outline process for moving recordings from main dir?

[steingra]

I am starting to fill up my main recording directory (+-600GB) and I am wondering what my options are within SageTV to move these files safely to another location, that doesnt lose the show information, and also can be seen by my sagetv clients?

Was hoping there is a reliable and quick way to do this in Sage.

A little more explanation of what I want to do
=======================================
I am thinking about purchasing some more external seagate USB 2.0 300GB hard drives...and moving most of the movies onto those, and fill them up, get another one, fill it up, etc. I just want to have a nice huge collection of movies and shows to watch. Just a few clicks away in the Sage Client, or a MediaMVP (which I am also trying to get setup)

I plan on making some of my own custom DVD's with menus for series of shows...andy griffith, etc... so I can pop them in on any TV/DVD player and watch them. But thats going to take me a little time to learn how to do that (which is what I am starting to do this week)

So some of the files will be archived to my custom dvd's and then deleted. But mostly, I would like to retain my shows on hard drives. If one dies, I dont care. NOt end of the world. When 10 TB hard drives are cheap, then I can copy everything back onto one or two 10TB drives...until then...its a pile of external USB drives....


Thanks

[Opus4]

For v4, you can move a recording to an import dir while SageTV isn't running & it will be added to the Archived Recordings list -- but you can configure the SageTV Recordings menu to include archived shows.

Or, you can see this post regarding moving recordings while SageTV is still running... but shutting down SageTV (or the service) is more foolproof.

Alternatively, you could just add more drives as Recording Dirs & not worry about moving the files at all.

- Andy

[steingra]

Originally Posted by Opus4

For v4, you can move a recording to an import dir while SageTV isn't running & it will be added to the Archived Recordings list -- but you can configure the SageTV Recordings menu to include archived shows.

Alternatively, you could just add more drives as Recording Dirs & not worry about moving the files at all.
- Andy

hmmm dont know why I didnt put 2 and 2 together. You are right, I can just add the other new external hard drives...add them as additional recording directories....and be done with it. Then Just let sage keep filling them up with all my movies, and tv shows.

Is ther any known point, where too many shows will bog down SageTV user interface? Is there a practical limit to how many shows one should (or can) keep in the Show Recordings area?

I will have several more TB's of storage. I plan on recording a ton of movies for the *collection* over the next year. And would prefer to just keep them online and available in SageTV.

Of course, I am currently reading about how to make my own DVD's...so some of them are going to get burned into the DVD format anyway. But out of laziness...I want them all online and available so I dont have to get up and find a DVD of a show or movie.

[insomniac]

no issues with 1.5tb so far

[robinson]

Originally Posted by steingra

... I am thinking about purchasing some more external seagate USB 2.0 300GB hard drives...and moving most of the movies onto those, and fill them up, get another one, fill it up, etc....

Not really related to your main question, just a tip: Instead of standard external drives, get a USB2 external enclosure kit with extra trays for IDE drives. That way you would only have one USB2 drive (enclosure) connected to your computer. You can buy very cheap IDE drives (rebated, etc), mount each in its tray (extra tray could be maybe $9-$15, depending on the enclosure) and just swap the drives as needed. You would be basically using the drives as "cartridges", or large and fast Zip drives...

[tooslow]

Originally Posted by Opus4

For v4, you can move a recording to an import dir while SageTV isn't running & it will be added to the Archived Recordings list

This unfortunately does not work as indicated. The vast majority of files that you move out of your recording directories end up imported into the 'video library', regardless of wether any sage services are running or not.

To illustrate:

I have one recording directory. I use this as a temporary folder only. After a show is recorded, I move it into a permanent folder. Here are the real numbers from my system as of right now.

recording directory -0 files- (I just finished cleaning it out and restarting sage)

Archived Recordings
(09) CSI
(23) Movie
(01) SurvivorMan
(03) The Triangle
(07) X-Files
(04) UFC-Unleashed
------
47 total listings in AR

The above numbers are ALL of the files in my Archived Recordings folders.
Here are the totals of all of my files (including the ones in the AR folders)

(96) Movie
(60) CSI
(08) Firefly
(09) Shooting USA
(03) WPT
(92) X-Files
(21) Alias
(41) DS9
(05) Enterprise
(61) TNG
(05) SurvivorMan
(22) Total Recal 2070
(15) UFC
(11) Ultimate Fighter
------------
449 Total shows


So - of the 449 total shows, 47 of them are listed in the "Archived Recordings" section. I would say this does not work as intended.

Since the 'video library' is all but worthless, I hope this bug is fixed soon.

[Opus4]

Strange -- I've never had a problem moving a recording, so I don't know what would mess up with it.

You didn't rename any files? The ID has to be kept as part of the filename.

Are you sure SageTV and the service are not running? (You previously said you were using service mode.) If you move files while SageTV or the service is running, what you describe will definitely happen. Check the Windows Task Manager to see if there is anything starting with "SageTV" on the *Processes tab. If you just kill the service, it may restart itself, btw.

Did you do this while SageTV was about to update its EPG data? Make sure the EPG is not about to update before exiting & moving files.

- Andy

[tooslow]

No, I have not renamed any files, and yes - i'm sure I have all sage processes/services shutdown.

I checked the EPG update time (through setup/sys info), and it was roughly 40 minutes away.

I thought maybe I had an older version (which I did (4.something)) and all would be well if I upgraded (so I did 4.1.3). Now, I have even fewer files in the archived recordings (18 now).

;(

Could this be related to my folder heirarchy somehow? here is the layout...

f:\recordings -- this is the only sage recording folder. my temp storage.

d:\import\movies
d:\import\movies\action
d:\import\movies\comedy
d:\import\movies\sci-fi
d:\import\<various tv show titles, such as x-files>

e:\import\movies
e:\import\movies\action
e:\import\movies\comedy
e:\import\movies\sci-fi
e:\import\<various tv show titles, such as alias>

f:\import\movies
f:\import\movies\action
f:\import\movies\comedy
f:\import\movies\sci-fi
f:\import\<various tv show titles, such as ufc>


I have 'd:\import', 'e:\import' and 'f:\import' setup in sage as import folders.

[Opus4]

Your comment that upgrading caused even more shows to disappear from the archived list gave me an idea...

Are any of the imported shows set up as Favorites? I just removed the Fav for one of my shows & moved an older recording to an import dir & it didn't get listed in the archives upon restarting, so now I know how to reproduce this problem. This gives me some info to pass along to SageTV for them to check.

- Andy

[tooslow]

Yes, they are almost all setup as favorites.