Recorded TV Manager Add-in for Windows^® Home Server

Collection Scenarios

Watch The X-Files from the beginning.

Collect and save all episodes of Star Trek.

Control what the kids can watch in their room.

Delete those episodes of Seinfeld I've seen a million times.

Watching recorded TV on WHS using Xbox360 Media extender

Play recorded TV directly off the Home Server on a non-MCE machine.

Watch The X-Files from the beginning.

Using the Collections wizard, start collecting the series to the Home Server.  Then tell Media Center to record The X-Files every time it's on any channel.  Using Settings, check the Automatically delete duplicates checkbox which will  eliminate duplicate recordings. It may take some time before the broadcast rotation of The X-Files cycles back to the Pilot episode and first few seasons, but the collection will proceed automatically, in the background, on the Home Server.

Depending on where the broadcast cycle was when collection started, this may result in a large number of recordings of The X-Files from later years before getting the first year.  Use the Recorded TV Manager WHS Client application to monitor the collection and delete some of those later recordings, if desired.

Once the Pilot and first season are collected (it might take months) return to the Collections wizard, select the X-Files and then enable Start watching this series.  The AutoCopy service will copy the Pilot episode to the Media Center folder on the computer where you want to watch the series.

Start Media Center after the file move is complete.  The Pilot episode of The X-Files will be located in Recorded TV in the Media Center interface.  Watch the episode and then delete it.  The AutoCopy service will "see" that you deleted The X-Files and immediately move the next episode to the Media Center folder.  This may take a few minutes based on network congestion and server load, but it will show up in Recorded TV in Media Center shortly after the move is complete.  Repeat.

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Collect and save all episodes of Star Trek.

Use the Add a Folder wizard to add a new folder to the folder list named "Star Trek" which has sufficient room to store 80 episodes of Star Trek, i.e. a large secondary disk on a network computer, or the Home Server.  Give this folder the Read-Only attribute. 

Using the Collections wizard, start collecting Star Trek to the Star Trek folder.  Then tell Media Center to record Star Trek every time it's on any channel.  Using Settings, check the Automatically delete duplicates checkbox which will  eliminate duplicate recordings.

Because the folder has the Read-Only attribute, if you watch the series using the Collections wizard, episodes will be copied to the Media Center folder instead of moved (which deletes the original).  That way, when you delete the last watched episode from the Media Center folder, the original still resides in the collection folder.

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Control what the kids can watch in their room.

Suppose the kids have a computer in their room and also want a TV so they can watch their favorite shows, but you don't want them to have a TV.  The computer must be capable of playing video, specifically dvr-ms files, and must be connected to the Home Server network.  See Playing *.dvr-ms Files

Use the Add a Folder wizard to add a new folder to the folder list named "Kid's TV" which refers to a recorded TV folder on the computer in the kid's room.  Give this folder the Media Center attribute.  Using the Collections wizard, start collecting their favorite show to the Home Server and set it up to watch in the Kid's TV Media Center folder.

On the Kid's computer, they can use Media Player (or other compatible application) to watch the show and when they delete it, the next one will move in automatically.  If they watch them too fast, they'll run out until the next time the show is recorded, when it will be automatically moved into the recorded TV folder on the Kid's computer.

You can control what shows they watch and also the frequency by setting up the record parameters in Media Center and then managing the shows with the Collections wizard.

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Delete those episodes of Seinfeld I've seen a million times.

Install the Recorded TV Manager WHS Client application on one of your home computers.  Run the client application and select Series Info from the Tools menu and then select Seinfeld from the Series Name list.  Locate the episode(s) in the episode list and place a check next to each episode you want to restrict.  Close the program.

Use Settings on the Recorded TV Manager tab on the Home Server console and check the Automatically delete checked episodes checkbox.  If any of the checked episodes are recorded again by Media Center, they will be immediately deleted.

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Watching recorded TV on WHS using Xbox360 Media extender

Andrew Carr over at We Got Served explains how to set up the Xbox360.  See his post here.

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Play recorded TV directly off the Home Server on a non-MCE machine.

The computer must be capable of playing video, specifically dvr-ms files, and must be connected to the Home Server network.  See Playing *.dvr-ms Files

Install the Recorded TV Manager WHS Client application on one of your home computers.  Run the client application and select a recording to watch on the Home Server, or anywhere else in the folder list, and then click the Play button on the toolbar in the client application.  This will launch Media Center and play the selected program, even if it's not resident on the Media Center computer.

In the Series Info database, the episode will be marked as the last watched episode of the series along with the date watched. 

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