Moving Recordings -

[ThePaladinTech]

OK ... I've looked and I've read ... but:
a. I just don't get it
b. I can't find my exact situation

Two similar posts are these:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ing+recordings
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ing+recordings

My situation is I want to have some shows I recorded on my NAS, i do not want to actually record shows to my NAS. what I did and *thought* I was clever was added a recording directory and told it 'use zero megs' - well that was fine and dandy till I saw my available recording space reported as a negative number!

Next I simply moved them over to an existing import directory - the files show up, but:
1. they have no 'meta-data' - just 'here's an mpg file'
2. ghost files -with meta-data show up in my recordings directory.

as an example I have:
1. an import directory as \\nas1\videos\tv
2. in that folder i have a subfolder called 'chuck' - where I was hoping to keep my 'chuck' episodes - with their metadata.

Can I do that? in short I don't care what I need to do, but i'd like to move files *somewhere* on my nas and retain all the recording info. I don't care if they show up as a recording or as in import ... I'd just like to not need to re-import all the meta-data. (even if that is getting easier with EvilPenquins tool) ... and I'd like there to not be any 'ghost files'

if I need to create a new folder on my nas and dump all sage recordings there (not sub-directoried by show name) - I'm OK with that.

I'd like them to continue to show up as a recorded file, but that's not required.

And lastly - must I stop sage to move these files?? the files that are on the nas got there when I upgraded my server ... so I've never actually moved any files there while the service is running ... but I'd like to be able to just move them.

Help me understand - grateful for any insight, and I have looked at the faqs, etc - just not gettin' it.

[matt91]

I've found that if I move a file (with sage service running, although it probably doesn't matter) from a recording directory to (an NAS) imported videos directory, Sage keeps that file in the TV Recordings database.

For my purpose, which is to move some recordings to the NAS that we rarely watch (Frosty, Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, etc), I have to move them *and then change the filename, usually by deleting the number suffix on the file*. If I just move the file without renaming it, Sage just updates its internal database to reflect that it can now find the file in a new location. It doesn't seem to care that it's imported videos vs a recording tv directory.

Hope that helps.
matt

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by enzominator

And lastly - must I stop sage to move these files??

It is recommended that you exit SageTV (stop the service) before moving files. And, yes, recordings will still be recognized as recordings when moved to an import dir this way.

It is possible to move files while SageTV is running, but there is a risk of having a problem. If you do this, either move it from one dir to another on the same hard drive, since moves are very fast, or copy it to a non-import dir on another drive, then remove it from the original recording dir, then move the copy to its destination import dir. That way, there is less of a chance of doing the move while SageTV is scanning that particular file and less of a chance of seeing the same file in 2 different places.

- Andy

[CyRex]

Is there any trick to doing this? I had tried the same thing mentioned in the first post a few weeks ago, and had the same results... The file I moved (from a recording directory to a video import directory) showed up in the imported videos section with no metadata.

Would using the standard STV vs SageMC have any effect on this? (I use SageMC...)

-Dan

[TobyG]

I have been looking for a similar solution, and wanted to share what I'm currently doing. My NAS (a QNAP TS-409) is great, but it's too slow to reliably handle direct recordings over the network (and the network is theoretically subject to traffic slowdowns). However, recordings play fine once they've been moved to the NAS (and once on the NAS they have the added benefits of RAID redundancy and easy storage expansion, which I don’t have on my SageTV box). So, in Sage I included a directory on my NAS as a recording directory, so files in that folder show up in "SageTV Recordings", but I force all direct recordings to be made to local storage (by using the "forced_video_storage_path_prefix" setting in the sage.properties file--in my case "forced_video_storage_path_prefix=\\\\192.168.1.10", where 192.168.1.10 is my Sage machine). I then wrote a simple batch file that moves older videos to the NAS and then restarts the SageTV service. The script is scheduled to run at night once a week:

Robocopy E:\Media\SageTV \\192.168.1.2\Media\SageTV_Hold * /MINAGE:14 /MOV
Move /Y \\192.168.1.2\Media\SageTV_Hold\* \\192.168.1.2\Media\SageTV
SC Stop SageTV
SC Start SageTV

The script first moves any files at least 14 days old to a temporary hold folder on the NAS (so that SageTV won't see the recordings in two places while they're being moved, which takes a while even over a gigabit network). The script then moves the recordings to the final, Sage-recognized location (which happens virtually instantly) and immediately restarts the SageTV service. This causes Sage to find the newly-moved files in the new location while, I think, minimizing the chances of confusing Sage.

This approach is the best way I’ve figured out to seamlessly integrate the storage on the NAS (which is relatively slow and subject to network traffic but reliable and easily expanded) with local storage (which is fast but limited in capacity in my case). It’s not perfect, because the script will potentially briefly interrupt any recordings in process while the service is restarted, but that only takes seconds and I don’t know of any other way to force Sage to refresh the recordings database. However, the script only runs once a week (and in the middle of the night), so interruptions in practice are unlikely.

Note that the script uses the Microsoft robocopy.exe program to copy based on minimum file age. This can be downloaded from Microsoft's site.

Any thoughts on this approach would be appreciated. (In particular, if anybody knows of a way to refresh the Sage recordings database without restarting the service, please let me know.)

[perfessor101]

I use Nielm's XML generator as a failsafe

After a video has finished recording
\\sagetvserver\tv4\AfroSamurai-AfroSamuraiResurrection-6045182-0.mpg

I wait until it has generated an *.mpg.xml file for the video
\\sagetvserver\tv4\AfroSamurai-AfroSamuraiResurrection-6045182-0.mpg.xml

then I copy the file to my recordings directory on the NAS with the videofile.temp for a filename
\\unRaid\recordings\AfroSamurai-AfroSamuraiResurrection-6045182-0.temp

I rename the original recording in it's original place from .mpg to .temp
\\sagetvserver\tv4\AfroSamurai-AfroSamuraiResurrection-6045182-0.temp
** both of these are very quick **
in the NAS recordings directory I rename videofile.temp to videofile.mpg
\\unRaid\recordings\AfroSamurai-AfroSamuraiResurrection-6045182-0.mpg

and then in the batch file I wait until the xml file for the recording in it's new place is created (4 - 9 minutes)

So far I have been meaning to write extra code in the batch file in case of SageTV not picking up the file in it's new location ... but that hasn't happened to me yet.

(some wood to knock on ...)

Hope this helps,
Bobby

ps -- I need to add any error checking actually for prime time usage

When I have had videos get lost from SageTV ... I find the XML and reunite it with the video and check the filename in the XML file to be sure it matches