[mythtv-users] Can MythTV make use of series and episode numbers in listings?

[Nick Morrott]

On 12 December 2010 21:03, Mike Holden <mythtv at mikeholden.org> wrote:

> It's only fairly recently that the Radio Times data has been
> carrying episode numbers.

Episode numbering has been provided in the Radio Times data for
several years for certain programmes. However, since August 2010 (when
the RT switched listings data provider) many more programmes have
series and episode numbering available which has made their use more
of an option for duplicate detection.

> The problem I am seeing at the moment is that some programs are now
> recording again, even though I have already seen them, simply
> because they now have an episode number supplied, whereas last time
> they aired, duplicate detection was done on the basis of the
> title/subtitle combination. MythTV now sees the same episode as a
> new one because the previous showing had a blank episode number.

The switch to the new listings provider also introduced many new
descriptions for repeated programmes. I have seen a lot of "false
positives" due to this and mark them as "Never Record" whenever they
appear in Upcoming Recordings.

This issue was made particularly obvious when older fixups for
untitled episodes of QI and QI XL stopped working due to new
descriptions.

> I see no need to add the episode number to the subtitle, except
> perhaps in the exceptional case of an otherwise blank subtitle.

It would still probably be better to use "Subtitle then Description"
for the duplicate detection method. Non-reviewer descriptions are less
likely (or unlikely) to change over time, and IMHO episode numbering
belongs neither in the title (it would break regular recording rules
which are based on the programme title) nor episode (breaks dupe
detection if episode info is provided at a later date).

> The RT episode numbers still need some improvement, as sometimes
> it's just an episode number with no series number supplied, and
> sometimes the numbers are simply wrong.

If you could point these out on xmltv-users whenever you notice them -
taking into account the way the XMLTV episode numbering scheme works -
it may be possible to fix them up on a case-by-case basis so that
everyone benefits from the improved data. I try to correct/improve as
much as I notice (based on upcoming recordings and the debug output
from the grabber) but I obviously can't check everything.

Cheers,
Nick

-- 
Nick Morrott

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