Expired Recordings, how to watch them?

Steve Miller

I have TVheadend installed on a Pogoplug in a remote location as the backend and XBMC running on a Raspberry PI as the frontend. It all works fine for the basic recordings that I do. My problem is that I have recorded stuff that I did not get around to watching in the 60 day DVR retention time.

The shows are still on the HD of the backend. I can see them when I SSH to that box. However, I cannot figure out to add them back into the Recordings list. I tried the basic things like touching the file to update the timestamp. However, TVheadend is apparently much more complex than that. It is apparently using a database somewhere to keep the file list.

Obviously, I cannot be the first person to record more than I can watch, but I have Googled for an hour and cannot find what I am missing to get these recordings back. Is there something else I have to install on the backend? Do I have to install something else on XBMC?

Thanks.

--- Steve

Adam Sutton

Unfortunately you would have to recreate the DVR/log files. Best thing is

just set retention period to some very big number.

Think mine is 9000 as there is a limit in the code.

Adam

On Apr 27, 2013 3:50 AM, wrote:

> Tvheadend - XBMC as frontend: Expired Recordings, how to watch them?
>Steve Miller >
> I have TVheadend installed on a Pogoplug in a remote location as the
> backend and XBMC running on a Raspberry PI as the frontend. It all works
> fine for the basic recordings that I do. My problem is that I have recorded
> stuff that I did not get around to watching in the 60 day DVR retention
> time.
>
> The shows are still on the HD of the backend. I can see them when I SSH to
> that box. However, I cannot figure out to add them back into the Recordings
> list. I tried the basic things like touching the file to update the
> timestamp. However, TVheadend is apparently much more complex than that. It
> is apparently using a database somewhere to keep the file list.
>
> Obviously, I cannot be the first person to record more than I can watch,
> but I have Googled for an hour and cannot find what I am missing to get
> these recordings back. Is there something else I have to install on the
> backend? Do I have to install something else on XBMC?
>
> Thanks.
>
> --- Steve
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Steve Miller

Well, I again managed to do something stupid. Without stopping to consider now big 9000 days really is. (It is more the 24 years!) I entered a slightly bigger number, less than 10,000, but greater than 9000. TVheadend seemed to accept the number, so I thought I had a large retention time. Connecting via the web interface the following day, I found that I had NO recordings. Apparently, the number I entered was too big and while the software did not complain, and something bad happened at midnight.

After thinking about how long stuff lasts, I chose 4000 days. That is over 10 years, and I do not expect the video format will even be the same in 10 years.

I also came up with a kludge to get my recordings back. I moved the files to another folder. Then I set up bogus 1 minute time recordings that have the Title of the program I am trying to get back. I allow the recording to complete and then I replace the bogus file in the Recordings folder with the real file I am attempting to recreate an entry for. During playback, via XMBC, it seems very happy to stream this switched file. The recording details in the TVheadend web interface will be incorrect, but at least the stuff is useable from XBMC again. I probably have less than 20 recordings that I need to recreate so it is not too much of a pain.

I am sure there is some way to move the files into another folder and then get them streaming to XBMC. But, it probably requires some sort of server that I do not have installed on my Pogoplug. So I guess I will leave that for the future.

ProfYaffle

FWIW, I simply added a new source to XBMC's Videos, and access it through Files view as an NFS share. I then added a shortcut to this on the home screen by making it a favourite.

I can now expire stuff from the tvheadend recordings list but still see the files. Yes, I lose the metadata from the EPG, but my head doesn't melt with a list of a thousand recorded children's programmes...