[mythtv-users] Auto-delete duplicate recordings

[George Nassas]

On Dec 17, 2013, at 12:56 AM, Jacob Strandlien <kepesk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello!  I have been trying to find a way to do this for a couple of days now with no luck.
> 
> I have a large archive of recordings on a well-used mythbox (0.27) and I know I have accumulated a lot of duplicates.  I need to free some space, but going through and manually getting rid of the duplicates would be a monumental task.  
> 
> Is there any mechanism or script available to track down these duplicates, and preferably delete all but the newest recording?  I've searched the web and poked at my interface with no luck.

I think your only recourse is a direct update to the database but the main question is what counts as a duplicate? A good identifier is the column programid and using that I whipped up this little bit of sql:

update recorded r1
set recgroup = 'Duplicates'
where r1.programid != ''
  and substr(r1.programid, 11) != '0000'
  and exists (select 1
                from recorded r2
	       where r1.starttime < r2.starttime
	         and r1.programid = r2.programid);

it finds shows with a program id which is not generic (ending in 0000) but do have a later recording with the same programid and moves them to a "Duplicates" group where you can review and delete at your leisure (you can do mass deletes using playlists, ask if you're not sure how). It's easy enough to undo, just change 'Duplicates' to 'Default' and you're back to before. If you're outside of North America and don't have reliable program ids then the columns would have to change, post back for more info.

For people on master, or who are reading this from the future, the recgroup column has changed to an integer so the update won't work for you without a tweak.

- George