Converting shows to DIVX but keeping Sage show info?

[ben_gb]

Hi,

I'm getting a bit short of disk space and wondered if there is an easy way to compress shows to DIVX or XVID (not sure of the difference between these), but keeping them listed in the Sage Recordings database?

I've got a server + multiple client setup. At the moment I use a PVR-350 for recording on the server, so for new recordings I will have to convert afterwards...but I already have some 300-400 GB of shows that I need to convert first.

I currently use the Malore STV on the clients, with Sage 2.2.7. I'd like the process to be more or less invisible to other people in the house, so they just go into Sage Recordings in the normal way, and all the show info is still there.

I suppose what would be ideal is to have some kind of script running on the server which works it's way through each .mpg file, does the conversion and then replaces the old file with the new one and somehow gets Sage to pick up the new file details and attach it to the info for the old .mpg file.

Has anyone else done something like this?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Regards,
Ben

[Teddyboy]

Hi,

If it isn't in the manual, then it's something you really can't do in terms of converting while preserviing recording details. Sage uses a proprietary database to track all this stuff i.e. wiz.bin. All the recording information is maintained in wiz.bin as the files appear to be straight mpeg files, but they could either be numbered a certain way or file properties are attached to the files that allows Sage to attach what information goes to what file. Once you convert you might end up breaking the link premanently. It appears that it would be a complicated process for the software engineer to implement this, and it may not be worth the time/dollars to do this. This is just an educated guess on my part, so please don't hold my feet to the fire! The system just wasn't designed with this in mind. It is much easier to just let the user decide what he wants to keep either by archieving or deleting recordings.

How 'bout going out and buying a couple of hardrive or archieving to dvd or another harddrive shows that are not watched that often. Even if you converted to divix you would come up against the same issue you are having now. Running out of space for all your shows. I would suggest that you take a look at what you really want to keep. Then remove those shows that really aren't that important or have only been watched a couple of times. If it were me, I would get another harddrive or two, and I would also consider Raid 5 storage if you have that many shows that you want to preserve.

Hope this helps you some...

Efrain

[Opus4]

From the List of available customizations:

How To: In-place recompression of Sage Recordings

But, it doesn't operate in the background as SageTV continues to run, so it looks like it takes a bit of work to do this.

- Andy

[ben_gb]

Thanks for the replies...

Teddyboy...yup, in theory I could add more disks, however at the moment I am not able to get hold of any extras for the next month or so (we don't get deliveries where this server is located so it has to wait until I go back to 'civilisation'). Also my future plan is to move over to using DIVX to encode (assuming I can get the quality right) so everything is then in DIVX. I prefer not to archive stuff off as it is easier for everyone to have access to the full set of shows. I suppose I could delete some, but this is a shared system, so there are 3 or 4 different peoples preferences stored, plus a load of films for guests to access.

Andy/Opus4 - thanks for the pointer to neilm's post. It looks a bit scary! But I'll investigate a bit and see if I can apply it in some way to my setup.

Cheer,s
Ben