Thanks CountryBumkin and Yaobing for your replies to my questions.
Regarding question 1:
Yaobing: Yes, we do warn on low disk space condition, but most likely we warn only when you start using TV. It makes sense to check disk space whenever a user makes a recording schedule. I will make sure it does.
Thanks, any kind of warning will be really helpful as I have deliberately limited the disk space available for recording TV programmes. I limit it because I know that if I have terabytes of space I will fill it up with loads of stuff that I'll never get around to watching! I prefer that I'm forced to have a clear out every now and then.
Regarding question 2:
CountryBumpkin: You can specify to "only keep X number of episodes", "delete after X days", or "keep forever".
Cool - That's exactly what I am looking for, except that it took me a few minutes to figure out where the option is! I eventually found it hidden in a chain of about half-a-dozen nested dialogs, via the "Configure Subscription" menu. I don't understand why I need to answer all the other questions before I reach the "Cleanup mode" where I can choose how many episodes I want to keep. I'm sure this can easily be improved by presenting the questions as a list in the first dialog so that I can jump directly to the option that I am interested in. Maybe I'm missing something - is there a faster way to reach this setting in Theatre View?
Regarding question 3:
Yaobing: No, MC does not log recording failures, but it is on my to-do list (though not very high on the list, but I will eventually get to it).
OK - that's fair enough. Is it possible for me to "vote up" this feature? For a newcomer, I think it would really help them to understand what's going on, and why their favourite (sorry, English spelling there!) programme didn't record. Without the history you are left scratching your head a bit.
Regarding question 4:
CountryBumpkin: Not sure about this one. JRiver has Users in UK using the software and making recordings. I don't know anything about iPlayer.
That's understandable if you're outside of the UK then maybe the BBC iPlayer is not so interesting for you. However, this is a very popular streaming service in the UK for catching up with recent episodes of the BBC programmes. I have other ways that I can access it (e.g. via my Google Chromecast dongle) so it's not a show stopper for me - but it would be nice if I didn't have to leave J River MC to use it.
Regarding question 5:
Yaobing: MC goes to Video\Shows in Theater view when you press Recorded TV button.
Hmm - that's not quite what I'm getting. I have changed the names on my setup, so that instead of the default menus I have something like this:
TV (renamed from Video)
Guide (still called Guide, but moved up to first position in the sub-menu)
Recorded TV (renamed from Shows)
...
What I'm seeing is that when I press the "Recorded TV" button on my WMC remote it jumps to TV/Guide - which just happens to be in the same position as the default Video/Shows. Is it possible for me to re-configure J River MC so that it jumps to TV/Recorded TV instead?