[PATCH] Use some slack on recording starttime

[ard.biesheuvel@…]

Public TV in the Netherlands have the annoying habit of applying slight offsets to the start time of daily or weekly shows. For instance, the popular daily talkshow 'Pauw & Wittemand' usually starts at 11.00pm, but may sometimes start at 10.55pm or 11.05pm

The attached patch solves this by adding a StartTimeSlack? setting (defaulting to 0) to the settings table containing the slack in minutes to apply while scheduling recordings.

[dekarl@…]

this sounds alot like padding

see Settings Table for RecordPreRoll? (start time) and RecordOverTime? (end time)

Just set RecordPreRoll? to 360 to start all recordings 6 minutes early.

[ard.biesheuvel@…]

I forgot to mention that not only does the show start 5 to 10 minutes earlier or later, it is also scheduled as such in the EPG. This means that my daily recording of 'P&W' at 11.00pm doesn't record anything if the EPG of a certain day contains an instance of 'P&W' at 10.55pm.

[Matt S <skd5aner@…>]

Replying to ard.biesheuvel@gmail.com:

I forgot to mention that not only does the show start 5 to 10 minutes earlier or later, it is also scheduled as such in the EPG. This means that my daily recording of 'P&W' at 11.00pm doesn't record anything if the EPG of a certain day contains an instance of 'P&W' at 10.55pm.

Easy fix - "Record at any time on this/any channel" will accommodate the variance if the scheduling data says it'll start at a different time.

[kkuphal]

This may not be an entirely bad feature. I know that my old ReplayTV would catch slight variances in start times like this without then also recording the same show if it aired in reruns on a different time entirely or channel.

[stuartm]

For what it's worth I like this idea and I was discussing it just the other day with a few people in IRC.

"Record in this timeslot" would work better if it was more flexible, allowing for variations up to an hour in start time. I'm not sure the patch goes far enough or that it's really as intelligent as I think it needs to be, but I definitely appreciate the effort. I don't like the idea of adding another setting, IMHO this doesn't need to be configurable.

"Record at any time" just isn't a viable alternative in most cases where a user has chosen a timeslot recording. It's not specific enough. e.g. I might want to record programme X in the monday evening slot, but not the fifty old repeat showings at other times during the week.

[gigem]

There is always the option of adding custom recording rule. That feature was added partly so we wouldn't have to add code everytime someone needed to account for a new special case.

[cpinkham]

I'm considering solving this by adding a kFuzzyslotRecord recording type that would record shows that occurred within += 2 hours of the original time. That would cover shows that shift around in primetime without having to resort to using kChannelRecord. As I look at my record table, most of my scheduled recordings are kChannelRecord because I don't want to miss a show just because network XYZ decides they'd have higher viewership in a different timeslot.

[gigem]

For the record, I'm OK with something like the patch attached to this ticket for single, timeslot and weekslot recording rules. I'm not OK with the other suggestions I've seen for changing the rules. I'd much rather see the power of custom rules be made more accessible. One idea I have percolating is to add custom recording clauses that could be enabled or disabled easily in the recording rule editor for regular rules. The new clauses would probably be presented much like the "Post Recording Processing" options.

[gigem]

This ticket has languished for 4 years. If it hasn't been important enough to add by now, it probably never will be. BTW, a find one rule with the "this episode" filter should be an adequate replacement for fuzzy single recording rules.