used space? free space? who what? where?

[Kanati]

I've been messing with my system and setting it up and tweaking things for a number of hours... And at 1am, I just don't feel like trying to dig through the manual any more right now... Why is it that I have 150 gig free according to my little menu guage thingy (from the dynamic menu stv), but there's a large yellow block, and if I go to the video directory I have shared on the network I see a few dozen mpg files taking up space that I never recorded? And I only have one show listed as having been recorded, and the current one that I am watching.

Thanks

[nielm]

I don't feel like writing a full reply just now, so I will just say Manual Page 24 (quick start guide/livetv) (for the 'random' MPG files)

The yellow block in the disk space bar is the space required for scheduled recordings. It turns red when there is not much space left (click it for more details or to configure it).

[Kanati]

thanks for the guage thing...

I think I understand the whole livetv thing now... I just don't like it... On my TiVO, it doesn't record squat until I tell it to. It does have a 30 minute buffer that gets recorded and discarded on a running basis. I certainly don't want sage eating up my hard drive with stuff I'm watching currently "live". Is there any way to have it deleted from the hard drive immediately after the show is over maybe? Recording it while you watch would allow fast forward (another small gripe I have... no real fast forward) and pause, and deleting it afterward would stop eating my hard drive space. That would be a very acceptable trade-off.

[stanger89]

The manual also describes how Sage handles LiveTV files. They are the first ones to get deleted.

[Kanati]

yeeaaaahhhhhh... I understand that. I just don't like that they are getting stuffed into the recording directory at all. I'm picky... If I don't tell it to record it, or it's not an "intelligent recording"... I don't want it recorded.

I'll probably just wind up deleting things manually as I have the sage recording directory shared on my network so I can copy recordings to my main box for shrinking and burning off to dvd anyway. Which is probably the real reason I find it annoying... I have to search through the files to find the ones I actually recorded. If I never saw the files I probably wouldn't care.

[nielm]

There is also a plugin STV that adds a screen that displays all the 'partial recordings' (the ones that do not show up in the recordings screen -- usually LiveTV files where you channel-hopped before the whole show was recorded) and allows you to delete them all with a single button press...

If you are using IR, the partials will be deleted first when Sage needs some free space, so this screen allows some pre-emtive deletion without worrying about deleting things you want to keep.

See my sig for the links.

As for Sage always recording... There have been a few long threads about it... Personally I like it -- it has quite a few benefits over the LiveTV fixed buffer approach taken by almost every PVR, and once you get used to sage managing disk space for you (something it was designed to do) you don't worry about it any more...

Oh yes, and for simulated 'real FF' (not perfect, but close enough) see my Multi-speed Continuous FF/REW plugin (again linked via the .sig)

[Kanati]

Thanks nielm that'll go a way to helping the issue.