EyeTV recordings and schedules, along with other information about your setup, are kept in the EyeTV Archive. The Archive is an ordinary folder, which has to be called “EyeTV Archive” for EyeTV to use it.
You can move the Archive folder wherever you like, but you must tell EyeTV where to look for it, in the Recording part of the Preferences.
Inside the EyeTV Archive are a number of files, which have specific purposes:
EyeTV Archive.xml – Contains the overall structure of the EyeTV Archive, for use with other programs that need to understand the EyeTV Archive’s contents. If erased, it will be recreated upon restart. This file is invisible.
EyeTVAutoTune.log – After an Auto Tune, information about the scanned frequencies is contained in this log. If you have tuning problems, sending this log to Customer Support can help with troubleshooting.
EyeTV Recordings have an .eyetv extension.
One recording file is special: Live TV Buffer.eyetv. This file belongs to EyeTV and is used to enable time shifting.
Schedules have the .eyetvsched extension.
Schedules will usually disappear when recording is complete. If a schedule repeats, then the .eyetvsched package will remain.
EyeTV Recordings and Schedules files are actually Mac OS X packages. A package is similar to a folder, but it cannot be opened by double-clicking in Finder. To look inside these packages, right-click (or Option-click) on them, and select Show Package Contents.
What’s inside a package? The .mpg files contain the video and audio data, the other files contain metadata about the recording or schedule.
Backing up an EyeTV recording or schedule is very simple – move the .eyetv and .eyetvsched files with the corresponding names in and out of the Archive. Restart EyeTV for the changes to take effect.
You can also drag recordings from the Recordings section of the EyeTV Programs window, to the Finder. That will make a copy of that recording, in the .eyetv format. Move that copy to wherever you like, even to another EyeTV Archive.
If .eyetv files are moved elsewhere in the Finder, then double-clicking them will launch EyeTV.
Playlists are kept in an invisible folder called Playlists.