BTV as Air Log

[kcongdon]

Is anyone using BTV to log a channel 24/7?

I am considering using BTV with (2) PVR250's to log two channels.

I will record to mpg so I can grab the CC information, then archive to wmv.

I would appreciate any advice from people that are doing this. Some of my questions are:

Can you configure BTV to record 24/7 or will I need to write a plugin to do that?
Have you encountered any CPU overload during conversion to wmv?
Do you think a single system would be capable of logging more than two at a time?
How would you rate the reliability of using the system like this?

I am interested in any issues you may encounter while using BTV for this purpose.

thank you in advance for your response!

[bnflaherty]

frankly -- I'd like to know why one would want to do this? is this some project your working or something?

[kcongdon]

Unfortunately, television executives like to have access to any particular moment in TV history that pertains to them. A lot of people achieve this by using timelaps VHS recorders! ACK!

I'd like to use a DVR.

[mrgrocery]

I think you are going in the right direction but to have one system work 24/7 capturing, extracting cc, and archiving 2 channels would be pushing it. One other function would be is what to do with the archived video as the hard drive would get filled even with the archived video.


If you set it up with BTV you would want to set up manual recordings in 1, 2 or maybe 4 hour blocks continuously through out the day.

As far as reliabilty goes, alot of people know windows, but one one system has run for months without problems. I think you would want an extra system though, maybe 2 in case you had to take one down for maintenence.

[kcongdon]

Thanks, mrgrocery.

I am thinking it would be best to have external RAID array to archive wmv's to. The mpgs could be stored internally on maybe a 500GB drive or two. That would give access to these higher resolution files for a few days before they were deleted for space. Also would give the system time to extract the CC information and archive to the array.

I am also thinking about a windows service app or plugin that would automatically set each show to record on the specific channel when the EPG is updated. Or just set 4 hour blocks of manual record, like you mentioned.

Excellent point on the redundancy issue.

Cheers!

[bnflaherty]

Actually -- if you are using BTV in a business or for some business reason -- you will need to take a look at contacting us about the Enterprise verison of BTV -- as BTV for users -- is not for business use:

http://www.snapstream.com/partners/Enterprise.asp

[merrypig]

I'm rather curious what's so special about an enterprise version.