[mythtv-users] recording a specific episode anytime?

[Brad Templeton]

On Sun, Jun 05, 2005 at 06:28:58PM +1000, Phill Edwards wrote:
> > >Is there a way to get myth to record a specific episode (title and
> > >subtitle must match) but let it choose which showing to record (in
> > >order to accommodate other recordings)?
> > 
> > Bruce Markey <bjm at lvcm.com> writes:
> > 
> > > None of the rule types look at the subtitle for a match. The only
> > > way to do so is to use a search rule that will specifically look
> > 
> > Ok, that's what I originally thought.
> > 
> > I often find I want to record a specific episode of a show, but don't
> > care when it gets recorded, and I suspect others might like to do this
> > sometimes.  If any developers are following, do you think a patch that
> > adds a FindOneEpisode recording rule would be accepted?  Any pointers
> > for where to start digging?  (I'm not promising that I'll do it, but
> > I'll try...)
> 
> I think this was solved earlier this week when Brad Templeton launched
> hos new TVWish program on this mailing list. This lets you tell MythTV
> to records specific episodes of programs whenever it sees them in the
> program guide. You can list one or many episodes for as many programs
> as you like. It's a great piece of software. You can find all the info
> at http://www.templetons.com/brad/myth/tvwish.html

TVWish ends up creating search-style recordings in order to do this,
using the SQL query form.   The most common one it does is for a particular
programid (which is an ID assigned uniquely to shows, including episodes,
by datadirect).  If there is no programid (ie. not datadirect in most
cases) I have just modified it to do a search for a title and subtitle
match.

I must admit that Myth's large array of choices for recordings have not
matched my impression of what people want to do the most often.  My
view of the "PVR vision" is that you are not supposed to care when it's
on.   So the most common recording styles should be:

    a) Record a series
        1) All episodes
        2) New episodes only
        3) All episodes on a specific channel

    b) Record a specific show (ie. episode or unique title)

(B) does not exist right now for episodes.

These 4 choices match, I suspect, meet the vast bulk of needs.
However, there are some rarer needs, which I would put on a sub-menu to
avoid complication of the interface:

    c) Record specific show at specific timeslot (for special cases,
        and for manual conflcit-avoidance)

    d) Specialized "record at most once per day/week/etc." recordings

    e) Manual


Now there does get to be a little bit of complexity over the desire to
specify a channel.   There are a few reasons to do it.

    a) One channel is running the series at a different time than
    the other.  Thus you might want to record Buffy on FX but not WB.
    b) One channel is "better" than another.  They may add fewer commercials
    or come in more strongly.  Or one may be HD and the other not.
    The latter I would like to fix with a different patch, an HD preference
    flag which automatically prefers HD and DTV versions.


Unfortunately, doing "record a show" is slightly complex because the
programid is a good way to do it but you can't depend on the programid
to be there outside of DataDirect territory.