[mythtv-users] Long LiveTV recordings (was Re: Myth records until drive is full (auto-expire is off))

[Michael T. Dean]

On 12/01/2008 04:08 AM, homer wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 08:44 +0000, Nick Morrott wrote:
>   
>> On 01/12/2008, homer wrote:
>>     
>>>         The biggest problem I have is when I am just watching tv (through the
>>>  composite input as I have to do with Foxtel/Austar) it stores it in 1
>>>  huge file.  Especially if Myth is left on "Watch TV" and I go out for a
>>>  couple of hours/days.
>>>
>>>         What I would like to see is if there is no program information about
>>>  what is being currently viewed (EIT) AND it is not scheduled for
>>>  recording, that MythTV will break up the video into (for example) 30
>>>  minute blocks and delete anything older than X minutes old.
>>>
>>>         This should help overcome the running out of room problem and also
>>>  prevent 6-7Gb files residing on 1 partition.
>>>
>>>         Thoughts anyone?
>> No top-posting please!
>>
>> MythTV already records into 30-minute chunks when no programme data is
>> available. I do not believe it deletes old LiveTV recordings over and
>> above what the auto-expirer does. LiveTV recordings should be set to
>> auto-expire by default, so that they can be deleted to make room for
>> scheduled recordings.
>>
>> What's the output of 'mythbackend --version' on your system? Are you
>> running an older release?
> My sincere appologies about the top posting.
>
> output from mythbackend --version is as follows:
>
> Please include all output in bug reports.
> MythTV Version   : 17961M
> MythTV Branch    : branches/release-0-21-fixes
>   
... (trimming the rest as it's irrelevant to /this/ specific reply, not 
to say that people need not include it when asked to give --version info)
> does this help/mean anything?

Nick and Brad are right.  If there's /no/ guide data at all, Myth will 
switch recording files at the top and half hour (i.e. at 7:00pm and 
7:30pm and 8:00pm ...).  If there /is/ guide data and you happen to have 
a show that's described as lasting for longer than 6 hours, Myth will 
break that show into multiple files at the 6hr point.

So, if you're getting extremely long recordings, they are a maximum of 6 
hours long and it's because your guide data says the show is even 
longer.  If that's not the case, it's a simple garbage-in, garbage-out 
dilemma (so just fix your guide data).

There is a "task" identified which would attempt to do more.  See 
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/3618 .

Mike