MarkJohnson wrote:I couldn't seem to get a screenshot of the series settings, so I'll type them in:
Show and Type: New & rerun
Channels: 771 AMDHD only
Airtime: Anytime
Keep: Until space needed
Keep up to: As many as possible
Stop: 3 miniutes after, when possible
Thanks.
Ok. Then we're agreed. This setup tells WMC to record every episode on this channel that airs, new or repeat, as long as it had never recorded this same episode previously... BASED ON THE GUIDE FOR THAT PROGRAM AIRING.
I already had all of those episodes recorded from last year as new episodes. Then it recorded them over again the other day.
My guess is that last year your recordings were when MS/WMC was still using Zap2it. This year WMC is using Rovi, and the Guide Info is very different.
The Rovi Guide transition has been a very unpleasant and unhappy one for many WMC users, as the quality of the Rovi data is truly terrible compared to that of Zap2it. Again, this is exactly what has motivated many of us to transition out of Rovi and into EPG123/SD, with its many previously enumerated benefits.
Anyway, I'm going to guess that the Zap2it->Rovi transition and the "apparently never recorded before" Rovi-Guide nature of the episode airings of this most recent marathon compared to last year's Zap2it-Guide info is what triggered the most recent burst of all episodes recording. But I'm also going to intuit that you will not get any more additional recordings of these episodes in the future, as long as you remain using MS/Rovi for Guide info going forward.
You can see in the "date modified" column that the show has been recorded again. The file name date is different than the "Date Modified" and the "Date" columns.
Also, shouldn't the show date in the filename be the same as the original air date?
Well.. finally I now see what is confusing you.
(1) The date/time in the file name is the actual broadcast date/time of the airing which you recorded into this WTV file. It has nothing to do with the actual original date/time of the truly first-run original episode air date from many years ago (as shown on Wiki). If this had been your recording from last year's marathon, the date/time in that file name would have been last year's actual recording date/time, again unrelated to the true first-run original episode air date from many years ago (as shown on Wiki).
The file name date/time is created from the original "date recorded" on your WMC, when the actual physical WTV file was created on your system and placed in the primary "recording" folder specified in WMC setup. These files go in the "Recorded TV" folder designated for recording.
You can see this because the date/time suffix in your file names matches exactly the "Date Created" column shown in Windows Explorer. That's how the WTV file name date/time suffix is created, i.e. from the original true "Date Created" value shown by Windows Explorer.
(2) The "Date" column is from the WTV metadata (understood by Windows Explorer), and corresponds to "original air date" of the episode per the Guide info data. There is no time available, since OAR is only a date. So the metadata value shows "midnight" as its default null time value. But the "Date" value is truly the OAR date from the metadata (i.e. Guide info, as from Wiki).
Note that this "OAR date" is part of the "metadata" for WTV files, similar to how MP3 file ID3 tags contain additional information about track title, artist, album, genre, bitrate, etc. Windows Explorer can also be configured to show any of these additional metadata/tag fields for any type of multimedia file that supports metadata/tags.
(3) The "Date modified" column is something entirely unrelated to either "Date" or "Date Created". This is a totally independent third entity, corresponding to possibly several things:
(a) initially, "date modified" is set to match "date created".
(b) if you COPY'd/MOVE'd the file to its current location from where it originally might have been recorded, then a new "date created" is established for this new secondary location, and again "date modified" is set to match. The original "date created" from the original recording is lost for this second location instance of the file.
For example, WMC only supports one "recording folder" for new recordings, but it supports any number of "recorded TV" folders in "Library of recorded TV". So, for example, you might have a folder on a partition that has 1TB of free space available, which seems like plenty for normal usage. But during Olympics weeks this might be inadequate. So you might also have three other 1TB folders defined on three other partitions, as part of the "Recorded TV Library". So all together you really have a total of 4TB available for WTV files to be played back from (i.e either the primary 1TB used for new recordings, plus the 3x1TB=3TB from the other three Recorded TV folders on other partitions).
So, if you cleaned things up in anticipation of Olympics and MOVE'ed all of your current contents from the primary Recorded TV "live new recordings" folder into one or more of your other three "playback-capable" Recorded TV folders on your other partitions, you would now have caused a new "date created" and "date modified" for those files in their new target folder location from the MOVE.
(c) When WMC looks through the content of a WTV file to create the thumbnail shown next to the program name on the "Recorded TV" list, that will actually cause a refresh (i.e. update) to the "date modified" (as the thumbnail is stored in the WTV file "tag" as another part of the WTV metadata). Once the thumbnail is created and available from the metadata, that "date modified" will not change again (unless something else you might do triggers re-creation of thumbnails again).
So, for example, if you did MOVE lots of WTV files from their original recorded TV location to a secondary folder, and then opened WMC to see your Recorded TV program list, this first situation for WMC to encounter these WTV files in this secondary location would prompt it to run through them all to create brand new metadata thumbnails. If you had MOVE'd these files yesterday but not opened WMC yet, then the original "date created" and "date modified" would be yesterday. But now that you opened WMC and it just created thumbnails that got stored back into each WTV file's metadata tag, well now you've just updated the "date modified" for each of them.
(d) I think WMC may also create thumbnails again when you go to PLAY a recording and at least get as far as going into the Synopsis page before you push PLAY. I notice that my own "date modified" can be all over the place, even though I know I haven't actually re-recorded anything. This date is simply kind of an unpredictable value, but certainly reflects whenever WMC actually makes some change to the metadata for that file. That's why Windows updated the "date modified"... because the file was actually modified (by WMC, for a reason very likely related to trying to read/decrypt for purpose of generating a thumbnail into the metadata for "Recorded TV" listing display purposes).
Bottom line:
(1) "date" is "original air date" from Guide info, plus 12:00AM as time. It will not change no matter the values of "date created" or "date modified".
(2) "date created" is whenever the physical file was created in the folder it now resides in, no matter what its "date created" might have been in the original folder it got recorded into.
(3) "date modified" is initially set to "date created", but can change if WMC has to generate thumbnails for that program in which case "date modified" is the then the most recent date thumbnails were created so that the WTV metadata tag had to be updated. It can therefore change as time goes on, depending on where the file happens to be living at the time. It has nothing really to do with an actual recording or re-recording of the WTV file, other than when initially created. But it does reflect when WMC produced the thumbnail for that WTV file.
(4) WTV file name date/time suffix is set to match the "date created" when the original WTV recording was made.
Just for example, coming back to my 20 accumulated episodes of all Season 5 and 6 of GOT... all of Season 5 were originally were recorded in my primary M:\Recorded TV folder location. At some point that folder began to fill up, and on July 5, 2015 I MOVE'd all 10 of them from M:\Recorded TV to my secondary F:\Recorded TV location (also part of my Recorded TV Library along with M:\Recorded TV). So the July 5, 2015 "date created" shows for these in their new F:\Recorded TV location, even though they were actually created earlier in 2015 when Season 5 truly aired between April 24 and June 14.
So the WTV file names have the original April 24 - June 14 first-run air dates which were the actual April-June nights on which I truly recorded them into M:\Recorded TV. These are the same dates as originally showed for "date created" when the files still lived in M:\Recorded TV. When I MOVE'd them to F:\Recorded TV on July 5, 2015, they got new "date created" in the target folder while their WTV file name suffix of course remained unchanged (and still reflected the original "date recorded" from WMC).
The following year the first 4 episodes of Season 6 also got recorded in M:\Recorded TV... until again, the folder began to fill up. So once again, on May 17, 2016 I again MOVE'd whatever had accumulated in M:\Recorded TV over to F:\Recorded TV as I'd done the previous year. So now F:\Recorded TV had 10 episodes from Season 5 and the first 4 episodes from Season 6.
Eventually, the final 6 episodes from Season 6 accumulated in M:\Recorded TV, where they still live today. I haven't had a need to move them over to F:\Recorded TV. So these are the original recording locations for these 6 episodes, hence their WTV file names will exactly match their "date created" in Windows Explorer. And their "date modified" is a short time after the recordings got completed, apparently triggered by my looking at the Record TV list for that series to ensure I'd recorded it successfully. This was the first opportunity for WMC to examine the WTV file for DRM authority and to create the thumbnail for the metadata. Hence why "date modified" for these files in M:\Recorded TV is close to "date created", but just a bit later (except for the last one, which is explained by yet another story).
Last month, in anticipation of Olympics 2016 and all the recordings I was going to be doing, I replaced an old 1TB drive I had (where F:\Recorded TV partition lived) to a new 6TB drive. I had to copy the contents of all partitions on this physical drive (and there were several) off to an intermediate backup temporary storage location (on an external backup drive), make the hardware drive swap, and then copy-back all partitions from their intermediate temporary storage location on the external backup drive to their new home on the just installed 6TB drive... with its now much larger 5TB F:\Recorded TV folder. I used Macrium Reflect and "system image" for the backup/restore, so that the restored target folders looked IDENTICAL to their original contents. I didn't use Windows Explorer (which would have produced all new "date created" for everything I was copying in this manner). This all took place on July 9, 2016.
So, the initial restore of the "system image" for F looked just like the original F, with the same "date created" and "date modified" for all WTV files in F:\Recorded TV. But WMC detected that this was a new location than where they had previously lived the last time thumbnails were produced for these copy-protected DRM-protected files. So when I opened Recorded TV listing for the first time on July 9, 2016 and WMC saw the new version of F:\Recorded TV, it went ahead and re-read each WTV file (to be sure DRM could read it), and regenerated new thumbnails again. Thus each of the files on the newly enlarged F:\Recorded TV folder on the new 6TB drive now reflect July 9, 2016 as their "date modified", since that truly is the last time WMC generated thumbnails for these files.
Just the other day, I was working with WMC (trying to upgrade memory in my HTPC, which "broke" DRM so that I could not watch any previously recorded copy-protected content, so I had to remove the added memory to get back to a "working DRM"). In the process I happened to look in Recorded TV and got browsed two episodes from season 6. Apparently WMC was still recovering from my DRM-breakage episode, and apparently re-generated the thumbnails for these two episodes when I got as fas as looking at their Synposis pages. So for these two episodes (one living in F:\Recorded TV and one living in M:\Recorded TV) I now have an 8/23/2016 "date modified". Obviously I did not re-record them three days ago... but WMC apparently actually did "modify" the files then for some reason, most likely when it replaced the thumbnails in the metadata of those two files. It didn't do this for any other of the episodes, just for these two that I clearly must have "touched" in some way.
So, here are snippets from Windows Explorer showing the complete 20 GOT episodes I've previously discussed, in the two folders, F:\Recorded TV and M:\Recorded TV. I've customized Windows Explorer to show the three relevant date columns as you've shown. So you can look at the FOUR "date values" presented: (a) WTV file name date/time suffix, (b) date modified, i.e. the last time WMC created thumbnails for that WTV file, (c) date created, i.e. when it either was originally recorded if still in its original recording location, or when it got MOVE'd to its new secondary location, and (d) date, i.e. "original air date" from the Guide Info metadata, as from Wiki.
(1) Here is the list of WTV GOT files on F:\Recorded TV, consisting of all 10 episodes from Season 5 in 2015, and the first 4 episodes from Season 6 in 2016.
(2) Here is the list of the WTV GOT files on M:\Recorded TV, consisting of the final 6 episodes from Season 6 in 2016.