documentation

Configuring the TV Recording path

Lifextender will scan the directory where Media Center records TV shows for new content. If, for some reason, you'd like to scan a different directory instead, it is configurable on the General Settings tab on the Options form.

..top..

Manually scanning your Media Center library

You can manually trigger a scan by right-clicking on the Lifextender tray icon and selecting Scan Media Center library.

..top..

Configuring Lifextender to automatically scan your Media Center library

Lifextender can automatically scan your library at regular intervals. To enable this feature:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Ensure the radio button labeled Automatically scan Media Center library is selected
Specify (in minutes) how often you want your library scanned
Click the Save button

This feature is disabled by default.

..top..

Configuring Lifextender to scan your Media Center library at a scheduled time

Lifextender can scan your library at a scheduled time each day:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Ensure the radio button labeled Schedule my library to be scanned at is selected
Specify in military time when you want your library scanned - this happens daily
Click the Save button

This feature is disabled by default.

..top..

Automatically scanning your Media Center library when a new recording finishes

Lifextender can scan your library when it detects that a show has finished recording. Only recently recorded shows will trigger a scan. To enable this feature, follow these steps:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Ensure the radio button labeled Automatically scan my library when new files are detected is selected
Click the Save button

This feature is disabled by default.

..top..

Removing partially-recorded TV shows from your library

There are a number of reasons why you might end up with partially-recorded TV shows. If a TV show is 30 minutes long but only 10 minutes happened to record, you probably won't want to keep it around. Lifextender allows you to configure the minimum duration a show must be to be considered a fully-recorded show.

To remove partially-recorded shows from your library:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Ensure the checkbox labeled Remove partially-recorded TV shows is checked
Specify how short a show must be in order for it to be removed
Click the Save button

For clarification, if you wanted to only keep shows that are 25 minutes or longer, you would enter 24 into the textbox. The next time Lifextender scans your library, it will remove any shows 24 minutes or shorter.

Any time a scan is performed, Lifextender will first remove any partially-recorded TV shows. This feature is disabled by default. Uncommercialized shows will never be removed regardless of their duration.

..top..

Removing duplicate TV shows from your library

Media Center is pretty good at not recording the same episode of a given show twice, but it does occasionally happen. Therefore, Lifextender includes an option to automatically remove duplicate TV shows from your library. Lifextender considers 2 shows to be duplicates if:

both shows have matching titles and episode summaries
both shows have matching titles and subtitles (episode name)
both shows contain matching WM/WMRVProgramID metadata attributes

If multiple episodes of the same show are found, Lifextender will keep the show that has the longest duration. To remove duplicate TV shows from your library:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Ensure the checkbox labeled Remove duplicate TV shows is checked
Click the Save button

Any time a scan is performed, Lifextender will first remove any duplicate TV shows. This feature is disabled by default. Uncommercialized shows will never be removed regardless of it's duplicate status.

..top..

Dumping your garbage

When Lifextender uncommercializes a TV show, it creates a new, uncommercialized copy of the original TV show. So when all the processing is done, the original TV show needs to be discarded. You have 3 options - recycle, delete or move. If you have limited drive space for your recordings and you trust Lifextender, you might think about just deleting the original files. To keep them around a little longer, set it to recycle. And in certain cases you may want to archive the original file - in this case, follow these steps:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Select the move option from the dropdown
Click the link labeled to this location
Select a directory where Lifextender should move the original file to when processing is complete
Click the Save button

Original recordings are recycled by default.

..top..

Checking for updates

To keep Lifextender current, you can check for new updates from within the More Settings tab on the Options form. Optionally, Lifextender can check for updates automatically once a day.

If a new version is available, it will require a restart of Lifextender. If you choose to continue with the update, Lifextender will download, install the update and restart itself. If you have the Media Center Add-in installed, you will need to restart Media Center before the add-in portion of the update is recognized.

..top..

Suspend or hibernate your machine after a scan

Lifextender can suspend or hibernate your machine after a scheduled scan completes. To enable this option, follow these steps:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Select the More Settings tab
Check the box labeled After running a scheduled scan...
Choose either suspend or hibernate from the dropdown
Click the Save button

This feature is disabled by default.

..top..

Installing and uninstalling the Media Center Add-in

Lifextender comes with a completely optional add-in for Media Center. The add-in can be installed directly from within the Options form. You get these additional benefits with the add-in:

Notification when a TV show finishes uncommercializing
New Update notifications and the ability to update from within Media Center

To install the Media Center Add-in:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Media Center tab
Click the Install Media Center Add-in button
You will see a "Lifextender Add-in has been installed" message appear

The Media Center Add-in is not installed by default, however it is a recommended install. Note - you must have Media Center open in order to take advantage of these features.

..top..

Configuring the Lifextender Working directory

As a show is being uncommercialized, it is removed from your Media Center library temporarily. This is necessary to isolate the file so it's not accessible in Media Center. By default, Lifextender will attempt to use the same drive where TV is being recorded. In most cases, this should be fine, however, if you'd prefer to use another drive or location to process TV shows, you can do so by setting the working directory:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the More Settings tab
Click the ... button to browse for a new directory
Click the Save button

The working directory is automatically set when the TV Recording path.

..top..

Changing the output directory

By default, Lifextender outputs the commercial-free copy to the recorded TV directory where it was initially discovered. If you want to output the file to a different directory, you can do so by choosing a different output path.

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the More Settings tab
Click the ... button to browse for a new directory
Click the Save button

..top..

Care to share your anonymous life-extending stats

I thought it would be fun to see overtime the amount of time the community as a whole would save by eradicating commercials from their library. So I added an option to send your usage stats to this site - it's displayed on the left side of every page. The only data being sent is the number of minutes that are removed after uncommercialzing a show. Absolutely no other data is sent.

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the More Settings tab
Check or uncheck the Yes, anonymously send the time I save to lifextender.com checkbox
Click the Save button

This feature is enabled by default.

..top..

Choosing the commercial-detection application to use

Lifextender allows you to choose between two different, well-known commercial-detection applications - Comskip and ShowAnalyzer. If you would prefer to use ShowAnalyzer instead of Comskip, follow these steps:

Download and install ShowAnalyzer from the Dragon Global website
Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the More Settings tab
Select ShowAnalyzer from the drop-down list For commercial detection, I want to use:
Click the Save button

Since Comskip ships with Lifextender, it is selected as the default commercial-detection application.

..top..

Comskip configuration

Comskip is the brains behind commercial detection. It is a console-based application that reads it's settings from a .ini file located in the Lifextender installation directory. To manually tune the Comskip settings, click the Edit Comskip Settings button located on the More Settings tab on the Options form. Note - Comskip must be selected as the commercial-detection application in order for these options to show.

The Comskip tuning guide can be found at: http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/files/tuning.htm

..top..

ShowAnalyzer configuration

To edit the ShowAnalyzer settings, click the Edit ShowAnalyzer Settings button located on the More Settings tab on the Options form. Note - ShowAnalyzer must be selected as the commercial-detection application in order for these options to show.

..top..

Event and error logging

All events and errors are logged in the Event Log in a custom log entitled Lifextender. To view them, use the Event Viewer in Administrative Tools and expand the Applications and Services Logs node.

Alternatively, you can right-click on the sytem tray icon and select View Event Log.

..top..

Syncing the data displayed in Media Center

If Media Center is displaying innacurate data for processed TV shows, such as duration, Lifextender includes a feature to ensure Media Center is in sync with your library's metadata.

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Media Center tab
Click the Sync Media Center Data button and wait a few moments

To get a detailed list of what shows were updated, please check the event viewer.

..top..

Forcing Lifextender to copy the thumbnail icon to processed shows

Previous builds that copied the thumbnail icon resulted in some serious memory spikes. Not all machines have enough spare memory to allow for this. So by default, this setting is turned off. If you wish to override this setting, please follow these steps:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Advanced tab
Check the box labeled Copy the thumbnail from the original file to the uncommercialized file

This option should only be used if you know your system can handle the memory load.

..top..

Forcing Lifextender to copy all the original metadata to processed shows

For the same reason stated in the above question, Lifextender copies only a subset of commonly-used information to avoid memory spikes. If you want or need all the metadata from the original file, you can override this setting by following these steps:

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Advanced tab
Check the box labeled Copy all metadata from the original file to the uncommercialized file

This option should only be used if you know your system can handle the memory load.

..top..

Adding a file to the blacklist

Sometimes Lifextender can get caught up on a file that it can't process. In this case, you can add it to the blacklist. Lifextender will automatically add files to the blacklist that encounter errors - now you can remove them or add to the list.

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Advanced tab
Click the Add file button
Select at least 1 file
Click the OK button and it should be added to the blacklist

Files on the blacklist are ignored when testing rules.

..top..

Filtering out files so Lifextender ignores them

Rules are used to include or ignore TV shows based on specific attributes. For example, Rodger Klemmenz doesn't want Lifextender to process any shows with the word "steroid" in it that was recorded on channel 703 (ESPN). Rules allow you to include or ignore any shows that meet all or any of the rules you set.

Right click on the Lifextender tray icon
Select Options...
Choose the Rules tab
Click the Add new rule button
Select a pre-defined field, an operator and specify a value
Click the OK button and it should now be in the rules list

Always test your rules using the Test rules button. The test result viewer will allow you to see what shows will be included and ignored.

To disable an existing rule without deleting it, uncheck it in the rules list. Unchecked rules are ignored when testing and scanning.

..top..

Lifextender command line arguments

Lifextender supports the following command line arguments:

-debug - increases logging verbosity
-scan - will scan the media library upon loading; if Lifextender is already running, the running instance will perform the scan (must be the first argument)
-suspend - will suspend the machine after a scan completes
-hibernate - will hibernate the machine after a scan completes

Files on the blacklist are ignored when testing rules.

..top..

documentation

lifextender