Duplicate recordings

[Ken C]

Sage is recording the same show on two different tuners, one analog and one digital. There are four analog Hauppauge 150 tuners and one HDHR dual digital tuner in the HTPC. An example, today, the Chargers / Steelers game was recorded on digital channel 705 in HD and on analog channel 5. This has happened several times now, I was hoping it was just a hiccup.

Something I can fix ?

[Ken C]

An additional note ...

Looking through all the recorded shows, I found a couple of additional examples of the digital tuner and the analog tuner simultaneously recording the same show. But, it only seems to be with one pair of channels, analog 5 and digital 705, CBS. None of the other channels appear to have the problem.

[GKusnick]

Look at the ShowIDs for the dupliacted shows. My guess is that the EPG provider is assigning different IDs to them, so there's no way for Sage to know that they're the same. If they both match the favorite criteria, and have different IDs, it will record them both thinking they're different episodes.

[Ken C]

Greg,

Thanks for the idea but both have the same ID.

Wondering if it might help if I redid the HDHR setup from scratch ?

[mskitty666]

I have found that this happens when there isn't enough program data for SageTV to determine that both recordings are actually the same show. This happens usually when episode titles or descriptions are missing. I think there is a setting to force SageTV to be more aggressive but I've not used it. I'd rather delete something I don't need rather than chance missing something I want.

[Skirge01]

There has to be a better solution than just living with duplicates. Looking at my upcoming recordings, I have 7 programs that are going to be recorded twice over the next few hours. From what has been written here, it would appear this is due to the showID's being different and the OTA programs not having the episode names. I have noticed that the descriptions are 100% identical, however.

Is there any other possible solution to this issue? I'm actually tempted turn off my OTA tuner simply to cut down on the maintenance of having to delete every show twice. Tying up both tuners also completely negates the intelligent recording feature.

[Djc208]

When I have this happen I usually just mark the one I don't want as "don't like" with the remote and Sage usually skips it.

[Skirge01]

Hmm... not sure I like that method too much either. Seems counterproductive to the Intelligent Recordings feature. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I'll give this a shot, though. I still think Sage should look at the full description to determine if it's the same show or not.

[GKusnick]

Seems to me the root question is why do they have different episode IDs? Are you mixing EPG data from different sources? Maybe your OTA lineup isn't configured correctly and that's why the IDs don't match.

[Skirge01]

I'm certainly open to that possibility, Greg! And, I'd love for it to be as simple as a setup issue I caused myself. I'm using DirecTV and an HD-PVR, as well as OTA and an M780. When I added the M780, I chose what I thought were the correct options. Any idea what I should've chosen?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Any idea what I should've chosen?

Probably depends on where you live and what OTA stations you can receive there, but in general there should be a Digital Broadcast lineup for most cities.

Check your program guide for your OTA channels. Does it show data for more than a couple of days? If not, you may be getting EPG data for those channels only from the broadcaster, and not from the Sage EPG servers.

If all else fails, you could try disabling the local channels in your HD-PVR lineup and record them only from OTA. That's the way I have mine set up, but I have three OTA tuners to avoid conflicts.

[Skirge01]

The OTA channels currently have very limited data beyond Wednesday, so it's only a couple of days worth of programming data. The M780 is set for "New York - Digital Broadcast" for the guide data and the HD-PVR is set for "DIRECTV New York - New York".

I'm hesitant to disable the channels on either of the tuners, since I'd prefer not to limit my viewing/recording options. But, if that's the final option that will work, I don't have much choice.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

The OTA channels currently have very limited data beyond Wednesday, so it's only a couple of days worth of programming data.

Then it sounds like you might have some sort of configuration issue that's preventing Sage from downloading EPG data for that tuner. If it were downloading properly, you'd see data out to a couple of weeks. You could try removing that video source from your Sage config and then adding it back, going through the channel lineup wizard again to see if that helps any.

The goal is to get all your EPG data from one source (the Sage EPG servers) so that show IDs are consistent across devices, instead of relying on the EPG data embedded in the digital broadcast itself, which has its own independent ID scheme.

[Opus4]

Either the OTA channels are not mapped correctly to Zap2it-covered stations, or they are OTA-only channels for which SageTV doesn't have access to EPG data from Zap2it.

In Channel Setup, choose the Remap option, then select Map Different Station to this Physical Channel. If you see the same station name listed a couple times, it may be trial & error to get the right one. If they are slightly different, be sure to select the station name as listed on the zap2it.com site.

- Andy

[Skirge01]

Thanks, Andy. I never noticed that option. I mapped the #-1 channels to the DirecTV channels, which were just 2, 4, etc. I'm hoping that's what I was supposed to do. I now only see the channels listed once in the guide and they're currently listed as #-1. I assume I can relabel them to remove the -1 and that won't break anything, right?

[Opus4]

Yes, you can remap the Logical channel number to any number you want to see in the Program Guide; that number has no effect on tuning. (The Physical channel number is the one used for tuning.)

- Andy