Latest version always overrides OAD

[aquadextrous]

Hi
I noticed recently that i'd had a lot of extra episodes of repeated programmes recording and some being missed, when checking lots of repeats were marked as 'new' and had that day as the OAD (when some were originally broadcast in the 1990s, so not like its a same day repeat). I reached out with a ticket to SD who advised that on their end the OAD was correct. I checked the changelog and saw that "removed option to disable NEW flag overriding original air date" was there.
I've just rolled back to the previous version and (the checkbox to override is unticked) and the OADs are all correct again and the shows aren't marked as new.

Is there a reason that the newest version seems to default as if the checkbox that used to be there is ticked? Is there a way to force it to not override OAD on the latest version?

It wasn't overriding all repeats, just some select series, maybe the data from SD has something in it that causes it, but the OAD from SD themselves was always the right date.

I've emailed SD back as it looks like their data (this was sent by their admin to me) shows the proper OAD but also that it's 'new' - this may have always been the case that it was flagged as new but epg123 previously wasnt overriding it by default.

Code: Select all

    "qualifiers": ["New", "Stereo"],
    "program": {
        "tmsId": "EP012584115894",
        "rootId": "20928149",
        "seriesId": "372238",
        "subType": "Series",
        "title": "EastEnders",
        "releaseYear": 1998,
        "releaseDate": "1998-12-03",
        "origAirDate": "1998-12-03",

[Space]

I haven't looked at the latest version, so don't know if this option was removed, but if you have this option enabled, it should only set the OAD to be the same as the airing date if the program is marked as "new" by SD/Gracenote. So it should not "always" override OAD, only when the "new" flag is present.

I have seen the "new" flag be present on old programs that were just being aired on new networks (rather than being aired in a new country) and I'm not sure if there is a standard being used as to when to add the "new" flag on shows that were previously aired. I've also seen the "new" flag improperly added to episodes of a show (for instance the first 5 episodes did not have the flag, then the next two did) but often that is corrected before airing time.

Generally, I would say they should only add the "new" flag for shows with older OADs when the previous airings were in another country (and the episode has never previously aired in your country), but I'm guessing that there is no standard for when this is done.

[aquadextrous]

Yeah it looks like a lot of repeats are being marked as New, maybe because it's new to that channel (they're all UK programmes) but the OAD is correct and intact.

The option to toggle the override is gone in the very latest version and by "always" in my post title I didn't mean always as in every repeated programme (it's fairly hit and miss on a programme by programme basis) , but always as in there's no way to turn the override off any more and so all the erroneous new flags get the OAD overridden, where as in previous versions the new flag could be ignored if the dates didn't match the OAD.

Robert from SD has passed the feedback on to their upstream (Gracenote I guess) but I only gave him one programme/series example and it seems quite widespread, so I'm unsure if their methodology on marking stuff as new will change.

[stuartm]

Hmm, I would not want programs marked new with an OAD earlier than the date the show is scheduled in the guide to be recorded. I am pretty sure I turn off the New override. I am not up to the latest version so I would be disappointed if this behavior changed. For those programs whose OAD is old and still marked new (e.g. when BBC programs come over here to PBS) I just set the show to record new and rerun. Otherwise every time some old series that I long ago watched and deleted would start recording every time some channel picked up the reruns.

[Space]

I use "New & Rerun" on pretty much all my Series, so the "new" status is irrelevant.

Generally, if you have your Series set to record from a specific channel, and that channel either does not air a lot of repeats or only airs repeats of episodes that have already been recorded by the Series, you will not see any repeats recorded, only the new episodes.

The advantage of using "New & Rerun" is that it will record all episodes of the series that have not already been recorded in the past (by the same Series). This means that if for some reason an episode is not recorded (power failure, conflict, etc.) and it is re-aired in the future (but more than 1 week after the original airing), the Series will still record that future airing. If it was set to "New only" it would not record the re-airing of the episode (unless it occurred within 1 week on the original airing), even if you never recorded it in the past.

I do see in the release notes that the option to turn off this setting of the OAD based on the NEW flag has been removed. I was unaware of this and I don't recall this being discussed here in the forums. It seems to me that this is not a good idea to remove this option, although I would like to know the reasoning behind it's removal.

I wonder if the ability to disable this feature has been removed or just the ability to configure it in the GUI. IE: Can you manually edit the config file to disable it?

[garyan2]

I had removed the option to enable/disable the OAD override option to make room for the option to include/exclude season and sports images. I didn't see any benefit of disabling the OAD override, but wasn't aware WMC would schedule "new" programmes to record even if the programme has already been recorded. That was unexpected. I'll add it back in in the next release.

[Space]

A Series will not record any episode that it has already recorded, regardless of "new" status (at least it shouldn't be).

But the "new" flag for programs that have aired previously can be problematic. I don't think there is a universal standard for when the flag is added to previously aired programs.

I think the standard should be to add it when the episode has never been aired on any linear TV network in that country. However, I have seen it also used when an episode is being aired on a new network. For instance, "Shark Tank" aired for years on the ABC affiliates, and then CNBC started airing old episodes, but due to them being on a new network they are marked as "new" because it was the first time they aired on that network (I don't recall if this actually happened for this particular show, I am just using this as a theoretical example and because I can't remember if this is the show it actually happened with).

I definitely think this feature should be optional, even though I also recommend people use the "New & Rerun" setting for a Series that is recording any first-run show, especially shows that originally aired in another country.

The main reason to NOT use "New & Rerun" is if your set your Series to record a specific channel and it still results in many old repeats being recorded. For instance, if your Fox affiliate runs new episodes of "The Simpsons" during Sunday evenings, but also runs repeats of previous seasons during the day, then you would probably want to use "New only" instead. However, if that particular station does not run repeats (and instead repeats are run on another station, for instance FXX) then you can set the Series to only record from your local Fox affiliate channel # and use "New & Rerun". This will still record a new episode, even if the OAD is wrong (something that is very rare with SD/Gracenote data, but was a common occurrence with Rovi/TiVo data). It will also allow the Series to record a missed episode (due to power failure or conflict) if it is ever re-aired on that channel. A Series set to "New only" will not record a re-airing of a missed episode unless it is re-aired within 7 days of the original airing.

[garyan2]

A Series will not record any episode that it has already recorded, regardless of "new" status (at least it shouldn't be).

Based on @aquadextrous' observation, it appears that "new" takes precedence over previously recorded. I thought the same as you which is why I took the option out, but I'm not going to waste energy fighting reality.

[Space]

I don't think that is what he meant.

Seeing as the example he provided was for an episode from 1998, and it was marked (from Gracenote/SD) as "new", and he is in the UK, and Eastenders originates in the UK, it is certainly "incorrectly" marked as new. At least it is not the first time that that episode (from 1998) has aired in the UK.

It is also my assumption that he was not using WMC in 1998 when that episode first aired (WMC first being available in 2002), and therefore the current Series did not record it back then, resulting in this old episode being recorded due to it being marked as "new" and epg123 setting the OAD to be the same as the airing date.

So what he is looking for is for WMC to use the actual OAD from Gracenote/SD to determine if an episode is new or not, and not the "new" flag.

[aquadextrous]

Yeah, sorry, i don't understand what's going on so it's difficult to describe! I don't think WMC is recording stuff that would have previously been recorded (as long as it remembers in the database i guess!) EastEnders is a bad example for me as I do record new episodes and the repeated ones, (I only noticed the repeats of EastEnders having an incorrect OAD as i like to see when the old episodes are from and they started all showing that days date and then realised it could be linked to the other random recordings of things and contacted SD as i thought it was them giving the wrong ODs and used EastEnders as the example because I knew for sure the episode was from 1998 and not 2021!) so I'm gonna use another programme.

Cats Does Countdown is set as series link to record New episodes / at any time / on only Channel4 - This works fine on channel4 - the series link is active and recorded all new episodes since I started recording them in January 2021.
More4 shows a repeat of Cats does Countdown on 15/11/2021 - SD has a correct OAD of lets say 1st January 2019 (so before my recordings started) but is incorrectly marked as 'new' so the new default behaviour of epg123 is to change the OAD to 15/11/2021
Now as WMC hasn't ever recorded this programme (i guess it knows from it's ID code) AND it sees that it's *NEW* it adds it to the recording schedule (even though it's on a different channel) because i guess the fact it hasn't recorded this episode and it thinks it is a new episode and not a repeat takes precedence.
Now More4 shows a lot of repeats of Cats Does Countdown and they're all marked as new with an OAD matching the new flag and are from before i started recording them, so not in the database, WMC wants to record all of them.

Before when there was an option to allow NEW to override OAD and i had that option unticked, WMC ignored the 'new' flag and went by the proper original OAD and didn't record knowing that they were repeats and i only wanted NEW ones.

I hope this scenario makes more sense.


Now, it's probably that SD / Gracenote has been marking repeats as new incorrectly (or correctly if they're doing it for a reason!) for a long time / forever, but the OAD always took precedence and so it was never an issue or something obvious, it's only now the data is being changed in epg123 and the option to change it is gone, that its come to light.

I seem to have opened a whole can of worms and additional discussion, when really my question was 'can we get that option back' and it looks like the wonderful Gary will reinstate it and the problem will go away.

The other option would be Gracenote changing the way they mark things and correcting everything and that seems like a less likely scenario!

Sorry for all the fuss!

Edit: 100th Post

[Space]

I think the main issue is that Gracenote marks old programs with the NEW flag inconsistently. It may be an even bigger problem in non-US countries (I wouldn't know), but from your issues here it does look like a more common problem in the UK.

Generally, in the US, programs that originally aired outside the US and are airing for the first time in the US are marked with the NEW flag but still retain the original air date from when they first aired in their native country. As I mentioned in a prior post, this is not always the case and sometimes old programs are marked as NEW for other reasons.

It may be more common in other countries to mark old programs as NEW for other reasons, which is why it is a good idea to be able to disable this option in EPG123.

EDIT: And just to make it clear for anyone who is unaware... WMC does not use the NEW flag from the guide data provider, there is no place in the WMC DB to store a NEW flag. WMC determines if a program is "new" solely by the original air date (OAD) associated with the program. If the current airing date of the program is within 7 days of the OAD associated with that program, it is considered new, otherwise it is considered a repeat.

The EPG123 feature we are talking about in this thread is one that will CHANGE the OAD of a program to match the current airing date if that airing is marked with the NEW flag in the guide data provider's data (in the case of EPG123, this is usually Gracenote/SchedulesDirect).
By changing the OAD to match the current airing date for programs marked as NEW, it makes WMC also see those programs as new (at the expense of no longer being able to see what the actual OAD of that program is in the WMC guide).

[IT Troll]

Generally, in the US, programs that originally aired outside the US and are airing for the first time in the US are marked with the NEW flag but still retain the original air date from when they first aired in their native country. As I mentioned in a prior post, this is not always the case and sometimes old programs are marked as NEW for other reasons.

The same happens in the UK with shows from overseas. Often the show is marked as new but retains the old original air date. In this case the EPG123 override is useful. However, some UK shows are repeated on secondary channels and may be marked as new because it is the first showing of that episode on that channel. In this case the EPG123 override may not be desirable.

Then we have revised/extended repeats. These will have a new original air date, but are sometimes marked as repeats because the standard edition of the show has already been broadcast on the same channel.

With the inconsistencies in the upstream data, I don’t think it is possible devise a 100% successful solution through logic. The best we can hope for is an option to select whichever mode is least wrong, overall, for the shows you want to record.