[linux-dvb] Re: video disk clean up

[Usenet-372110@zocki.toppoint.de (Rainer Zocholl)]

Klaus.Schmidinger@cadsoft.de(Klaus Schmidinger)  25.08.01 10:57

Once upon a time Klaus Schmidinger shaped the electrons to say...

>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?

I wrote... ;-)

>There are NO recordings older than 50 days, and ALL recordings
>say "Don't delete me until I'm 50 days old!".

I read: "Please make sure i'm deleted when im this old to
make sure(!) that there is enough space on disk"...

>Lifetime: The number of
>days (0..99) a recording made through this timer is guaranteed to remain on
>disk before it is automatically removed to free up space for a new recording.

For someone who don't know the c-source, this could be 
interpreted as i -erronously- did.                                       


I thought this feature was intended for regular recordings,
or why is there a limit at 99 days?



>> 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?

If the video is viewed entirely...





>> 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.

It's not "natrual": if something has high prioity, nothing can by "higher".
Below zero there is too no "natural" number any more.

If somebody is king _he_ is the king, the top of the peak, even he a zero.

This way is not unusal: 
Have a look how intel numbers interrupt prios.


And when your boss is coming what does he say?

"This urgend task has priority 2567" (Meaning: do the other 2566 tasks
first)
or
"This urgend task has priority 1" (Meaning: Only Task 0 (eating, breathing)
is more important.)


 
It has the advantage, that Prio "0" could be used for
"in band signaling" "don't delete. Using "99 days" is
not "natural": it's willingly.
You come into / are already in problems, if someone needs/wants 
a 99 hold time or more.

There seems to not much sense in setting "deleting prios" for files
which "lifetime" said : don't delete.

Instead of redefining "99 days"="not delete" 
i think the priority "0" would be more "natural" 
to prevent the deleting.


Prio = 0 = most important is plain logical ;-)

Don't use "high" or "low" and it will become clear
If you want to use lower numbers (what ever "lower" means...)
may be "value" should be just instead of priority?


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

>You are mixing up "Priority" and "Guaranteed Lifetime".

Hope i make it more clera here in.

>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? 

That was not meant that way. I wonder why it is limited to 99.

>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!

That was not clear.


>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?

Yes, it is.
When writing that i was in the opinion, that that "old" files
are deleteted, regardless of the fill state of teh disk.


>> 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.

Maybe it should be descripted somewhere better? ;-)



>> 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.

Yes. 
The sugestion was calculate the "day" only once and display
ist in way that the user nows that it is "today" or "tomorrow".

Is 2001-06-20 50 days old?



>> 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.

That's a possible way.


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

I looked in "FORMATS", where i found a description of
the other files and file names. 


>> 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 ;-)

Jepp.


>After that, set the DefaultLifetime parameter to '0' and forget about
>the "Lifetime" concept.

Pardon.
Pardon.
Pardon.
Pardon.




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