Managed DVR-MS Fun

Stephen Toub - Fun with DVR-MS (now on my blog)

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DVR-MS files are created by the Stream Buffer Engine (SBE) introduced in Windows XP Service Pack 1, and are used by Media Center for storing recorded television. In this article, I’ll demonstrate how you can use DirectShow to work with and manipulate DVR-MS files. In the process, I’ll show you some useful utilities I’ve created for processing DVR-MS files, and will provide you with the tools and libraries you’ll need to write your own. So, open Visual Studio .NET, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the ride.

..."

This article is just about everything you need to know (well at least get you started) playing, transcoding, reading the metadata and editing DVS-MS (Media Center recorded content) files in C#, with some P/Invoke along for the ride.

One of my very low priority "I want do to's" is to build a simple DVR-MS viewer.

Media Player is almost good enough for me, but it doesn't have a 30-second skip button. I love that feature. Media Center's replay is almost good enough (as it has forward and backward skipping), but it's the sorting capability doesn't fit my needs (whereas Media Player lets me sort my recorded shows well enough.).

I want to be able to order my recorded TV shows by original air date and have a 30 second (at least) forward skip feature. So being a programmer I thought I'd just write my own viewer.  ;)

I think Stephen's article gives me all the information I need to get started. Now all I have to do is resurrect my Media Center so I can get at my recorded shows... dogh!