"Archived" shows re-appearing on recordings list?

[timg11]

Sometimes I want to save a recorded show indefinitely, and I have set up an archive drive for that purpose.
I have my Video Recording Directory set to D:\SAGETV, and the archive drive at F:\ARCHIVE. I have F:\ARCHIVE identified as "Video" under Media Center Import Directories.

When I want to archive a show, I copy it from D:\SAGETV into a new folder under F:\ARCHIVE, then delete the show using the Delete function from the SageTV Recordings screen within SageTV so it will be removed from the SageTV Recordings list.

I am having two problems:

1) Not all of the archived shows are appearing in the Media Center list of videos. For example, Windows Explorer shows 17 video files in one folder, but the Videos view in SageTV's media center shows 7.

2) Shows that I have deleted from the SageTV recordings are showing up again on that list. When I play them, they must be playing from the F:\ARCHIVE drive. (I can inspect my D:\SAGETV folder and the shows are not there.

Why is the SageTV Recordings listing including shows that are not in the "Video Recordings" folder? It seems strange that they would cross over like that - why else would Setup provide separate places to enter folders for the Video Recordings and Media Center Imports? I have confirmed that my Video Recordings folder is not accidentally included in any Media Center import path. I would expect that if the Video Recording Directory in Setup is set to D:\SAGETV (and no other), then only shows in that one location would be included in the Recordings list.

How can I fix this? I want to have all the archived shows visible in Media Center. I also want to clean up the recordings list to remove the archived shows. I don't want any shows appearing on the SageTV Recordings screen that are not in the D:\SAGETV folder.

I read the FAQ on moving shows, but it doesn't address this specific situation.

[GKusnick]

Sage recognizes recordings based on whether or not there's a corresponding entry in its database, not based on what directory they're in. Recordings moved to an Import directory will still be recognized as recordings, and imported videos moved to a Recording directory will still be seen as imports. That's by design. The only real difference is that new recordings go into a Recording directory and not into an Import directory.

If you want to omit archived recordings from the Recordings list, you can do that by setting the Archived flag on those recordings and adjusting the filters on the Recordings screen to hide Archived recordings. (Note that this does not actually move the file itself; it just sets a flag in the database entry for that file. If you want the file moved, you'll have to do that as a separate step.)

[timg11]

IMHO, adding shows to the SageTV Recordings list even if they are in the Import folder is a very non-intuitive design. Would it be that difficult to verify that a file is located in the Video Recording Directory before adding it to the database?

If I rename the shows when I move them to my archive folders, will that keep them from re-appearing? For example, I could remove the numeric tag added to file names by SageTV. Would that cause them to be treated as just a media file and not re-appear on the show list?

Would the following procedure fix my current problems?

1. With SageTV not running, rename the F:\ARCHIVE folder to F:\HIDDEN
2. Restart SageTV and disable all video import folders
3. Find archive shows that are incorrectly listed in the Recordings list and delete them, to get them out of the database. (I'm assuming because I have moved the archived shows to F:\HIDDEN, SageTV won't be able to find them and won't actually delete the source file)
4. Close SageTV
5. Go to the hidden archives folder, and rename all the shows, removing the numeric trailers from the filenames.
6. Rename F:\HIDDEN to F:\ARCHIVE
7. Start SageTV, and add the F:\ARCHIVE to the Import Directories and check Video. Allow SageTV to rescan the imported folders.

[david1234]

I don't really understand what your attempting to do...

if you set the archive flag, you can filter those out of the recordings list. You can also create a 2nd recordings list that only shows the archived recordings.

Do you have a real need to actually mess around with the physical files?

[GKusnick]

Yes, you could do all that, but you would lose all information about the recordings such as show title, actors, air dates, ratings, and so on. All that info is stored in the database, not in the file. So if you delete those entries from the database, all you'd see in the Imported Videos list is the filename, with no description or anything else.

If that's what you want, go for it. Most people prefer to preserve the recording metadata when they archive recordings to another drive or NAS, and that's why Sage works the way it does.

Alternatively, it wouldn't be too hard to create an STVI UI mod that would filter the Recordings display based on directory. I don't know of an existing mod that does this, since there's not much demand for it. But in principle it could be done.

[timg11]

David, the reason for moving the files to be saved to a different folder is that I have different backup strategies for the general SageTV recordings and the Archives. The general SageTV recordings are not critical, so I might back them up occasionally if I have a lot of unwatched shows. If they were lost it would be annoying, but not a disaster.
The Archives hold movies and one-time special shows that I really want to keep. I have them backed up on other drives, and even off-site. Keeping them in different folder structures makes it easy to manage the backups. External programs don't have access to the SageTV metadata, so I can't perform a copy only on files with the Archive flag set in SageTV.

Also, I hope to do editing on the archived files (to remove commercials) once there is a usable editor for HD-PVR .TS files.

I didn't know about hiding the archived recordings and creating a second recordings list for the archived shows. Maybe that will do what I want.

Greg, you have a good point about maintaining the metadata. I have been using the archive setting as just a tag to indicate which shows I want to move to the archives folder when I'm cleaning up and moving the files to the other folders.

I still don't understand why some shows appear in the Media Center listings, and some are in SageTV Recordings. I could live with having all shows in the Media Center list, or all the shows in a special 2nd recordings list for Archived shows, but having them seemingly randomly distributed between both lists is an issue.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by timg11

External programs don't have access to the SageTV metadata, so I can't perform a copy only on files with the Archive flag set in SageTV.

Actually, I'd be very surprised if Sage Job Queue can't do this. There are also a couple of scripting and remote API plugins that let you access the Sage DB from external scripts and apps.

[nick_l]

And also remember that if the shows you rename are part of a "favorite" sage will forget that it recorded those shows and will record them again when they re-air.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by timg11

External programs don't have access to the SageTV metadata, so I can't perform a copy only on files with the Archive flag set in SageTV.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Actually, I'd be very surprised if Sage Job Queue can't do this. There are also a couple of scripting and remote API plugins that let you access the Sage DB from external scripts and apps.

As a matter of fact, SJQv3 includes an experimental* task that will actually move/archive recordings automatically, relink the airing info, and delete the original file, all while SageTV is running. You can selectively choose which recordings are copied (i.e. only move those recordings with the archive flag set - this is actually exactly what I do).

* Experimental in that I don't take responsibility for what could happen through its use, but I've been using it every day for a couple months now and have never had a problem. I know others have been using it and I haven't received a single compliant/bug report about it. That's not to say bugs don't exist, but I've happily copied over 1.2TB of recordings to my NAS using this method over the last couple of months with no problems. YMMV

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by timg11

IMHO, adding shows to the SageTV Recordings list even if they are in the Import folder is a very non-intuitive design.

It's a feature that's been asked for more times than I can count.

[John@TunerUK]

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but I'm having the same issue. I have all my favourite recordings copied over to my import directories, then deleted in the recordings section of Sage, but they're still showing up in recordings. I have unchecked "Archived", an set filters to not include Archives. This does remove them from the recordings menu, but it doesn't make them appear in the video section.

I did the exact same thing about 3 months ago with a load of recorded movies, and they're showing up in the import directories as they I'd like. Where am I going wrong this time?

[mkelly4ca]

Yes, this new feature is maddening. While it is nice that Sage now tracks the file as it moves around, and even when it is renamed, so that the show information is still available for the file, it is irritating beyond belief that I can't make the file appear in the Video list. I want it gone from Recordings AND listed in Videos.

Have you found a way to make that happen?

[BKeadle]

Did you ever find a solution to this?

[graywolf]

You should be able to do it with BMT and un-import it as a recording

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by graywolf

You should be able to do it with BMT and un-import it as a recording

Still trying to figure this one out. How do you "un-import" like that with BMT?

[Fuzzy]

Uncheck the 'SageTV Recording' checkbox on the media item.

[dvd_maniac]

I have thousands of Imported Videos that I need to "un-import".
How could I do this to "ALL" my Archived Recordings at once?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I have thousands of Imported Videos that I need to "un-import".
How could I do this to "ALL" my Archived Recordings at once?

If you go to the Malore recordings menu and set filtering to archive only and group to single group you can then select the left single group item and select the archive/unarchive option on the menu to unarchive all of the entries. This should then put them in with your other recordings. If you want them as imported videos there might be a setting in detailed settings but I just don't remember what it is at the moment.

[dvd_maniac]

I can't find the setting.
I (un) archived all my imported videos but they are showing up as manual recordings now...

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I can't find the setting.
I (un) archived all my imported videos but they are showing up as manual recordings now...

Which is what unarchiving a video will do. It takes a recording that was archived and makes it a recorded video that is a favorite, a manual recording or a recording that is neither (no F icon or M icon). If you are wanting them as imported videos I'm sorry but I still don't remember the setting I was thinking of.