Change default video recording directory

[storello]

I've been using SageTV for about a year on Windows and recently moved to Linux. There are several issues so I'll break them into different threads. The most important issue is that it seems to force 3 standard directories in /var/media into the config and I am storing my media files on a NAS. I want to get rid of these settings but have not found a way to do so. I've removed and recreated the Sage.properties file, hacked the file, and reinstalled the server software. The directory settings keep coming back. To make matters worse, they are also set to fill the drive and this is my boot drive There is no way to modify that setting either. When the directory is selected in the setup menu there is a message "This standard directory may not be removed". I even tried replacing the actual directories with symbolic links to my NAS but it didn't like that.

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by storello

I've been using SageTV for about a year on Windows and recently moved to Linux. There are several issues so I'll break them into different threads. The most important issue is that it seems to force 3 standard directories in /var/media into the config and I am storing my media files on a NAS. I want to get rid of these settings but have not found a way to do so. I've removed and recreated the Sage.properties file, hacked the file, and reinstalled the server software. The directory settings keep coming back. To make matters worse, they are also set to fill the drive and this is my boot drive There is no way to modify that setting either. When the directory is selected in the setup menu there is a message "This standard directory may not be removed". I even tried replacing the actual directories with symbolic links to my NAS but it didn't like that.

A few thoughts:

When you hacked the Sage.properties file, did you change both the seeker/default_linux_recording_paths and seeker/video_storage values?

What was the behavior when you used a symlink? I would have expected that to work.

Can you mount a sub-directory of your NAS on /var/media/tv?

You might also try this:

In the Video Recording Directories setup, add a new recording directory that points to where your NAS is mounted.

Then (after stopping Sage) edit Sage.properties, look for a line like:

seeker/video_storage=/var/media/tv,18000000000,2;

That 18000000000 (your number is likely different) corresponds to the "Leave 18.0G Free" Diskspace Usage Rule you see in the Video Recording Directories setup for "/var/media/tv", but it's not editable in the GUI.

Change the value (which is in bytes) to be larger than your /var partition (or your / parition if /var is not a separate partition). Sage should then see that /var/media/tv is "full" and use the other recording directory which you set up (which is your NAS).

I haven't tried this, but I vaguely remember a discussion about it some time ago.

--John

[storello]

Thanks for the info, John. I'm really surprised at the default settings and even more surprised that there is no GUI way to modify the config. That said, I need to take a break from this for a bit to knock down some other issues. Hopefully I'll be in a better frame of mind in a few days to go through your suggestions. At least there's not much on TV these days worth watching so my hard drive is not filling up.

[Fuzzy]

remeber, the Linux version of the software is 'OEM'.. it's not really intended to be tweaked byu the end user, but was made to be bundled onto prebuilt systems...

[jpwegas]

Along the lines of Fuzzy's post, I should add that the "seeker/video_storage" setting probably isn't exposed in the GUI because it can break things if it's set incorrectly. I think many of us using the Linux version accept the benefits (and risks) of acting as our own "OEM vendor". I have not had any trouble making it somewhat larger than whatever the default value was (which escapes me at the moment), but I have never tried setting it larger than the disk's size, so please test it before you rely on it too heavily.

--John