key takes you to the

"Schedule" menu of the current channel in the list.

The "Red" key allows you to instantly program a timer to record the

selected programme. After pressing this key, the current event will

be marked with 'T', and the function of the "Red" key will change from

"Record" to "Timer". Pressing "Red" on an event marked with 'T' will open

the "Edit timer" menu for this timer, where you can make any modifications

you may want to apply. Note that the Start and Stop time are offset by the

MarginStart and MarginStop parameters (see Setup) in order to make sure the

entire programme is recorded in case it doesn't exactly adhere to its

published start/stop times. Of course, no guarantee can be given that the

default margin values will be sufficient, so in case this recording is

really important you may want to add an extra margin ;-). VPS recordings

will use the exact Start (or VPS) and Stop times as given in the event.

If a timer is newly created from within the "Schedule" menu, and its event is

already running or has its start time within the next two minutes, it goes

directly into the "Edit timer" menu in order to allow the user to make further

changes to timer parameters before the actual recording starts.

The "Blue" key can be pressed to switch to the channel with the selected

programme.

The following markers in these menus give additional information about the

status of the events:

t there is a timer defined for this event which covers only part of the event

T there is a timer defined for this event which covers the entire event

V this event has a VPS time that's different than its start time

* this event is currently running (the validity of this marker depends on

whether there is currently a DVB card receiving the transponder this channel

is on).

Pressing '0' in the "Schedule" menu rotates through displaying "This event on

this channel", "This event on all channels" and "All events on all channels".

This can be used to find reruns of a given show, or the episodes of a series.

Note that if there are many channels in your channels.conf, displaying the

"All events on all channels" page may take a while.

* Selecting a Channel

There are four ways to select a channel:

1. With no On Screen Menu displayed press the "Up" or "Down" key to switch

to the next higher or lower channel.

2. Press the "Menu" key to bring up the On Screen Menu, select "Channels"

and browse through the list with the "Up" and "Down" key; to switch to the

selected channel press "Ok".

3. Directly type in the channel number with the numeric keys ('0'..'9');

if no key is pressed for about one second, the digits collected so

far will define the channel number.

4. From the "Now", "Next" and "Event" menus (accessible through the "Schedule"

menu) by pressing the "Blue" key.

Pressing the '0' key in normal viewing mode toggles between the current and

the previous channel. A channel is considered "previous" if it has been

selected for at least 3 seconds.

After switching to a different channel the channel number and name, as well

as the current time are displayed in the OSD. If available, the

'current/next' information will be displayed below this line. This display

automatically goes away after about five seconds, or if any key is pressed.

To bring up the channel display without switching channels you can press

the "Ok" key.

* Selecting audio tracks

If the current channel or recording provides different audio tracks (for

different languages or Dolby Digital), the "Green" key in the "VDR" menu can

be pressed to bring up the "Audio" menu. Within this menu, the "Up" and "Down"

keys can be used to switch between the audio tracks. If your remote control has

a dedicated "Audio" key, the first press of that key brings up the "Audio"

menu, and every further press switches to the next available audio track.

The "Left" and "Right" keys can be used to switch between "mono left", "stereo"

and "mono right" for channels that broadcast different audio tracks in the

left and right stereo channels.

The "Ok" key explicitly switches to the selected track (in case the device

for some reason doesn't play it) and closes the "Audio" menu.

The "Audio" menu will automatically disappear after 5 seconds of user inactivity,

or if any key other than the ones described above is pressed.

Once a Dolby Digital track has been selected on any channel, further channel

switches will first search for a Dolby Digital track of one of the preferred

audio languages. If no such track can be found, a normal audio track will

be selected. Note that this only works if the broadcasters use actual language

codes in their PID data, not things like "dd" or "2ch".

* Switching through channel groups

If the 'channels.conf' file contains "group separators" you can switch

through these groups by pressing the "Left" and "Right" key while no

menu is being displayed. The channel display will show the name of the

group, and if you press the "Ok" key while the group name is being

displayed, you will switch to the first channel of that group.

Channel groups can be whatever you decide them to be. You can either

group your channels by "Bouquet", by language, genre or whatever your

preferences may be.

* Instant Recording

You can start recording the current channel by pressing the "Red" key

in the "VDR" menu. This will create a timer event named "@channelname" that

starts at the current time and by default records for 3 hours.

If you want to modify the recording time you need to edit the timer.

Stop instant recording by pressing the "Menu" key and selecting

"Stop Recording", or by disabling the timer. The default priority, lifetime

and recording time can be defined in the "Setup/Recording" menu.

* Pausing live video

If you want to pause the live programme you are just watching, simply press

"Menu/Yellow" or "Pause" on your remote control. VDR will start an instant

recording of the current channel (just as if you had pressed "Menu/Red" or

"Record") and immediately begin replaying that recording. Replay will be

put into "pause" mode, so you can attend to whatever it was that disturbed

your live viewing session. Once you're back, simply press the "Up" or "Play"

key and you'll be watching the current channel in time shift mode, right

from the point where you left off. The instant recording VDR has started

will use the parameters for "Pause priority" and "Pause lifetime" as defined

in the "Setup/Recording" menu. Recording time will be the same as for

any other instant recording, so by default it will record 3 hours (which

should be enough for any normal broadcast).

Note that the timer that is created for recording the paused live video will

always record on the local VDR, even if an "SVDRP default host" has been

set for normal timer recordings.

* Replaying a Recording

All recordings are listed in the "Recordings" menu. Browse through the

list with the "Up" and "Down" key and press "Ok" (or the "Red" key)

to start playback. New recordings are marked with an '*'.

If the Setup parameter RecordingDirs has been set and there are recordings

from repeating timers organized in a subdirectory structure, only the

directory is displayed and it can be opened by pressing "Ok" (or the "Red"

key). A directory entry displays the total number of recordings within

that directory (and any possible subdirectory thereof) as well as the total

number of new recordings (as opposed to a recording's entry, which displays

the date and time of the recording).

If the setup parameter "Use episode name" was turned on when a recording took place,

VDR adds the "Episode name" (which is usually the name of the episode in case of

a series) to the recording's name. The "Recordings" menu then displays all

recordings of a repeating timer in chronological order, since these are

usually the individual episodes of a series, which you may want to view in

the order in which they were broadcast.

Playback can be stopped via the "VDR" menu by selecting "Stop replaying",

or by pressing the "Blue" key outside the menu.

A previously stopped playback session can be resumed by pressing the "Blue"

key in the "VDR" menu.

* Sort Recordings

Within the "Recordings" menu, pressing the '0' key toggles sorting between

"by time" and "by name". The selected sort mode is stored separately for each

folder (provided you have write access to that folder).

If a folder is newly created by a repeating timer, the sort mode for that

folder is initially set to "by time".

* Processing Recordings

The configuration file 'reccmds.conf' can be used to define system commands

that can be applied to the recording that is currently highlighted in the

"Recordings" menu. The "Red" key in the "Recordings" menu opens the "Recording

commands" menu if there are commands defined in the file 'reccmds.conf'. Pressing

one of the keys '1'..'9' in the "Recordings" menu executes the corresponding

command from 'reccmds.conf' (see also "Executing system commands" below).

* Replay Control

The following keys have the listed meaning in Replay mode:

- Up Resumes normal replay from any "pause", "forward" or "backward"

mode.

- Down Halts playback at the current position. Press again to continue

playback.

- Blue Stops playback and stores the current position, so that

playback can be resumed later at that point.

- Left

Right Runs playback forward or backward at a higher speed; press

again to resume normal speed. If in Pause mode, runs forward or

backward at a slower speed; press again to return to pause mode.

Pressing and holding down the key performs the function until

the key is released again.

If "Multi Speed Mode" has been enabled in the "Setup" menu, the

function of these keys changes in a way that gives you three

fast and slow speeds, through which you can switch by pressing

the respective key several times.

- Red Jump to a specific location. Enter the time you want to jump to

and then press "Left" or "Right" to jump relative to the current

position, "Up" to jump to an absolute position, and "Down" to

jump and pause at an absolute position.

- Green

Yellow Skips about 60 seconds back or forward.

Pressing and holding down the key performs the function until

the key is released again.

- Ok Brings up the replay progress display, which shows the date,

time and title of the recording, a progress bar and the

current and total time of the recording.

Press "Ok" again to turn off the progress display.

- Back Stops replaying and brings up the "Recordings" menu. This can be

used to easily delete a recording after watching it, or to switch

to a different recording.

* Editing a Recording

While in Replay mode, the following keys can be used to manipulate editing

marks:

- 0 Toggles an editing mark. If the mark indicator shows a red triangle,

the current mark is deleted. Otherwise a new mark is set at the

current position.

- 1, 3 Move an editing mark back and forward in "adaptive" mode. Pressing

either of these keys for the first time moves the mark 120 seconds

in the given direction (configurable via "Setup/Replay/Initial

duration for adaptive skipping"). Further presses of the same key

keep moving the mark by the same value. Once the other key is

pressed, the value is divided by 2 (hence the name "adaptive") with

every further press of either key. Pressing '1' and '3'

alternatingly divides the distance all the way down to a single

I-frame. That way a particular place in a recording (for instance

the beginning or end of a commercial break) can be found very

quickly. If none of these two keys is pressed for a while

(configurable via "Setup/Replay/Reset timeout for adaptive

skipping") the distance falls back to the initial value.

If replay is not in Pause mode, or if there is no mark at the

current position, the skip is performed without moving any mark.

- 4, 6 Move an editing mark back and forward by one I-frame. You need to

first jump to an editing mark for this to work.

- 7, 9 Jump back and forward between editing marks. Replay goes into still

mode after jumping to a mark. If the current position is at the

first or last mark, or if there are no marks at all, these keys

jump to the very beginning or end, respectively, of the recording.

- 8 Positions replay at a point 3 seconds before the current or next

"begin" mark and starts replay.

- 2 Starts the actual cutting process.

Editing marks are represented by black, vertical lines in the progress display.

A small black triangle at the top of the mark means that this is a "begin"

mark, and a triangle at the bottom means that this is an "end" mark.

The cutting process will save all video data between "begin" and "end" marks

into a new file (the original recording remains untouched). The new file will

have the same name as the original recording, preceded with a '%' character

(imagine the '%' somehow looking like a pair of scissors ;-). Red bars in the

progress display indicate which video sequences will be saved by the cutting

process.

The video sequences to be saved by the cutting process are determined by an

"even/odd" algorithm. This means that every odd numbered editing mark (i.e.

1, 3, 5,...) represents a "begin" mark, while every even numbered mark (2, 4,

6,...) is an "end" mark. Inserting or toggling a mark on or off automatically

adjusts the sequence to the right side of that mark.

Use the keys described under "Replay Control" to position to, e.g., the

beginning and end of commercial breaks and press the '0' key to set the

necessary editing marks. After that you may want to use the '7' and '9'

keys to jump to each mark and maybe use the '4' and '6' keys to fine tune

them. Once all marks are in place, press '2' to start the actual cutting

process, which will run as a background process. When replaying the edited

version of the recording you can use the '8' key to jump to a point just

before the next cut and have a look at the resulting sequence.

Currently editing marks can only be set at I-frames, which typically appear

every half of a second to a second. A "begin" mark marks the first frame of

a resulting video sequence, and an "end" mark marks the last frame of that

sequence. Note that the actual frame indicated by the an "end" mark will

not be included in the edited version of the recording. That's because every

recording (and every sequence of an edited recording) begins with an I-frame

and ends right before the next I-frame.

An edited recording (indicated by the '%' character) will never be deleted

automatically in case the disk runs full (no matter what "lifetime" it has).

* Programming the Timer

Use the "Timer" menu to maintain your list of timer controlled recordings.

The parameters in the "Edit timer" menu have the following meanings:

Active: Defines whether the timer will be processed (set it to 'no' to

temporarily disable a timer).

Channel: The channel to be recorded (as defined in the "Channels" list).

Any changes made in the "Channels" list (like renaming or

reordering channels) will be automatically reflected in the

timers settings.

Day: The day on which this timer shall start. This can be a

date (like 2005-03-19), which allows programming a "single shot"

timer that hits once and is deleted after it ends.

Another option here are "repeating timers" which are defined

by listing the days of the week on which they shall record.

For example, a timer that shall record every Monday and Wednesday

would have a Day setting of "M-W----".

The '0' key toggles between a single shot and a repeating timer.

If "Day" indicates a repeating timer, the keys '1'...'7' can be

used to toggle the individual days ('1' is Monday).

You can also switch to a set of predefined repeating timer settings

by pressing the "Left" key when the day is the present day. To return

to the single shot mode just press "Right" until a date is displayed.

Start: The start time of the timer in hh:mm as 24 hour ("military") time.

Stop: The stop time of the timer.

VPS: Defines whether the timer shall use VPS (if available). If this

option is set to 'yes', the start time must exactly match the

programme's VPS time, otherwise nothing will be recorded. If VPS

is used, the stop time has no real meaning. However, it must be

different than the start time, and should correspond to the actual

stop time of the programme, just in case there is no real VPS data

available at the time of recording, so VDR has to fall back to

normal timer recording.

Priority: The Priority (0..99) is used to decide which timer shall be

started in case there are two or more timers with the exact same

start time. The first timer in the list with the highest Priority

will be used. This value is also stored with the recording and is

later used to decide which recording to remove from disk in order

to free space for a new recording. If the disk is full and a new

recording needs more space, an existing recording with the lowest

Priority (and which has exceeded its guaranteed Lifetime) will be

removed. If all available DVB cards are currently occupied, a

timer with a higher priority will interrupt the timer with the

lowest priority in order to start recording.

Lifetime: The number of days (0..99) a recording made through this timer is

guaranteed to remain on disk before it is automatically removed

to free up space for a new recording. Note that setting this

parameter to very high values for all recordings may soon fill up

the entire disk and cause new recordings to fail due to low disk

space. The special value 99 means that this recording will live

"forever", and a value of 0 means that this recording can be

deleted any time if a recording with a higher priority needs disk

space.

Pattern: The pattern to use for recordings matching events (only available

for pattern timers). See section "Pattern timers" below.

File: The name under which a recording created through this timer will

be stored on disk (the actual name will also contain the date and

time, so it is possible to have a "repeating timer" store all its

recordings under the same name; they will be distinguishable by

their date and time).

If the file name contains the special character '~', the recording

will be stored in a hierarchical directory structure. For instance,

a file name of "Sci-Fi~Star Trek~Voyager" will result in a directory

structure "/video/Sci-Fi/Star_Trek/Voyager". The '~' character has

been chosen for this since the file system's directory delimiter '/'

may be part of a regular programme name.

Repeating timers create recordings that contain the 'Episode name'

information from the EPG data in their file name. Typically (on tv

stations that care about their viewers) this contains the episode

title of a series. The episode name is appended to the timer's file name,

separated by a '~' character, so that it results in all recordings

of this timer being collected in a common subdirectory.

If this field is left blank, the channel name will be used to form

the name of the recording.

First day: The date of the first day when this timer shall start recording

(only available for repeating timers).

Record on: The name of the remote VDR this timer shall record on (only available

if there are any remote VDRs connected to this VDR). If this field

is empty, the timer will record on the local VDR.

A timer can also be programmed by pressing the "Red" key on the "Schedule",

"Now", "Next" or "Event" menus.

The "Red" key in the "Edit timer" menu opens a list of folders, which can be

used to define the file name in which the recording will be stored.

The "Yellow" key in the "Edit timer" menu toggles the timer between "Pattern"

and "Regular".

When editing the "File" field, the "Blue" key in can be used to insert useful

macros.

* Pattern timers

There are cases where it would make sense to have a more flexible kind of

recording timer. For instance, some channels that provide VPS don't always

use the exact same VPS time for a series, which is extremely annoying.

Or you might want to record all films that have a certain pattern in their

title, no matter when they are broadcast. In such cases, "pattern timers"

can help.

In the "Edit timer" menu press the Yellow button to turn a regular timer into

a pattern timer. Pressing this button again switches back to regular.

The following rules apply to pattern timers:

- Pattern timers can only work for channels that provide EPG data.

- When using pattern timers, there should always be at least one free device that

can be used to regularly receive the EPG of the pattern timer's channel.

- A pattern timer records every matching event on the given channel that overlaps

with the given start/stop time. Overlapping events are recorded in full,

even if they extend outside the given start/stop interval.

- In order to actually record an event, a pattern timer "spawns" a separate timer

that does the recording. At most two timers are spawned from a pattern timer at

any given time, one for the next upcoming matching event, and one for

the event immediately following that one, in case it also matches.

- Spawned timers are marked with the flag tfSpawned.

- Spawned timers take the Priority, Lifetime and VPS settings from the pattern timer.

- The special pattern "*" matches every event. So a timer with

a start/stop time of 00:00/23:59 will record every event of that day

into separate recordings. Note that when using this pattern there should

be no other timers for the same channel, because these might interfere.

- Once a timer has been spawned, it is treated like any other regular

timer. Any changes made to the corresponding pattern timer thereafter will have

no effect on spawned timers. Note that after deleting a spawned timer,

the corresponding pattern timer may respawn it.

- Recording is done according to the event's begin/end times, either

by adding the start/stop margins (for non-VPS timers) or by using the

event's running status (for VPS timers).

- The recording of a pattern timer is stored under the given file name, just like

regular timers do. In addition to the "TITLE" and "EPISODE" macros the file

name of a pattern timer can also use "{<}" and "{>}" to reference the part of the

event's title before and after the pattern, respectively. For instance,

if the event's title is "Abc def ghi" and the pattern is "def ", "{<}"

would contain "Abc " and "{>}" would contain "ghi" (note the matching of the

blanks). For completeness, "{=}" can be used to reference the matching

pattern itself.

- In the "Timers" menu pressing the Red button on a pattern timer only toggles the

timer between "on" and "off", even if this is a repeating timer.

- In the "Timers" menu pattern timers are sorted alphabetically to the end of the

list of timers.

- A regular timer that is currently recording can't be changed into a pattern timer.

- In the "Edit timer" menu the file name and pattern are displayed as

separate items. The Yellow button can be used to toggle between a regular

timer and a pattern timer. When going from regular to pattern, the Pattern item will

be initialized with the base part of the file name.

- The characters '^' and '$' can be used at the very beginning and end of

the pattern to anchor the pattern to the begin or end of the title.

Using both of these will match only titles that consist of exactly the given pattern,

with nothing before and nothing after it.

- The Pattern field in the "Edit timer" menu allows blanks at the end of the string,

which may help to separate the text after the matching pattern.

- If the first character of the pattern is '@', an event that matches the

rest of the pattern is only recorded if the resulting recording's file

name (without any folders) is not contained in the donerecs.data file.

This avoids duplicate recordings of the same programme. Timers spawned from

such a pattern timer are marked with the flag tfAvoid.

- When editing the "File" field of a timer, the Blue button can be pressed to

insert one of the macros "TITLE", "EPISODE", "{<}", "{=}" or "{>}",

respectively. Pressing the Blue button repeatedly loops through the available

macros. The "{...}" macros are only available for pattern timers.

- In the "Schedule" and "What's on...?" menus the events that will be recorded

by a pattern timer are marked in the same way as regular timers.

- The TIMERS column in the LCARS skin doesn't show the basic definitions of

pattern timers, it only shows timers actually spawned from pattern timers.

If the pattern is prepended with '@', the name of the resulting recording (everything

after the rightmost '~', or the entire file name, if there is no '~') will be stored

in the file donerecs.data, so that multiple recordings of the same programme can be

avoided. When using this feature, special care must be taken regarding the recording's

file name. For instance, with a combination of

pattern file name

@Columbo Movies~TITLE

if the event's title is just "Columbo", this pattern timer would only record once,

and ignore any future events with that title, even if the episode would be different.

So you may want to use the episode name, as in

pattern file name

@Columbo Movies~TITLE - EPISODE

to make the file name unique. If you have several pattern timers for the same show on

different channels, chances are that the broadcasters handle title and episode

differently, as for example in

TITLE EPISODE pattern file name

Columbo Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo$ TITLE - EPISODE

Columbo - Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo TITLE

Columbo: Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo:_ Columbo - {>}

(note the '_' in the pattern of the third example; this is just used to visualize

the blank at the end of the pattern)

In order to have the same episode result in the same recording file name on all

channels, the file name needs to be generated differently for each channel. First

you need to decide on a proper combination of title and episode name, preferably

one that is already used by one of your channels (let's say the second one).

In the first case, title and episode name are correctly put in their respective

places, and "TITLE - EPISODE" as file name will do. The second case is our common

version, where everything is in the title, so TITLE is just fine. The third case

poses a problem, because everything is in the title, but with a different separator.

Here the special macro "{>}" can be used in the file name, which contains everything

following the matching pattern. There are three macros that can be used here:

{<} everything before the matching pattern

{>} everything after the matching pattern

{=} the matching pattern itself (just for completeness)

* Managing folders

The "Select folder" menu, which can be accessed by pressing the "Red" key in

the "Edit timer" menu, offers a list of folders that can be used for storing

a recording. In this menu, the "Green" key allows you to define a new folder

within the current one; if the "Sub folder" option is set to "yes", this will

be a folder that contains other folders (indicated by "..." following the

folder name in the list). The "Yellow" key deletes the current folder (note

that this will merely delete the folder definition stored in 'folders.conf'

and has no effect on existing timers or recordings). The "Blue" key can be

used to edit an existing folder definition. The "Red" key opens a folder that

contains sub folders, while pressing Ok selects the current folder. Once a

folder has been selected, the entire path of the timer's file name will be

replaced with the selected folder.

In the "Recordings" menu the folders of existing recordings can be renamed or

moved by pressing the "Blue" key ("Edit") while the cursor is positioned on

a folder. This will open a menu in which the folder's name and location (the

"parent" folder) can be edited. If such an operation will result in moving

more than one recording, you will be asked for confirmation.

The name, folder, priority and lifetime of an individual recording can be

changed by pressing the "Blue" key ("Info") while the cursor is positioned

on a recording, and in the resulting Info menu pressing the "Blue" key again

to bring up the "Edit recording" menu.

In the "Edit recording" menu the Red button ("Folder") allows you to select one

of your predefined folders. The Green button has multiple functions, depending

on what is currently going on with the recording. It can either stop or cancel

a cut, move or copy operation. If the button reads "Stop..." it means that the

respective operation is already happening, while "Cancel..." means that the

operation is still pending execution. If no operation is currently happening

and the recording has editing marks, the Button will read "Cut" and triggers

cutting the recording (same as pressing '2' while replaying the recording).

The Yellow button ("Delete marks") allows you to delete all editing marks from

the selected recording (if there are any and the recording is not currently

being cut). To directly edit the folder or name of the recording, position the

cursor to the respective line and press the Right key to start editing (press

Ok to confirm the edit, or Back to return to the previous value). If you want

to remove the name of the recording and make the folder name the actual

recording's name, you can position the cursor to the "Name:" field and press

the '0' key. This will take the last element of the recording's folder path

and make it the actual name of the recording. You can do this in turn until

the recording is moved all the way up to the root of the video directory.

Note that, in case you inadvertently pressed the '0' key, you can leave the

"Edit recording" menu with the "Back" key and any changes you have made so far

will not be applied. Once you are finished with editing the recording

properties, press Ok to confirm the changes.

* Parameters in the "Setup" menu

Select "Setup" from the "VDR" menu to enter the setup menu. From there you can

modify the following system parameters (note that "boolean" values will be

displayed as "no" and "yes" in the "Setup" menu, while in the setup file they

are stored as '0' and '1', respectively):

OSD:

Language = English Defines the language used to display the OSD texts.

Skin = ST:TNG Panels Defines the "skin" used to display the OSD menus.

Theme = Default Defines the "theme" to use with the current skin.

Left = 8 The left and top offset of the OSD, in percent of the

Top = 8 total video display width and height, respectively.

The valid range is 0...50%.

Width = 87 The width and height of the OSD, in percent of the

Height = 84 total video display width and height, respectively.

The valid range is 50...100%.

Message time = 1 The time (in seconds) how long an informational

message shall be displayed on the OSD. The valid range

is 1...60.

Use small font = 1 Defines whether the small font shall be used. 0 means never

use the small font, 1 means use the small font wherever the

current skin wants to, and 2 means always use the small

font.

Anti-alias = 1 Controls whether the OSD uses "anti-aliasing" to improve

font rendering. To make this work, the OSD must support

at least 256 colors, and the skin in use has to

utilize these. If either of these conditions is not met,

rendering will be done without anti-aliasing.

Default font = Sans Serif:Bold

Small font = Sans Serif

Fixed font = Courier:Bold

The names of the various fonts to use.

Default font size = 3.8

Small font size = 3.5

Fixed font size = 3.1

The sizes (in percent of the total video display height)

of the various fonts. The valid range is 1...10%, at

a resolution of 0.1%.

Channel info position = bottom

The position of the channel info window in the OSD

(either 'bottom' or 'top').

Channel info time = 5 The time (in seconds) after which the channel info display

is removed if no key has been pressed.

Info on channel switch = yes

Turns the display of the current/next information on

or off when switching the channel. The information is

always displayed when pressing the "Ok" key in

normal viewing mode.

Timeout requested channel info = yes

Turns the automatic timeout of the channel display (when

invoked by a press of the "Ok" key) on or off.

Scroll pages = yes no = when pressing the "Down" ("Up") key while the cursor

is on the last (first) line of a list page, the

list is scrolled down (up) a single line and the cursor will

remain at the bottom (top) of that page

yes = the list is scrolled down (up) a full page and the cursor

will be at the top (bottom) of that page (this mode allows

for faster scrolling through long lists).

Scroll wraps = no no = when the end (beginning) of a list is reached while

moving the cursor through it, the cursor stays at the

last (first) line of the list

yes = the cursor "wraps around" and moves from the last

(first) line of the list directly to the first (last)

one.

Menu key closes = no

If set to "yes", pressing the "Menu" key while there is

anything displayed on the OSD will close the OSD. If set

to "no", the "Menu" key will open the main menu after

closing a temporary display, like, for instance, the channel

display.

Recording directories = yes

Turns displaying the Recordings menu as a hierarchical

directory structure on or off.

Folders in timer menu = yes

Controls whether the full folder path is shown in the

"Timers" menu, or just the basic recording name.

Always sort folders first = yes

In the "Recordings" menu folders are always listed before

plain recordings. Set this option to "no" if you want folders

to be interspersed with recordings when sorted alphabetically.

Default sort mode for recordings = by time

Controls whether recordings are sorted by time or by name.

If a particular sort mode has been selected for a folder by

pressing '0', the default no longer applies to that folder.

Sorting direction for recordings = ascending

When recordings are sorted "by time", they appear in ascending

order (i.e. "oldest" to "newest"). If this parameter is set to

"descending", they will be presented "newest" to "oldest.

Note that in the latter case, if "Always sort folders first"

is "yes", folders will appear in reverse alphabetical order.

Number keys for characters = yes

Controls whether the number keys can be used to enter

characters in a text input field. You may want to set this

to "no" if you are using an actual keyboard to control VDR.

Color key 0 = 0 By default, VDR assumes that the sequence of the color

Color key 1 = 1 keys on the remote control is red-green-yellow-blue. If

Color key 2 = 2 your remote control has these keys in a different sequence,

Color key 3 = 3 you can adjust these parameters to reorder the corresponding

color buttons in the menus accordingly. Note that this does

not change the functionality of the individual keys; it only

changes the sequence in which the color buttons are displayed.

EPG:

EPG scan timeout = 5 The time (in hours) of user inactivity after which the

DVB card in a single card system starts scanning channels

to keep the EPG up-to-date.

A value of '0' completely turns off scanning on both single

and multiple card systems.

EPG bugfix level = 3 Some tv stations transmit weirdly formatted EPG data.

VDR attempts to fix these bugs up to the given level:

0 = no EPG fixing

1 = basic fixing of text location (Title, Episode and

Extended Description)

2 = removal of excess whitespace and hyphens, mapping of

wrongly used characters

3 = fix stream component descriptions

Default is '3'.

Note that after changing the setting of this parameter

any EPG data that has already been received will remain

in its existing format - only newly received data will

be fixed accordingly. Restart VDR if you want to make sure

all data is fixed.

EPG linger time = 0 The time (in minutes) within which old EPG information

shall still be displayed in the "Schedule" menu.

Set system time = no Defines whether the system time will be set according to

the time received from the DVB data stream.

Note that this works only if VDR is running under a user

id that has permission to set the system time. You also

need to set the option "Use time from transponder" to a

channel that you trust to transmit a reliable time base

(not all channels seem to have access to a correct time

base...).

Use time from transponder = 0

The frequency of the transponder that shall be used to

set the system time. The Setup menu will offer the full

list of channels, even if several of them are on the

same transponder. Also, when selecting a channel, saving

the Setup and opening the Setup menu again, there may be

a different channel listed here, since the first one

in 'channels.conf' that is on the given transponder will

be taken. Note that in order to set the system time from

the transponder data the option "Set system time" must also

be enabled.

Preferred languages = 0

Some tv stations broadcast their EPG data in various

different languages. This option allows you to define

which language(s) you prefer in such cases. By default,

or if none of the preferred languages is broadcast, any

language will be accepted and the EPG data will be

displayed in the first language received from the data

stream. If this option is set to a non-zero value, the

menu page will contain that many "Preferred language"

options which allow you to select the individual preferred

languages. If an actual EPG data record is received in

different languages, the preferred languages are checked

in the given order to decide which one to take.

Scan The "Red" key in the "Setup/EPG" menu can be used to

force an EPG scan on a single DVB card system. If pressed,

and the primary DVB device is currently not recording or

replaying, it will loop through the transponders once and

then switch back to the original channel. Any user activity

during the EPG scan will also stop the scan and bring back

the original channel.

DVB:

Primary DVB interface = 1

Defines the primary DVB interface (i.e. the one that

will display the menus and will react on input through

the remote control). Valid values range from '1' to the

number of installed DVB cards. If more than one DVB card

is installed and a recording is to be started, the

program will try to use a free DVB card that is different

from the primary DVB interface, so that the viewer will

be disturbed as little as possible.

Standard Compliance = 0

Defines the standard compliance mode:

0 = DVB

1 = ANSI/SCTE

2 = NORDIG

Video format = 4:3 The video format (or aspect ratio) of the tv set in use

(4:3 or 16:9). Applies only to SD output devices.

Video display format = letterbox

The display format to use for playing wide screen video on

a 4:3 tv set ("pan & scan", "letterbox" or "center cut out").

This option is only available if "Video format" is set to

4:3. Applies only to SD output devices.

Use Dolby Digital = yes

Controls whether Dolby Digital tracks appear in the "Audio"

menu. This is useful if you don't have the equipment to

replay Dolby Digital audio.

Update channels = 5 Controls the automatic channel update function. '0' means

no update, '1' will only update channel names, '2' will

only update PIDs, '3' will update channel names and PIDs,

'4' will perform all updates and also add newly found channels,

and '5' will also add newly found transponders.

Note that adding new transponders only works if the "EPG scan"

is active.

Audio languages = 0 Some tv stations broadcast various audio tracks in different

languages. This option allows you to define which language(s)

you prefer in such cases. By default, or if none of the

preferred languages is broadcast, the first audio track will

be selected when switching to such a channel. If this option

is set to a non-zero value, the menu page will contain that

many "Audio language" options which allow you to select the

individual preferred languages.

Display subtitles = no If set to 'yes', the first available subtitles in the list

of preferred subtitle languages will be turned on when

switching to a channel that provides subtitles.

Subtitle languages = 0 Some tv stations broadcast various subtitle tracks in different

languages. This option allows you to define which language(s)

you prefer in such cases. By default, or if none of the

preferred languages is broadcast, no subtitles will

be selected when switching to such a channel. If this option

is set to a non-zero value, the menu page will contain that

many "Subtitle language" options which allow you to select the

individual preferred languages.

Subtitle offset = 0 Allows you to shift the location of the subtitles in the

vertical direction. The valid range is -100...100. This option

is only available if "Display subtitles" is set to 'yes'.

Subtitle foreground transparency = 0

Subtitle background transparency = 0

These define an additional level of transparency for the

foreground and background color of subtitles. Valid ranges

are 0...9 for foreground transparency, and 0...10 for

background transparency. By default the values as broadcast

are used.

LNB:

Use DiSEqC = no Generally turns DiSEqC support on or off.

SLOF = 11700 The switching frequency (in MHz) between low and

high LOF

Low LNB frequency = 9750 The LNB's low and high local oscillator frequencies

High LNB frequency = 10600 (in MHz, these have no meaning for DVB-C receivers)

Device n connected to sat cable = own

Defines whether DVB-S device n has its own satellite cable,

or is "bonded" with another device. All DVB-S devices that

are connected to the same sat cable must be set to the same

number here.

Use dish positioner = no

By default, the 'P' command code in DiSEqC command sequences

is ignored. Set this parameter to 'yes' if you are using a

satellite dish positioner.

Site latitude (degrees) = 0

Site longitude (degrees) = 0

Set these to the latitude and longitude of your dish's

location if you use a satellite dish positioner. Use the

"Green" key to switch between north/south and east/west,

respectively.

Max. positioner swing (degrees) = 65

Defines the maximum angle by which the positioner can move

the dish away from due south (or north) in either direction.

The valid range is 0...90.

Positioner speed (degrees/s) = 1.5

Defines the speed at which the positioner moves the dish.

The valid range is 0.1...180. This value is used to calculate

how long it takes the positioner to reach the target position.

CAM:

n CAM Name Shows the CAM slots that are present in this system, where

'n' is the number of the slot, followed by the name of the

CAM. If a CAM slot is empty, '-' is displayed as name, and

if it is in the process of being reset, its current status

is displayed. The "Red" key can be pressed to enter the CAM

menu, and the "Green" key triggers a reset of the selected