[mythtv-users] Scheduler question

[Michael T. Dean]

On 05/14/2011 04:28 PM, Tom Lichti wrote:
> I'm trying to streamline my scheduled recordings list, and make it
> more efficient. In doing so I came across a couple of question that I
> can't seem to find the answer to. Firstly, when you set a recording as
> 'Record at any time on channel xxxx', it appears to use the channel
> ID, and not the call-sign. Is that a correct assumption?

No.  It records on any channel whose callsign is the same as the 
callsign of the channel with ID X.

> What I want is for it to record on any
> channel with call-sign CBLT, but I've read here that 'record on any
> channel' is very inefficient,

Only for people who got their database and master backend server(s) out 
of a time capsule from 1980.

>   so is my only option a power search? I
> have a bunch of power rules to record by call-sign, but it doesn't
> seem as efficient (my scheduler takes ~ 10 seconds to run), but if
> that's the best way to get what I want, I'll keep using them.
>
> Which leads to my second question, would it be more efficient from a
> DB standpoint to have multiple 'program.title like XXX and
> channel.callsign = XXX' rules, or try and combine them by call sign,
> for example '(program.title = 'The Office' or program.title =
> 'Community' or program.title = 'Parks and Recreation' or program.title
> like 'Late Night%') and channel.callsign = 'WGRZ'?
>
> Thanks for any insight.

IMHO, you should always use "any channel" rules.  That way, when you 
rescan your channels and they all get new channel IDs or channel 
callsigns or networks sell the series and Scrubs moves from NBC to ABC 
or the show goes into syndication and re-airs episodes you missed in the 
first run or ..., you'll record the show that you, er, want to record.  
And, furthermore, it allows you to have different callsigns for channels 
that air identical content, but are available on different sources, so 
you /can/ (if you really want) tell MythTV to only record the show from 
your digital HDTV channel or create multiple "this channel" rules to 
give a different priority to show when recorded from your digital HDTV 
input or from your PVR-150 connected to the STB via S-Video or ...

And, IMHO, the, "Well, this show airs in syndication 100 times per week 
on the other channels and I don't want to record that many episodes," 
excuse is just an excuse for a) not understanding how to use filters 
(new episodes only or exclude repeats or exclude generic episodes) or b) 
being too lazy to teach MythTV which episodes you /have/ seen elsewhere 
(i.e. by either letting them record and deleting them or by marking them 
Never Record).

I still have recording rules I created in 2004, when I first started 
with MythTV in spite of the fact that none of my channels/channel 
IDs/callsigns are the same as the ones I had back in 2004.  Had I been 
using "this channel" rules, I'd have had to delete and re-create those 
rules.

Mike