Did PDC start working for UK Freesat?

[uglyned]

Sorry if I missed this annoincement somewhere but it seems that PDC has started working in Recording Service for UK Freesat.

 

Now, I can see in the log file that the RS is trying to work out if a show is on using an EventID.

 

Nice!

[uglyned]

OK so it writes PDC type stuff into the log file but that doesn't affect the actual recording - it still has the padding on both sides.

 

Is there a setting I can change so it just does the recording according to the PDC signals?

[Derrick]

Windows Start ->Programs->DVBViewer Pro->DVBViewer Recording Service>Recording Service Tweaker-> 2

 

[SimonP]

Thanks Derrick, that's very useful.

[uglyned]

Thank you - yes this seems to be working for me too.

 

A nice addition.

[SimonP]

Sadly it didn't help me. I had a recurring timer set in the RS for a 3 part programme, the timer was set for 30 minutes (plus 5 minutes before and 10 after) but I only realised afterwards that while the first two parts were 30 minutes, the final part was 40 minutes and it missed the last minute of the show. I hoped that this setting would have adjusted the recording time but it didn't. I was able to watch it on the BBC iPlayer so no problem but should it have corrected it for me or does it only work for single recordings?

 

(DVBViewer 5.5.2.0, Recording Service 1.32.0.0, UK Freesat)

Edited January 31, 2016 by SimonP

[Griga]

Sadly it didn't help me. I had a recurring timer set in the RS for a 3 part programme

 

it can't work for recurring timers, because when the timer is created from EPG data there is only one Event ID that enables recognizing the first programme, but not the following ones that have different Event IDs. So the RS falls back to using the start/end time.

[SimonP]

I suspected that might be the case. Thanks.

[Derrick]

 

it can't work for recurring timers, because when the timer is created from EPG data there is only one Event ID that enables recognizing the first programme, but not the following ones that have different Event IDs. So the RS falls back to using the start/end time.

hmm, a stack of event_IDs could be a solution or a look for the next ID, when the 1st has been used.

[Tjod]

Or you use e EPG search to generate the recurring timers. So that you have one timer for each recording.

[Derrick]

yes, that's better.

[SimonP]

But not really worth the trouble as this kind of thing happens so rarely that I didn't even think to check if the episodes might be different lengths. Only the BBC would do such a thing...

[uglyned]

Surely it's easier just to have it as an auto search? That's what I do and it works a treat. Set RS to execute an auto search after every EPG update and I don't have to do anything. Create my auto search, be specific, use a bit of regular expression if needed so it doesn't record anything it shouldn't.

 

Then just leave it to it. If broadcast time or program length change it doesn't matter, RS will still deal with it.

 

I think what @Derrick mentioned - look for the next event ID at time of recording, is effectively how series link works, or maybe as well as an event ID there's a series ID. Doesn't really matter as this works perfectly well.

 

As I've requested before though, it would be nice to have a way of creating an autosearch entry through the API. So in clients you can have a 'record this series' button that will send channel, program title through to the RS to create an autosearch entry. Could have tweaks that set extra options like check previous recordings DB for duplicates, use PDC, use regular expression for exact program title (eg ^My TV Show$. And maybe something to handle the prefix of 'New' as so many channels seem to do now, eg 'New: My TV show' when they're broadcasting an episode that hasn't been shown before. They're inconsistent with it though, so you'd have to handle it not being there too.

 

Time to get my regex manual back out.