[mythtv-users] Scheduler question

[Tom Lichti]

On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 5:06 PM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> 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

Thanks Mike, a detailed and informative response!

Tom