Prevent recording repeats and recording history questions

[puenktchen]

Does the setting "Avoid duplicate recordings where possible" only work for tv episodes but not for movies?
If it should also take movies into account, what are the requirements that NextPVR recognizes an existing movie recording?

Where is the history for deleted recording saved, ist it "RECENTLY_DELETED" in the database?
If so, does it only save tv episodes but not movies?
It seems NextPVR uses a SchedulesDirect id to identify a episode recording. What will happen if you change your guide data to xmltv, will it re-record the existing or previously deleted episodes?

[sub]

It'll avoid recording duplicates for any type of show that has a unique show identifier. You'll typically always have a unique show identifier if you're using Schedules Direct as your EPG source. If you're using DVB EPG, you'd usually have a unique show identifier (assuming your country broadcasts crid data). If you're using xmltv, it'll depend on what the xmltv file has in it.

[puenktchen]

So in other words, it doesn't look for the epg/recording title as a last resort?!

[mvallevand]

Movies can have the same title it would not be a good fallback.

Martin

[puenktchen]

But now there's no fallback at all.

Oh man, i was really on fire after sub has added CI support for Digital Devices, because NextPVR has some really nice features. But now after a deeper look it's disappointing. It's all build around perfect guide data from one single provider for the whole lifetime. Beware that the guide data provider will ever change his program id scheme.

[mvallevand]

I have used Schedules Direct since it came out and they haven't changed ID's The unique ID is the same as used by TMS in Emby, In my locast addon. Even zap2xml has similar

It is only TV not a trip to the moon so deleting duplicates is not that bad. Still you are the first person I have heard that complains about this.

Martin

[puenktchen]

It's not about deleting one duplicate, it's about deleting it again and again with a recording rule by actor name. I have hundreds of movie recordings from other software that i'd like to import as "removed" recording, so they don't get recorded again.
This is possible with MediaPortal, DVBViewer and Tvheadend. But they all have some other quirks. MediaPortal and DVBViewer are limited in the use of guide data and Tvheadend or better Linux does not support multi channel decryting with one CI.

[mvallevand]

Can't you subscribe to SD in Germany? Most users don't create generic rules to record every movie for a genre but I do know there are some.

Perhaps check with this user I know he has some advanced script to avoid movie duplicates https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=60729

Martin

[sub]

Oh man, i was really on fire after sub has added CI support for Digital Devices, because NextPVR has some really nice features. But now after a deeper look it's disappointing. It's all build around perfect guide data from one single provider for the whole lifetime. Beware that the guide data provider will ever change his program id scheme.

NextPVR is definitely not built around Schedules Direct. I don't use Schedules Direct here. It does recognise that Schedules Direct, and some xmltv files, have better info available than some other EPG sources.

Show title is definitely not good enough information to determine if something is a duplicate, at least for the bulk of listings in your guide.

I'm surprised you're pulling up NextPVR as requiring perfect data, when I see it as the exact opposite - it was very much designed to give the best behaviour it could reliably deliver, with the understanding that different people would have different quality of EPG data available. From poor (ATSC EPG and xmltv files with limited detail), or medium (DVB EPG and better xmltv files), and best (Schedules Direct, best quality xmltv files). I live in New Zealand, where we have pretty crappy EPG data, and I designed it to make the best decisions based on the data we have available. I recognised it could make better decisions for some users which had better data than me.

As Martin said, we've not had any other users having a problem with this, but we don't have may people making recurring recordings of movies.

That said, I could probably add logic to improve the movies duplicate detection, by adding a fake unique identifier (derived from the name) when NextPVR knows it's a movie. Does your xmltv file clearly identify what are movies? ie a genre? I can't just do this for all shows, because you wouldn't want all episodes of a regular show like the "The Simpsons" being treated as duplicates, and you can't just do it based on the duration of a show being >=90 minutes because of sports events etc. (ie, don't want all episodes of "Friday night football" being treated as duplicates because they have the same title and description each week)

FYI, many users around the world also have generic descriptions for shows in their xmltv data. ie, "The Simpsons" "Satirical look at American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie".

[mvallevand]

Sub if you do make change to this logic for movies, I would like to see identifying information in the RECENTLY_DELETED table, either the EPG Event cache, or columns for title, subtitle, season, episode, and original air date. I would like to be able to pick and choose deleted recurring recordings rather then removing the entire history.

Martin