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IceTV General => IceTV EPG Content => Topic started by: dJOS on November 18, 2008, 05:22:53 PM

Title: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on November 18, 2008, 05:22:53 PM
Hi Guy's, I realsise with the "Nein Case" ongoing this is a tricky one, but is it possbile to more accurately identify which of these are repeats as my MC is currently getting flooded with the mostly the early season/episodes atm and wasting alot of HDD space!
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: mscheurer on November 18, 2008, 08:47:11 PM
Switch the guide for 9 to DVB if you are using EyeTV, Ch 9 flags new shows with (*All New*)...
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: dJOS on November 18, 2008, 08:57:49 PM
No good for me, im using my Vista media center as per my sig below:
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: mscheurer on November 18, 2008, 09:02:40 PM
Sorry should have read that...  ::)
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: dJOS on November 18, 2008, 09:22:07 PM
Quote from: mscheurer on November 18, 2008, 09:02:40 PM
Sorry should have read that...  ::)

;D
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: Mitch IceGuide on November 18, 2008, 11:34:20 PM
I guess right now you could more easily ask Channel Nine to stop broadcasting repeats. Until they start indicating on promos that the episode is a repeat, we have little chance of knowing. Sorry, it's a pain but thank God for the delete function.
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: dJOS on November 19, 2008, 08:34:17 AM
I did some digging and until (& including) tuesday next week every single episode is a repeat!

Good old Nein eh, nothing decent to put on so we'll run 2.5 men repeats up to 3 times a day!!!  ::)
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: Madeleine IceGuide on November 19, 2008, 09:20:43 AM
Thanks, we will keep an eye on this.

The 7pm screenings of Two & A Half Men are always flagged as repeats. However, the later screenings can be a little trickier as they're often promoted as "New Adults Only Hour" or something similar.

We did observe that last night's 8.30pm episode was a repeat (you can tell when Jake suddenly looks 8 years old again) rather than a new episode. For now, unless 9 specifically promotes it as a "brand new episode" we will mark all episodes of Two & A Half Men as repeats.

Cheers
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats?
Post by: dJOS on November 19, 2008, 09:24:17 AM
Thank you. :)
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: dJOS on March 23, 2009, 07:45:05 PM
Hi Guy's, looks like most of the 2.5 Men shows on atm are repeats judging by the fact that most have an air date and have "(repeat)" in the description.

Can you please fix the repeat flags for VMC as im showing all of them are recording and it is causing series record clashes even with 4 Tuners cause Nein are spamming us with 8 a week atm! :(

AFAIK the only non-repeats are on Tuesday nights @ 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM, the rest are repeats.
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Madeleine IceGuide on March 23, 2009, 08:37:25 PM
Hi djos

I just double-checked and from a guide point of view, all eps are correctly flagged in the schedule, ie. Tuesday 8.30pm is the only ep not repeat flagged. This appears to be a VMC-specific issue and similar to the problems some subscribers have had with Underbelly repeats.

I'll point it out to our technical team. Hopefully they can figure out what changed recently to create the problem!

Thanks
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: dJOS on March 23, 2009, 08:45:21 PM
Thanks for the super fast response Madeline :)
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Russell at IceTV on March 27, 2009, 11:47:04 AM
Hi,

I think I have an explanation for you about what's happening with the repeat flags for "Two And A Half Men".  This is related to a similar discussion about the repeat flags on Underbelly that's been going on in another thread.  Take a look at the thread starting with this post from me -- in one of my posts below that, you'll see where I mention "Two And A Half Men", and my theory on what the problem is there:

http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=1662.msg7966#msg7966

Thanks,
Russell
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Russell at IceTV on March 27, 2009, 12:49:47 PM
I've talked to the guide team about the situation with "Two And A Half Men", and I think we've come up with a plan.  When they come across a series like this that is normally episodic, but the episode isn't known yet, they'll assign an episode of "N/A".  This should cause MCE to treat it as an episodic series, and show the word "Repeat" when it's truly a repeat.  When they find out the real episode name, they'll change it in the guide.  You should start seeing this happen later today.

Russell
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: dJOS on March 27, 2009, 01:28:26 PM
Thank you.  8)

Btw, your solution works perfectly!  ;D
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: jm1 on March 31, 2009, 01:15:03 AM
This solution does not work with the automatic scheduler in mythtv. I had set mythtv up to record all episodes of two and half men. Mythtv uses the episode subtitle to determine if a program screening is the same episode. Now because all episodes are subtitled "N/A" this no longer works. It has already recorded the episode "N/A" so does not need to again.

The episodes aren't subtitled "N/A" - They have episode names. Icetv should not be incorrectly subtitling episodes or worse titling them all the same when they definitely are not the same episodes.
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Kirben on March 31, 2009, 09:33:55 AM
These issues with repeats have been reported (http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=890.0) long ago, but no action was taken at the time. And it is extremely annoying to see the problem still regularly occurring.

As I mentioned last time, using a date as the episode title would be best, when the episode title is unknown. Since many system won't report the same episode title again, if already recorded once.
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Russell at IceTV on March 31, 2009, 11:16:37 AM
Hi, thanks for reporting this.  We're aware of the problem and are looking into it.

Russell
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: Russell at IceTV on April 02, 2009, 11:37:29 AM
Hi guys,

Unfortunately this has become quite a complicated problem.

As we've said before, we're limited as to how we compile our guide data for the Nine-related channels, so there are times when the episode information isn't available as quickly as we'd like, and we only know the program name.  For example, we know it's "Two And A Half Men", and we know if it's a repeat or not, but we don't know which episode it is.

For the case when it's a new program, starting today we will begin creating new episodes using the date as the title, as has been suggested here in the forums.  When the episode name is known, we'll change the title to update the guide.

For the case when it's a repeat, it's more complicated because our choices are to either leave the episode information off completely, or to assign them all to one common episode called "N/A".  MCE seems to ignore our repeat flags when we leave off the episode information, and then treats all showings as though they were new -- similar to how it treats a news program, which is also non-episodic.  This means it will record every repeat showing of the program, even if you have the Series Recording set to only record new shows.  Setting all of these repeat showings to the common episode "N/A" fixes that problem, but introduces a new problem, both on MCE and other PVRs.  Since the N/A episodes are all using the same title and ID numbers, if you have the Series Recording set to record new and repeat shows, it only records the N/A episode once, and then never again.

Since using the N/A episodes is causing problems in other PVRs, we're now removing them from our guide, and will go back to the way it was previously, where the program was listed without episode information.  This will unfortunately break MCE's guide, so we'll have to fix it a different way.  We'll modify just the MCE guide, so that it uses the common N/A episode names for repeat showings, but we'll do it in a way that won't affect other PVRs.

Unfortunately this change for MCE's guide will take a bit of work, so please bear with us until we can get that part of the guide system changed.  Hopefully it won't take long, and we'll post another message here when it's done.

Thanks,
Russell
Title: Re: 2.5 Men on Nein - Repeats on VMC broken
Post by: dJOS on April 08, 2009, 10:38:47 PM
Russell, im not entirely sure I understand the problem but to solve it would you need to standardise the sub-title and move the episode titles into the descriptions? (for the VMC/MCE feed)

This week im noticing a lot of programs incorrectly recording repeats like 2.5 men, Malaysian F1GP, catalyst and At the movies.

PS. I appreciate you guys taking this seriously.
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on April 21, 2009, 05:23:28 PM
Hi Ice guy's and gals, I seem to be getting an aweful lot of repeats that arent repeats scheduled to record atm eg:

F1 Chinese GP repeat
Nascar Nationwide highlights
and the usual massive stack of "Two And A Half Men" repeats.

Can you please let us know what is happening cause im getting a lot of Tuner conflicts as a result?
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: Russell at IceTV on July 09, 2009, 10:37:05 AM
Update:

This problem should hopefully be fixed now.  The XP and Vista MCE guide now uses a format that's similar to the latest format for Windows 7 (http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=1924), and should better handle repeats and series recordings for programs without episodes.

Let us know if you're still having problems.

Thanks,
Russell
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on July 09, 2009, 06:18:42 PM
Thanks Russell, so what was the solution in the end?
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: Russell at IceTV on July 10, 2009, 01:11:24 AM
Quote from: djos on July 09, 2009, 06:18:42 PM
Thanks Russell, so what was the solution in the end?

We changed the way we generate the program ID numbers, especially related to when there's no episode information (such as with news programs, or Neighbours, which is a series but doesn't have episodes).  We also found a better way to deal with the "original airdate" information, so that it works better with the way Media Center automatically decides whether or not something is a repeat based on that date (this is also related to my previous post (http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=1662.msg7966#msg7966) about repeats).

Hopefully the new format we're using now should take care of the problems with series recordings and repeats.

Russell
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on July 10, 2009, 07:57:26 AM
I looked thru my next week of programming and it certainly looks good so far!  8)
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on July 14, 2009, 02:03:49 PM
1st problem found: :(

QuoteCatalyst   
"Complex Pain / Eureka Prizes / Dugongs"  (repeat)
Complex Pain - when the pain doesn't go away but gets worse; the six finalists in the Eureka Prizes People's Choice Award; and a medical check-up for dugongs, the 'sirens of the sea'. 
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM  2 ABC1 
(9/07/2009)   Other/Science & Tech   G   

My Media Center is currently recording this repeat despite the series being set to 1st Run only.
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: Russell at IceTV on July 14, 2009, 02:26:57 PM
Quote from: dJOS on July 14, 2009, 02:03:49 PM
Catalyst   
"Complex Pain / Eureka Prizes / Dugongs"  (repeat)
Complex Pain - when the pain doesn't go away but gets worse; the six finalists in the Eureka Prizes People's Choice Award; and a medical check-up for dugongs, the 'sirens of the sea'. 
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM  2 ABC1 
(9/07/2009)   Other/Science & Tech   G

My Media Center is currently recording this repeat despite the series being set to 1st Run only.

I think that might be because of the Media Center "feature" I talked about over in the thread on Underbelly, in this post (http://www.icetv.com.au/iceforum/index.php?topic=1662.msg7966#msg7966).

The guide data includes an original airdate of 9/07/2009, because that's when that particular episode first aired.  Media Center shows today's showing as a repeat, but since it's within 7 days of the original airdate, it also treats it as a new episode that can be recorded if it hasn't been recorded already.  I don't know if it recorded it on the 9th or not, but the fact that it's showing the correct original airdate, and the Repeat indicator, tells me that it's interpreting the guide data correctly anyway.  Do you know if it was already recorded -- and more importantly, was it recorded after you switched the guide data to the new format?

Thanks,
Russell
Title: Re: *** Repeats on VMC broken ***
Post by: dJOS on July 14, 2009, 06:51:59 PM
I got both airings - happy to wait and see what happens next week tho.