I connect to a remote server regularly and use its spare CPU to do video transcoding. I use MEncoder to do the video portion and the primary problem I have is that I can may time out randomly (I'm behind a router running DD-WRT, so maybe it's related to the problem Jon Schewe posted about) and when that happens, I have to start the encode over (this is especially frustrating when doing a 3-hour event from a BD or 1080i TV cap). Adding & to the end of my command has two problems. First, the constantly updated status line with percent finished and other important information is still written to the terminal and covers up any commands I type as well as any output a command gives. Second, this does not prevent MEncoder from stopping if I time out anyway. I find that the only way to prevent MEncoder from stopping is to add & to the command and exit the terminal. My script with MEncoder will still run in the background whether I'm connected or not, but I then have no way to see the status line again. Ideally, I want to reattach the status line to a terminal so I can see it and then detach it and send it back into the background.