[mythtv-users] Scheduling conflict question

[Michael T. Dean]

On 01/24/2010 09:24 PM, Mike Holden wrote:
> Eloy Paris wrote:
>   
>> Here's what was in the database when the conflict existed:
>>
>> mysql> select title, subtitle, description from program where
>> programid='SH006883590000';
>> +-------+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>> | title | subtitle | description
>> |
>> +-------+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>> | House |          | A brilliant and acerbic diagnostician leads a team of specialists.
>> |
>> | House |          | A brilliant and acerbic diagnostician leads a team of specialists.
>> |
>> | House |          | A brilliant and acerbic diagnostician leads a team of specialists.
>> |
>> +-------+----------+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>> 3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
>>
>> So, for the same program ID I saw three entries in the "program" table
>> and the scheduler wanted to record them all. The conflict arose because
>> one input was not available (it was going to be recording something
>> else). The end result is that two of the above entries were going to be
>> recorded and the other one was in conflict.
>>
>> Given that the duplicate check method is "Subtittle and Description",
>> and that the above subtitles and description are seemlingly the same,
>> any ideas why the scheduler thought the above three entries were
>> different showings?
> I've seen the scheduler get confused with programs that have a blank description with
> that method. I always use "subtitle THEN description", which gets round that issue.
>   

There is no confusion involved.  MythTV is doing exactly what you asked
it to do.  It's recording every episode of House.

"But," you may say, "I set it to use the duplicate check method
'Subtitle and Description,' and all of those episodes have the same
subtitle and description.  True, but all of those episodes /also/ have a
programid, and when episodes have a programid, the duplicate check
method is irrelevant--the /only/ one used is programid comparison, since
the programid is /the/ definitive identifier of an episode.

"But," you may say, "All three episodes have the same programid."  True,
but all three episodes have a SH*0000 programid--the Schedules Direct
programid used for generic episodes--meaning that which episode is
airing is unknown.  Rather than ignore this episode--just because the
listings provider wasn't given information on which episode was
airing--MythTV will record it.  You can /always/ delete an episode
you've seen.  You can /never/ go back in time and record an episode
MythTV didn't record (you can't get your hands on plutonium or a Mr
Fusion in these days of heightened security, and DHS gets all worked up
over people stringing up wires over the city clock tower).

That said, if you want MythTV to ignore generic episodes, fix your
recording rule to use an "Exclude generic episodes" filter.

Mike