AltEPG

Is the first showing only/repeats option on a season passes still supported?

Until recently, I hadn't bothered to set this option, leaving at first showing and repeats. With two shows this week, I decided to be more proactive, and set to first showing only on Educating Yorkshire and the new Jamie food program (the name of which escapes me at the moment). I found that although there were scheduled programs, none were being picked up by the SP, until I change to also pick up repeats, at which point normal behavior returned.

Also having looked at the program data, I can't see how we distinguish between first showing and repeat, or is this derived somehow?

Thanks

Lloyd

From the FAQ

Q: First Run Only season passes aren't working
A: These rely on the Original Air Date being present in the guide data. We don't currently have this date so First Run Only passes won't work properly and you should use "Repeats & First Run" instead.

However, the series + episode numbers in the new guide (SnEn), allow you to set up a Wishlist which achieves the same thing.
e.g. to record the current series (7) of Desperate Housewives (and not the repeats of earlier series), set up a keyword Wishlist for: DESP* HOUSE* (S7*
An added bonus is that this single Wishlist automatically deals with clashes by recording on C4, C4P1, E4 or E4P1 as necessary, whereas you'd need a separate season pass for each channel to do the equivalent.
Oh and if you want to watch the next season - when S7 ends, simply edit the Wishlist to be S8.

Yep as DX30 said and you've seen in the data, we can't do this at the moment, it's not in the source data. It's one of many things on the back burner, but to be honest people who don't have TiVoweb/plus have found the Wishlist solution more flexible anyway, as you can set specific seasons etc.

When Tribune had that in their data, it wasn't always reliable anyway. First Run Only was a feature which needs the data to be 100% correct, otherwise you didn't get a recording. and you didn't know one was missing. This happened quite a lot with their data. Far better to use a work-around which breaks in the opposite way - ie which gives you too many recordings (which you can cancel from the ToDo list) when the data isn't correct.

If you do have TiVoweb/plus, then the Tracker module is another far better way of making sure you only record things once, working by keeping records of everything you've seen, rather than relying on a date field in the guide data (which isn't in the source, so we'd have to construct somehow) being perfect.

mrtickle wrote:If you do have TiVoweb/plus, then the Tracker module is another far better way of making sure you only record things once, working by keeping records of everything you've seen, rather than relying on a date field in the guide data (which isn't in the source, so we'd have to construct somehow) being perfect.

Would this have to be any more complicated than redefining OAD as the first time a programme aired under AltEPG, and simply inserting the date whenever a programme entry is added to the database? Subsequent airings would match an existing entry and therefore not cause a new entry to be added, so the original date would be picked up. Everything already in the database when this was implemented could be given an AltEPG OAD of the day the change was made.

The problem with the wishlist method is that the (sNeN) data is in the description, not the title, so the wishlist has to be on title + description and therefore doesn't work so well with short series titles such as Touch or Haven; these words appear in the descriptions of lots of unrelated programmes!

I'm trying to stop the recording of all of the repeats of NCIS, Blue Bloods, Mythbusters etc. that my Tivo is recording, so am trying to follow the advise in this Thread. Have set up Tracker 3.3.3 now and also want to set up Wish Lists rather than SPs. However, I must be missing something somewhere! How do you enter the "(" in (S7* on the Tivo Remote?! I've spotted how to enter the "*" already. What's the best way of entering Blue Bloods in the Wishlist title; with quotes either side of Blue Bloods or just as two separate words? I've tended to do my Wish lists with quotes around both words up till now.

Also, am I right in thinking that Wish Lists etc. can only be set up via the Tivo Remote Control rather than via TWP? I know you can edit some things of Wish Lists via TWP, but not, as far as I've spotted, titles. Please feel free to point me to the blindingly obvious that I've missed. I'd like to do a "Clear programme data and to-do list" as recommended on another post here so that I make sure all of my non-TMSID'd data is deleted, but don't fancy re-entering all of my SPs/Wish Lists again from the Tivo Remote.

Cheers, Steve

stevemcc wrote:I'm trying to stop the recording of all of the repeats of NCIS, Blue Bloods, Mythbusters etc. that my Tivo is recording, so am trying to follow the advise in this Thread. Have set up Tracker 3.3.3 now and also want to set up Wish Lists rather than SPs. However, I must be missing something somewhere! How do you enter the "(" in (S7* on the Tivo Remote?! I've spotted how to enter the "*" already. What's the best way of entering Blue Bloods in the Wishlist title; with quotes either side of Blue Bloods or just as two separate words? I've tended to do my Wish lists with quotes around both words up till now.

Don't worry about the bracket, but you will need to do a keyword wishlist as opposed to a title. For your example:

"BLUE BLOODS" S7*

stevemcc wrote:Also, am I right in thinking that Wish Lists etc. can only be set up via the Tivo Remote Control rather than via TWP? I know you can edit some things of Wish Lists via TWP, but not, as far as I've spotted, titles. Please feel free to point me to the blindingly obvious that I've missed. I'd like to do a "Clear programme data and to-do list" as recommended on another post here so that I make sure all of my non-TMSID'd data is deleted, but don't fancy re-entering all of my SPs/Wish Lists again from the Tivo Remote.

You can add a wishlist via TWP. Go to search and enter the details required then click on "Add Wishlist" rather than "Search" (you can click "Search" first if you want to check the results)

Yes that bracket in the advice really threw me too!

It's worth mentioning that if you use the Season Pass backup/restore module, than any Auto-Recording Wishlist (ie one that you've set up to record when it matches) is treated just like any Season Pass, and should be recreated when you restore along with the Season Passes.

Steve and Mrtickle; many thanks for the information. I will try it all out.

One further question; if I use the SP Backup/restore module to backup all my Wish lists/SPs and then do the "Clear programme data and to-do list" to make sure all of my non-TMSID'd data is deleted, when I restore from my backup, would I be bringing back the original non-TMSID'd data too? If it doesn't, then it sounds quite straightforward to clear out the old non-TMSID'd data.

Cheers

I might have given you duff information, sorry if that's the case but it's because I can't quite remember what I did.

Couple of things though. Each series has a serverId. Then if there is TmsId in the data, a TmsId too. These are two fields in the same record. TiVo appears to work ok with SPs making use of the ServerId (luckily for us since in 2011 we didn't have the TmsId version of the data!).
The backup module plays nicely, and the OzTiVo users didn't have TmsIds in their data and always run without them - unsurprising that we didn't either as they gave us their system - so it has a setting called "restore_is_aus" which is commented near the top of the file. I think you need to set this so that it searches ServerIds when hunting for the matching series after you've switched to the TmsId slice data. (Your TiVo will by then have both, this doesn't matter, it's only for finding the right series to recreate a SP).

[
Example, Doctor Who. Find this in tivoweb, and load the series. On my first tivo the url ends with .../series/<number>. Change the URL in the browser to read .../object/<number> and load that page and I get

Code: Select all

Series 6712850/15 {
  ServerVersion  = 9
  Genre          = 35 88 1005 1014
  Title          = {Doctor Who}
  Episodic       = 1
  TmsId          = SH11411599
  ServerId       = 201411599
  Version        = 35
  ThumbData      = 268632575
  IndexPath      = /Server/201411599
}

Then on my other tivo, it's a different <number> but the underlying Db object is

Code: Select all

ServerVersion   10
Genre   35 88 1005 1014
Title   {Doctor Who}
Episodic   1
TmsId   SH11411599
ServerId   201411599
Version   3
ThumbData   268500992
IndexPath   /Server/20141159

NB: ServerId=201411599 on both TiVos. And it'll be on yours too. That's what the backup/restore will use. Because the <number> of the object will be completely different when you download data from scratch, that's what the SP backup module looks for to find the same series again and make another SP.
]

After that you could then do another backup with "restore_is_aus" unset, and see if that backup contains TmsIds as well. I recommend software such as "Beyond Compare" for comparing text files.

Also it's very hard to get a TiVo with no "old" data left, unless you do a complete wipe. This is because your recordings in Now Playing will still be from the old data, and this means those Season Passes for those series will still be created without TmsIds. They will still work because the ServerId for the series remains the same, unless we change it on the server (eg if we edit the genre, or the series name, or add a matching rule).

I think I didn't do a Clear Programme Data on my TiVo when I switched. It's coming back to me now! I modified (dirty hack) my TiVoweb to display the TmsId of a series, with the alternative "fallback" made-up TmsId if it was missing, just like I did with Tracker. So I could see easily which of my series were stuck with "old" data. The other way to see these was when I ran an Update on the tracker (new version) as they are shown in a different colour. This turned out to be many series that hadn't had episodes for ages - basically everything that was in the slices when I did the first Guided Setup from AltEPG!

These continued to be tracked in Tracker under the old Series files, and would be forever until my TiVo got a new version of the series when it changed on the server. So I had a very long overlap period with some series being tracked under their new TmsId but the others stuck under the old. This means you could have an Episode you saw in the non-TmsId series, but because you haven't seen it under the TmsId series, it's effectively different and has to be tracked again. Confession time, I cheated, and did some editor's updates on the server side to bump those few series just so that my TiVo would process the data and update my SPs to include TmsId. Well, I put a lot of effort in... . Not really scale-able and really fiddly and I just had to do them one at a time each time I saw another one. Took me months!

Neatest way to do it is a full wipe. Doing it and keeping recordings which is what is most practical, means any series you have in Now Playing keeps its old record. If you're determined, what you could do though, is go around the loop twice. Clear data and switch, and restore the SP backup. Your SPs which didn't have Now Playing entries should now have new data. Then watch your recordings (Episodes, don't worry about one-off specials or movies). Then do another backup and "clear data" and that'll clear out the old records of those series too. This would be a much better way than what I did and clear out the old data completely in two passes, assuming it's practical for you to watch all the recordings. (My TiVo is still stuffed with old Series records, I only ever massaged the ones I had SPs for.)

mrtickle, wow, and there was I thinking I was asking a simple question Thanks very much for the detailed explanation. I only have a couple of recordings on the TiVo at the moment as I trend not to bother to keep things once I've watched them. I think, then, that I'll get screen dumps of my SPs and wish lists, do a complete wipe and then re-create the SP/WLs using the method steveroe detailed; I've got a real mixture of different setups of WLs now anyway, I now realise, and I've spotted that I have SPs for programmes on a single channel plus WLs for the same programme, so I've got duplication as well. Lots of my SP/WLs are for things I hope will one day be shown again, but there are only a dozen or so for current shows, so I can do the older ones in slow time. This way I will at least know that all is consistent as of this date.

Many thanks again, Steve

No worries. Do whatever works best for you! . I also like to use WLs to reduce the number of SPs I have, but it can match too much where a SP won't. Then combine it with Tracker and it'll just sweep away things you don't want every time they are shown.

One loose end from a post above:

cerihp wrote:The problem with the wishlist method is that the (sNeN) data is in the description, not the title, so the wishlist has to be on title + description and therefore doesn't work so well with short series titles such as Touch or Haven; these words appear in the descriptions of lots of unrelated programmes!

That's a very good point. You can work around this and reduce the number of extra unwanted matches by also setting the category (and sub-category) of your keyword wishlist. So, if it's "Touch", then also choose Drama/Mystery when TiVo prompts you after you've entered the text (*). Check which genres are set on the series before you start as you have to know them in advance. (If there are any not set properly, tell us in the TV guide forum; we could even add really niche sub-genres to one series deliberately for this purpose!).

This way, the chances of another series' episode matching are reduced - it'd have to (a) contain that word, (b) be the Season number you had in your wishlist, and (c) also match the genre. May not be perfect but it'll be a tiny number.

For Haven, also choose "Sci-fi and Fantasy" as the top-level (I've just added some sub-genres on the server which you'll see in tomorrow's data if you want to narrow it down further) to reduce the number of false positives in the same way.

(*) Just tested with a new WL and got 0 matches, so that's a good sign. Obviously only covers the current data.