[mythtv-users] Reliability of HDTV flag in Schedules Direct listings

[Eric Sharkey]

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> On 11/24/2011 11:04 AM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
>> If these flags are so unreliable, should mythtv really rely on them
>> for scheduling?
>
> MythTV does not rely on--nor even consider--HDTV flag when scheduling.
> It uses whatever rules you provide when scheduling.
>
> That said, there is a setting which /you/ may have set:
>
> HDTV recording priority
> Additional priority when a showing is marked as an HDTV broadcast in the
> TV listings.

That's an extremely developer centric point of view.  The end user
point of view of this feature is:

HDTV recording priority
Additional priority when a showing is an HDTV broadcast.

The end user perception is that mythTV fails to do what it is
instructed to do because it relies on the listings and the listings
quality is unreliable.

> I'll give you my approach:  I'm just not
> worrying about it, and I get what I get.

That's not very encouraging.

>  Note, though, that since the
> vast majority of my channels broadcast HDTV content for everything I'm
> recording, I don't really get much SDTV--except for a couple of PBS
> shows.

Do you remove channels that never show HDTV for which there is an HDTV
equivalent?  I don't get any channels in HD for which there isn't also
an SD equivalent, so any HD program available is also available in SD.

> I have an additional recording rule that
> re-records HDTV versions of SDTV Nova episodes

Doesn't that also rely on the listings flags?

> So, whether the station/TMS is
> providing bad/incomplete data or you're using a not-completely-true
> assumption (i.e. that channels that can show HDTV will always show HDTV
> and not up-scaled SDTV or any other you can come up with), you're likely
> to have issues.

I can't say for certain why the listings are wrong.  I know what
Schedules Direct sent me is wrong.  If it was wrong because they
screwed up or TMS sent them the wrong value or the station sent TMS
the wrong value I cannot say.

Perhaps I should start complaining to Schedules Direct.  If their
inputs are wrong, they can forward the complaints on my behalf.

Eric