mythlink.pl replaces the old functionality of mythrename.pl. It is far more useful once setup.
See https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythlink.pl for the details.
For me this meant creating a folder as a peer to /var/lib/mythtv/recordings. My choice was /var/lib/mythtv/show_names. For this to work from Samba it was necessary to add “unix extensions = no” to the [Global] section of /etc/samba/smb.conf and “wide links = yes” to the specific share section. Without this the links will not be properly traversed when you access the share.
I then added two system events:
mythfilldatabase ran: /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/user_jobs/mythlink.pl --link /var/lib/mythtv/show_names
recording started: /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/user_jobs/mythlink.pl --link /var/lib/mythtv/show_names --chanid "%CHANID%" --starttime "%STARTTIMEUTC%"
Notice the %STARTTIMEUTC% as opposed the wiki suggested %STARTTIME%. This solution comes to us from http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/564185.
I decided to attach to the mythfilldatabase event instead of recording deleted or instead of adding to crontab. It will run daily and keep things clean.