NFL series recording problem

[arny56]

I’m trying to set up a series recording for NFL football but keep running into a snag. Whenever there is more than one game being broadcast at the same time WMC will set the first to record and not the second saying the other will be recorded on the previous channel. Then it gives the recorded game the title of the one that wasn’t recorded.

I’ve tried setting up a series for each channel but that didn’t work. The most irritating part is the mislabeled recordings as I never know if it’s a game I want to see or not. Any help or incite appreciated.

[Space]

I don't think I understand the problem. The recorded game has the title of the one that wasn't recorded? I've never seen this before unless the actual programming changed and the guide was not updated (or the guide was just wrong).

Is one game being recorded and the other is not due to conflict or due to it thinking it doesn't need to record the other one because it thinks they are the same game?

It should be possible to set up separate Series for the same show on different channels using the "Advanced Record" option, it's not clear to me if you tried this or if it did not work for some reason.

Can you give more details on the problem? Perhaps the actual games/titles involved?

I've seen others have problems with recording sport in the past (I don't do it myself, so have no first-hand experience), so you may want to search for "sports" on the forums here to see if any of that may match your problem. Some have solved problems by using a keyword/title custom recording instead of a Series recording.

Often sports programming doesn't have details of the game for each individual airing until the last minute (or sometimes it never gets updated in time) so this may be part of what you are experiencing, although if they have generic episode data, then they would be recorded just to be safe.

[arny56]

Good questions, thanks.
Let me give an example from last Sunday’s program guide:

12:00 noon, channel 23.2 (CBS), NFL Football, Indiana Colts at Houston Texans. Set to record, saves it under NFL Football and gives it the title “New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons”

12:00 Noon, channel 60.1 (FOX), NFL Football, New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons. WMC says “This Program will be recorded on 23.2 CBS” and doesn’t schedule it to record it.

I did try setting up additional NFL Football series for each channel through “Additional Comands” but it won’t allow to pick a specific channel, only SD, HD ect.

[garyan2]

I've seen this a couple times in the past where the guide info has the games swapped in the schedule between FOX and CBS until the day before, or even the day of, the event. This might just be WMC getting confused if originally FOX had Colts at Texans and CBS had Saints at Falcons, the recordings were "scheduled", and then the guide changes the games to the correct stations.

A simple series request for NFL Football on any channel will work, but monitor the scheduled recordings if the errors happen again. I'd say before trying all kinds of weird "out-of-the-box" fixes, just see if it happens again.

[joeski]

This happened to me this week too and happened last season a few times as well. It thinks both games are the same so only records one even though the guide shows them as different. Guide shows a message by the second one saying something along the lines of "This show is being recorded on a different channel." When I start to manually record the one that hadn't started, both recordings show the same title / game details.

[Space]

If what Gary is saying is true, that the games are originally in the guide but with the swapped network/station, then at the last minute an update changes ONE of them to be the correct network/station then you can see why this problem would happen, it would think the same game is on both stations.

However if the update does include the changes for both stations, then I suppose there may be a bug with WMC that doesn't allow it to update the scheduled recordings properly.

You can try just setting the "NFL Football" Series with "any" channel, but I suspect that it may not work if only one airing gets updated for some reason or there is a bug like I mentioned.

If that doesn't work, then I would think using the "Advanced Record" option should allow you to set up two separate Series for "NFL Football", each one on a different channel. But for that to work, there must be "NFL Football" programming in the guide on both channels you want to use at the time you set up the Series. You set up the first Series as normal, making sure to select the channel for "CBS" for the "Channels" option. Then you select the airing of "NFL Football" from the channel guide that is airing on "FOX" go to the page that has "Advanced Record" and select it. Then set:

• Frequency: Record Series
• Show Type: New & Rerun (you can probably also use New here, but New & Rerun is safer)
• Channels: FOX only (whatever channel your FOX station is, note that the only options will be channels that currently have "NFL Football" airing)
• Airtime: Anytime (don't restrict this unless you completely understand how this option works)
• Other options: set as you please

By setting up two separate Series for the same show, WMC will maintain two separate lists of "episodes already recorded", one for each Series, so you should never get in to a situation where it will not record an "episode" due to thinking it has already recorded it (unless it thinks it recorded that same episode on that same channel). One issue with doing this is if the same game DOES air on both channels, it will record both of the airings.

[unclebun]

I think changing the setting to series record New & Rerun should theoretically fix the problem, since it is not recording the second game because it thinks they are the same game.

[garyan2]

Regardless of the recording request New/Repeat setting, or what channel the request is assigned to, if WMC thinks they are both the same program it will only record one of them. The Repeat option doesn't mean record everything, it means record a New/Repeat program ONCE.

[Space]

... it means record a New/Repeat program ONCE.

...per Series, yes. Just to clarify.

[garyan2]

...and the majority of NFL Football is all the same series, doesn't matter what channel. What matters most is the Program ID that WMC uses to determine if a program has already been recorded or not. Doesn't matter how it came to be recorded.

The only way to record the "same" program multiple times is to manually set a record based on time, duration, and channel.

Sent from my SM-G781U1 using Tapatalk

[arny56]

@Space:

Thanks for your reply and detailed explanation of Advanced Record, I don’t remember ever using the feature before. I guess it just goes to show you can teach an old dog new tricks.
I tried your suggestion with next Sunday’s upcoming games but unfortunately that didn’t solve the problem. When I attempted to create an additional recording for NFL Football it simply changed my original series recording from “any channel” to “FOX” or whatever I tried assigning to the new recording, and still didn’t allow recording of both games. It’s not that big of a problem for me as I can just set a manual recording, the irritating part is the incorrect game titles. Gary’s suggestion that the swapped titles could be caused by inaccurate or missing guide data may be accurate. I have a series recording currently set up for the games on Sunday the 25th and there is currently no game information in the guide, so I’ll be keeping an eye on that to see if the same problem occurs again there.

Odd that this issue doesn’t show up for any of the other games, I think it may be the identical starting time for both programs that’s causing it. I suspect if they were even as little as 2 minuets different WMC wouldn’t have a problem with it.


@Gary Ryan:

This latest issue made me remember how much I appreciate your continued support of this platform. I have not found anything that suites my needs better then WMC and its use wouldn’t be possible without your efforts. Thank You.

[Space]

...
I tried your suggestion with next Sunday’s upcoming games but unfortunately that didn’t solve the problem. When I attempted to create an additional recording for NFL Football it simply changed my original series recording from “any channel” to “FOX” or whatever I tried assigning to the new recording, and still didn’t allow recording of both games.
...

I just tested this myself and there may be an extra step...

After you do the procedure I described, go to:
view scheduled -> Series

and look for the two "NFL Football" Series. If they are both recording the same channel, simply select one of them, go in to Series Settings and change it to the other channel.

I just tried this and I ended up with two Series for the same show, each recording from a different channel.

Note that I have never actually used this for anything, I just discovered it while fooling around, so it is possible that it may not work as expected, but from what I am seeing right now, each separate Series is set up to record the same show but on different channels.

[arny56]

Thanks, I'll give that a try!

[joeski]

FYI - I get this issue even though I don't choose to record a "series" of NFL Football. I actually individually select the game to record each weekend. When I set them to record (usually on Friday or Saturday before) they show as two separate descriptions. Even though I choose to select the single game that is on each channel, the recorder gets confused and thinks they are the same on Sunday.