Season Recording

[sub]

I'm wondering if people really just want ta "record-same-show-once" option where the program can recognize that the program's description (or the listing number) is the same as something already recorded - and then skip the re-recording. Forget about all the day, time variables completely!

We did go down that path originally, but we dont have enough information to do it reliably, so the function was removed.

XMLTV doesnt give any show number identifiers, and show names and description are not always changed for every episode. Often they only contain a fairly generic name and description.

With zap2it we did get a unique show identifier, which turned out to not be so unique. Infact shows like the late show would reuse the same code.

In summary, we just couldnt tell that we'd recorded the same show at a different time.

[jorm]

rectracker keeps track of every recording you have done and has a list of shows to ignore that you can populate. It keeps the subtitle and description if it finds you have already recorded it, it cancels it.

If a show does not have a description nor subtitle it leaves it alone.

works for xmltv and zap2it, not perfect but it works.

[sub]

This scheme wouldn't work well here in NZ. We dont have a subtitle in our XMLTV files. We do have a description, but about 50% of the time they seem to be a fairly generic description that doesnt change from episode to episode.

[jorm]

It seems to work pretty well in the states with most non game shows. I have only found one show that it does not work on since each episode has the same description so I have an ignore list.

[buddhaswink]

I there another way that this can be handled? I mean many people want to record an entire season of shows without duplicates. Could meta data be compared based on Show name and episode title? I dont know what else can be used to achieve this but surely its possible because many other pvr's do it. Sorry sub certainly do not want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Im diggin gbpvr but I am having to delete my extra episodes of Monk. Or at least I have been catching them in the pending recordings before they start. Stop me if Im missing something ......... like this is already the case and it wont record those when it comes across them but so far I have just seen it try to record multiples of the same show.

[sub]

I dont know what else can be used to achieve this but surely its possible because many other pvr's do

I could do it easily if I was just aiming primarily at USA based users, with the data supplied by zap2it or tribune media....but I'm not. I'm in New Zealand, and we use XMLTV. I dont want to build features that wont work for me.

I understand where you're coming from though, but I prefer to focus my time on features that will work for the wider set of users rather than just limiting things for USA.