Windows Media Connector to WHS 2011

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chrisgnv

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Windows Media Connector to WHS 2011

#1

Post by chrisgnv » Wed Jan 06, 2016 10:14 pm

Hello. I'm setting up WMC in Win 7 with the current plan being to store most of the recorded TV on my Windows Home Server 2011. The HTPC will have a 60 GB SSD for OS and temp files and a 500 GB WD Blue HDD for the data storage or initial recordings.

I think I'll be setting up Windows Media Connector to offload all recorded TV to the server. We don't really save old TV shows. We only keep new shows we haven't watched. If it gets too old (weeks), we often delete it anyway because we're unlikely to find the time to watch it. (If we didn't, already, we're not likely to, later.)

Questions:

Are shows stored on the server viewable through the WMC UI without taking extra steps to find them?
What controls when they're deleted from the server? Do they have to be deleted manually? Or is there some way to delete the oldest shows if there's a shortage of space, with exceptions for shows marked do not delete?
Is a 500 GB drive adequate that I don't need to bother with the server? As I wrote above, we don't store recorded TV for long, and we don't store movies at all.

Thanks

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newfiend

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#2

Post by newfiend » Thu Jan 07, 2016 1:48 am

I use WMC in Windows 8.1 (currently) and Previously Windows 7 and WHS 2011.

On the WMC main WMC Menu the connector will install the Home Server TV Archive.

You can launch it there and select series or programs to archive to the server or under settings to archive all programs automatically.
All the TV that is recorded is then transferred to WHS 2011 will still show up in Recorded TV even though it resides on the server.

The Home Server Archive on the WMC main Menu just lets you select which series or programs that you record are sent to the server for archiving. Once your done just delete it like normal.
In the Series settings for your TV shows you can select to keep shows until space is needed etc. Most likely you can set that and it would just delete older shows if space got low I would assume. But If you're like me when I'm done watching most shows I just delete it anyway so space hasn't really ever been an issue for me.

As far as the 500 GB drive being big enough.. that will depend on your recording habits, how many series recordings you set up etc.. I would say 500 GB would be fine.. If you find yourself recording more content and are running out of room on the 500 GB drive then set some of the series recordings to transfer to the WHS, they will all automatically still show up in Recorded TV.

Hope that helps you out.
newfiend~

chrisgnv

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#3

Post by chrisgnv » Thu Apr 07, 2016 4:49 am

3 months later, I'm back. WMC is working fairly well with a CableCard tuner. It's not as painless as an OTA broadcast tuner but it fits my needs.

I've tried the Archive add-in but it consistently fails. The message is that it doesn't have sufficient rights. Can anyone tell me how to extend rights appropriately? I'm not even sure which account is doing the archive.

500 GB on my HD was enough until I got an HBO subscription. (With a new Cox account, local channels plus HBO plus internet is cheaper than my previous internet-only account.) When I started saving movies for a later date, I also started getting alerts from WHS that the HTPC hard drive was full. I decreased the space allocated to recorded TV to around 450 which keeps it below the 10% threshold that triggers the warning.

If I can get archive working I plan to manually archive HBO movies, as recorded. That will leave the space on the local drive for TV shows. I'll let WMC handle the TV series by purging them automatically, however it does that. Age, I assume. I'm aware I can set the purge criteria separately for specific series or episodes but I don't want to bother. I really don't have the space to do that, anyway. I don't plan to keep TV series long enough to justify archiving them, either.

In the meantime, can I move DRM-protected movies to the WHS Movies share, and still watch them from the movie library? The WHS share is included in the WMC library. I'd be watching them from the same HTPC but I don't know if moving them constitutes a "copy" from the DRM perspective, and therefore a violation.

Thanks for any offers of help.

Space

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#4

Post by Space » Thu Apr 07, 2016 5:57 am

The only restriction on DRM recordings is that they can only be played on the same machine that recorded them. You can move the recordings anywhere you want, even make copies.

chrisgnv

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#5

Post by chrisgnv » Mon Apr 18, 2016 10:09 pm

OK, so manually moving them off to the server folder will allow me to reduce the space required on the local drive, but how do I get the WHS TV archive service to work? It fails consistently due to the archive user not having appropriate rights.

Thanks

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