[mythtvnz] Choice TV - how to avoid repeats? (EPG pretty hopeless)

[Stephen Worthington]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:06:08 +1200, you wrote:

>I use tv_grab_nz-py and the Choice TV data is pretty low grade. The channel
>repeats shows 2 or 3 times a week, and the description info is very generic.
>
>Take an example: Urban Secrets is on Monday 7.30, Tuesday 4.00 am and
>Tuesday 10.00 am. The description is generic, ie no episode sepcific info:
>"There are secret places, unknown history and great characters that lie
>buried behind the everyday and tourist trails. Each episode of Urban
>Secrets takes viewers on a stunning and intriguing... (G)" It is much the
>same on their website.
>
>So how the hell do I avoid recording every showing of every episode and
>taking up 3x too much disk space?
>
>(Probably easier to download it, at least internet pirates properly name
>their files!)

Actually, the EPG on ChoiceTV is excellent - the best of any of the
channels I watch.  Although they do occasionally miss doing it (or put
the wrong values), normally they provide the right fields to mark all
programmes with series and episode numbers.  If you find one of the
three Urban Secrets for this week, and then use the I command twice to
go to the "Program Details" screen, you will see that it shows a
"Programme ID" with a value of "USEC01_01".  That breaks down as
"USEC" = the code for "Urban Secrets", which will never change, "01_"
is the series number and the final "01" is the episode number.  MythTV
uses that data (if provided) in preference to all other methods in
deciding what is new and what is a repeat.  So just tell it to record
all of Urban Secrets and it will work just fine.  The other channels
do other strange things usually, rather than use the correct
documented methods that ChoiceTV does.  But because their stuff is
usually visible, like TV2's in the Description data, you notice it.
ChoiceTV has it done correctly, but it gets hidden away by MythTV.

BTW TV3 now also provides the right sort of data (using another
different format) in the background fields - most of their programs
will show a "Program Number" on the Program Details screen, like E22S8
for Bones tonight.  I think they are very silly to have the series and
episode numbers reversed like that, but it does work.