2007-04-07, 02:30 PM
From what I've been able to piece together from the forum posts here, it sounds like the "dont record duplicates" option works by skipping reocurring programs if that episode has ever been recorded before.
There are two basic reasons I can think of that people would use the "Season Pass" type options (recording all, skipping duplicates, and keeping a certain number):
1) If they want to record an entire season to watch, archive, or burn.
2) If they want to keep a certain number of recent shows available to watch on demand. For instance, I like to keep 5 different copies of "Curious George" for my son. I want the selection to change regularly. I don't care if I get old ones again, but I don't want duplicates within the 5. With the current logic (if I understand things right), eventually it'll have previously recorded everything and the selection will stop changing.
I have a couple problems with the current options:
1) If I have a problem with a recording (it didn't record the whole thing, it was interrupted or delayed due to breaking news, weather, a ball game that ran late, etc.) I don't think there's a way to re-record it without manually finding it. Perhaps when we try to delete a program that is set up for reoccuring recordings, you should give an option of re-recording the show if/when it comes up again?
2) If I'm understanding how the skip duplicate logic works right, there's no easy way to do the second way of keeping a certain number of unique recent recordings. If you added an option to reoccurring programs where you could define how long to keep a record of deleted episodes, that would let you do things both ways. Set it to "never delete" (which could be the default) to replicate the current feature. Set it to something like "6 months" or "1 year" to allow episodes to be recorded again after that amount of time.
There are two basic reasons I can think of that people would use the "Season Pass" type options (recording all, skipping duplicates, and keeping a certain number):
1) If they want to record an entire season to watch, archive, or burn.
2) If they want to keep a certain number of recent shows available to watch on demand. For instance, I like to keep 5 different copies of "Curious George" for my son. I want the selection to change regularly. I don't care if I get old ones again, but I don't want duplicates within the 5. With the current logic (if I understand things right), eventually it'll have previously recorded everything and the selection will stop changing.
I have a couple problems with the current options:
1) If I have a problem with a recording (it didn't record the whole thing, it was interrupted or delayed due to breaking news, weather, a ball game that ran late, etc.) I don't think there's a way to re-record it without manually finding it. Perhaps when we try to delete a program that is set up for reoccuring recordings, you should give an option of re-recording the show if/when it comes up again?
2) If I'm understanding how the skip duplicate logic works right, there's no easy way to do the second way of keeping a certain number of unique recent recordings. If you added an option to reoccurring programs where you could define how long to keep a record of deleted episodes, that would let you do things both ways. Set it to "never delete" (which could be the default) to replicate the current feature. Set it to something like "6 months" or "1 year" to allow episodes to be recorded again after that amount of time.
Main PVR: Dell E520 / XP MCE / 2.8GHZ Dual Core / 250GB+500GB / 1GB / HVR-1600 / GB-PVR 1.0.16
