[mythtv-users] recording schedules cleanup, automatic removal of "record once" rules?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/09/2014 11:27 PM, George Nassas wrote:
> On Nov 9, 2014, at 10:09 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>
>> If you delete with "allow re-record", you're not saying, "do 
>> re-record"--just saying, "allow re-record [if I ever have a rule that 
>> matches the episode again]".  So, if you want it to re-record, you'll 
>> need to ensure you create a new rule that will match it.
>
> Wow, that's pretty thin ice. To me it shouldn't offer the allow 
> rerecord bit since to most people (namely every myth user there is 
> except maybe two or three) it means there will be an eventual 
> re-record with no further user action required. That's what it means 
> with other rule types.

No.  All allow re-record /ever/ does with any kind of rule is say to 
allow recording in spite of duplicate detection--it forgets recording 
history for that episode.  The fact that other rule types would still 
match that episode is the only reason the episode could be recorded 
again with those rule types, and is completely unrelated to the re-record.

Delete and allow re-record doesn't re-record an episode with /any/ rule 
type.  It only ever forgets recording history for that episode/"resets" 
duplicate detection for that episode.  What re-records the episode with 
other rule types is the fact that the episode is /still/ matched by the 
existing rule.

> I don't know how much effort it would be to deep freeze / revive rules 
> for this special case. There already is an inactive state for rules, a 
> "satisfied" state state that makes it stay around but hidden until its 
> matched recording goes away would suffice.

That's what I'm saying.  We can't just keep the old rule (or make a new 
one with the same options) since there's no way to know if the old rule 
would actually work for that episode.  Simply, the only information that 
told MythTV which episode to record with the "this showing" rule was the 
start time and end time (and re-using the same start/end time (with 
date) obviously wouldn't work--and almost never would work even with 
partial and or no date information kept).  And, many of the other 
options may also prevent ever being able to record that episode again.  
And since we don't know how to find that specific episode again (it 
being different for different users in different areas based on listings 
source /and/ different for different shows/show types within any giving 
listings source), we can't create a new fake rule.  And with a "find 
one" rule, there's absolutely no episode information (meaning if you see 
a movie called "Revenge" and you set up a "find one" rule for it, you're 
likely to instead get an episode--the next episode--of the TV series 
"Revenge" since it likely appears on the schedule far more often than 
that one movie).

Oh, and there's also the fact that if were able to create a "this 
showing" rule for every episode you ever "delete and allow re-record", 
most people would end up with an explosion of rules, which would slow 
down scheduling, where many of those rules are 
unnecessary/unwanted/unlikely to match again for years (many shows 
aren't re-broadcast).  For example, each season I record every new TV 
series that comes on until I decide whether to watch it or delete it 
without watching (based on cancellations, reviews, ...).  When I delete 
without watching, I always "Delete and allow re-record" because I don't 
want my database to reflect/MythTV to think I actually did watch the 
shows--or, put another way, I don't want to slow down scheduling by 
making my recording history even bigger than it should be and it's 
possible that in the future I may decide to record the series again and 
I don't want to be tripped up by ancient (and incorrect) recording 
history that says the episodes I recorded should be considered 
duplicates and not recorded in the future.  If MythTV automatically 
created new rules for each of those episodes, I'd have many thousands of 
"this showing" rules that a) would likely never match because many of 
those shows are cancelled and b) would be unwanted (because I haven't 
decided to actually re-record them) and c) would slow down scheduling 
(where typically, MythTV generally has on the order of 100 rules or 
fewer for typical performance).

> On the other hand I'm not sure how big the audience would be for such 
> an effort.
>
> Anyway that's an interesting revelation, thank you.

Put another way, even if we didn't clean up the "dead" rules from the 
database, a "this showing" rule would never re-record the episode because

This has always worked this way.  It has always said "delete and *allow* 
re-record", it has never said "delete and re-record".

While we could change the wording to say, "Delete and forget recording 
history for this episode" or "Delete and pretend you never recorded this 
episode" or something to that effect, I would think that "allow 
re-record" is much more intuitive to users and closer to what they're 
trying to do.

Generally, though, most people who record shows record them with "record 
all", which is exactly what they want.  And, even for those shows that 
are recorded with "this showing" rules, it's probably very uncommon for 
users to "delete and allow re-record" those recordings.  So, yeah, I'd 
agree there's not much of an audience for the effort, but I'd go farther 
to say that any attempt would likely cause more problems (assuming it 
will re-record so the user doesn't check the listings/set up the 
rule/verify the rule himself, but the rule doesn't properly match, so 
the user blames MythTV instead of himself) than benefits.

Mike