[mythtv-users] Multiple Watch Directories

[Kevin Kuphal]

Jason Knisley wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I've asked about multiple recording directories before
>and people give me the "get another computer" or
>"write to an SMB/NFS share" thing and it's just not
>working. I have three simultaneous streams going
>sometimes, with the transcodes that need to happen.
>ATAPI isn't even fast enough, really.
>
>I have a question about how truly difficult multiple
>recording directories would be to implement.. but
>another suggestion came to mind -- multiple watch
>directories.
>
>You folks already have this thing in place where if
>you can't stream it through the backend connection,
>you have the thing look in /video or where ever
>recordings are supposed to go.. Would it really be
>that hard to do a semi-colon separated watch list
>where it went through each directory to find the file,
>first one that it finds it displays? Maybe even just a
>"recorded2" key in the database that it searches after
>it searches the first record path? It just seems like
>it would be a few extra lines of code.
>
>I really am quite scared of doing it formally. I've
>hacked things before to get things to work just for
>myself (like the cx25840 driver or the tuner or minor,
>minor things like that), but I'm really quite scared
>of writing a solid, genuine thing and adding a little
>config option in mythtvsetup (if it were just for me,
>that's what sql statements are for).
>
>So I'm running this up the flag pole.. Would anyone
>else think this is interesting or useful? Would anyone
>be willing to do it? Should I test change myself?
>  
>
I've been thinking of these lines myself.  One option for me is to go to 
LVM to add additional space but I don't like the idea of one bad drive 
taking down the entire LVM set so I'm using 160GB drives where I rsync 
one to the other for backup purposes.  I'm looking to add 250GB drives 
to this mix and making that space available to Myth. 

On my list of patches to make would be the idea of "Storage Groups" 
similar to recording groups only these Storage Groups would define the 
prefix or filepath that a file lives under.  Right now all recordings 
use the global filepath defined in setup.  With storage groups, each 
recording would have a group assigned to it.  The Default group would 
live in the system filepath.  Other groups would have their own 
filepath.  Moving a recording between storage groups would move them on 
the filesystem.

This would allow recordings to be assigned to storage groups at record 
time and also then moved between them later for space management 
purposes.  This would help those who do not use LVM for various reasons 
add and use additional space in MythTV. 

Ideally this would be a simple table in the DB defining the storage 
groups and their filepaths and a column in the recorded table marking a 
recording in a particular group and another in the record table for 
future recordings. 

Kevin