[linux-dvb] Re: video disk clean up

[Klaus Schmidinger <Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de>]

Rainer Zocholl wrote:
> 
> Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de(Klaus Schmidinger)  24.08.01 22:42
> 
> Once upon a time Klaus Schmidinger shaped the electrons to say...
> 
> >Rainer Zocholl wrote:
> >>
> >> Are there any tools to do "disk clean up"?
> >>
> >> means:
> >> Deleting files after a while or extra when disc is full
> >> depending on age and prio.
> >>
> >> I thought vdr doit but it don't
> >>
> >> Just claims "disk full" and stopps recording.
> >>
> >> What did i do wrong?
> >>
> >> (All records were 50.50 and the default hold time.)
> 
> >Were there any recordings older than 50 days?
> 
> No, but the disk is full! :-)

So, what do you expect?
There are NO recordings older than 50 days, and ALL recordings
say "Don't delete me until I'm 50 days old!".

> I assumed that, exept for "hold for ever", the files will be
> deleted starting from the oldest in this "emergency state"
> Especially when the videos were already viewed.

Whether or not a recording has already been viewed has no
influence on the automatic deleting. This could be taken into account,
but then we would have to come up with a definition of what "has been
viewed" means. Has it been viewed when the 'resume' index is not
at the very beginning, or at the very end, or past half of the recording?

> I assumed the 50.50 as a kind of "prio"
> 
> 00: most important, do never touch
> 99: totally unimportant.

Please read MANUAL/Programming the Timer/Priority.
I guess it is natural that a LOW priority will have a LOW
value, and a HIGH priority will have a HIGH value.

> else 366 days must be possible or 3467 days, why not?

You are mixing up "Priority" and "Guaranteed Lifetime".
Anything that has a guaranteed lifetime of 99 is assumed to
"live forever". But as I can see the "Lifetime" concept is
not what you want, so please just set that parameter to 0
(see also below).

> And the state: "Can't record" do only occur when the disk
> is filled with prio "0" files.
> Else we are back to tape-time :-(
> Forgotten to rewind/insert the tape?
> Your fault, i will not record the new, but you can see
> the old records once again...
> 
> I think there are serval -right- ways to organize that
> and not just one. (Tho i do have a problem to see the advantage of
> a hold time of 53 Days. a Week, until the next part is to be recored
> OK, a Month, a fourtnight, 3 week ok. But 86 days? What for?)

The Lifetime parameter allows guaranteed lifetimes from 0 to 98 (99 means
"forever"). What values are useful for the individual user is up to
them. Should I restrict the values to 0..21, just because YOU don't see
a need for values beyond that? Again, simply set this value to '0'.

> Why should i delete files just because they are 50 days old
> if there is still enough space on the disk?

If there is still enough space on the disk, NO files will be deleted!
The guaranteed lifetime simply says "Keep this recording for AT LEAST
nn days". If all your recordings have long lifetimes and the disk runs
full, VDR just can't delete any of them. Again: set the Lifetime to '0'
and you should be fine.

> Why should i discard the command "Do record" only because
> there are only old, viewed images on the disk?
> 
> Why should i not fill the entire disk? (The disk is
> payed fully, why not use?)

I don't understand this. Isn't the disk filled entirely?

> The VDR should/must give a warning if less than 15% of
> disk is free and may start deleting in this phase!
> Less than 15% usually means that allocating free blocks
> becomes difficult/time expensive. (Depending of the file system
> used, but AFAIK 15% will work with all FS)
> 
> I don't see a reason to delete files just because they are old.

Neither do I. You just don't seem to have understood the meaning of the 
"Lifetime" parameter.

> BTW:
> Wouldn't it be easier handle and for the user to understand
> to write the deletion date in the file name, and not the "hold" time?

THERE IS NO DELETION DATE! VDR only deletes files when the disk runs full
while recording.

> The files next to be delete can be select with a simple
> ls+sort or the midnight commander (The deletion date should be in
> in ISO notation in the beginning af the name...(i hear the shouting ;-))
> A simple copy do not modify the holdtime as it may now happen, or
> how is the "50days" determined?

That's 50 days from the date it was recorded.

> BBTW:
> in "FORMATS" the format of
> the directory names seems not to be documented?
> 
> 2001-08-09.20:15.50.50.rec
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ^recording date  ~~ ??
>                  ?? ~~
>                     ??

Those are the Priority and Lifetime parameters as defined in the timer.
The defaults for these can be set with the DefaultPriority and DefaultLifetime
parameters in the Setup menu.

If you don't want guaranteed lifetimes, but would rather have your recordings
deleted by priority, I suggest you set DefaultLifetime (and all the Lifetime
parameters in your timers) to '0' and use Priority values that reflect the
"importance" a recording has for you. If the disk runs full, the oldest recording
with the lowest priority will be deleted then.

Please take a look at the MANUAL section  "Programming the Timer", especially the
explanation of the Priority and Lifetime parameters.

> regardless/anyway:
> So i need a tool to "renumber" the files which are recorded
> with the wrong hold time to get the disk free?

You can also manually delete recordings ;-)
After that, set the DefaultLifetime parameter to '0' and forget about
the "Lifetime" concept.

Klaus
-- 
_______________________________________________________________

Klaus Schmidinger                       Phone: +49-8635-6989-10
CadSoft Computer GmbH                   Fax:   +49-8635-6989-40
Hofmark 2                               Email:   kls@cadsoft.de
D-84568 Pleiskirchen, Germany           URL:     www.cadsoft.de
_______________________________________________________________


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