V+ guessing amount of space left

mentalis · 25-04-2008, 13:03

I only noticed this yesterday. For a while now I have been filling up my hard drive with Doctor Who and Torchwood HD, whilst copying some stuff off to DVD and deleting it.

After the weekend I had an estimated 14 hours left. Yesterday I had 22. I recorded a programme, watched, and deleted it and it still stayed the same.

Has the V+ been lying to me all along, or is it just guessing? Or am I going to view some recordings soon and be disappointed?

Wicked_and_Crazy · 25-04-2008, 13:05

If you reboot the box ive found it resets the count and gets it more accurate

higgsfield · 25-04-2008, 15:58

Of course the amount of time remaining depends on the programs you record - HD needs about 3x the space, for example, iirc.

Maybe someone knowledgable can explain how the estimate works.

I can only guess - but I suspect that it looks at the profile of the material you have to estimate how much more would fit on.

The assumption being that you will continue to record material of SD and HD in the same proportion. I wonder if it is this clever?

For example, if it's half full of HD material of a total length of Xhrs - then it will estimate that you have Xhrs remaining. Whereas if it were half full of 3X hrs of SD material, it would estimate that you have 3X hrs remaining.

And therefore, if it were half SD and half HD, then it would estimate 2.5Xhors remaining.

Makes sense?

Someone shoot me down!!!

mentalis · 25-04-2008, 20:27

The thing is the amount of free space increased without me doing anything, unless there are some hard drive pixies out there giving out extra space.

I will try a reboot sometime; apart from this the box is behaving itself and 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

higgsfield · 25-04-2008, 20:36

Odd. Granted.

JethroUK · 26-04-2008, 16:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by higgsfield

..I suspect that it looks at the profile of the material you have to estimate how much more would fit on. The assumption being that you will continue to record material of SD and HD in the same proportion. I wonder if it is this clever?

not a good algorythmn - with only 80 hours (SD) & 25 ish in HD - a mere fluxuation of even half-hour of HD would render it useless as any sort of guide

you would need something like 800 hour recording space to make this calculation anything like 'representative'

recording time is obviously based on SD recording and derived loosely from free drive space

Quote:

Originally Posted by higgsfield

Someone shoot me down!!!

Bang!

higgsfield · 26-04-2008, 19:44

What do you suggest then?

JethroUK · 26-04-2008, 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by higgsfield

What do you suggest then?

I suggest they stick with what they are currently using

free drive space = Std hours

higgsfield · 26-04-2008, 22:35

Hmmm. Okay!

mentalis · 28-04-2008, 13:01

I think I have found out where the space has come from. A couple of episodes from around the middle of the second series of Torchwood were reporting failed. D'oh!

higgsfield · 28-04-2008, 18:23

oh well. At least you understand it.

...and Torchwood is pretty dire - so it could have been worse

(ducks!)

mentalis · 28-04-2008, 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by higgsfield

oh well. At least you understand it.

...and Torchwood is pretty dire - so it could have been worse

(ducks!)

I could have lost an episode of Doctor Who. Now that would make me think about sending the V+ back and switching to $ky.