[mythtv-users] Weekly recording

[Karl Dietz]

On 02.10.2013 07:14, Phill Edwards wrote:
>
>
>     The way of the MythTV is to go and fix your guide. Then the scheduler
>     can make better decisions. For NZ that may be as simple as switching
>     from the transmitted EIT guide to the transmitted MHEG5 guide (whatever
>     that is). E.g. http://code.google.com/p/__mheg2xmltv/
>     <http://code.google.com/p/mheg2xmltv/>
>
>
> I may have misunderstood the problem, or your answer, but I don't see
> how it's an issue for the TV guide data. Stations sometimes choose to
> broadcast a program multiple times per week, and the guide data reflects
> that correctly. (BTW I'm in Australia and use guide data from a scraper
> called Shepherd which is extremely good). The beauty of the Record
> Weekly rule is that it means I don't have to tell MythTV which
> occurrence of the program to record, as long as it does its best to
> record one of them without conflict. How can that now be achieved if
> there's no Record Weekly option (without setting up some arcane
> recording rule)?

When Rick hinted that "record at anytime on any channel" should do the
right thing the OP clarified "I get 3 copies then since I can't rely on
subtitle".

I tried to hint that the solution is to do something about the guide
so that he / the scheduler can rely on something.


What you are describing is the default behaviour. The scheduler knows
not to record multiple airings of the same programme. But that only
works if it understands which airings are considered the same.
In cases where the scheduler can not make sense of the guide you may
get away with band aids like "record one per week" that work good
enough until something breaks. (either due to changes in the schedule,
the guide data or in MythTV)


The options around duplicate detection are there to give the scheduler
a hint on what to rely on so that it can make sense of the guide.
Different Countries/Stations/Shows need different voodoo applied to
their guide data. Some do provide good episode titles in the field for
the short description. Others put exactly the same synopsis in the
field for the long description. Yet others need some fix ups applied
to remove text send for human consumption (e.g. a prefix of "Repeat
from yesterday." in front of the synopsis) that would otherwise make
the scheduler consider both airings as different episodes, when they
are really the same.
See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Duplicate_matching


Fixups for Australia start at 
https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/blob/master/mythtv/libs/libmythtv/eitfixup.cpp#L1186

and get applied to the following networks by looking at the
original_network_id of the transmitted data
https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/blob/master/mythtv/libs/libmythtv/eithelper.cpp#L1045


So the next steps for the OP and you are likely:

  * stare at the guide to figure out why you are considering two
    programs as the same but the scheduler does not

  * check if it is a simple as changing the duplicate matching method
    for the recording rule (if you end up with the same method on all
    rules that might be something to add to a locale file)

  * check if there are differences that should be removed. e.g. some text
    like "(Morning Repeat) " that needs to be removed by a EIT Fixup.
    Maybe the fixup is already there but does not get applied to do
    different EIT IDs

  * if that did not work, check if the other available guide source gives
    better results.

  * If all else fails you can find the "record one per week" option
    somewhere. But I don't know where it went as I'm from the "fix
    the guide" fraction and never looked it up ;) (I'm sure others on
    this list know it and will happily help out)


If its a different programme/episode, say the news at eight, and you
want only one recording per week, but don't care which days news you
get. Then a "once per week" recording rule is the right thing.


Regards,
Karl


PS: If you have some good defaults for Australia or New Zealand it
would be nice to create a locale file so others in your country get good
default values out of the box.
see 
https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/blob/master/mythtv/locales/de_de.xml#L14
and http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Locale_Configurations

PPS: This mail got longer with every round I made over it, I hope it
still makes sense when read from top to bottom...