Force favorite to record watched airings?

[silkshadow]

Is there any way I set a favorite to record all airings, including those marked "watched"? I use XMLTV and, the way its configured, makes a a subtitle of, for example, "Season 5" for about 3 shows that are on my favorites list. So once I watch it, it becomes marked watched and the next episode (which shares the "Season 5" subtitle) is not recorded. I have to manualy set "not watched" after I watch it but I many times forget to do so. Its a pain because, for example, I just missed the last two episodes of American Idol (and the cattle calls are my favorite episodes). Thanks!

[ozfiles]

I have this problem with the 6 o'clock news. I have set it up as a favourite and it works fine during the week but on the weekends for some reason it tags the news as being watched and I have to manually clear the watched.

I have started using a new source for my xmltv file and the one I was using didn't give me this problem so I would have to say it is a xmltv file problem but shouldn't the show be recorded if you have set up the favourite to record first runs and reruns no matter what the xmltv file contains.

[Opus4]

Favorites won't re-record episodes marked as Watched. There is an option to clear all the Watched settings so shows will record again, but from the description, this won't do any good since this is happening regularly. I don't know that much about XMLTV, but all I can guess is that it is somehow giving different episodes the same type of EP-prefixed show ID. Is that what is shown in the detailed info for the airings? Is there a way to get it to generate Shows IDs that aren't the same? Perhaps have it use SH-prefixed IDs... you can get all shows recorded that way, even if you've seen them before, but that might be better than missing new shows due to identical IDs. Maybe someone who knows more about XMLTV can comment...

- Andy

[ozfiles]

I have checked the shows id's and they are all different; Sunday EPa22e5d47, Saturday EPcf482668, Monday EP8c7b86c8, Tuesday EPff95155c, Wednesday EP65212736, Thursday EP118c77c9, Friday EP8b3845a3.

I'm a little confused with the favorites and watched thing. So what your saying is that when I select First Runs & ReRuns under Favourite Options, that will not overide the shows that have a watched symbol attached to them. I just assumed that it meant record all the shows for that favourite title.

regards.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

I have checked the shows id's and they all are different; Sunday EPa22e5d47, Saturday EPcf482668, Monday EP8c7b86c8, Tuesday EPff95155c, Wednesday EP65212736, Thursday EP118c77c9, Friday EP8b3845a3.

I'm a little confused with the favorites and watched thing. So what your saying is that when I select First Runs & ReRuns under Favourite Options, that will not overide the shows that have a watched symbol attached to them. I just assumed that it meant record all the shows for that favourite title.

regards.

Except that Sage doesn't "re-record" any shows that you have already "watched". Since your setup is somehow marking these as already watched...

Also, since the show ID's are different for these shows something else is causing them to be marked as watched. That is the problem you need to address. Maybe Opus or someone who uses XMLTV can help with that.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

I have checked the shows id's and they are all different; Sunday EPa22e5d47, Saturday EPcf482668, Monday EP8c7b86c8, Tuesday EPff95155c, Wednesday EP65212736, Thursday EP118c77c9, Friday EP8b3845a3.
regards.

You may have a corrupted data in the Wiz.bin file. Usually the Show ID numbers have 12 characters 2 letters followed by 10 digits. Your EP numbers above are not following those rules. In addition for EP numbers the first 5 should be the same for the same series, only the last 5 identify the episode number. You probably should look at the show ID numbers for other shows that are working correctly and see if they are anywere close to what you are showing above.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

I have checked the shows id's and they are all different; Sunday EPa22e5d47, Saturday EPcf482668, Monday EP8c7b86c8, Tuesday EPff95155c, Wednesday EP65212736, Thursday EP118c77c9, Friday EP8b3845a3.

The only thing I can think of (w/o knowing the exact internal SageTV code for handling such IDs) is that perhaps the XMLTV algorithm for creating some sort of ID for each show is generating repeat IDs on the weekends. The IDs you listed don't match each other, but that doesn't mean they don't match some airing from the past that you've already watched. SageTV's built-in EPG data includes assigned show IDs, while as far as I know, XMLTV plugins just calculate some ID to be assigned, attempting to create unique IDs in the process. Maybe some are more unique than others.

I'm a little confused with the favorites and watched thing. So what your saying is that when I select First Runs & ReRuns under Favourite Options, that will not overide the shows that have a watched symbol attached to them. I just assumed that it meant record all the shows for that favourite title.

Just remember that First Run and ReRun status has nothing to do with whether you have watched the show before; they simply refer to whether the show has aired previously. Whether you've watched a particular Gilligan's Island episode doesn't change the fact that it is a ReRun. First Runs are simply the initial airing(s) of a new episode for a current series. (I say "airings" because, usually, all airings of a specific episode over the course of the week or so when it is first aired are considered First Runs.)

- Andy

[ozfiles]

I have checked other shows that are recorded on a regular basis and it's the same story with them so far as the show id's being different.

Another thing I have noticed, is that even though there is a full week of data available, if I check the upcoming recordings on Sunday it has only listed the scheduled daily recordings up until Wednesday, Instead of showing the full week of recordings. The later recordings record no problem but that is just something I have noticed.

I really appreciate all your input guys.

regards

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

Another thing I have noticed, is that even though there is a full week of data available, if I check the upcoming recordings on Sunday it has only listed the scheduled daily recordings up until Wednesday, Instead of showing the full week of recordings. The later recordings record no problem but that is just something I have noticed.

See: How many days in advance does SageTV schedule its recordings?

- Andy

[ozfiles]

Ok, thanks Opus4 I've somehow missed that little piece of information. I've been using sage for around 2 years now and I am still learning.

regards.

[silkshadow]

Thanks Opus, yeah the problem is that every airing is using the same showID. The subtitle and description is exactly the same. The descriptions for these shows are just generic description about the show in general. What I am doing right now is using Magic File renamer to do a find and replace on my daily EPG to add a couple different characters to each match. This seems to be working. Since I only have a couple of these shows that I watch, its a decent workaround. However, if I had alot of shows doing this, it would be cumbersome. Fpr future reference is there a way to force unique show IDs? Thanks!

[Opus4]

If the XMLTV plugin is calculating an ID & coming up with the same one all the time for a series, then if you can't get it to create unique IDs, see if you can set the prefix to SH instead. With that ID prefix, you can have SageTV treat them all as different shows.

- Andy

[nielm]

silkshadow: which XMLTV plugin are you using?

The ones I have seen so far generate an EPGID using an MD5 hash of showname+episode name, which should generate a unique EPGID if the episode name (sub-title field) is unique.

IF the episode name is not specified (sub-title field in the XML), then the plugin shoudl generate an MD5 hash of showname+date, which should ensure all airinga are unique.

Maybe you can work around it by search/replacing in the XMLTV file "<sub-title>Season 5</sub-title>" -> nothing.

[silkshadow]

Maybe you can work around it by search/replacing in the XMLTV file "<sub-title>Season 5</sub-title>" -> nothing.

Thanks Nielm, that works and is easier to do then using a token to generate random characters!