[mythtv-users] List of recordings by disc drive - Solved - now storage strategies

Stephen Worthington stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz
Tue Feb 10 03:23:25 UTC 2015


On Mon, 09 Feb 2015 20:58:23 -0500, you wrote:

>On 02/09/2015 04:47 PM, Karl Newman wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> The general sense on this list is that it's cheaper to add
>> storage than to spend the electricity to transcode in order to
>> save space. Obviously you already have a number of disks so I'm
>> guessing you have physical space reasons for wanting to
>> transcode instead of adding drives.
>>
>
>>
>>
>> No, mythlink.pl <http://mythlink.pl> doesn't rename files; it
>> creates symbolic links with meaningful names which point to the
>> original files. You can completely customize how the files are
>> named, but it doesn't look like you can group it by disk/path
>> location or by storage group.
>>
>> Karl
>
>
>MythLink:  Ah, excellent.
>
>
>More storage:  My Back End motherboard (2011) has 6 SATA ports 
>available.  Four 1.8 TB discs, one DVD, one system/database 
>disc.  I could buy higher-capacity drives or new system.  I like 
>having four spindles, as I almost never record more than four 
>shows at once.
>
>If I increase Back End storage, I have to do something about my 
>rsync back-up PC.  It has a 2008 motherboard with three 4 TB 
>discs and a system disc.  Two of the 4 TB drives are dedicated 
>for MythTV back-up, the remaining 4 TB drive backs up all the 
>rest of the systems here.
>
>Conversely, if I transcode, unless it is PBS or TCM, I usually 
>have a new file that is 2/3 the size of the original.  Even 
>smaller if I get rid of program portions I don't want, or decide 
>not to keep the recording.
>
>My present 8 TB system, with recordings since 2011, has 6.2 TB 
>used, 23% free.  I'm almost 70 years old.  With transcoding, I 
>might die before running out of space on the existing system.
>
>John Finlay has piqued my interest about transcoding to h264...
>
>
>Mike

Transcoding is a lot of work.  When TV here was MPEG2 recordings, I
tried doing it.  But you needed to cut the ads out and trim the excess
at each end of the recording, and there was no way to automate that so
I had to spend time manually editing files.  It was far too time
consuming, even if I automated the actual transcoding.  I found it
much easier just to add more storage.

Two new 6 Tbyte drives, one for the MythTV box and one for the backup
box, is not that expensive.


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