Recording options –A little confusing

[salsbst]

I highly suggest that you read the manual.

Using the favorites feature is not viable, since it wants to record everything, and I don’t want the drive packed up with a bunch of reruns.

You can disable the recording of reruns in the Favorite Options menu.

[mls]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

At this point, I need to download 13-days of EPG data, and manually select the weekly shows I want to watch in advance. Using the favorites feature is not viable, since it wants to record everything, and I don’t want the drive packed up with a bunch of reruns. I still love Sage to death, however am a little disappointed at the amount of messing about that is necessary to schedule a basic daily or weekly time slot.

Set the Favorite to record First Runs only if you don't want reruns.

[Jeraden]

I don't fully understand why you can't set it as a favorite. You say you don't want the drive packed up with a bunch of reruns, but in essence all Star Treks during the week are reruns. Sage won't record a show that you've already marked as being watched, so if the same episode airs 5 times during the week, it will only record it once. You can also make your favorite only apply to a single channel, so you at least won't get star trek's that air on other channels.
If its a case of you not wanting it to record Star Trek's you have already seen, I think it would be easier just to let it record all of them and you can go in afterwards and mark the ones you've already seen as "Watched" and then delete them. That would be easier than going through every week and looking ahead to decide which ones to record and which ones not to record. Unless you are severely limited on disk space or something.

For example, I have mine set up to record Saturday Night Live as a favorite, but only from NBC. If I don't limit it to just NBC I get a zillion SNL reruns from comedy central. I only want the new ones each week. I don't have it set to only get first runs though, as there are some I've missed in the past that they might re-air. NBC does show a rerun from ancient years at some other point in the middle of the night, but I just manually delete that one when I see it after its been recorded. I find this easier than remembering each week to manually record the 11:30 nbc timeslot.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

found the time slot recording option for scheduling daily programs. It’s only for 1-hour slots, you can’t do 30-minute slots.

Yes, timeslots cover a 1-hour period. A show which has any part of its airing that falls into that one hour period will qualify as a fav & be recorded.

Beyond that: I see others have already suggested setting the fav to record First Runs only and/or to limit it to a single channel. The only problem I can see regarding First Runs is if you are using some form of XMLTV that does not include enough info to determine first run/rerun status.

I think it was also mentioned that a single episode that is aired multiple times will only get recorded once, as long as it has a unique ShowID for each episode. If not & it uses a simple series ID, then SageTV has no way to distinguish between episodes, so they will all get recorded.

- Andy

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

Using the favorites feature is not viable, since it wants to record everything, and I don’t want the drive packed up with a bunch of reruns.

Set up a favorite with:
First Runs only
That should take care of you assuming your guide data is complete/correct, if it's not try changing the "Keep at most" and "Auto Delete" settings.

No I still love Sage to death, however am a little disappointed at the amount of messing about that is necessary to schedule a basic daily or weekly time slot.

Of course if you want:
Record channel X at Y on day Z, then you don't want a PVR, PVRs are meant to abstract that operation from the user (hence it's not easy to do). That kind of functionality is what a DVR is for (IMO).

[Jeraden]

If he's recording Star Trek M-F, I don't think he wants first runs only. Sounds like he wants reruns that he hasn't seen yet.

[Opus4]

OK, so set it for reruns & limit how many episodes are allowed to be recorded... There are quite a few options here.

- Andy