[mythtv-users] Recording The Daily Show

[Derek Battams]

Quoting Bruce Markey <bjm at lvcm.com>:

> Derek Battams wrote:
>> The reason I started tackling this was that I needed a rather 
>> complicated search rule for Jon Stewart and realized that power 
>> search would be nice to have via the web.  This is the rule I need:
>>
>> program.title = "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" AND 
>> ((DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) >= 2 AND DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) 
>> <= 5 AND (HOUR(program.starttime) = 23 OR HOUR(program.starttime) = 
>> 0)) OR (DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) = 6 AND HOUR(program.starttime) 
>> = 0))
>
> TDS has always presented some interesting challenges.
>
> - New episodes are shown Mon-Thur at 11pm.
>
> - Repeated at 1am, 10am and 7 or 8pm the next day.
>
> - Specific episodes have the guest listed in the subtitle with
> a unique programid and an originalairdate.
>
> - "Generic episodes" have:
>
>    description: A humorous slant on top news stories.
>      programid: SH2930530000
> originalairdate: 1999-01-11
>
> - Often the day's episode is followed by a repeat of the previous
> day's episode on the half hour.
>
> - On any given day, the second week away has all generic episodes
> listed but the guest and programid will be filled in by the day
> the show airs.
>
> - Often they do not have the guest list in place by the time data
> is grabbed for Monday but the data for the week will be available
> by Tuesday.
>
> - Therefore Monday's generic episode may be a new show but other
> than that, generics are usually repeats.
>
> I have 25 kPowerSearch rules but none are for TDS. First, I know
> that I will never have enough shows higher in priority than TDS
> to fill all my cards so I know that TDS will always 'win' the 11pm
> time slot. I know I want to record even generics on Monday but
> only new episodes for the rest of the week.
>
> So, I have a kWeekslotRecord on Monday with normal duplicate matching.
> This will record a new or generic episode but will not record a
> specific episode that was previously recorded. I then add another
> rule that is a kTimeslotRecord with "Record new episodes only". This
> will not record generics or anything more than 14 days old. If Monday
> is generic and turns out to be a repeat, the rest of the week's
> generics will be repeats.
>
> This has worked well every since they started including episode info
> about the time that John Edwards announced his candidacy on the show.
>
> Some notes on your rule that you may want to consider or discard.
>
>> program.title = "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"
>
> Obviously okay but they sometimes have things like "Indecision 2008:
> A Daily Show Report"
>
> program.title LIKE "%Daily Show%" might catch these.
>
>> AND ((DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) >= 2
>> AND DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) <= 5
>
> TDS is only shown at 11pm on Mon-Thurs and never on Fri, Sat or Sun
> so this doesn't buy you much.
>
>> AND (HOUR(program.starttime) = 23 OR HOUR(program.starttime) = 0)) 
>> OR (DAYOFWEEK(program.starttime) = 6 AND HOUR(program.starttime) = 
>> 0))
>
> In the Pacific timezone, the first rerun is at 1am. I've never seem TDS
> at 12:00 or 12:30. HOUR == 23 matches any start time from 11:00 thru
> 11:59 and will therefore match the 11:30 showing of the previous day's
> show. However, "MINUTE(program.starttime) = 0" would only match the
> showings at the top of the hour and exclude the repeats at half past(!).
>
> One might think that kFindDailyRecord was invented for TDS but it was
> for NewsNight with Aaron Brown and a daily NASCAR show with multiple
> generic repeats. TDS is not a good find daily because of the half past
> repeats and the Friday thru Sunday repeats.
>
> So, here is a complicated ;-) rule to grab either the first or second
> showing accepting generics on Mon evening but not the rest of the week.
>
> program.title LIKE "%Daily Show%"
> AND MINUTE(program.starttime) = 0
> AND HOUR(DATE_SUB(program.starttime, INTERVAL 2 HOUR)) > 20
> AND WEEKDAY(DATE_SUB(program.starttime, INTERVAL 2 HOUR)) < 4
> AND (WEEKDAY(DATE_SUB(program.starttime, INTERVAL 2 HOUR)) = 0
>     OR program.previouslyshown = 0)
>
> Any "Daily Show" title, on the hour, whose start time minus two is
> in the evening of Monday through Thursday with generics accepted on
> Monday but must be new episodes for the rest of the week.
>
> Way too complicated =) but definitive.
>
> +---------------------+---------------------------------+---------------+
> | starttime           | title                           | subtitle      |
> +---------------------+---------------------------------+---------------+
> | 2005-10-10 23:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart |               |
> | 2005-10-11 01:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart |               |
> | 2005-10-17 23:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Dolly Parton  |
> | 2005-10-18 01:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Dolly Parton  |
> | 2005-10-18 23:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Bill O'Reilly |
> | 2005-10-19 01:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Bill O'Reilly |
> | 2005-10-19 23:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Louis Freeh   |
> | 2005-10-20 01:00:00 | The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Louis Freeh   |
> +---------------------+---------------------------------+---------------+
>
> I'm sticking with a a weekslot 11pm Mon and a timeslot for 11pm with
> new episodes only.
>
> --  bjm

Ah, but in Canada, TDS is aired at 11pm on the Comedy Network and at 
midnight (actually 12:05) on CTV.  The Comedy Network also airs repeats 
at all times of the day, every day of the week, including Saturday and 
Sunday and the repeats aren't necessarily repeats of the most recent 
airing.  Sometimes the listings have specifics for the new episodes, 
sometimes not.  For example, last week my listings just showed the 
generic info for every day even though they were all new episodes.  I 
suspect that since Comedy Central in the US is so late to provide the 
info that the Canadian networks give it if they get it or don't bother 
if they don't.  So since I can't trust the listings, I just want to 
ensure I record one airing at 11pm or 12am every Mon-Thu, which is why 
I have the rule above and select "Find One Daily" as the recording 
type.  I bunch the Comedy Netowrk and CTV airings together just to give 
the schedule a few options in case of conflicts.  Since the listings 
can't be trusted, I simply have to watch the intro of each recording to 
determine if it's a rerun.  If Monday's a rerun then the whole week is 
and I can override the remainder of the week.  Though I will update the 
title to a LIKE clause as you suggested, I think the rest is going to 
have to stay pretty much as is (TDS never repeats between the hours of 
11pm and 2am in Canada).  I do, however, agree that I could tighten up 
my power search, but it seems to be working ok for now.

  - Derek