TV Workflow Considerations

I have a Vista machine with a 300GB drive and a TV tuner.

I have an XP machine with a 40GB drive that's connected to a TV.

I have a Linux box that has an out-facing SSH connection.

I record a few sets of shows.

• Things the family would like
• Things that I'd like to share with friends
• Things I want for myself

Things in the first set, I'd like to have on or at least accessible to the laptop. Having 40GB, it won't have much if any room for files, and the dvr-ms format means a file could be up to 1.5GB. I would like to down-convert the shows for my friend and place them in a directory where my friend can get them.

Problem is, the Linux machine cannot see the Vista machine. Well, yeah via Gnome but not via fusesmb, so I can't really make a crontab. So, if I really want to do this, I have to learn how to do scheduled tasks on Vista Home Edition.

And ffmpeg seems to be hit-and-miss with opening the videos. Don't know what to do about that.