Recording 4 Channels at the same time

[K.S.]

I have 5 computers that work 24/7 on DC science projects such as this one http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/ and HDD never spin down for years (except for restart) and drive is written to all the time as more than one project is running on the same computer due to multiple core CPUs. In addition, CPU is under 100% load ALL the time and have never had a drive fail.

i doubt that's comparable. there is a big difference with a machine being 24/7 doing 100% CPU load. in his case the HD's are continously writing big chunks of data. it's not only the spining...

what about a couple 12 gig compact flash cards to make a fixed drive insted of a ramdrive I have 4 gigs of ram

dunno. CF cards have limited lifetimes compared to HDD's & they ain't got the same speed. if it's a reseach project: better get the money needed & go the pro way with SAS as forzaKGB sugested, best with RAID1/5 & hot swapping & some HDD failure monitoring software running. it's all a matter of what you have/want to achieve

[martint123]

I can't see any physical difference between drives just spinning and drives writing.

If you set the pseudo EPG into something like 1 hour blocks, (or 6 or whatever) and set up a season recording to get them all. Then there is an option when doing this of keeping the last xx episodes. So if you set a 1 hour epg slot and set the "keep" to 48, in theory you would keep the last 48 hours available.

I've seen plenty of security camera systems that use hard drives and they have a form of circular buffer, the drives seem to survive OK in those. It may be an idea to have a drive per channel though to reduce the problem of constant seeking.

[linene]

Hey Mike, good to see another Minnesotan on here!

The reason is that when a storm happens all the networks switch from their normal programming to cover the storm.
I am doing some research and need to capture all the networks coverage of any storms.

My question is why one would ever want to watch our local Weather Terrorists...though it would be interesting to see how many false alarms you get and how much unnecessary panic the Weather Terrorists spread (especially the head Weather Terrorist...do you know which one I am referring too?).

[K.S.]

I can't see any physical difference between drives just spinning and drives writing.
...
It may be an idea to have a drive per channel though to reduce the problem of constant seeking.

the later have their heads constantly moving around & they have the most sensible & fragile mechanics

one after-thought when using multiple HD's: keep an eye on the HD temps, they might build up with so many different drives packed together & heat is the HD killer nr. 1 according to google's experience. they have a few HD in usage & have made some statistics about that, was an interesting read

[Mike1]

Hey Mike, good to see another Minnesotan on here!
My question is why one would ever want to watch our local Weather Terrorists...though it would be interesting to see how many false alarms you get and how much unnecessary panic the Weather Terrorists spread (especially the head Weather Terrorist...do you know which one I am referring too?).

I here ya the data I really need is when a storm happens and all the networks switch to there storm centers or what ever they call them and just cover the storm instead of the regular programing. when they put the warnings in on the bottom of the screen that isn't as important as the full time coverage. There is also a AM radio station that has a web radio also http://www.wccoradio.com that i would like to record

[whurlston]

I would definitely go the fake epg route and set it up the way martint123 mentioned, as season recordings. I didn't think about that when I first mentioned it.

[Mike1]

What I would like to do it break the 4 channels down into 6 4 hour programs like

Channel 4 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 4-5, 4-6
Channel 5 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-5, 5-6
Channel 9 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, 9-4, 9-5, 9-6
Channel 11 11-1, 11-2, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5, 11-6

And the radio broadcast from http://www.wccoraido.com in 6 hour blocks

How do I make the EPG in the right format that GBPVR will read it

sorry for being such a newb but I couldn't find the answer on the forums

[zehd]

What I would like to do it break the 4 channels down into 6 4 hour programs like

Channel 4 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, 4-5, 4-6
Channel 5 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-5, 5-6
Channel 9 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, 9-4, 9-5, 9-6
Channel 11 11-1, 11-2, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5, 11-6

And the radio broadcast from http://www.wccoraido.com in 6 hour blocks

How do I make the EPG in the right format that GBPVR will read it

sorry for being such a newb but I couldn't find the answer on the forums

I'm not sure who else is interested in writing something for you. I'm in the middle of getting up to speed in .net, but I'm working on (in my mind) a program that would do something very similar to creating a schedule like you want.

Or I think whurlston might be able to get that together for you quicker. If you can wait.... It is Easter, and I have time on my hands...

[whurlston]

I'll have something for you tonight. For the radio program, you should probably look at the WebRadio plugin. I'm not sure if you can record with it or not. If not, UbuStream should work.

[whurlston]

Here's a simple program to create the dummy epg.

Syntax:
XmlTvCreator.exe [days] [block time] [output file]

Example:
c:\epg\XmlTvCreator.exe 4 6 c:\epg\myepg.xml will create a guide of 4 days consisting of 6 hour blocks and send the output to "c:\epg\myepg.xml". For long filenames with spaces, encapsulate the output filename in quotes.

Instructions:

1. Unzip the file to the folder of your choice. For ease, I recommend "C:\EPG".
   
2. Open the "channels.xml" file and edit it so that it has your channel information. You can add more channels if you need to do so.
   
3. Open a command prompt window and browse to the folder you used.
   
4. Run the program from a command line to create an epg output file. Use the syntax mentioned above.
   
5. Create/edit your capture source and use XmlTV for your EPG source. Point the source to the xmlfile you created.
   
6. Start GB-PVR and verify that the EPG is how you want it. If not, create another file and update your EPG.
   
7. Create a file called "UpdateEPG.bat" in your devnz\gbpvr folder and place the command you used to create your epg file. This will make sure that a new file is created for the next x number of days whenever the gbpvr epg update is run each night.