[mythtv-users] separate directories and filenames

[Tom Lichti]

Timothy Waters wrote:
> Organization. That is my goal. I want a directory for livetv and one 
> for recordings and one for dvd rips. In the recordings directory, I 
> would like subdirectories for each tv show wherein the episodes 
> reside. The problem is that if I want to burn a show or move the mpg 
> from the recordings directory to somewhere else, it is usually trial 
> and error to find which file is what. That means opening many in 
> MPlayer just to find the one I want. I hope that helps.
>
Okay, that makes sense. The livetv stuff will never get separated from 
the recordings directory (unless you care to code that yourself), so 
don't even bother trying to do that. DVD rips should go to the video 
directory, which should already be different that the recording 
directory. My system has /myth/tv for recordings, and /myth/video for 
movies, etc, and /myth/music for mp3 files. Under /myth/video I have 
many sub directories to organize my movies. For recordings, I use the 
previously mentioned mythrename script (which in my case is a bit of a 
misnomer since I only use it to create links) to create symlinks in a 
more human readable format, which I put in /myth/tv/shows. I run it like so:

/usr/local/bin/mythrename.pl --link /myth/tv/shows --format "%T/%Y-%m-%d %S"

which creates symlinks to recordings (and NOT live tv, if you want live 
tv recordings, you can specify that) in subdirectories by show name:

root at mythtv:~# ls /myth/tv/shows/
Auto Racing            Gene Simmons Family Jewels  
Jericho                       Planet Earth                   Wildboyz
Behind the Headlights  Heavy- The Story of Metal   Law & Order- Criminal 
Intent  Rescue Me
Boston Legal           How Do They Do It           NOPI 
Tunervision              Rugrats Go Wild
CSI- Miami             How It's Made               Patent 
Bending                Seinfeld
Corner Gas             Hustle                      
Pinks!                        Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

And then in the subdirectory it shows this:

root at mythtv:~# ls /myth/tv/shows/CSI-\ Miami/
2006-09-25 Going Under.mpg  2006-09-27 Hurricane Anthony.mpg  2006-09-27 
The Best Defense.mpg

If you want to permanently rename the files, you can, just remove the 
--link option and don't put a slash in the format, like so:

/usr/local/bin/mythrename.pl  --format "%T-%Y-%m-%d-%S"

That will rename the actual files and update the database. I personally 
see no need for it, but you may wish to do that.

I run the cron every 3 minutes, which is probably a bit aggressive, but 
it's worked well for me so far.

I serve the /myth/tv/shows directory via CIFS/SMB, so I can mount it on 
Windows machines, Xboxes, etc.

That should get you close to what you are looking for.

Tom