Re: More disk capacity for recorded TV

This disks are a bit of a pain. However, I still have 'normal' TVs with DVD
drives on and (I confess), I do sometimes share my recordings with others.

The main reason for all of this is the mess with extenders. All I want is a
small cigarette box sized device that is fanless, takes about 5-10W and costs
less than £50, to connect to each TV as an extender. Instead, I have to buy a
bloated Xbox 360, when I don't want games, the noise of the fan drives me
bonkers, and although the cost is falling, is still far too expensive for the
task.

The reality is that it is cheaper and easier to just buy a digital TV box
with a hard disk for every TV I want and carry on using DVDs when I want to
keep a recording (having cut out the ads and authored a decent DVD) and watch
it on different devices.

I can imagine that the problem will be resolved in the next 3-5 years, and
disks will be a thing of the past. I just don't think (for me) MCE is there
yet.

Eric

"Gorn Potatoes 72" wrote:

I have used an external HD of 1TB capacity to record TV too, but
occasionally the drive stops working and I would end up with failed TV
recordings. So I reserve this drive to essentially do what you have done
with your 500 separate DVD disks.

You might be able to stripe or span separate hard drives using Windows, but
I don't know if your version of Media Centre supports doing this.

Until recently I had over 1000 separate recordings spread across several
hard drives. I am down to about 500 now after setting up a new computer
system using Intels i7 CPU. It used to take a couple of minutes on my old
Pentium 4 system to present the list of shows to me. But now with my new
system and Windows 7 beta, the list shows up almost instantaneously, and
browsing my recorded show listings is once again a pleasure.
My new system has two separate 500 GB drives in a RAID configuration
(Hardware supported) so they appear to Windows as one single 1TB drive. I
have windows installed onto a separate smaller drive and keep the RAID array
for recordings.

I can add yet another 500 GB drive to my RAID array so Windows sees a 1.5TB
drive. I might prefer using a single 2TB drive instead of a RAID array once
cost and availability improve.
Although it may be cheaper to copy shows onto DVD's, I have been doing the
opposite when it comes to all my software on CD's and DVD's, creating iso
files that I keep on a couple of external 160 HD. I don't like having to
manage disks (I hate dusting).

"Eric Baines" <Eric Baines@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8CB208EA-BAFD-46BC-B1AC-CB59AA1EACFF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My MCE 2005 PC came with a 200Gb disk, but with other stuff going on the
PC,
I'm starting to get messages saying I don't have enough disk space to
record
stuff that I want (I burn any stuff I want to keep to a DVD using Nero,
and
have a library of 500+ DVDs as a result). With the other stuff on the hard
disk, I only have about 100Gb left for recorded TV (and getting less
daily).
So I've bought myself another SATA disk (320Gb), to add to my PC, just to
store recorded TV -
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0964712387.1235561510@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccffadegidfdhedcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=954219&category_oid= .

I've just got a couple of questions:-

1) I know I can change the settings in MCE to store recorded TV on the new
320Gb hard disk. I just wondered if there was any way I could tell MCE to
also use the 'spare' 100Gb on my current drive to record TV on too? Or can
I
only have it automatically record to just one disk?

2) I'm used to IDE hard disks needing a jumper, to tell the PC whether it
is
a Master or Slave disk. The SATA disk doesn't seem to have a jumper. I get
the impression that I need to connect the SATA cable to a 'slave'
connector
on the Motherboard and this will achieve the same thing - anyone know if
that
is right?

Thanks for any help you can give me.
Cheers
Eric

.

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