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Are we any closer to Series Link support?


beeswax

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Hello old friends,

 

I jumped ship from DVBViewer to another product almost a year ago in order to gain proper DVB-S 'Series Link' functionality which is critical to wife/family acceptance of my home PVR solution. I wanted to completely cancel Sky/TiVo and rely solely on a few Intel NUCs around the house with a DVB backend on a Windows PC. Kodi 17 has come on leaps and bounds with PVR features, including one touch series linking so with this 'other product' running the DVB backend, I'm reasonably happy.

 

I've always wanted to return to DVBViewer though, and when I search the forum now, I struggle to find any mention of Series Link other than in really old topics. Is is planned to ever be implemented or should I resign myself a lifetime of the 'other product'? The way I understand it, Series Link data is included in the Sky/OpenTV EPG data. Seeing as more than one competing product can leverage this, how come DVBViewer still can't? (it still can't right?)

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Is is planned to ever be implemented

 

No. At least not in the foreseeable future.

 

or should I resign myself a lifetime of the 'other product'?

 

Yes.

 

The way I understand it, Series Link data is included in the Sky/OpenTV EPG data.

 

Sky UK, right? There are no plans to handle it. DVBViewer only deals with the normal DVB EPG, Freesat EPG and EPG imported from external sources (there are tools for it).

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Yes, Sky UK. OK, thanks for being to-the-point, but that's depressing to hear. So, out of curiosity and because I don't have a development environment for testing, what happens with the DVBViewer addon for Kodi 17 when you use the 'series record' option for creating a timer? Or does that simply not exist?

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Dunno. I'm not involved in the Kodi add-on development and I've never used Kodi.

 

There is a series feature in the Recording Service. AFAIK it is a search function based on standard EPG data, not on broadcasted links. Maybe the Kodi add-on uses it somehow.

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There is a series feature in the Recording Service. AFAIK it is a search function based on standard EPG data, not on broadcasted links.

...and this series search function is a masterpiece. Provided you have EPG episode numbering for each series episode the entire season will be recorded perfectly fine and next season as well if you have EPG season numbering. Provided the EPG season/episode numbering is consistently corrrect that way previously recorded episodes will never be recorded twice. "beeswax" in order to get this setup working perfectly isnt the easiest to accomplish the first time though, hence I believe you missed it completely and went away from DVBViewer RS totally in vain.

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Yes, I'm very familiar with the search based timer setup in DVBViewer, I used it for a long time and have no problem with it and it's one of the reasons I've been wanting to come back to it. If it doesn't translate into a one-click setup of a series timer on the user facing devices though (NUCs running Kodi in my case), it's no good for a complete replacement of a Sky/Virgin TiVo box.

 

Don't forget, that's my usage case - a complete replacement to standard broadcaster STBs with comparable features and ease of use. Firing up a laptop, sitting in front of the PC or tapping search terms into iOS/Android apps isn't going to cut it. It needs to be [see/find programme in EPG] -> [Press/hold single button] -> [Confirm series link] and that all needs to be on the 10ft user interface end. At the moment, I can accomplish all that but some of the more advanced features I would use personally (the kind of things you do sit in front of the PC for) are done much better in DVBViewer.

Edited by beeswax
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I too have often wondered why UK Series link hasn't been implemented in RS. Like you beeswax, I also have been a long time user but recently had a dabble with the 'other' product, but after a long hard struggle, I gave up, mainly due to the complexity of Linux device drivers for DVB, and have again come back to DVBViewer RS.

 

On the face of it, Series Link seems straightforward to implement, but please don't get me wrong - I have no understanding of how RS works and how difficult it would be to code. Basically, all you have is a series 'CRID' ID in the EPG data for each series. Then each episode has it's own unique Episode CRID, so all RS has to do after specifying which Series you want, is to record each episode with a unique episode CRID - and record it only once. This could be stored in the Recordings DB so RS knows which episodes it has done - and if there is a failure it would automatically record any subsequent showing. The beauty of it is for the end user is it's one-click and forget - RS would do the rest.

 

Could I respectfully request you reconsider implementing it? I'd be happy to supply any sample EPG data you would need, both from DVB-T and DVB-S. It would certainly make DVBViewer a whole lot more desirable for us UK viewers.

 

Thanks in advance

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The one and only reason for a missing "one click series" recording feature is quite simple: The inconsistency of the epg data. There is simply no reliable way to determine if this one is part of the series you want to record. For example the german public tv stations do have a quite detailed epg, but you miss the episode and season information. Several private tv stations here do have the season and episode in their title, but the detailed epg is almost empty. Try to figure out if the show is equal. A human could probably read the information and could decide if this one should be recorded or not - a machine has problems with this. You could use a neuronal network which might be able to improve the result, but honestly what will work in one language could horribly fail in an other.

The only solution would be a editorially prepared epg for all of your channels. The series link (like defined in some specs) is only a regional speciality and if this one is similar to the unreliable VBI you would also get more problems than benefits.

 

Christian

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There is simply no reliable way to determine if this one is part of the series you want to record.

 

I don't understand this post. The series link data embedded in the Sky UK EPG does exactly what you're saying is not possible. It points directly to the next programme in the series, the work has already been done by the broadcaster.

 

Maybe what you mean to say is that the German broadcasters don't have this feature and therefore you've no interest in leveraging it?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think there's a simple way to do this that is being missed.

 

In DVBViewer presumably you have a menu item on a program in the EPG to 'record'. Why not add another button to 'auto record'? When I cliclk 'auto record' a new autotimer is set up in the RS. Matching the title and the channel, and with the title as the series name. 9 times out of 10 that's all I do in the RS interface to set up a new auto timer.

 

Once this is done, I can always come into the RS interface to fine tune it. But that initial setting up of an auto timer is what you must have in a new RS that's paid for because it's on the 'must have' list of features on a STB.

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  • 1 year later...

Is there any news on this ? 

 

I could always record series in WMC, are there any other clients that have recording series support and work with digital devices ? 

 

At the moment i am running DVBViewer with kodi works ok, but the one thing i really miss is recording series.

 

 

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On 1/11/2017 at 8:52 PM, uglyned said:

Why not add another button to 'auto record'? When I cliclk 'auto record' a new autotimer is set up in the RS. Matching the title and the channel, and with the title as the series name.

 

I've noticed it. It will be considered when we pick the topic "series" up again in DVBViewer & DMS.

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  • 2 months later...

With the newer versions of the Kodi addon and the new PVR capabilities in Kodi 18, this is now a reality.  It's still search based so still doesn't leverage the OpenTV "Series Link" metadata but it works just as well and I've fully switched back to DVBViewer now.

 

I can browse the EPG, long press the [Record] button on my remote, click [OK] on  the resulting dialogue and a working series timer gets created.

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On 11/25/2018 at 12:14 AM, beeswax said:

With the newer versions of the Kodi addon and the new PVR capabilities in Kodi 18, this is now a reality.  It's still search based so still doesn't leverage the OpenTV "Series Link" metadata but it works just as well and I've fully switched back to DVBViewer now.

 

I can browse the EPG, long press the [Record] button on my remote, click [OK] on  the resulting dialogue and a working series timer gets created.

Doesn't work here unfortunately, running the latest RC candidate of Kodi 18.

 

What do you mean with searched based ?  

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Right click any programme in the EPG and choose "Add Timer" then press "OK".  A series timer will now have been created on your DVBViewer backend.

 

To make this more user friendly on a Kodi frontend using a remote control, create a keymap and add this section:

 

<tvguide>
  <keyboard>
    <r>Record</r>
    <r mod="longpress">showtimerrule</r>
  </keyboard>
</tvguide>

Assuming your Record button on your remote is mapped to the 'r' key, a long press of the 'Record' button will take you straight to the series timer creation dialogue from any programme in the EPG.

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/30/2018 at 9:32 PM, manül said:

 

The moment i do that i get a message that dvbclient had disabled the recordings.

 

Using Kodi 18 RC5 now, i tried all settings but none of them work, guide based recordings keep getting turned off,  fulltext search option on or off also makes no differance 

 

See images 

2.thumb.jpg.ce55a0df209389620e2c19e22b3a38c8.jpg1.thumb.jpg.78713b62a1d18569efe3810167220614.jpg

 

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15 minutes ago, manül said:

Duplicate prevention…

Great, i disabled prevent duplicate episodes and they stay enabled now.

Thank you!

 

Is there any way to set it disabled by default ?

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Just now, dayfly said:

Is there any way to set it disabled by default ?

Not yet. Might be part of next update but requires DMS 2.1.3. Not sure how I'll handle it though as I said Leia won't require DMS.

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ok, the girlfriend is happy now, she can get used to disabling it manually.

 

One small question,  is there a setting so it only records the new episodes ?  now it also records the re-run instead of only new episodes.

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But then it disables all the new episode recordings again also ?

 

I see the problem, all the episodes have the same name i see, so its a problem of the channel EPG who is not giving more info about the serie like episode 1, episode 2 and so on.

 

Its clear to me, its better to delete a duplicate episode, then to have a angry girlfriend shouting that it didnt record again. 

 

Thanks for the help ? 

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