Kartsa wrote:

I don't know about other countries but in finland often programs have reruns within few days causing some autotimer to timer same event twise. This is quite usual especially with series.

So I wonder if it would be a good idea or even feasible to have weekday selection in autotimer setup?

"Advanced" timer programming is the domain of Master-Timer. http://mt.citd.de

One of it's many feature is to restrict timers to specific weekdays.

Or, if the EPG-Data is good(tm) (meanes: has a meaningful subtitle, i.o.w. the title of the episode), Master-Timers "done"-feature removes any (Master-Timer-)timers that entered the "done"-list which are still programmed in VDR the next time master-timer is started. This makes sure that a specific episode is never recorded again(*). Great to record whole series, without recording an episode twice(*2), or recording the rerun if the first attempt failed. :-)

I've recorded about 5 thousand(!) series and movies in 4 years. Workes great as long as the EPG-(or secondary-source-)data is good. :-) (Btw. I'd say that i'm a "heavy user". Converted into autotimers i would currently have about 450 autotimers).

*: As long as the EPG-Data of immediate or later(i mean much later, like month/years later when the whole series reruns) reruns match with the already recorded one, if the EPG-data is garbage there is nothing Master-Timer could do.

*2: Personally i've only encountered a single series which has the same episode-title for 2 different episodes, luckily i realised that in time to remove the entry from the done-file.

Bis denn

Kartsa wrote:

From: "Matthias Schniedermeyer" ms@citd.de

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Kartsa wrote:

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I don't know about other countries but in finland often programs have reruns within few days causing some autotimer to timer same event twise. This is quite usual especially with series. So I wonder if it would be a good idea or even feasible to have weekday selection in autotimer setup?

"Advanced" timer programming is the domain of Master-Timer. http://mt.citd.de

I must have a look on this one. Thanks for the link.

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One of it's many feature is to restrict timers to specific weekdays.

Or, if the EPG-Data is good(tm) (meanes: has a meaningful subtitle, i.o.w. the title of the episode), Master-Timers "done"-feature removes any (Master-Timer-)timers that entered the "done"-list which are still programmed in VDR the next time master-timer is started. This makes sure that a specific episode is never recorded again(*). Great to record whole series, without recording an episode twice(*2), or recording the rerun if the first attempt failed. :-)

I've recorded about 5 thousand(!) series and movies in 4 years. Workes great as long as the EPG-(or secondary-source-)data is good. :-) (Btw. I'd say that i'm a "heavy user". Converted into autotimers i would currently have about 450 autotimers).

Too bad that in Finlad the episode names are not in epg data. Most often even the information that it is a rerun is missing and actually epg data is identical with the original aired program making it impossible to know which is which. Normally they are aired on different weekdays but even that is not always the case, only the time is different. So you could say that epg data is poor.

That's unfortunate. :-(

No secondary-sources (e.g. Web-Sites) for the data?

Btw. If a show is a "rerun" or not is a non-technical classification as far as i see it. (Technically only the absolut first time broadcast wouldn't be a rerun, which can be decadedes in the past for old series/movies.)

So i haven't built a "is_rerun"-flag into Master-Timer for the "near in time rerun"s.

If a TV-Stations useses different titles/subtitles (e.g. appends something to the title) for a rerun it would be a case for the EPG-Data-Fixer to make both entries equal.

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*: As long as the EPG-Data of immediate or later(i mean much later, like month/years later when the whole series reruns) reruns match with the already recorded one, if the EPG-data is garbage there is nothing Master-Timer could do.

Does this mean that if the epg data is exactly the sama (as I mentionet) it would not be recorded again?

Not necessarily.

a) Done is an optional feature, for which you have to include the "process_summary.pl" (this script goes through all "summary.vdr"-files if started without a commandline-parameter, or a specific recording if the directory is specified at the commandline, and enteres found entries into the done-file) as a cronjob or into your cutting-process(*) or whatever you see fit. To make "done" work. b) You can completyly switch it off in the Master-Timer configuration file or don't execute the process_summary.pl script. c) If you use the done-feature you can still disable "done"-processing on a per "torecord-definition" base (nodone=1)

So it's up to you if Master-Timer behaves dumb or stupied. :-)

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*2: Personally i've only encountered a single series which has the same episode-title for 2 different episodes, luckily i realised that in time to remove the entry from the done-file.

I am afraid that we have such channels that uses the same epg data for all the episodes :(

• Kartsa

*: My call to "process_summary.pl" is after a recording is cutted. After verifying that the file is OK i can run Master-Timer to remove eventual reruns of the show, or "undone" the recording if there was any error. (The success-rate is >90%, so "optimistically" doneing a recording makes less work than beeing pessimistic. As i personally run Master-Timer manually i don't risk removing reruns to early. As Fail-safe as possibel i.o.w. :-) )

You can even use the "done"-feature as a "soft"-blacklist. With the helper-script "donefromvdr.pl" you can enter an entry directly from VDR-timerlist into the "done"-file. After running Master-Timer the timers are than removed from VDR.

Bis denn

I demand that Kartsa may or may not have written...

I don't know about other countries but in finland often programs have reruns within few days causing some autotimer to timer same event twice. This is quite usual especially with series.

So I wonder if it would be a good idea or even feasible to have weekday selection in autotimer setup?

Insufficient. For example:

Yesterday, BBC1, 19:00: Dr Who Repeated today, BBC3, 00:05 Repeated today, BBC3, 19:00

Then there are the films which are split into two - look at ITV3 for examples. You'll also see that they're repeated fairly promptly...