Copying

[DJ Max]

I thought I'd try the "Copy" option with ShowSqueeze and ended up with files that were converted to different random codecs. I had them copied to an external drive and since I was running low on space on that computer, I had it delete the originals. I had "Intelligent Quality Selection" set to "No", so I thought it would just copy them and delete the original. Even the documentation uses the phrase "simply copy", so I didn't expect it to do more than that. Now I have DivX shows with sync problems, WMV files with pixelization and I haven't even checked to see what it did when one show was converted to MPEG-1.

Is there a way to get it to just copy the shows? I'm checking the settings page and there's nothing about conversion. These were all done manually on the shows' info page. I haven't had the courage to try it with a show that's just been recorded. It would be great if it would just move the files without destroying them.

[btvfreak]

Why not just go into Windows Explorer and copy or move the files?

[DJ Max]

Originally Posted by btvfreak

Why not just go into Windows Explorer and copy or move the files?

I tried that and it messes up the info. Instead of just showing the name of the show, it shows the whole filename. I guess BTV has to create a .dat file to keep track of where the file went and if it's moved with Windows Explorer or anything besides BTV or Web Admin, it messes things up. I thought using ShowSqueeze would be easier than moving them one at a time from the Web Admin. Also, if I can clear up some space on the external drive and my network storage drive device, I can have BTV send shows to different devices automatically and not have to worry about running out of space on the BTV computer.

[btvfreak]

I've copied whole drives worth of BTV recorded shows from one drive to another with no problems. All the show data is in the mpeg itself.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by btvfreak

I've copied whole drives worth of BTV recorded shows from one drive to another with no problems. All the show data is in the mpeg itself.

I agree - I do this almost every weekend. The only thing that it might do is reset the "New" indicator and the date that is used for the date sort in the FSI.

[btvfreak]

Yeah, I think it also sets all the copied shows to "keep until I delete".

[mathic2]

I've also noticed that when using the "- Copy -" selection in ShowSqueeze settings, it actually squeezes the file to a wmv or divx and doesn't just copy it...

So....what to do?

Why not just run a .bat file as a Scheduled Tasks in Windows?

@echo off
move "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\SnapStream\Beyond TV\shows\*.mpg" \\storage\tv
move "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\SnapStream\Beyond TV\shows\*.xml" \\storage\tv

I run this batch file every night at 3:00 AM, and it works beautifully. Although, becareful with security, as the user account setup to run the .bat file in the Task Scheduler has to have write access to the network share. If you aren't running this in a domain, just make sure that the user names are the same, and you might as well make the passwords the same, although, I'm not sure that matters or not.

[DJ Max]

Right now, I can't copy the whole folder to another drive. I'm in the middle of juggling Podcasts, BTV recordings and other backed up files and none of my drives have enough space to hold all my recordings, so I have to move a few at a time until there's enough space to move more. When I move the MPEG and the chapters file that goes with it, that's when I run into the problem. I guess I'll just have to keep moving them one at a time with the web admin and hope Snapstream fixes the copy in ShowSqueeze and/or adds the ability to move more than one file at a time in the web admin in a future version.

[Cal]

You might want to submit a bug report then. I move the mpeg and chapter files to other storeage all the time from windows explorer. The show data is fine when I move it back. The only time I lose the show data is if I edit the files. This is normally not an issue since I only edit them when I'm creating DVDs and they never get moved back to the BTV system.

[Rich A]

All the suggestions about "workarounds" are fine but it doesn't solve the problem being that the "simple" copy option doesn't work. I was playing around with this myself, experimenting with a way to build the "ultimate" setup. I set up a 250 gb hard drive to contain only the BTV default folder. Then set up a larger RAID array with various folders so I could organize my recordings.

When ever I set up a new repeating show, I selected "copy" to move it to it's appropriate folder on the storage drive. This was to test a concept. I was attempting to use one large drive solely for capture. After each show's capture was finished all they were all moved to the proper folder on the second drive. This kept the first drive clean. All smart chapter generation would be done after it was transferred and all those small files along with the main show mpeg would be on the large terabyte storage system. (running 1/2 TB at the moment) This would also mean I didn't ever have to worry about running out of storage space and having some show not record. This was because the primary drive would be mostly empty all the time. And it would ONLY be used for recording. So muxing, smart chapter generation etc. would be limited to the large final storage drive where it wouldn't interfere with the original mpeg writing or digital transport stream as they were saved to the "intermediate" drive. Plus IF the big final storage were to some day become full, rather than a recording NOT being recorded, I would see an error posted that simply said the file could not be moved. It would still be intact, and I'd have plenty of time to free up space or solve the space problem on the final array.

Okay.. Sorry for the in-depth thing, but I thought some guys might find the "concept" of interest.

Bottom line ... the "copy only" option in BTV didn't work. I had the same problem this poster is referring to. So I put the whole experiment aside for a while as I wasn't quite sure I was using the copy option properly, etc. But now I guess it should be bugged.