Favorite Option to Limit to 1/2 Hour?

[xjim1]

A lot of shows i watch these days are old reruns, which on several channels are run back to back. They're also 30 minutes episodes. Is there any way I can create a favorite to record a single 30 minute episode within the hour?

Ex:
MASH is a 30 minute show on at 7pm and 7:30pm same channel every weekday.
I only want to create a favorite for the 7pm episode.

Is there a way to use a keyword or a category to do this? I really don't want to make timed recordings if I don't have to.
Thanks for any help.

[will]

Originally Posted by xjim1

Ex:
MASH is a 30 minute show on at 7pm and 7:30pm same channel every weekday.
I only want to create a favorite for the 7pm episode.

Well there is no built-in way to do exactly what you want, however there may be some workarounds based on your watching habits.

If you watch MASH every night but only the first 30 minute episode then create a favorite that is set to record MASH between the hours of 7pm and 8pm, set auto delete to no, and keep at most to 1; SageTV will only record the 7pm episode. However, SageTV will not record any other episodes of MASH until you delete the current 1 recording.

May I ask though, why do you care if your system records two episodes of MASH vs just one?

[xjim1]

I guess a better question to ask is; I only want to watch episodes from a particular season, especially, catching the beginning of season 1 of a series. I tried using keywords, like specifying "season 1", but that doesn't work. I admit I don't really know how keywords work in that sense. Is there a way to do that?

This question ties into my original one as often times multiple seasons will be shown in a single day. The MASH example was a little over-simplified. Still nice to have the "Hour" parameter in 30 minute increments, though.

Thanks for any help.

[will]

Originally Posted by xjim1

I guess a better question to ask is; I only want to watch episodes from a particular season, especially, catching the beginning of season 1 of a series.

This solution may depend on your guide history but you could:

• Set all episodes and watched in the advance section of the favorite
• In the favorite go to view additional recordings > click on past airings > manually mark all Season 1 as unwatched

I think your cleanest, quickest, and easiest solution would be to set the recording to a limited time, 7pm to 8 pm, and once a week clean out the wrong recordings by marking them as watched or don't like so STV won't record them again.

Originally Posted by xjim1

Still nice to have the "Hour" parameter in 30 minute increments, though.

I've been using SageTV for 9 years and I have never once needed that feature or read about anyone wanting that feature; I think your situation could be an edge case...

[xjim1]

First of all, thanks for helping out . It's nice folks are still participating in the forum.

I have resigned to performing manual intervention in these situations.
Ironically, I played around more with keywords in creating a Favorite and discovered pretty much every field is searchable EXCEPT air date (which includes episode information). With reference to the manual (p.71), this seems to be a bug.

Originally Posted by will

I've been using SageTV for 9 years and I have never once needed that feature or read about anyone wanting that feature; I think your situation could be an edge case...

I have no doubt my usage behavior is not common. Probably explains my lack of popularity with usability/UI teams throughout my career.

I argued here for variable playback speed functionality years ago, which showed no interest either, yet it was a primary feature in DVR's at the time.

Cheers

[will]

Originally Posted by xjim1

First of all, thanks for helping out . It's nice folks are still participating in the forum.

I just thought of one other option, it is outside of SageTV though. I could help you write a batch script that will delete all episodes of MASH that don't contain S01 (Season 1) in the file name. By default SageTV should save the Mash recordings as "MASH-S01E01-PILOT-75465445.mpg".

It would be relatively easy to write a script that would delete all MASH-* from your recording directory unless it contains S01. You could then schedule this script to run nightly. I believe the old recordings though would still show up in SageTV until the service is rebooted or an advanced rescan was performed.

Otherwise, I can't think of any other work arounds with the current version.

Originally Posted by xjim1

I argued here for variable playback speed functionality years ago, which showed no interest either, yet it was a primary feature in DVR's at the time.

Is variable playback speed when you watch a 30 minute show in 25.5 minutes because the system plays back the frames/audio 15% faster than normal?

[xjim1]

Originally Posted by will

I just thought of one other option, it is outside of SageTV though. I could help you write a batch script that will delete all episodes of MASH that don't contain S01 (Season 1) in the file name. By default SageTV should save the Mash recordings as "MASH-S01E01-PILOT-75465445.mpg".

It would be relatively easy to write a script that would delete all MASH-* from your recording directory unless it contains S01. You could then schedule this script to run nightly. I believe the old recordings though would still show up in SageTV until the service is rebooted or an advanced rescan was performed.

Otherwise, I can't think of any other work arounds with the current version.

That's not a bad idea, actually, and currently within my skill set. I say that as I can just go to a recording directory and easily delete all unneeded files, since they'd be listed sequentially. But I'll take a raincheck on any help offered if I ever want to automate it.

Originally Posted by will

Is variable playback speed when you watch a 30 minute show in 25.5 minutes because the system plays back the frames/audio 15% faster than normal?

Do they actually do that?
No, when I say variable playback, I mean slow-mo/single-step. Handy for screen captures and even better for analyzing plays in sports. I'm a little surprised that didn't garner more interest.

Lastly, if you or anyone can try creating a favorite using the season and/or episode keywords as part of the air date information, I'd like to verify this indeed does not work as documented.
It has to be in quotes, such as "season 1" or "episode 1".

Cheers

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by xjim1

No, when I say variable playback, I mean slow-mo/single-step. Handy for screen captures and even better for analyzing plays in sports. I'm a little surprised that didn't garner more interest

While paused if you press and hold pause then it does step forward...kinda slomo.

k

[will]

I thought of one other hack solution the other day but it depends on the number of tuners you have.

Create favorites for shows that air every night at 7:30 pm, like Wheel of Fortune, and set their priority higher than Mash, set the new the favorites to auto delete and to keep at most 1. Mash will record at 7pm but not 7:30 pm because your tuners are busy recording other shows.

[xjim1]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

While paused if you press and hold pause then it does step forward...kinda slomo.


k

I tried that with my HopHog remote but it didn't work. Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally Posted by will

I thought of one other hack solution the other day but it depends on the number of tuners you have.

Create favorites for shows that air every night at 7:30 pm, like Wheel of Fortune, and set their priority higher than Mash, set the new the favorites to auto delete and to keep at most 1. Mash will record at 7pm but not 7:30 pm because your tuners are busy recording other shows.

I created the config as you suggested. Will let you know the results.

Cheers