Thanks.
I can't seem to find the option to turn off deletion of Local Content. Can you please point me in the right direction?
I believe the option is all-or-nothing for all content. So you can disable the Delete/Trash button in the clients, but it does so for all content, imported and recorded alike.
Supporting local content is still a new and un-finished feature.
I had to remove imported content ... because it is either all or nothing.
Thanks @racameron and @Edwin_Perez. I did see the global option after I posted the question. Good point that it is still a beta feature. Fingers crossed that the devs add a separate disable-delete just for local content. To me, my local content is my "real" stuff that I don't want to lose, while DVR recordings are really just kept until after they are watched.
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Starting with v2021.02.24.2307, imported videos which have been sent to Trash will be deleted off of the disk when the Trash is cleaned out. This fixes the issue where deleting an imported video would make it reappear after a few days (when it got scanned in again).
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Will that be opt-in or can it be disabled?
If not, I'll be moving all mine to read-only mounts until there's a way to disable it.
Going to be some upset users who for over a year knew their imports were safe.
Now it changes and unless they frequent the forum, they'll find out the hard way.
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If it affects Playon Cloud being able to be deleted I will also disable Playon Cloud. This is just not a good Idea to have global deletion.
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All content is treated the same way.
One option we are considering is a separate trash setting for imported content. So instead of deleting after 1 day, you could tell imports to delete after 15 days or to stay in trash forever.
But if you don't trust your family then I don't know if that helps you. Because they can still go into Trash and click empty.
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Since imports were introduced, users have been asking for the ability to physically delete imported files. Now that Channels supports this, users are asking for the functionality to be removed.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Also, the local content is clearly marked as a Beta feature, meaning it's not stable and subject to changes.
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I never asked for this ... but I guess those that scream the loudest are heard. This is just a bad Idea period as far as I am concerned and will turn off users that value their collections. I am just going to remove playon cloud and look for other options for my collections.
I'm working around the fact they won't allow me to disable it by giving Channels remote read-only mounts to my imported local content because I don't want Channels deleting it. I made my opinion known long ago about this. Can't please everyone and can't comprimise.
I like having the ability and global setting to turn it off or on.
This is how some other systems work too.
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@tmm1 I agree that the ability to delete local content was needed, so kudos for adding that! But I also think for many users local content is a different animal from DVR recordings.
Example: I WANT to be able to delete the episode of The Today Show that I recorded this morning, but I DON'T want to delete my imported Friends series.
I think the thing that is still missing here is the ability to lock all imported content so that it cannot be deleted through the UI.
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I completely agree. As much as I like this line of development, if everyone in the household has the ability to delete (accidentally or otherwise) then I won’t risk 15+ years of rips.
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From my perspective, a DVR contains inherently short-lived content. From a day or maybe a few months of life. Long term storage and archives are a great use case for Emby. My Emby server is packed with full seasons of tv shows (The Office, Friends, Modern Family) and hundreds of movies. But I would never think the DVR is the place to store and mange that much content.
If I record a series on Channels DVR but I want to keep it, I place the series in Emby. I just see two different tools based on how long the content is going to hang around.
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This comment is enough to make us look deeper into how we can make it work how you guys want it to work! 
We would hope you consider Channels to be your all in one media center. This is what we're working towards. We don't want you or your families having to use multiple pieces of software. That goes against our mission.
While we have DVR in the name of our server, we consider DVR just one of multiple ways for you to get content in your all in one media app. Considering Channels not that app actually breaks my heart!
The bottom line is, there are fans that DO want to delete content. And fans that don't. If we don't let you delete content, then only one side gets what they need.
We can sometimes be provocative in our feature development. And this is just one case. It not only got everyone to really communicate how much they feel about this, but also WHY.
So we'll be looking into ways to make it so you can protect your imported content.
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Meanwhile my DVR upgraded to the pre-release the gives the ability to delete local content. So I made the decision to remove my imported content and Playon Cloud until this is addressed.
Exactly. I use Emby for all my local collections tv series etc. It has multi user profile support, with username/password and extensive permissions u can set for pretty much every aspect or function of the software.
Channels DVR, not even close to useable for a local media server, imo.
Unless they add in that level of functionality, I will never use it for local media things.
Channels is great for a single user, or everyone use just one interface cable tv dvr and live tv play back...cable box replacement setup.
Yeah but Playon Cloud is also deletable. Now who would want to delete from Playon Cloud after you have paid for the content,