[Usability] Bulk-Delete TV Recordings (1 Viewer)

Peter Mee

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August 28, 2013
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Started on: 2014-07-03
last update: 2014-07-03

Summary:
There is no way to delete multiple TV recordings simultaneously through the UI. It would be handy to have a bulk-delete feature.


Area:
MyTV

Description:
Right now, if I want to delete a recorded programme, I hit 'i' on my remote, select delete, select confirm and it's gone.

This is OK for once off programmes but for cases where there are multiple recordings gathered inside a folder, it can be a laborious task.

It would be great if I could hit 'i' on the folder itself and have an option to delete all recordings within.
 

GuiltyNL

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  • January 26, 2013
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    At this moment my wife is trying to delete 200+ recordings... One by one... So this would be a great feature.
     

    Owlsroost

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  • October 28, 2008
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    Pressing '0' is a shortcut for 'delete recording' - see Keyboard Shortcuts - TV - MediaPortal 1 - MediaPortal Wiki

    Another way of deleting a lot of recordings in one go (although not from the GUI) is to use Windows file explorer etc. to delete the .ts files plus the associated .xml files, then open TV Server Configuration utility, select the 'Recording' section, 'Database Import' tab and hit the 'Remove Invalid Entries' button. That will remove the database entries for the deleted files. See Recording - MediaPortal 1 - MediaPortal Wiki

    If you are nervous about deleting the files first, just move them to another folder instead (one that TV Server doesn't know about) and use the same 'Remove Invalid Entries' procedure. Then if you want to restore any files just move them back to the recording folder and use the 'Database Import' section to add them back to the database.
     

    Timberwolf99

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    Yeah but pressing 0 still brings up the confirmation dialogue, and having to drop to windows to do a bulk delete ruins the HTPC experience of it being almost a standalone device, e.g. In everyday use windows should not be required to perform routine tasks.
     

    Owlsroost

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    Yeah but pressing 0 still brings up the confirmation dialogue, and having to drop to windows to do a bulk delete ruins the HTPC experience of it being almost a standalone device, e.g. In everyday use windows should not be required to perform routine tasks.

    Having to delete 200 recordings in one hit is not a routine task, it's probably a consequence of poor housekeeping e.g. not deleting watched recordings as you go along, or because you'd like to use the disk space for something else.

    You can automate the housekeeping a little by enabling disk quotas for each drive in TV Server, it will then delete the oldest recordings when a drive reaches the free space limit you have set - Recording - MediaPortal 1 - MediaPortal Wiki - this is much better than having recordings fail due to running out of disk space.

    If we didn't have the confirmation dialogue we would have a flood of complaints from users because they've accidentally deleted an important recording...

    I'm personally not against the idea of a 'folder delete' function, but you'll have to either code it yourself or find someone else interested in coding it if you want it to happen - that's how features get added or modified normally.
     

    GuiltyNL

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    Removing them in exploter is causing to press YES for every removed recording in TV Server Config.

    The 0 shortcut does save some time though. In the mean while it does help a bit.
     

    CyberSimian

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  • June 10, 2013
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    Some points:

    (1) It is possible to modify the skin to make "Yes" the default for the "Yes/No" dialogue, in place of "No". The old "DefaultWide" skin used to have "Yes" as the default (many releases ago), but it was changed at some point to "No". On my system, I have modified "DefaultWide" to change the default back to "Yes". With this change, the sequence to delete a recording is: press "0", then press OK.

    (2) Using "TV Server" to clean-up deleted recordings is the wrong way to do this. As you have found, there is no batch facility for deleting all of the files at once. Instead, you should use the "Clean-up" facility on the "Recorded TV" or "Recorded Radio" panels in MP. Press LEFT to view the left side menu, and then select "Clean-up". You then get a warning pop-up saying that MP will delete the entire universe, but you can ignore that and continue to the next pop-up which is a selection menu allowing you to choose what you want to clean up.

    (3) If you periodically move recordings from "Recorded TV" to "Videos", you can place the files in a folder tree that reflects the nature of the recordings (e.g. one folder for each series). Then when navigating the folder tree, you can move the focus to the entry for the folder to be deleted and press "0", then OK. That will delete the entire folder plus all of its contents.

    (4) I agree that it should be possible to delete the "virtual folders" that are used in "Recorded TV" and "Recorded Radio", using the same sequence of actions as are used in "Videos".

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    Owlsroost

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    (2) Using "TV Server" to clean-up deleted recordings is the wrong way to do this. As you have found, there is no batch facility for deleting all of the files at once. Instead, you should use the "Clean-up" facility on the "Recorded TV" or "Recorded Radio" panels in MP. Press LEFT to view the left side menu, and then select "Clean-up". You then get a warning pop-up saying that MP will delete the entire universe, but you can ignore that and continue to the next pop-up which is a selection menu allowing you to choose what you want to clean up.

    Thanks for the info (y)

    Years ago I think TV Server did an automatic clean-up at startup i.e. if recording files were not accessible it would remove them from the database. The problem was if you had recordings stored on a remote network drive and it was not accessible at the time it checked, TV Server would delete them all from the database (not good!). I think the team decided that the automatic cleanup was more trouble than it was worth, so it was removed/disabled. I guess the current user triggered cleanup facility was the replacement for that.
     

    regeszter

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    Delete a folder (group of recordings) does not seem too difficult to coding.
     

    regeszter

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  • October 29, 2005
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    Hi,

    With this TVPlugin (MP 1.17 Final required) you will be able to delete a folder of the recordings.

    1. Select a folder.
    2. Select context menu
    3. Confirm the dialogue.
    Please give me a feedback from the result.
     

    Attachments

    • TvPlugin.zip
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