Just wanted to mention a new utility I've created for Media Center that solves a very specific problem I and some others have. That is, Media Center lacking the ability to record tv to multiple hard drives.  Particluarly people recording HD content know that hard disk space fills up fast, and we all know that hard disk space is cheap.

To solve this problem I've created Recorded TV Space Manager. This is a Windows Service with a simple windows based user interface (no MCE hosted app yet) that will move recorded tv shows to other hard drives in your system, or even other machines, automatically. It can be set to run once a day and move as many recorded tv files as will fit to other hard drives that you define.

You define the list of hard drives you want to store recorded tv on, along with the amount of free space you want to reserve, and MceTvSpaceMgr will fill them to the brim (leaving the reserved space free) with recorded tv shows from your Media Center 'Recorded TV' storage location. Freeing up space for new recordings.

You just point Media Center at these additional hard drives using it's 'Watched Folders' feature (found in TweakMCE) and all of your recordings from all hard drives will appear as if they still exist in the 'Recorded TV' folder. There are also options to specify which file types to manage and to exclude files from management via a file name pattern.

Check it out, it's free: http://www.brettrobichaud.us/Creations.htm

Looks very useful!  Thanks!  Will certainly check it out!

(you might want to post about this in the third party section!)

 

Nutz

Sorry to throw a spanner in the works but I get the following error after opening the TV Space Manager app :

There was a problem saving your changes

Unable to save configuration file

The only thing I can think of that could possibly be causing a problem is that I installed the app using my own custom path within Program Files. Could this have any bearing on the error ?

Any help would be much appreciated!

ps. .Net Frameword is fully up to date and I get a warning message upon start up that no configid file is in place - using defaults

I've had someone else report this.  I suspect the problem is that you do not have read.write permissions to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BrettRobichaud\MceTvSpaceMgr

This is where the configuration file is stored so that both the user interface and the Windows Service can access it.  Try giving yourself rights to that folder and see if it helps.

-Brett-

@BrettRobi

Thanks for getting back to me.

I wouldn't hae expected this given that my login id has admin privledges.

I'll have a play around when I'm back on my MCE machine tonight.

If you have any further trouble send me an email.  My address is in the aboutbox in the software.

Big blunder on my part.  There is a small but significant bug that was keeping anyone from saving a configuration (unless you happen to already have one, like me).  Anyone who tried to use MceTvSpaceMgr and had a problem saving changes, please download the latest version and give it another try.  I guarantee you'll have better luck.

Neat program. I like the AutoCopy concept, reminds me of the rules wizard for Outlook. Suggestion; Add an action for the execution of an external program when creating an AutoCopy rule.

Hello:

Thanks for the tool!  I tried installing last night and for some reason the actual service will not start or stay running.  And I can't find an errorlog anywhere to see what might be wrong.  I have .NET 1.1 and 2.0 installed, using MCE2005.  Also, if I try and use the Process Now button, it doesn't actually do anything.  Any ideas?  Thanks in advance.

 

does anyone use this?  so far this is the best way to span drives, which is what i am trying to do.  i am worried cuase it hasnt been updated or talked about in over 2 years so i am worried about bugs ,etc.  i dont want it sucking up resources on my box or deleting my programs, or "moving them" but them not being found anywhere.

so any input, especialloy from the author would be great.

I am playing with it right now. I have it set up and I will see if it sends shows to the folders I want it to send them to, tomorrow night. I have 3 external drives connected to my computer, one is the main mce drive, the other will have folders for various programs that my wife wants to watch, and the third....

I have to figure out a scheme for which hard drive gets what. I will post tomorrow or tuesday on whether it does what I want it too

I have used this handy little program for at least a year and a half with great suceess in MCE 2005.
Unfortunately, the version available will not install on Vista.  

I tried and it keeps giving me this error message at the beginning of the install:
"This setup requires .NET Framework version 1.1.4322.  Pleae Install the .NET Framework and run this setup again.  The .NET Framework can be obtained from the web.  Would you like to do this now?"

If I hit "Yes" it takes me to a moved link for .NET and if I hit "No" it just cancels the install.

 

Is there any way the author can update this to work with Vista MCE?  My setup requires the use of this for efficient opertation.

 

Thanks for a great little tool!

Does anyone know of anything like this for Vista?

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My Network Project - Media Center Blog

The error Tweak_Addict receievd looks like it is simply down to .net1.1 not being installed, Vista has .net2 installed only.  .net1.1 is a seperate package to .net2 and not an upgrade as such.

I don't know whether this application will work on Vista or not but having the correct version of .net installed is a step in the right direction.

The .net framework can be installed here - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e7cf3a3&DisplayLang=en

After don't forget to install service packs for .net etc.

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Steve

AndresE:

Does anyone know of anything like this for Vista?

Recorded TV Manager also has this capability as well as the ability to delete duplicate episodes automatically.  It now integrates with WHS if you have one of those and he's adding new functionality to the suite of apps he's developing. I use it and it works for me.

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Velocity Micro Cinemagix Grand Theater, C2Q, 2GB, 2 TB, 3 DCT, 2 HDHomeRun
Homebuilt C2Q, 2 GB, 1.5 TB, HVR-1600, FireSTB
Dell E1705, T7600, 2GB, 250GB, HVR-950
WHS, WRT600N, DMA-2100, DMA-2200, XBox360