[mythtv] Scheduler needs table keys?

[Bruce Markey]

Chris Pinkham wrote:
...
> Let's say that I want to record The Simpsons.  I really like
> them so I always want to have 5 episodes on hand to watch
> while eating my 7-course dinner.  (ok, not totally real-world) :)
> If I don't care about watching the same episodes over again,
> I don't want Myth to check for duplicates in oldrecorded.  I
> do however want to make sure that the 5 episodes I do have are
> unique, so that I don't have to watch the same episode 5 times
> just to get to dessert.
> 
> That's probably the best real-world example I could come up
> with for why I'd want to check for dups in the recorded table.
> I still don't use it though, so if it makes sense to get rid
> of it then I'm for it.

"Yes, and allow re-record" would have the identical behavior.
It would not duplicate an existing file but would allow the
same episode to record again any time after it was deleted.

My theory had always been the this was a Replay of a TV DVR
system that went belly up where there was no oldrecorded info
and dups were only blocked by keeping a copy on your ...40GB
disk(!). These systems seemed to attract the 'true believer'
mentality despite many serious drawbacks and I always assumed
that this was to maintain that paradigm for those believers.

Regardless of it's origin, this pre-dated ForgetHistory and
MaxEpisodes and now serves no unique purpose. Removing this
would cut duplicate checks in half, apparently address the
issue at hand, and simplify dupin which Donovan and I have
both helped make a mess of ;-).

For it.

BTW the reference to the other Chris P is that this came up
off line when addressing my dupin changes. This bit field
was overloaded to mark which tables to check for and which
showings were eligible. "Do not match duplicates" is an option
for dupmethod. If we only check oldrecorded then there are
no table options and the widget can be used exclusively for
'new episodes only', 'exclude generics', etc. I'd like to add
an option like 'earliest showings only', or something, to use
the program.first flag. This is really helpful for preventing
live sports from being "L"atered and for things like Top Chef;
I can always record the first showing each week so I don't need
to match 75 dups. This can be done with a power search now but
it should be a standard option.

--  bjm