[mythtv-users] Virtual file from multiple files

[Marc Randolph]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Gert <gertk at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Currently I am experimenting with a Siemens cable tuner (DVB-C with
> smartcard) which is capable of recording to a network share (Samba).
> However, it records in an odd way (probably to makes things difficult)
> it produces small blocks of mpeg TS files ( 2 minutes each) which when
> combined (by simpy cat-ting together for example) form a complete
> recording in TS format.
>
> My question is:
>
> Is there a way to 'link' these blocks together into one new virtual file
> and add this virtual file to the backend recording database ?
> My goal is to control the Siemens from the backend by sending IR
> commands (the only way to control it...) and use it as an external DVB-C
> tuner.

Very interesting.  Do all the TS files in a single directory apply to
that one stream?  If there were multiple devices creating multiple
streams, could a program tell the difference, or else could the
different streams appear in different directories?

How are the files named - or said differently, how would a program (or
slim driver) know which filename to start with, and which file to move
on to next?  Presumably naming wraps around at some point - when?

I guess your controlling program could delete a TS file at some point
after it had moved to the next one.

Assuming sane answer to the above, this doesn't seem overly
complicated, but it does double your disk activity:

* Siemens is writing small TS files
* stub is reading small TS files and passing them to mythbackend(?)
* backend writes them back out as one big seekable file
* frontend reads it back

A better method would be to have the Siemens writing the TS files to a
tiny ram-disk like filesystem, and keep the number of TS files small
by deleting them quickly.

   Marc