[mythtv-users] Disk Space UI

Dewey Smolka dsmolka at gmail.com
Wed Jan 16 05:49:44 UTC 2008


My apologies to all the women on the list, but they're strangely like
this. Have you ever seen a wife/fiancee pack a suitcase? It doesn't
matter what size the suitcase is or how long the trip is, but she'll
fill it to overflowing and then try to fit more in. Why on earth you
need three pairs of shoes (besides the pair you're wearing) for one
weekend is something my wife has never been able to explain to me,
although her friends seem to think this is normal.

I do remember have a similar problem to Bryan's. We had Myth running
first for MythMusic and MythVideo. Only later did we add the PVR
capability, and only later did I discover that my wife wanted to
record pretty much everything on the Food Channel all the time and
keep it all forever even though she'd never watch a single thing
twice. Heck, she even gets frustrated if I want to watch a film we've
seen before (unless it's one of the Lord of the Rings or anything with
Russell Crowe).

The compromise we eventually struck was that 1) We'd keep a maximum of
10 episodes per show; 2) She would delete whatever episode after
watching it.; 3) she'd tell me on a show-by-show basis whether to
expire the old and record the new (like with Rachel Ray's dreadful
chat show) or to stop recording new episodes until she had dealt with
the old (like with Rachel Ray's dreadful
here's-how-you-put-basil-and-oregano-into-maccaroni-and-cheese daily
chatfest).

This caused much friction until it became clear to both of us that the
shows she actually watched (and subsequently deleted) almost never
maxed out to the 10 allocated episodes, and the shows she thought she
wanted she rarely watched -- nor were they particularly time
dependent. Emeril is not going to sautee shrimp any differently in
January than he did in September.

Of course this compromise did not come easily. To my everlasting
shame, I got in the habit of recording every baseball game every day.
My wife has a very good argument that a four-hour ball game (I always
add 60 minutes because you never know how it will turn out) is a whole
lot more wasteful of space than a cooking show. Living in Chicago I
discovered that I will watch the Cubs, no matter who they're playing
or how unlikely they are to win; I hate watching the White Sox unless
they're playing the Indians or unless I am reasonably certain that
they'll be killed and Ozzie Guillen will launch a profanity-laced
tirade at some point; and I pretty much never watch the Braves. Ever.
No matter who they're playing (unless it's the Cubs).

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that we only keep 10 episodes
of things on the Food Channel, and I don't record Braves games or
White Sox games (unless they're playing Cleveland, or if the Cubs are
off).

Marriage is all about compromise, and it would be wise to sort that
out before you make the leap. I know that there are many worse things
than spending the rest of your life watching Rachel Ray (or Oprah) but
sometimes, after a hard day, when you're tired and thirsty, when The
Man's bringing you down, you'd rather just watch a ball game than
learn interesting new ways to cut  a carrot.

But the practical takeaway here is that you can limit the number of
episodes per title, and you can decide whether to keep the ones you
have or expire the old and record the new.


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