[mythtv-users] Custom Record - First Episodes

[Bruce Markey]

Now that 0.19 is out, I wanted to reiterate a new capability
that many of us have found useful. This is a reply to an old
message from John poet with up to date info...

John P Poet wrote:
> 
> Bruce,
> 
> I noticed your "First Episodes" template in "Custom Record".  This is 
> *really* cool.

Hey, thanks again for your complement from and half a year ago
and for lending your endorsement for this feature ;-).

Ever since gigem invented kPowerSearch, it's apparent that there
will be lots of cool things we could do. Kind of like getting a new
box of LEGOs, you just have to play with it and think of stuff.
There is now a new section in the HOWTO to help people get started
and hopefully we'll see some new creative ideas.

http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-12.html#ss12.5

One of the examples on the Custom Record page is "First Episodes"
which looks in DataDirect information and matches any episode entry
number 1 on the same date as it's original air date. This should
find the first day's showings of the premiere episode of any brand
new series. This is only as good as the data and as Mike Dean pointed
out with "Conviction", it sometimes misses but it seems to be accurate
more than 98% of the time.

A note on how I actually use this rule. You could set it to record
then choose "Don't record" for the things that aren't interesting.
However, what I do is to go into "Recording Options" and set it to
inactive. This way these premiers show up on my Upcoming Recordings
list in white with an "x" for Inactive. I can then choose "Record
anyway" for some things but I'll always see when all of these new
series are starting.

>   I have been able to craft up a "Series Premier" rule 
> which finds new shows with categories I might be interested in.

While you weren't able to refine and pass along this rule at the
time, I now have a rule to record these by genre that takes
advantage of features added in the meantime. There is now an
example for "All matches for a genre (Data Direct)". I added
this with the "First Episodes" example so that it finds just
"Reality" shows then saved this as another rule named "New Reality".
I set this to record while leaving my first episodes rule inactive.

Thanks to Hal Burch, the scheduler now prefers rules that are
eligible to record over showings that are marked as Inactive or
Repeat. For these Reality premieres, the "New Reality" rule always
wins and all the other series premieres are marked as Inactive
by my first episodes rule.

> However, I have run into a problem.  When my "Series Premier" rule finds 
> a show I know I am going to want to continue and record, how do I then 
> create a record rule just for that show?  When I do a "list episodes" on 
> the show, and then try to setup a record, I end up editing the "Series 
> Premier" rule instead of the show-specific recording rule.
> 
> Do I have to wait for the second episode to show up in the Guide, before 
> I can setup a show-specific recording rule?

Exactly. As I said last year, wait until the show is almost due
then press "O" to see the title proglist and set a rule on one
of the other showings. At that time, you would have had to tinker
with the record type in order to have the new rule for the series
take precedence. However, you can now simply set an All rule (or
any other type) and it will take precedence over the Inactive first
episode rule. 

--  bjm

PS On a related note, this logic is also now used in a new "view"
for the Search Lists->New Titles page. When you first go to this
page it says "All" in the upper right corner. Press the "End" key
and it changes to "Premieres". This page shows these new series,
Specials or events on their original air date and movies of at
least 2 1/2 stars made within the past couple years. Hopefully,
these are the new blockbusters on the premium channels.