Merged episodes
Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 7:22 am
Sometimes Gracenote will merge two episodes of a show in to a single entry (sometimes even more than two). This results in the appearance of missed episodes when you view your recordings sorted by title.
For example, there is a new show starting March 16th called "Holmes Family Effect" on Fox network. It is airing two back-to-back episodes per week (at least for the first two weeks). Each week, these two episodes appear in the guide as one 2-hour block, even though they are actually 2 1-hour episodes of the show.
I was wondering if Gracenote offers any indication that they are combining two episodes in to a single entry, and if so, if there is some way to indicate this in the WMC guide.
Currently the only way to know this is to look at the subtitle of the program, it will have a semi-colon in it, separating the titles of the two episodes. I was hoping that there could be an additional way to indicate that a recording includes more than one episode.
Here is an example for the show "Holmes Family Effect" (note that the first episode currently does not have a proper sXXeXX in the Gracenote guide, but I have added it below to show an example of what I am talking about):
s01e01 A Trade of a Lifetime; Think Big. Dream Bigger. (airing 3/16)
s01e03 One Step at a Time; Hold the Fort (airing 3/23)
As you can see, if you had recorded these episodes, and just do a quick look at your recordings for this show (with sXXeXX prepended to the subtitle) it looks like you are missing two episodes, s01e02 and s01e04 are "missing". However this is not the case, as even though the episodes appear to be single episodes (only one sXXeXX), they are actually two episodes each.
So my question is, does Gracenote provide any way to know that an entry represents more than a single episode? If so, is there a way to represent that in WMC? Even an asterisk next to the sXXeXX would be good, as it lets you know not to be alarmed if the next episode after the asterisked one appears to be missing.
Even if Gracenote does not provide an official way of knowing this, another way to do this is just to look for a semi-colon in the subtitle, and if it exists put the asterisk next to the sXXeXX. I understand that it is possible for the subtitle of a single episode to have a semi-colon in it, but I think that is rare.
The reason why I want this is because by putting an indicator of multiple episodes near the beginning of the subtitle, it makes it viewable in the "View List" view of WMC, which cuts off after about 14-15 characters. So the only way to know if a recording has more than one episode is to highlight the episode to see the full subtitle and look for the semi-colon.
Ideally, instead of the asterisk, you could include all the sXXeXX included in the recording at the beginning of the subtitle, for instance:
s01e01;s01e02 A Trade of a Lifetime; Think Big. Dream Bigger. (airing 3/16)
s01e03;s01e04 One Step at a Time; Hold the Fort (airing 3/23)
Or perhaps a more compact format, such as "s01e01,02" (only if episodes are from the same season).
I know that this change may cause problems with some automated tools that may only be expecting a single sXXeXX, so it should be a configurable option.
I know that this suggestion has a slim chance of being implemented, but I just thought I'd throw it out there, as I've had some instances where I thought I was missing episodes due to not realizing the recording was only reporting the sXXeXX of the first of the two episodes. This option would make it much easier to scan a large list of recorded episodes for a particular series and quickly be able to tell if any are missing.
For example, there is a new show starting March 16th called "Holmes Family Effect" on Fox network. It is airing two back-to-back episodes per week (at least for the first two weeks). Each week, these two episodes appear in the guide as one 2-hour block, even though they are actually 2 1-hour episodes of the show.
I was wondering if Gracenote offers any indication that they are combining two episodes in to a single entry, and if so, if there is some way to indicate this in the WMC guide.
Currently the only way to know this is to look at the subtitle of the program, it will have a semi-colon in it, separating the titles of the two episodes. I was hoping that there could be an additional way to indicate that a recording includes more than one episode.
Here is an example for the show "Holmes Family Effect" (note that the first episode currently does not have a proper sXXeXX in the Gracenote guide, but I have added it below to show an example of what I am talking about):
s01e01 A Trade of a Lifetime; Think Big. Dream Bigger. (airing 3/16)
s01e03 One Step at a Time; Hold the Fort (airing 3/23)
As you can see, if you had recorded these episodes, and just do a quick look at your recordings for this show (with sXXeXX prepended to the subtitle) it looks like you are missing two episodes, s01e02 and s01e04 are "missing". However this is not the case, as even though the episodes appear to be single episodes (only one sXXeXX), they are actually two episodes each.
So my question is, does Gracenote provide any way to know that an entry represents more than a single episode? If so, is there a way to represent that in WMC? Even an asterisk next to the sXXeXX would be good, as it lets you know not to be alarmed if the next episode after the asterisked one appears to be missing.
Even if Gracenote does not provide an official way of knowing this, another way to do this is just to look for a semi-colon in the subtitle, and if it exists put the asterisk next to the sXXeXX. I understand that it is possible for the subtitle of a single episode to have a semi-colon in it, but I think that is rare.
The reason why I want this is because by putting an indicator of multiple episodes near the beginning of the subtitle, it makes it viewable in the "View List" view of WMC, which cuts off after about 14-15 characters. So the only way to know if a recording has more than one episode is to highlight the episode to see the full subtitle and look for the semi-colon.
Ideally, instead of the asterisk, you could include all the sXXeXX included in the recording at the beginning of the subtitle, for instance:
s01e01;s01e02 A Trade of a Lifetime; Think Big. Dream Bigger. (airing 3/16)
s01e03;s01e04 One Step at a Time; Hold the Fort (airing 3/23)
Or perhaps a more compact format, such as "s01e01,02" (only if episodes are from the same season).
I know that this change may cause problems with some automated tools that may only be expecting a single sXXeXX, so it should be a configurable option.
I know that this suggestion has a slim chance of being implemented, but I just thought I'd throw it out there, as I've had some instances where I thought I was missing episodes due to not realizing the recording was only reporting the sXXeXX of the first of the two episodes. This option would make it much easier to scan a large list of recorded episodes for a particular series and quickly be able to tell if any are missing.