In progress recordings overwritten if service restarts

[drain]

If my PC happens to reboot for any reason, or the recoding service is restarted (or I do something stupid like click OK in the config) while something is recording, the portion of the show that has already been recorded appears to be overwritten with the new recording starting from the time the recording service comes back up. Is there some way to tell GBPVR to not replace the already recorded part and either append any new recording to the end of the existing file or create a new file?

This hasn’t happened often, but I’m scared that it will happen during a show that is very important… to my wife! There’d be hell to pay if we lost half of McLeod's Daughters!

Thanks.

[sub]

No, this isnt currently possible.

The hauppauge drivers arnt capable of appending to an existing file, as the timestamps embedded in the MPEG2 stream would restart at point of the append. This would be a corrupt file.

I had thought about writting multiple files in the past, but this is more substantial changes than it appears from the outside, and would require database changes and changes to the recording player etc....to cut a long story short, I couldnt be bothered do these. It also doesnt seem to be a huge problem having only been mentioned a couple of times in the last year.

The work around is to 'not to restart your machine or the recording service' during a recording

[drain]

I see - that makes sense. Sometimes I don’t have a choice, the system just restarts. However, this has only happened one since I got my new PC. It happened a lot on old Duron 800 (was a bit dodgy - sticking about 6 devices on interrupt 9 including both PVR-500 tuners, and ignoring 6,7,10 and 11!)

Can GBPVR easily tell if the service/machine has unexpectedly restarted? I’m thinking that if this check can be done by the recording service as it starts, then any files that are about to be overwritten could be moved to a ‘crash recovery’ directory. Even though it doesn’t make for seamless recovery, at least the user can move them to the videos library and all is not lost - and maybe it’s something that’s easy to code.

Thanks.

PS: another suggestion, which is not very high priority for me now I’ve moved to an MVP, is to have an option to start full screen on the secondary display. This will free up the primary display on for normal use on a PC with dual-head TV out.

[sub]

I see - that makes sense. Sometimes I don’t have a choice, the system just restarts. However, this has only happened one since I got my new PC. It happened a lot on old Duron 800 (was a bit dodgy - sticking about 6 devices on interrupt 9 including both PVR-500 tuners, and ignoring 6,7,10 and 11!)

Can GBPVR easily tell if the service/machine has unexpectedly restarted? I’m thinking that if this check can be done by the recording service as it starts, then any files that are about to be overwritten could be moved to a ‘crash recovery’ directory. Even though it doesn’t make for seamless recovery, at least the user can move them to the videos library and all is not lost - and maybe it’s something that’s easy to code.

Honestly, its probably a better idea for you to get you machine stable than me trying to code around this. For most people this just isnt a major concern.

[blader_se]

If I select to manually restart the recording service - what happens then?

My scenario is that I have manually updated the EPG, and when closing the config application - the recording services is restarting - and - poof my currently ongoing recording is gone.

Perhaps this is detected in recent versions of GB-PVR? I've not been too keen in exploiting this...

[sub]

If I select to manually restart the recording service - what happens then?

If you restart the recording service, it'll restart your recording form the beginning. Its not really a good idea to restart the recording service while you're recording...

My scenario is that I have manually updated the EPG, and when closing the config application - the recording services is restarting - and - poof my currently ongoing recording is gone.

There are other ways to update the EPG that dont involve restarting the recording service. Either right click on the tray icon and select 'Update EPG', or start a new instance of GB-PVR with the -UpdateEPGOnly commandline parameter.

Perhaps this is detected in recent versions of GB-PVR? I've not been too keen in exploiting this...

Its always done this. Probably always will.

[j3flight]

Sub, I understand your worries about making the database recognize two files and other consequences that come along with that, but may I propose a less invasive solution?....

When the recording service is about to write to a file with some filename, simply do a check to see if that file already exists. If so, rename the already existing file to "<filename>_timestamp.mpg" and the new video data can stream to the originally intended filename.

Advantages:
1) You don't have to worry about keeping up with the previous filenames like part_1 or part_2. Just smack the timestamp in there and they'll fall in order if the user views the folder through windows.
2) Don't even bother keeping these other parts in the database, just leave them in the recording folder and at least the first part of the recording isn't lost. Sure, those of us who know how might want to splice them together, but most of the time, we'll just watch the parts and delete 'em.
3) The method above automatically handles multiple restarts without any effort. If the service restarts once, you get a main file and a file with a timestamp. If it restarts twice, you get a main file and two timestamped files.
4) If you wanted to, you could add some extra handling when the file is opened or deleted by the user. You would need to check for the extra parts and offer to play/delete them as necessary. That would be relatively easy though.

Disadvantages:
1) If you did not offer the extra handling as described in #4...
The user could end up with extra files that won't ever go away using normal operations within GBPVR. They would actually have to browse the folder using Windows to realize that there are files in there that aren't visible in available recordings.

Anyway, those are just some ramblings. It's extra work, but it would have saved my bacon a number of times as well. If you don't want to do the above, maybe some confirmations on certain operations would be nice. Like, when pressing OK in the config screen, a nice little dialog box would be nice.... "Hey dummy, are you sure you want to do this? It will restart the recording service and you'll lose part of your video".

Jason

[sub]

If you don't want to do the above, maybe some confirmations on certain operations would be nice. Like, when pressing OK in the config screen, a nice little dialog box would be nice.... "Hey dummy, are you sure you want to do this? It will restart the recording service and you'll lose part of your video".

OK, I have added one of these.

[j3flight]

Oooh, cool, thanks!