Customisable Timeshift folder?

[NickName]

Hi,
I would like to request a (hopefully) minor change to Timeshifting.
As many users have 1gig+ RAM, it would great to use some of this for a RAM/virtual disk for the Timeshift buffer.
Basically, you'd setup a RAM disk and tell MP to use that 'drive' for Timeshifting.
The 2 benefits would be:
1) the HD drive would not be being continually written to thereby reducing it''s life expectancy and
2) it would be 100% silent.

Alternatively, for those of us with Flash card readers or USB drives, we could store the timeshift buffer there. As these types of devices are cheap (& quiet), it would not matter if it broke from over-use.

This should be a relatively easy change to the setup program (a file selection box) and a modification to store this new path in the Mediaportal.xml(?) file.

Regards,

Nick Name.

P.S. MediaPortal rocks! A big thanks to the Devs. :lol:

[NickName]

That's odd? This post has had 50 views and 4 votes 'for' on the poll but no replies? Also this post/poll never appeared on the main page?

Oh well, I can only hope that the 100% 'for' vote may make it happen?

Mediaportal is still the best HTPC software even without this extra feature.

[and-81]

I hadn't posted a reply because there's nothing to add, I think your reasons are spot on.

I hope this get's put in, because I would definately use it.

[FlipGer]

Hi,

one problem: Record now from show beginning would not work anymore. MP would have to copy the TS in that moment to HD which would result in way to high HD load I fear.

Just my two cents....

Flip.

[Callifo]

Customisable sounds good, but you device choices wouldnt work I dont think. My USB drive and MS memory stick is limited to at best a few mb/sec; would be way too slow for a TS buffer.

[NickName]

That's interesting that USB 2 would too slow? It is 'supposedly' rated at 480MB per sec or is that 480 megabit?

Anyway, I think it would be great option for a RAM drive as thrashing my HD drive continously bothers me. :cry:

As far not being able to record instantly goes, that would not worry me. I rarely record that way as 99% of time I know what I want to record in advance. Perhaps the option would be to record 'not so' instantly?
By that I mean you press 'record now' and for a few seconds the recording doesn't actually start while the RAM drive is dumped to disk? I don't think it would strain a system too much to do this as my main Mediaportal box can easily record two channels at the same time and that's only a Pentium 2.4 with 512 meg RAM and an IDE drive. I suppose it could thrash the drive dumping the RAM drive to disk but it's currently writing to disk 100% of the time with Timeshift enabled.

I guess some people may find 'not instantly recording' a problem so perhaps a solution is to make it an 'advanced/hidden' feature? Something like a registry hack but for the Mediaportal.xml file instead?
I think many people would like this ability/feature and perhaps just giving people the choice along with a disclaimer like 'You may lose several seconds of a recording with this enabled' would solve it?

Just my thoughts and I certainly hope I don't appear to be pushy or a nag. It just seems to be a simple thing to implement but then I guess, many things seem simple until you try to code them (at least when I code anyway). :wink:

Thanks for the feedback as it's always good to hear other people's thoughts and ideas as it helps me learn and that's always good. :lol:

[Callifo]

Its not the bandwidth available thats the problem, flash media is naturally slow. Portable HDDs can be a lot better. Got a 2.5" USB2 HDD (good for about 10mb/sec) and a 3.5" USB2 HDD (good for about 20mb/sec) laying around here.

[Nightmare77]

i thought this was sort of technically not possible with the way things are now as the timeshifting engine was essentially the same as the recording engine, so when the timeshifting is running its essentially recording at the same time. Perhaps the new recording engine has a way around it, maybe 2 seperate engines running at once or something , one purely for the 30 mins buffer and the other for the actual recording so there wont be a delay when you press the record button.

[Marcusb]

yep, I'm pretty sure that the timeshift content has to go to the same place as the recording content, as per MS.

Also, I can't really see much use for this. Unless your HTPC has at least 2Gb of RAM it wouldn't be much use for anything more than about 30minutes at the very most.

As for using CF cards or any other type of flash memory, these have a very limited number of write cycles. If you are worried about your hard disks wearing out, just wait until you see the life of a flash memory module that is being constantly written to. No matter how cheap they are, they would still be a very expensive option. Besides, Hard disks are much better on a dollar per MB basis.

I guess like you say, if it was a hidden or advanced feature and it wasn't too difficult to implement, then why not but who knows, this may be possible with the new TV engine, which is scheduled to be released this month. *Fingers crossed*...

[NickName]

Yes, I can see that flash cards would next to be useless now due to wear and tear and lack of speed. That was more of a "thinking out loud" idea, silly me.

I'd really love to try it in a RAM drive though. I'd buy a gig of RAM just for it, if needed. It would be faster to stop/start then a HD disk, quiet and save wear and tear on a drive.

I was wondering if the following would work with 2 TV cards?
Set one TV card to "Record only" and to record to HD disk.
Set the other TV card to View TV only and point it's Recording folder at a RAM drive?
Does anyone know if the View TV only card would then Timeshift to this RAM drive or if the other "Recording only" card would do the Timeshifting?
I'm hoping that it works so then no MP change would be needed though I'd want a 3rd TV card so I can record two channels and Timeshift a 3rd channel.

Thanks for your responses guys :lol: