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

Recording settings apply to both TV and radio recordings. For information on accessing your recordings in MediaPortal, see:

• Record TV
• Record Radio

General

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

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 dropdown list 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 and folder 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.

Thumbs

TV Thumbs

Autocreate thumbs

If this option is enabled, MediaPortal creates small preview images (thumbs) of your TV recordings. When browsing through your TV recordings, you can see these preview images. If there is no preview image, the channel icon will be displayed instead.

Leave a thumb in recording folder

Select this option to save an additional preview image in the recording folders. This preview image will be named like your recording (i.e.

Lie To Me.jpg

or

Philadelphia - Pro Sieben - 23.12.2005.jpg

) and has a fixed size independent of the quality settings.
Note: Preview images in the recording folders will not be deleted when you Clear TV thumbs. You must remove the existing ones manually - only then new thumbs will be regenerated.

Clear TV thumbs

You can delete all the recorded TV thumbs by clicking the clear TV thumbs button - required if you change the Preview Appearance.

Quality Settings

Quality

Default: 5 (Resolution 600)
Select the quality of the TV thumbs that are generated. The recommendation to the left gives a general idea what the setting can be used for: LCD televisions ("flat screens") generally need higher quality thumbnails than CRT (classic) televisions because they generally produce a sharper image.

Preview Appearance

• Number of columns - Default = 1
• Number of rows - Default = 1

The preview image (thumb) may consist of multiple subsequent screenshots taken from the video. These are then arranged in tiles with the given number of rows and columns. The time between the thumbs will be calculated automatically from the video duration.

1 column and 1 row will create a single thumbnail:

2 columns and 2 rows will create a grid of four thumbnails:

Note: Changed quality settings only have an effect on newly generated thumbs. You must clear the existing thumbs to re-create them with the new quality settings.

Time offset in minutes

Use this option to change the time offset in minutes. If you set it to 2 minutes for example, the first thumb will be generated after two minutes into the recording. Should the video duration be less than the time offset, the time offset is automatically shorter.

Folders

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?).

Disk quota

The smallest quota allowed is 500 MB. MediaPortal will use 500 MB as quota even if you enter a lower value. If this option is disabled, recordings will not be automatically deleted.

Enables automatic disk quota for drives used in the recording paths. You can only choose a drive that is configured in the Recording Folder above.

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 lack of space on the hard drive.

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

As of v1.6.0, you can enable disk quota for network mapped drives and external drives if you have set a recording folder on such drives.

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.

Changelog