[mythtv-users] Original air date

[David Engel]

On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 06:47:47AM +0000, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 16:04 John P Poet <jppoet at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Gary,
> >
> > For the last year (it seems) original air date has been missing for any new, OTA show for all of my local stations.  I would like to figure out why.
> >
> 
> (responding while mostly occupied with other things going on
> (typed most of this while on a train), so I probably have some
> details slightly off).
> 
> If I understand the question, it (or a related one which led to this
> question) was asked on IRC quite a few months ago (FD, I only
> scan the IRC logs once every few weeks (sometimes a month)),
> and resulted in a set of private emails that was exchanged (email
> because IRC had been set to block anonymous people due to
> spamming, so to answer at all was email).

Are you refering to me?  I'm know I've discussed at least one problem
I've had with original airdate with you in the past.  Maybe there was
someone else too.

> Anyway, working per spec at the front side.  There is no original
> airdate in the XMLTV spec (DTD), only a previously-shown for
> reruns.  As I recall, if a rerun does happen the previously-shown
> date may get propagated to existing programs (there was a patch
> in the past that did that, I think, although maybe I am imagining
> that).  The XMLTV "new" field is defined in the spec to be the
> very first showing of an entire series (so once per series), so is
> not usable here to help things out (i.e. the Schedules Direct
> idea of "new" is different than the XMLTV definition of "new").
> btw, even "previously-shown" has a whole set of special
> circumstances as to what it means per guide provider.
> 
> Those that would like to see the original-airdate in xmltv (and
> perhaps a new-showing field(*)) should work to change the spec.
> I think I can say with some assurance that if the spec was
> updated some grabbers might update their codes to pass it
> along (if the upstream provided it), but as the grabbers are
> validated that they meet the DTD as part of a (past) CI
> process, first step has to be to fix the spec.

Does xmltv not have any provisions for experimental or
grabber-specific features?  I'm thinking something along the lines of
cpp's #pragma or X-* mail headers.  It would seem to make more sende
to me to test a new feature first to make sure it solves the intended
problem before changing the formal specification.

David

> I don't recall the details (and don't really have time to look at
> it on a 6" screen), but at the end of mythfilldafabase, there
> is an attempt to determine both new and repeat episodes even
> if they are not explicitly specified, *AND* it attempts to fill in
> some missing original airdates.  It is possible that that code is
> broken, or not optimal, for your use case (or the data available).
> 
> If I am not understanding the question (or my memory is
> failing me and some of what I said is not (or no longer)
> accurate), please re-ask, and I'll try to review things again
> in another few days.
> 
> Gary
> 
> 
> (*) Be extremely careful about your definition of "new-showing",
> as there is more than one channel who considers something
> new when they edit it for content, or it is the first showing on a
> non-pay channel.  Off hand I have no idea if Gracenote
> curates the definition of "new-showing" to be what you want
> it to be, and I have no clue at all how other guide providers
> determine what they mean by new.
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-- 
David Engel
david at istwok.net