Shadow Play Renamer tool

Shadow Play Renamer as it's “creative” name suggests, renames the video file names that Shadow Play records. The main goal of this tool to rename the date format in the file name, from the MM.DD.YYYY format to the YYYY.MM.DD format.

The service makes use of the fact, that Shadow Play lock the video file that is being recorded, and gets unlocked once it finishes recording. During the period of the file lock, the service periodically checks the file by attempting to rename the file. The tools are only focusing on .mp4 files.

Note This is a quick and dirty fix for the lack of implementation for specifying custom file names in NVIDIA Shadow Play feature. Configuring it might require some diligence for users not as involved in programming. I primarily made for my self and to study how to implement services in .NET, but share it here so others can benefit from the project.

This project is licensed under the GPL v3 which you can read more about in the COPYING.md file, or click the logo to the left, to see the latest version.

Disclaimers I do not take any responsibility for any loss of data this tool might cause. Use it at your own risk.

Download

Pre-compiled

Note As of writing this readme file, I still not sure where I am going to publish the binary files as this is one of the first project I release in such manner. My apologies in any inconvenience this causes.
Updates to this document will be made only the next time I update the source files.

You can find the latest release on the Releases page at the top of the page, where you can download either the installer or just the binary files.

Source code

You can alway download the source code from here, on GitHub by clicking on Clone or Download then selecting Download ZIP.

After you extract it, you can open the solution file with Visual Studio and compile it in Release mode. Although the project is made with Visual Studio 2017, it should open in Visual Studio 2015 as well.

The compiler must be at least C# 6.0 which is what used by Visual Studio 2015.

Usage

The primary use of this tool is by installing the SPRSVC.exe service either by the installer or by hand. However I have provided an SPRCLI.exe which uses the exact same logic as the service.

Installation

By MSI

The MSI installer will automatically install the service, asks for the folder where you record your videos, and configure them during installation.
If you whish to further configure the service, you may do so by following the Fine tuning section.

You can specify the following properties to automate the process:

INSTALLFOLDER
: The path to install the binary files.

SPPATH
: The path to your video recordings.

INSTALLPDB=1
: Install the debug symbols. Debug symbols are not required for the normal operation of the software. It is only provided, if you encounter a problem and you wish to report the issue.

Debug symbols can be also downloaded separately.

Manually

1. Copy the binaries that you either compiled yourself or downloaded to a location of your choice.

2. Open a command-prompt with administrator privileges, and navigate to the location you have copied the files.

3. Type in the following command: SPRSVC.exe Monitor "<Path to video recordings>"

   This will update the SPRSVC.exe.config file to the path you have typed in the command. If the command fails, an exception is written in the console.

4. Type in the following command next: SPRSVC.exe Install

   If the command fails, an exception is written in the console.

5. The next 3 steps are required because the service writing in the event log, and it is not prepared if the event log doesn't exists.

   Open Regedit, and navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application key.

6. Right-click on the Application key and create a new key called SPRSVC and navigate in to it.

7. Right-click in the right side of regedit interface, and create a new string value. Name it EventMessageFile.

8. Double-click the value, and type C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\EventLogMessages.dll in the value field, then click ok.

9. Then finally type in either SPRSVC.exe Start or net start SPRSVC but NOT BOTH. These commands both start the service, but they cannot start a running service.

By default it will search the specified file for files that matches the * MM.DD.YYYY - HH.MM.SS.SS.mp4 pseudo-pattern, and—once the file is free to be modified—will be renamed to * YYYY.MM.DD - HH.MM.SS.SS.mp4. If this is not suitable for you, then follow the next section for more information on how to change this behavior, otherwise you are done!

Fine tuning #### {#tuning}

If you are not satisfied how the service operates, you can change the behavior by modifying the SPRSVC.exe.config file. The configuration file already contains help in comments what you can change. For completeness, the provided help also repeated and elaborate on it more in this document.

The configuration of the behavior of the service is contained in the configuration ▸ appSettings tag. When you wish to change the configuration of the service, you should focus to this section. These settings are only working with the file name without the extension, and preserves that extension after the transformation. The following keys are available:

MonitorPath
: (Required; initial: empty)
This is the path, that the service will monitor. This is the key that the installer will modify, and can be modified with the SPRSVC.exe Monitor <path> command.

RetryDelay
: (Required; initial: 10000)
This key controls the delay in milliseconds the service should wait before trying to rename the file again.

Since there are no monitors to check if a file gets unlocked, the only way
the service could check for it is to monitor file creation and continuously
make an attempt to modify it. Since there are the possibility that this
could ruin the performance of the PC for some, this key was introduced.

Pattern
: (Optional; default value: (?<name>.*)\s+(?<date>\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{4}) - (?<time>\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{2}.\d{2}))
This is the pattern that is used to determine whether a file is needed to be processed or not, and if so, which part of the file it should interpret it as date or time, and which part of it is the name. The pattern syntax is the same as .NET Regular expression syntax. The < and > characters can be typed with the < and > entities, and " with the " entity.

The *name* named group will be captured as the first argument for the
***OutputFormat*** value.

The *date* and *time* named group are parsed with the ***InputDateFormat***
and ***InputTimeFormat*** and captured as the second argument for the
***OutputFormat*** value.

OutputFormat
: (Optional; default value: {0} {1:yyyy\.MM\.dd} - {1:HH\.mm\.ss\.ff}) This is the format that the file name will be after the rename.

The first argument will be the part that was captured with the *name* named
group, and can be referred to as `{0}`.

The second argument will be the date and time parts that was captured with
the *date* and *time* named group, and can be referred to as `{1}`.

The arguments can be further formatted by providing the string format after
the number separated with a colon. For example, the `{1:yyyy\.MM\.dd}`
will format the date and time as *2017.01.29*.

The accepted date and time format are the same that the .NET framework
accepts as either [Standard Date and Time format strings][SDateTime] or
[Custom Date and Time format strings][CDateTime].

InputDateFormat
: (Optional; Default value: MM\.dd\.yyyy)
The format the file to be modified specifies the date captured by the date named group.

This follows the same formatting as the .NET [Standard Date and Time format
strings][SDateTime] and [Custom Date and Time format strings][CDateTime].

InputTimeFormat
: (Optional; Default value: hh\.mm\.ss\.ff)
The format the file to be modified specifies the time captured by the time named group.

This follows the same formatting as the .NET [Standard TimeSpan format
strings][STimeSpan] and [Custom TimeSpan format strings][CTimeSpan].

Although the service logs in to the Windows Event Log, a more detailed log can be configured in the configuration ▸ system.diagnostics tag. This may be required for debugging the software.

You can change the level of logging by changing the switchValue attribute of the configuration ▸ system.diagnostics ▸ sources ▸ source tag with the ShadowPlayRenamerSvc name attribute. You can specify more than one value separated by commas. The values can be the following:

All
: Turns on all the log level specified below. No other level specifications are required after this.

Critical
: Turns on the Critical logging level messages.

Error
: Turns on the Error logging level messages.

Warning
: Turns on the Warning logging level messages.

Information
: Turns on the Information logging level messages.

Verbose
: Turns on the Verbose logging level messages.

ActivityTracking
: Turns on the messages that reports the service activities, like starting the service, stopping the service, an action starts or stops, suspended or resumed.

Below you can see a sample configuration file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <startup> 
    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
  </startup>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="MonitorPath" value=""/>
    <add key="RetryDelay" value="10000"/>
    <add key="Pattern" value="(?&lt;name&gt;.*)\s+(?&lt;date&gt;\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{4}) - (?&lt;time&gt;\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{2}.\d{2})"/>
    <add key="OutputFormat" value="{0} {1:yyyy\.MM\.dd} - {1:HH\.mm\.ss\.ff}"/>
    <add key="InputDateFormat" value="MM\.dd\.yyyy"/>
    <add key="InputTimeFormat" value="hh\.mm\.ss\.ff"/>
  </appSettings>
  <system.diagnostics>
    <trace autoflush="true" />
    <sources>
      <source name="ShadowPlayRenamerSvc" switchValue="Critical,ActivityTracing">
        <listeners>
          <add name="svclog" initializeData=".\SPRSVC.svclog" type="System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener"/>
        </listeners>
      </source>
    </sources>
  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

All, Verbose, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, ActivityTracing

Using the service

The service is started automatically and does not require further configuration. If however further configuration is needed, it is recommended to stop the service before modifying it's configuration, then restart it after done modifying the configuration.

If the service does not function in the desired manner, you can always disable it and use the SPRCLI.exe command instead.

Using the command-line interface

This section assumes the user have an adequate knowledge to use the command-prompt in Windows.

To be able to use the command-line interface from any directory, you need to add the installation folder of the SPRCLI.exe command in your PATH environment variable.

The command can be invoked like so:

SPRSVC.exe <options> <path>

Path is the path to your video recording folders, where Shadow Play records all the videos. If this argument is omitted, it will scan the current working directory.

The following options are known by the command:

/? : Displays a help message for the command.

/Pattern <pattern> : Renames the files that matches the regular expression pattern specified by the argument of the switch.

The pattern syntax is the same as [.NET Regular expression syntax][REGQR].

The *name* named group will be captured as the first argument for the
***OutputFormat*** value.

The *date* and *time* named group are parsed with the ***InputDateFormat***
and ***InputTimeFormat*** and captured as the second argument for the
***OutputFormat*** value.

Default value:
`(?<name>.*)\s+(?<date>\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{4}) -
(?<time>\d{2}\.\d{2}\.\d{2}.\d{2})`

/Output <format> : Sets the target format of the file name after renaming.

The first argument will be the part that was captured with the *name* named
group, and can be referred to as `{0}`.

The second argument will be the date and time parts that was captured with
the *date* and *time* named group, and can be referred to as `{1}`.

The arguments can be further formatted by providing the string format after
the number separated with a colon. For example, the `{1:yyyy\.MM\.dd}`
will format the date and time as *2017.01.29*.

The accepted date and time format are the same that the .NET framework
accepts as either [Standard Date and Time format strings][SDateTime] or
[Custom Date and Time format strings][CDateTime].

Default: `{0} {1:yyyy\.MM\.dd} - {1:HH\.mm\.ss\.ff}`

/Date <format> : Sets the format of the date captured named group.

This follows the same formatting as the .NET [Standard Date and Time format
strings][SDateTime] and [Custom Date and Time format strings][CDateTime].

Default: `MM\.dd\.yyyy`

/Time <format> : Sets the format of the time captured named group.

This follows the same formatting as the .NET [Standard TimeSpan format
strings][STimeSpan] and [Custom TimeSpan format strings][CTimeSpan].

Default: `hh\.mm\.ss\.ff`