[mythtv-users] Reliability of HDTV flag in Schedules Direct listings

Raymond Wagner raymond at wagnerrp.com
Thu Nov 24 18:16:37 UTC 2011


On 11/24/2011 12:57, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Michael T. Dean
> <mtdean at thirdcontact.com>  wrote:
>> On 11/24/2011 11:04 AM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
>>> If these flags are so unreliable, should mythtv really rely on them
>>> for scheduling?
>> MythTV does not rely on--nor even consider--HDTV flag when scheduling.
>> It uses whatever rules you provide when scheduling.
>>
>> That said, there is a setting which /you/ may have set:
>>
>> HDTV recording priority
>> Additional priority when a showing is marked as an HDTV broadcast in the
>> TV listings.
> That's an extremely developer centric point of view.  The end user
> point of view of this feature is:
>
> HDTV recording priority
> Additional priority when a showing is an HDTV broadcast.

There's not much MythTV can do about it.  It can only work as well as 
the information it is given.  Garbage in, garbage out.  If you want, you 
can add a user job that checks the resolution of a recording file.  If 
the show is marked in the guide data as HD, but the file is not, mark it 
for re-recording and/or delete it.  If it's upscaled SD, I suppose you 
could check for the VBI mess at the top of the screen, or poor 
underscaling of the video.

>>   Note, though, that since the
>> vast majority of my channels broadcast HDTV content for everything I'm
>> recording, I don't really get much SDTV--except for a couple of PBS
>> shows.
> Do you remove channels that never show HDTV for which there is an HDTV
> equivalent?  I don't get any channels in HD for which there isn't also
> an SD equivalent, so any HD program available is also available in SD.

You can do that, or you can mark a channel as hidden and remove the 
xmltvid, which will have the same effect.  Of course in your scenario it 
wouldn't make much of a difference.

>> I have an additional recording rule that
>> re-records HDTV versions of SDTV Nova episodes
> Doesn't that also rely on the listings flags?

Yes, but considering he already has an SD copy of the episode, there is 
nothing to be lost in recording another SD copy, mistakenly thinking it 
is HD.

>>   So, whether the station/TMS is
>> providing bad/incomplete data or you're using a not-completely-true
>> assumption (i.e. that channels that can show HDTV will always show HDTV
>> and not up-scaled SDTV or any other you can come up with), you're likely
>> to have issues.
> I can't say for certain why the listings are wrong.  I know what
> Schedules Direct sent me is wrong.  If it was wrong because they
> screwed up or TMS sent them the wrong value or the station sent TMS
> the wrong value I cannot say.
>
> Perhaps I should start complaining to Schedules Direct.  If their
> inputs are wrong, they can forward the complaints on my behalf.

You get those flags from Schedules Direct, Schedules Direct gets them 
from Tribune Media Services, and Tribune gets them from each individual 
affiliate.  You can complain to SD, who will complain to TMS, who may 
complain to the affiliate, but it all comes down to the fact that TMS 
gave you the most accurate information it could, which was wrong because 
the affiliate lied.  There's not much recourse against such a situation.


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