[mythtv-users] Duplicate matching methods - make program ID an explicit choice

[John Veness]

On 19/05/2016 10:39, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Wed, 2016-05-18 at 21:54 +0100, Neil Bird wrote:
>>     And, purely going by the wiki, it looks like if we change data source
>> (and get different programme IDs) we might have to delete the programme
>> IDs for all previously recorded episodes.  If both previous and upcoming
>> eps. have IDs, it *only* uses them to detect duplicates, and thus will
>> re-record everything it comes across.  If one of the other is missing,
>> it falls back to the usual mechanism (title/subtitle/etc.).
> Since I switched over to tv_grab_sd_json yesterday I have noticed a
> tidal wave of old repeats getting recorded ;-)
>
> Do you know what "delete the programme IDs for all previously recorded
> episodes" would involve? A (carefully crafted) SQL rune on the DB I
> suppose?
The above discussion was taking place on the xmltv-users mailing list, 
with subject line "[xmltv-users] UK Atlas load/usage warning email" 
although the quoted paragraphs actually refer to MythTV behaviour 
specifically. I'm posting it on mythtv-users with a changed subject line 
to get a wider audience.

This is something that has annoyed me on a mild level for a few years, 
but which is going to become a bigger problem with an upcoming "forced" 
listings provider change for UK users, which is going to change program IDs:

When making a recording rule in Myth, one can say that duplicates should 
be matched on subtitle, description, or subtitle+description. However, 
since several versions ago (or possibly, due to changes in the quality 
of upstream listings information), I realised that all of those settings 
are ignored in preference of the "program ID".

I must admit that in most cases, this works OK, but there are some 
occasions when a duplicate is marked to be recorded, even though is as 
the same subtitle as one that has been previously recorded, because for 
some reason the program ID is different. Or worse, sometimes a new 
episode is for some reason thought to be a duplicate and so won't be 
recorded, presumably because the same program ID was erroneously 
supplied. This can especially happen when some listings information 
comes from tv_grab_uk_rt and some from EIT, for channels that aren't in 
the uk_rt stream.

This is annoying, as there is nothing in the user interface to show that 
this is happening, and one can fiddle with the duplicate matching in the 
recording rules as much as one likes with no success. Instead you have 
to somehow spot this is going to happen and add override rules.

I would very much like to see the program ID listed as an explicit 
option to pick in a recording rule, alongside subtitle, description, or 
subtitle+description. Only if program ID is selected (and that could be 
the default), would it match on those, otherwise it would match on the 
other choices. That way, we as users can decide whether we wish to trust 
the program IDs or to trust the episode subtitles more, which especially 
helps in times of transition like this.

John

-- 
John Veness, MythTV user, UK, DVB-T

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