Interesting occurence with AR

af123

Administrator
Staff member
Just for interest, my box did something I hadn't seen before a couple of days ago.

It's set up to recording the new series of CSI as a series record with Accurate Recording (AR) rather than padding. Channel 5 moved last Tuesday's episode from 9pm to 10pm at some point close to the recording.

My box recorded the replacement programme at 9pm Philpott Housefire: The Truth and then went on to record the moved episode of CSI correctly at 10pm. It's a shame we can't easily look back to see what the CRIDs were set to.
 
My hypothesis is that Channel 5 did not change the CRIDs when they replaced the original programme and kept the same CRIDs for the CSI episode.

My previous investigation with radio programmes has shown that the Humax seems to "forget" it has recorded a Series/Programme CRID combination after 24 hours and thus will record the programme again.

I reported somewhere else in the forum but can't remember where.

Martin
 
My previous investigation with radio programmes has shown that the Humax seems to "forget" it has recorded a Series/Programme CRID combination after 24 hours and thus will record the programme again.
I can confirm that, a few weeks back I recorded a series called 'Rory and Will - Champions Of World' but didn't remove the series recording request, the Humax is now re-recording the same repeated series, I'm not sure how it normally avoids recording duplicates, but there must be something that triggers the deletion of a 'duplicate log'
 
My hypothesis is that Channel 5 did not change the CRIDs when they replaced the original programme and kept the same CRIDs for the CSI episode.
That would explain why it recorded the replacement programme in full. If the moved CSI retained the same CRID then, by your logic, it would not have recorded it as a duplicate. I suspect that it did keep the same CRID though but can't tell now.
 
I have been series-recording Last of the Summer Wine to catch all episodes. Repeat programmes are recorded regardless. I have auto-dedup running on the folder and duplicates are deleted after one day in the recycle bin.
 
I have experience of broadcasts and repeat broadcasts being series-recordable separately. I think is all boils down to how the broadcasters tag the P and S-CRIDs, and the only way to be sure is to use the RS search-and-schedule for individual programmes and delete the ones you don't want. At the moment that will put them all in My Video, but the hoped-for classifier should help there.
 
af123, thanks for pointing that out. Hoisted by my own petard. I obviously misread the post and assumed a >24 hours delay. And I rushed the answer because I was going out.

To me your correct statements means, in my eyes, that the programmes did not retain the same series and programme CRIDs otherwise both programmes would not have been recorded. [HDRs do not record all episodes per day of Neighbours on C5, C5+1, C5* even though they have the same Series and Programme CRIDs.]

I can formulate new hypotheses but can also knock them back as being unsupportable on the basis of complication or illogicality, but we are talking about C5's approach to CRIDs. For example:

1. C5 kept the Series CRID and the Programme CRID for the replacement programme.
2. C5 changed the Programme CRID with the same Series CRID for the replaced programme.
3. HDR recorded both programmes as part of a series.

Variation:

1. C5 kept the Series CRID but changed the Programme CRID.
2. HDR recognised the Series CRID and, because it had not recorded this episode in the last 24 hours, recorded this episode.
3. HDR recorded the replaced programme because it was of the same series and had not been recorded in the last 24 hours.

Alternative:

1. Once committed the HDR will record a programme even though its CRIDs have changed.
2. On completion the HDR records the now changed CRID(s) to avoid re-recording within 24 hours.
3. HDR checks for future episodes of the Series and finds the replaced programme and records it.

Martin
 
Well I have a snippet that may help. I happened to be checking things on Tuesday an hour or two before CSI was due and noticed that the replacement prog had 'replaced' CSI as a series recording at 2100.
So I deleted the reservation, selected the (moved) 2200 CSI in the epg and hit "record whole series". The box did not record the replacement, did record CSI and is now (apparently, and without any further action by me) primed to get the next episode next Tuesday at 2100.
 
I'm having trouble tying all this together.

AF's recording started at the prior programme, and MikeSh was going to end up recording the prior programme but he cancelled it. AF's recording did not stop after the prior programme, but completed after the intended programme, so it could not have received the stop signal until the end. But the stop signal is also the start signal for the next programme, and if there had not been a stop signal after the prior programme MikeSh's recording would not have started. If you see what I mean.

What if it works like this:

The AR flags are tied to P-CRIDs not S-CRIDs (almost certainly the case, to accommodate programmes that are not series). The series reservation for CSI puts the P-CRID into the recording parameters for the next event, and PHTT was transmitted with the same P-CRID as CSI was, but not the same S-CRID. The AR flag had the P-CRID code twice, so AF's recording did not stop until the AR flag after that.

A bit far-fetched, but I think it fits.
 
BH, I read AF's OP as having recorded both programmes separately, not as a 2 hour block. But it isn't specific, so perhaps he could clarify it for us.
 
Okay, the hypothesis morphs to it reacting to the intermediate AR flag.

As with much in science, it is these unusual events that can provide an insight where otherwise we are deprived of data.
 
1. C5 kept the Series CRID and the Programme CRID for the replacement programme.

Martin
This would avoid disapointment for everyone recording original or modified schedule. Keeping the same Series CRID and Program CRID on the replacement program meant that the program (or both programs) got recorded (whether or not people used the up to date schedule).

Was the 9p.m. Philpott Housefire stored in its' separate folder or in the CSI series folder ?

When you stop a series link recording ( press media (then find the file that is being recorded and then press stop) ) you are prompted with 'do you want to stop the recording ' yes or no. As soon as you press yes recording stops AND the next program series appears in the schedule as a planned recording.

In the above case when the Philpott Housefire recording stopped the series CRId/ Prog CRID details were put into the schedule instantly and the AR may have detected that that it [the brand new schedule entry] was running so began recording the propper scheduled CSI series.

When a series program is stopped or completes (slight diffrences) it promotes a schedule update. With series link the Humax has to 'dip in' to the schedule to update the schedule. This may be done randomly or when changing channels. I have noticed that for certain programs when the next instalment is more than 7 days off that the series appears as --/-- --:-- ~ --:-- [Prog Details] in the schedule. This will up date in time (if you access the schedule the next day or later for more infrequent programes)

If you only record a program that is on infrequently ( fortnightly series) then as soon as the program finishes (or is stopped) the next link in the schedule will appear as : --/-- --:-- ~ --:-- [Prog Details]

This will be updated the following week or so as long as the Humax is physically turned on and the EPG / Schedule is updated. You wouldnt notice this normally as the box is on and off recording series here and there every other day. But when the box is on 2 diffrent regions it is apparant that the schedule is not being refreshed for each region unless the box 'dips in' or accesses the schedule on each region. I dont know if any one else has noticed this.

At the end of the day the correct program was recorded.
 
The EPG is never more than 7 days long, so when a series recording has finished the next in the series is looked for in the EPG, if the next record time/date is in the 7 day EPG then it will be displayed in the recording schedule, if not then --/-- --:-- ~ --:-- will be displayed. The EPG is re-checked every day for 3 months and if no new series item is found during that time, the series schedule will be deleted
 
This would avoid disapointment for everyone recording original or modified schedule. Keeping the same Series CRID and Program CRID on the replacement program meant that the program (or both programs) got recorded (whether or not people used the up to date schedule).

This does not fit the observations. If the S-CRID had been the same, MikeSh rescheduling the CSI series recording after the EPG was updated but before transmission would also have picked up the PHTT programme, since we also have observations that the P-CRID is not considered in the series scheduling.

The point of CRID and AR flags is (if implemented correctly) is to ensure the correct programme gets recorded.
 
The Replacement 9pm recording was in the CSI folder alongside the 10pm CSI episode.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.
 
We could be edging towards a greater understanding of the scheduling process with BH's intermediate AR flag an interesting development. It is a great thought process, though some conflicting loose ends remain.

Critical to this is Border's question, not yet answered:

Was the 9p.m. Philpott Housefire stored in its' separate folder or in the CSI series folder ?

If folders are generated for series and all programmes with the same series CRID are placed in them, then placing the PHTT programme in the CSI folder shows it has the same series CRID as for CSI.

But I think BH's reply to Border's same series and programme CRIDs statement is not supported by experimentation, particularly with C5.

Within my experiments the Humax normally booked previous series programme instances when a later one was scheduled. This seems to indicate that MikeSh's scheduling of the later CSI programme without the previous one being scheduled as well means that they were not of the same series.

However, C5 uses the same series and programme CRIDs for some Soaps, for example Neighbours, throughout the day. The HDR seems to have recognised this as a problem (as it was in the 9200) and will not (normally) record multiple instances of the same Neighbours within a set period.

This means that if you set up a later recording of Neighbours on the current day it will not set up a recording for an earlier episode on that day. But it will pick up the earlier episodes on subsequent days. These actions are consistent with MikeSh's statements and experience.

[However, if you try to set up a late recording on a future day the HDR will search the EPG and finding the earlier recording on previous days sets those, including the day you wished to record the later episode. To a user, without searching backwards, this appears that the programe has not been scheduled because the recording symbol does not appear in the EPG.]

Thus, if the PHTT recording is in the CSI folder, and folders are linked to series CRIDs and not to programme names, then we can assume that the PHTT programme has the same series CRID as the CSI programmes.

Given the above the only way to stop PHTT programme being scheduled when the later CSI programme is scheduled is that it must have had the same programme CRID.

As I say there are conflicting loose ends - if the HDR does not record multiple instances why did it do it this time - hence my reference to BH's intermediate AR flag and the criticality of Border's question.

Of course, I may be barking up the wrong tree and af123 may have an outstanding scheduled series that C5 just matched the series CRID for in the case of the PHTT programme. As he says:

It's a shame we can't easily look back to see what the CRIDs were set to.

Martin
 
I think that is a good summary. Clearly there are some errors in the logic I have suggested, but if we can come up with a hypothesis that is consistent with the current observations, perhaps we can devise test situations which would confirm it as a theory.
 
Another thought. The HDR may allow the same Programme CRIDs on the same channel within a certain amount of time in case a programme is split, for example by a short news update.

Martin
 
But in that case, trying to set the post-split segment to record would normally also schedule the pre-split segment, wouldn't it?
 
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