Recording

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1. Overview
2. Setup Recording
1. 2.1. General
  1. 2.1.1. Recording
  2. 2.1.2. Pre- and post recording
  3. 2.1.3. Scheduler
2. 2.2. Custom paths and filenames
  1. 2.2.1. Recording
  2. 2.2.2. Format
3. 2.3. Disk quota
4. 2.4. Recording Folders
5. 2.5. Database import
3. Changes in the upcoming release

Overview

In this section you can configure various settings related to the recording of TV and Radio content in MediaPortal. The section is divided into several tabs which are described below.

Setup Recording

Note, recording settings apply to both TV and Radio recordings. For information on accessing your recordings in MediaPortal, see:

General

On this tab you can set some of the recording parameters.

Recording

Maximum free cards to try

Defines the maximum numbers of tv cards to use for recordings. For example if you have 4 tv cards and set this value to 3 you can be sure to always have at least 1 tv card free for live TV.

Pre- and post recording

Start recording x minute(s) before program starts

Allows you to set the time you want the TV Engine to start recording the channel before the time of the scheduled recording. If you are using PowerScheduler or similar the PC will wake up at this time if it is in standby or hibernate to start the recording.

Stop recording x minute(s) after program ends

Does as it says. It is usually a good idea to leave some leeway after a programme is scheduled to finish as broadcasters do not always stick to the exact times advertised.

Scheduler

Allow server to stop LiveTV to record when no free card is available

This means that recordings will take priority over live TV, so if the user is watching tv and a scheduled recording starts (and no other tuner is available for this channel) the live tv will be stopped.

Check episode of already recorded programs to prevent duplicate recording of repeated broadcasts

When multiple episodes of a recurring program are broadcast and this setting is active, the scheduler will try to check if the same episode has already been recorded before starting the new recording. The dropdownlist next to Episode key allows you to define how the scheduler checks if two episodes are the same, either by Episode Title or by Episode Number.

Weekend

When creating an advanced recording in MediaPortal you can select to only record shows on weekdays or weekend. This setting defines which weekdays are considered weekend. Default: Saturday/Sunday

Custom paths and filenames

Use this tab to set the file name format the TV-Server should use for recordings. There are two types of recordings (single and schedule) and they can have different file name formatting.

Recording

Select the recording type to configure:

Movies (manual or single type recordings)
Series

Format

Select one of the pre-defined file name formats or choose [User custom value] to create one of your own. You can use tags to replace part of the file name with information about the recording. Check the Sample textbox to see the result of your custom format for a fictional recording.

Disk quota

This tab will allow you to enable automatic disk quota for drives used in recording paths. You can only choose a drive that is configured in the recording path on the Folders tab.

You can enable or disable disk quota individually for each drive. If the limit of free space is met, the TV-Server will automatically delete recordings until the limit of free space is restored. Oldest recordings are deleted first. This will avoid missed recordings due to missing space on the hard drive.

Note: The Win32_LogicalDisk WMI class (which is used to calculate this) represents a data source that resolves to an actual local storage device on a computer system running Windows.

Recording Folders

This tab allows you to specify the folders where programmes will be recorded to for each tv card. This needs to be done for each individual TV card using the drop down menu. If you want one folder for all tv cards you can select the folder you'd like and press Same recording folder for all cards. Note that the Recording Format is alway Transport Stream (*.ts). In earlier versions of MediaPortal it was also possible to save to mpeg files, but this feature has been removed due to a windows bug with the playback of mpeg files (See this blog post -> 6. Why does MP use the ts format and not just mpg?).

Database import

Using Database import, you can add or reassign recordings not already in your database. Moving recordings between recording-folders would be one use of the Database import. Changing channels on existing recordings could be another.

As an example (look at screenshot above) we could have two recordings made in TV-Server from the channel ORF2 HD. Now you decide that this channel should be named ORF2 (HD) in the future. Since MediaPortal only differentiates between channels by their names, the two recordings would now belong to a non-existent channel. This tab will allow you to mark the two recordings, click Change channel and then select ORF2 (HD) from the list. The recordings will now belong to the correct channel again.

If you try to import a recording from a channel that is no-longer in your channel list, the recording will be greyed-out and will not import. If this happens, click on the 'Change channel' button and you can select a new channel to assign the recording to and this will import it.