Is Sage really this smart?

[Khidr]

So Sage recorded the wrong program the other night because my cablebox, which is also a dvr decided to override the channel change and record something else (it's since been thoroughly nerfed)

I have the series set up for first-runs only. When I deleted the recording, I selected the wrong recording option.

It looks like Sage then went ahead and grabbed the episode at the next available time slot despite it not being labeled as a first-run.

If Sage actually was smart enough to realize that since it didn't record the episode the first time I still needed it, Kudos to the developers, that's a wonderful and intuitive feature.

I just wanted to double check before I started proclaiming my love from my rooftop, or talking up nifty little features that aren't there.

Thanks.

[camus]

Yes it is that smart.

[Opus4]

There's even a FAQ for it: If I delete a show, will it be recorded again?

- Andy

[Khidr]

Fabulous then, thanks for the confirmation. As a new user it's great to stumble on some of these features that just work. The way Sage overlapped my OTA channels over my digital cable (hd-pvr) guide was also zen for me.

[Fuzzy]

The PVR scheduling features are definately the best thing sage has going for it. It really is VERY smart when it comes to getting what you need. For instance, say you have two favorites that air at the same time, and only one encoder available to record them. One of them airs again later in the evening. Even if the one that airs later is a higher priority, the one that only airs once will be recorded in the first time slot, because it knows it can't get it later, and the other one it can. BRILLIANT!!!

[lazysean]

Originally Posted by Opus4

There's even a FAQ for it: If I delete a show, will it be recorded again?

- Andy

and from the FAQ:

Q: If I delete a show, will it be recorded again?

A: No. I mean: Yes. Um... that depends...
No: If you have watched the show, made sure it was marked as 'watched' (or 'don't like'), and it has a unique ShowID, then the show will not be recorded again. Not ever. OK, so you can look at the LiveTV Guide and clear the show's watched flag or manually mark it for recording if you want to record it again. Currently, the 'watched' flag for a show never expires.

OK, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, but can you expand on that? If I record nightly syndicated reruns of Friends, watch them and then delete them, it sounds like you're saying that eventually they'll just stop recording unless I manually set each episode to "unwatched" again? Is that really the case and is there any way to modify that behavior?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by lazysean

If I record nightly syndicated reruns of Friends, watch them and then delete them, it sounds like you're saying that eventually they'll just stop recording unless I manually set each episode to "unwatched" again? Is that really the case and is there any way to modify that behavior?

Like the FAQ says: SageTV will remember the watched status for unique-ID shows & not record them again while they are marked as watched, unless you make it a Manual Recording.

Check the PDF manual's section for the Favorite Details menu, starting around p. 68. There is an advancd option to set or clear the watched status for all of a Favorite's airings. If that option isn't available for a Fav (see the manual for details), then use the Fav's Additional Airings option or use the Future or Past Airings option for an airing, then use the Watched command on the grouped Past or Future airings to reset a whole group at once.

- Andy

[lazysean]

Thanks. That just seems really weird to me. When I say "Record First run and Reruns" I mean it! It would be great if there were maybe a similar option for each favorite to "Record even if Watched". Otherwise it seems like I'd have to either remember to clear it myself or go in and do one of those "clear all" type things every other week or so, just to make sure everything records.

I did find this setting mentioned in the 6.1 (I think) release notes:
wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false. It sounds to me like this does what I want - prevent Sage from indefinitely saving the Watched (and possibly the Don't Like) status from past recordings so that they always record. That's fine with me - I don't use Intelligent Recording. There's no documentation on it, though. Does anyone know if that's how it really works? Would there be any side effects? I mean, what's a "completed recording" exactly? Would it start dumping the Airings info before I've deleted the file (when, for example, it no longer shows up in the Guide)? Or does the setting only get recognized each time Sage starts up, so it would only purge the data on restart? I've already set it, so I guess I'll find out, though who knows how long it will be before the situation arises. I'm just surprised there aren't more people who want/expect Sage to act this way.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by lazysean

I did find this setting mentioned in the 6.1 (I think) release notes:
wizard/retain_airings_from_completed_recordings=false. It sounds to me like this does what I want - prevent Sage from indefinitely saving the Watched (and possibly the Don't Like) status from past recordings so that they always record.

No, that just tells SageTV to keep the airing info in its database for shows that have been fully recorded. Otherewise, recorded shows w/o any info tagged to them (such as Watched, Don't Like, & other things) get pruned from the database.

And, "rerun" in SageTV terminology means a show that is airing again more than a week or so after its first airing period.

- Andy

[briands]

Sean,

See my previous feature request here

If you like it, you can submit feature requests via the Here

[lazysean]

thanks for the help everybody. i did submit it as a feature request, though i suspect i shouldn't hold my breath

in the meantime, i'm going to try brushing up my java skills. of which i have none. but i figure it shouldn't be too hard to write a little utility that goes through the database and clears the "Watched" setting on recordings that have been deleted. then i could just schedule that to run as a task every night while shouting "hooray!"

I'll post it up if i ever get something working.

[briands]

Originally Posted by lazysean

thanks for the help everybody. i did submit it as a feature request, though i suspect i shouldn't hold my breath

in the meantime, i'm going to try brushing up my java skills. of which i have none. but i figure it shouldn't be too hard to write a little utility that goes through the database and clears the "Watched" setting on recordings that have been deleted. then i could just schedule that to run as a task every night while shouting "hooray!"

I'll post it up if i ever get something working.

Not a great solution if you use IR (or even intelligent suggestions).

[lazysean]

Originally Posted by briands

Not a great solution if you use IR (or even intelligent suggestions).

Would it really affect much? I ask because I don't know how IR works - I'm not using it myself. Does it weight decisions on how often you watch a particular program?

My thinking was that if I only clear the watched flags from (A) favorites, possibly even only those listed as including reruns, (B) deleted recordings, and hopefully (C) specific shows from a config list, that hopefully nothing much else would be affected. That way manual and IR recordings aren't changed, IR still knows that you record the program regularly (like I said, I don't know how it makes its decisions so maybe that's not helpful), and programs that are still on disk keep the flag as set so timelines/menu filters/etc work properly.

For the way I use Sage, it seems almost perfect. I could schedule it to run every night to make sure Sage never misses a recording, or only once a month or so, which would probably accomplish the same basic thing but also prevent lots of unnecessary re-recordings of things like Dexter that are on 36 times a month by leaving the watched flags set for a while. Even better, maybe it could run nightly but the config could specify an age for each recording before it would be considered a candidate for clearing the setting.

Anyway, if I'm going to go through the trouble of writing something like this, I'd certainly like to make it as useful to other users as possible. Any ideas are definitely appreciated.

[lazysean]

Ah, I see in the manual now it does base its decisions on the watched flag and appears to otherwise give no preference toward shows which were recorded or marked as favorites. They have to be watched. Oh, well. Maybe this fix just isn't for people who use IR.

[lazysean]

Or maybe there's another more complex way: what if another factor in deciding to clear the watched flag is that the same episode shows up in the epg in the next couple days? So IR gets the benefit of keeping that flag for its decisions 99% of the time, but when it comes time to record it again, it clears the setting to allow the recording. Then it's up to you: you can set the flag manually or whatever you want once its recorded again.

That might even end up being a more efficient way to do it anyway: rather than searching through a potentially huge database comparing show after show, just search the epg for upcoming shows that are watched, and decide whether they meet the criteria to un-mark them.