[mythtv-users] Fall premieres

[Bruce Markey]

With the premier season starting, I'd like to mention some
of the tricks you can use to catch new shows and update
your schedule for the fall.

First, one of the great things about a DVR, and even more so
with a multi-tuner DVR, is that you can record more stuff than
you intend to watch. It only takes a couple key strokes to
set a recording rule then a couple more to delete and remove
the rule once you've seen that the show sucks. So, record
anything that seems like it might he interesting. You don't
have to watch them the same day they premiere, you could watch
five min, FF, decide that it sucks and delete it. However,
you may find gems that you hadn't anticipated.

Without a DVR, if I saw a promo that looked interesting I'd
need to remember the date, time and channel then plan my day
to be home in front of the TV at that time. With myth, I'll see
a promo while watching a recording, hit 'save and exit' go to a
scheduling page and set a record rule then return to watching
my show. At this point I don't need to remember the day, time
or channel or even the title or even what it was supposed to be
about. Some time later this thing will show up in my Watch List.
I can then scan through it, see that it sucks and delete it.

Fall premieres or not you can always find new titles when they
first show up in your listings by going to Search Lists->New
Titles. This is all the titles upcoming in your listings that
haven't appeared in the past 11 months. I regularly look at
the "All" view for the next 24 to 48 hours to see if something
is coming up some that I wouldn't want to miss. However, this
is just one of the views and the HOME and END can switch to
Premieres, Movies, Series and Specials. The "Premieres" view
is a more select list of shows where it appears that these
are showings of the series first episode on the date that is
said to be the original air date. This list also includes new
specials and even recent movies with at least some minimum
star rating.

When you see something that you might want to record, you can
press Enter or "I"nfo to set a recording rule. You could choose
to Record only this showing if you want to sample it, Record
one showing of this title if you expect there will be more
than one showing and you want this to yield to your other shows,
or 'any time' to set a recurring rule for a new fall series.
I recommend 'any time' because it is easy to remove the rule
if the show sucks but if it turns out to be good, you're already
set to continue to record new episodes.

The New Titles "Premieres" list is a little SQL trickery that
evolved from a Custom Record rule. In fact, it is included as
one of the examples. Here is a trick that some of us use that
I find very useful.

Go to Schedule Recordings->Custom Record. On the example selector
widget, press left until you see "First Episodes (complete example
for Data Direct)". Click "Add..." then click "Test". This should
show you a list of series that are starting soon. Hit ESC to
return to the custom page. Fill in a name like "First Episodes",
"New Series", or whatever you like. Click "Record" and pick
"Record at any time on any channel" then under "Scheduling
Options", change the bottom line from "This recording rule
is active" to "... inactive" then "Go Back" and "Save these
settings".

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

What this does is to create a rule that matches all of these
series premieres but because you set this rule as "inactive"
it doesn't actually try to record them. Instead, these are
listed in white on your Upcoming Recordings list marked with
an "x". These then serve as reminders of when new series are
starting. If you see a show you'd like to sample, highlight
it. press Enter and click "Record anyway". If you want to
set a recurring rule for one of these titles, press "O" to
see the list of episodes for that title, choose a showing that
does not have the "x", then press Enter to set a new rule for
this title.

--  bjm