[mase76]

Hi!
Will the archive-hdd / dvd feature be supported? This comes with the
extrecmenu plugin for vdr. This works as the following:
I can move a recording to an archive-hdd or burn it on an archive-dvd.
The files with the video information (the .ts files) are moved to the
archive-hdd. The folder name is kept. The root of this hdd carries a file
named hdd.vdr with a id inside (for example 0001). This file is then copied
to the recording folder of the vdr. The other .vdr files stay. Recordings with hdd.vdr
it their folder are identified as archived recordings. When I want to play such
a recording, I am prompted to insert hdd 0001. The hdd gets mounted, and
symlinks to the .ts files are created. Then the recording plays. After stopping,
the symlinks are removed, and the hdd gets unmounted.
The archive-dvd is similar. However there is an incremented dvd.vdr file with
every burned dvd.
The dvd function is less important, as DVDs are more expensive than hdds, but
hdd would be fine. The scripts are in the tarball of vdr-extrecmenu. Have a look
at them, they are self explaining.

BTW: What about cutting recordings?

[FernetMenta]

How would you suggest that this works with a remote backend? A user might need to go downstairs to the vdr box. The PVR API is generic and can only reflect features available on most backends.

In case of VDR there are a lot plugins we can't make use of. I thought about bringing the VDR OSD to XBMC in order to have access to all those functions.

[mase76]

The original function of extrecmenu does not go back to the VDR backend. There are just some shell scripts doing this.
All these scripts can be used by XBMC. The only thing XBMC has to do is, when doing a replay of a recording, search for
a file named hdd.vdr. If it is present, read the ID inside. Then prompt the user to insert the hdd with this ID. After that,
we can go the next step using the existing scripts.
XBMC could show a special symbol for an archived recording. When scanning the recordings directory and hdd.vdr is
present, it could be marked as archived.
Maybe extrecmenu could provide some svdrp commands to implement some things. I could ask the plugin developer
for help if you like.

[FernetMenta]

The idea in general is sound. There is a similar but more generic request somewhere in the forum: having an always accessible index somewhere which knows where the user have stored/archived movies.
Both solution would require API changes, hence there won't be a solution in Frodo. I will keep this in mind for the new release cycle.