[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #6376: Patch to save transcoded recordings

[Bill Cizek]

>> orphaned files).  Perhaps--since the "Deleted" recgroup is treated  
>> specially and someone not using AutoExpireInsteadOfDelete may not  
>> realize how to access it--if the user doesn't have both SaveTranscoding  
>> and AutoExpireInsteadOfDelete enabled, just put it in another recgroup  
>> (i.e. "Transcoded" or "Duplicate" or something)?
>>     
>
> I like 'Transcoded'.  That makes it easy to find the originals and
> delete them without having to wade through other groups that have other
> things in them.  The Help text for the SaveTranscoding setting could
> direct people to this special group as well.
>   
It's kind of eerie but most of the things you mention are things I 
stumbled across as I did my original patch: It started as a stand alone 
script which I decided to incorporate into the transcode process. Along 
the way I tried flipping the names and ran into the problems described 
below.  I also tried moving the saved recordings into the recgroup 
"Original Files" (a.k.a. "Transcoded"), but I didn't like the feel of it 
and it was a bigger change than I wanted. OTOH, I really like the "keep 
the filename the same" idea, and the "Transcoded" recgroup has merit in 
view of general usability. If I get some time I'll look into these changes.

In any case, here's what I ran into:

- Keeping the file name the same and creating a brand new filename for 
the output file.

The real issue is the recstarttts, not the filename.  When the job 
finishes, the backend calculates the size differential between the pre 
and post transcoded files.  The new filesize it uses is that of the 
original file's name (which it gets from programinfo->GetPlaybackURL()). 
It also updates the filesize in programinfo. I'm not sure if it does 
anything else.  The big problem here is that that programinfo is from 
the original file and there's no simple way of finding out the new 
recstarttts / filename to get a new programinfo object.

- "Transcoded" recgroup.

I started along this route and it ended up duplicating the "Deleted" 
recgroup (I assume anything that's old transcoded should be first in 
line for autoexpire after "Deleted", and I didn't want the old shows 
appearing in the normal "watch recordings" screen.) This became a 
redundant PITA (I was basically re-writing the "Deleted" logic.) When 
using a "Transcoded" recgroup, these two points are still valid: 
expiring transcoded programs first, and not displaying the transcoded 
programs in the normal "watch recordings" screen (this gets confusing fast).

In terms of finding the deleted programs, I changed the my "watch 
recordings" screen to display "Deleted" as a recgroup (similar to 
"LiveTV as a group"). This works very well for me.

-Bill