[mythtv-users] Restore recorded shows from backups?

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 28 May 2013 14:31:45 -0400, you wrote:

>On 05/25/2013 05:41 AM, Andrew Cranwell wrote:
>> Greetings,
>>
>> On 0.24, trying to reimport some accidentally expired
>
>Are you sure they were expired?  Expired implies that the recording 
>files, themselves, are no longer on disk.  If the recordings are on 
>disk, but the recording doesn't appear in Watch Recordings, that would 
>imply the recording was deleted to the Deleted Recording Group.  If so, 
>go to Watch Recordings and hit MENU (once or twice, until you see the 
>right options) then Change Group Filter, then select Deleted and see if 
>you find the recordings.  If so, undelete them.
>
>> recordings from backup - I have a mythconverg MySQL backup before they 
>> were expired and the MPG files themselves from a previous hardware 
>> iteration.
>>
>> Assuming that all I want to do is have the recordings in the "Watch 
>> recordings" list (don't care about re-recording),
>
>Could just put them in Video Library and use the old backup to get the 
>title, episode title (subtitle), and original air date from the record 
>with the file name of the recording, then rename the recording as at
>
>http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythVideo_File_Parsing
>
>and let it pull metadata and watch it from Video Library.  And, while 
>you're at it, you can do the same for the other episodes from those 
>series (so they're all in the same place) since Video Library is a 
>/much/ better place for storing large collections of videos and, 
>therefore, makes it much easier to organize videos and find what to watch.
>
>http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/519758#519758
>
>FWIW, there's no supported way of putting things back into Watch 
>Recordings once they're gone (and deleted to Deleted Recording Group 
>isn't gone--just "hidden" from default view and easily undeleted once 
>you know how).
>
>Mike

If you still have a backed up database with the full data about the
files in it, then there is a path to restoring the data that uses
supported software.

Create a new MythTV setup on a spare partition or PC, using the same
MythTV version.  Restore the old database into the new MythTV setup
and install mythexport.  Use the mythexport "On the Go" web page to
export the programs you want to a directory somewhere.  Mythexport
will first write a .sql file with all the data you want, before trying
to copy the files, which it will not be able to do as they are not
there.  But that does not matter - just stop mythexport and the .sql
file you need is already complete and available.  Move the .sql file
to the normal MythTV PC where the files are, install mythimport on
that setup, and run it on the .sql file, and you now have all the data
restored.

I use mythexport/mythimport to copy or move programs frequently,
between my MythTV box and my mother's, and to my laptop for when I am
traveling, and it always works fine - all data about a program is
transferred, including the recordedseek table data used for jumping
around in the file and even a bookmark if I have been playing the
program and left one.