Hi Andrew,
your explanation is completely correct and I confirm all what your are thinking about.
The problem that I'm trying to explain is that all the standard installation of vdr from the actual 0810 version, are always using this default directory for recording storage area : /var/lib/video.00 . Both for core/hybrid and MDs .
I don't think that directory are visible from any MDs, then is necessary to use another path , I think .
But actually I'm not completely confident that this is the correct way for the re/solution to have all the MDs able to play the recordings made by the core.
If I remember correct, old version / release of LinuxMCE with myth installed and tested by me were using the /home/public/data ...... structure and I was able to see everything.
Thats it.
BR
Luke