Advanced Passes: Multiple CONTAINS/EXCLUDES (prerelease)

Channels DVR Server
#9

Just to confirm, this new functionality only affects CONTAINS and EXCLUDES within a given Advanced Pass, correct? Multiple >/< commands like the example below should not be possible quite yet.

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Edit - Figured I'd share what the equivalent Conditions to the above example look like using all EXCLUDE criteria. Same end result, albeit quite a bit more effort. Hopefully this many exclusions doesn't have performance implications.

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While these screenshots aren't of the same Advanced Pass, they do show what the configuration would be like for an advance pass intended to capture only the earliest and latest seasons of a given show while ignoring stuff in the middle.

#10

I think you have it backwards. The listing above is for seasons 2-9, and 19 and later. What you describe would be using "CONTAINS" instead of "EXCLUDES".

#11

Actually, using CONTAINS would eventually break when the next season starts. You'd have to manually edit the pass and add the new season number to avoid a missed recording. Using EXCLUDES in this scenario will never fail because the middle seasons will never change.

#12

Excluding all the seasons you want to skip is the intended solution here. I know the UI is still pretty rough when trying to add a bunch of values for the same entry and hopefully that part gets better over time.

I'm still fleshing out the backend here. I think there may be some bugs in the EXCLUDES so let me know if its not working as expected.

#13

Thanks I was able to reproduce. The bug is fixed in v2021.04.30.1705

#14

Starting with prerelease v2021.04.30.1959, passes can now have negative start or end padding.

These options are available in the advanced editor for a pass.

Screen Shot 2021-04-30 at 1.06.14 PM
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2 Likes
How To Record Just A Portion Of A Recurring Program?
Restrict recording time on Series Pass?
Custom padding times
Anti-Padding
Recordings start before show starts (and other things)
#15

Starting with v2021.04.30.2104, the advanced editor for passes allows custom values in seconds for start/end padding.

1 Like
Custom padding times
#16

@tmm1 I discovered a small bug with the new padding feature. I record the Today Show daily. Monday-Friday, the show is 2 hours. I only want to record the first hour so I set the padding to stop recording 60 minutes before the end of the show. However, on Saturday the show is only 1 hour. So the padding setting effectively told it to stop recording as soon as it started, which resulted in a 0-minute recording.

#17

Am i missing the bug? You would need 2 passes to accomplish this with a 1 hour pad, unless i'm misreading.

#18

Sure it could be done with two passes, but a single pass probably shouldn’t create a zero minute recording.

#19

it's math, though - you're telling the DVR to subtract 60 mins from the end time :slight_smile:

#20

What did you expect would happen?

#21

I didn’t have a specific expectation because I didn’t realize that the show would be shorter on Saturday than during the week. But I guess I would expect the DVR to be smart enough to not record 0 minutes of a show.

I am thinking this could work in 1 of 2 ways:

  1. The DVR could ignore the padding if the padding time is >= the show time

Or

  1. Rather than setting the padding to subtract from the end of the show, we tell the DRV to only record the first X minutes of the show. If a show is 2 hours, set the DVR to record the first 60 minutes. On days that the show is 60 minutes, would not fail.
#22

Just wanted to say thank you for these new features! I love the end recordings early. You can record the late night show monologues now without the entire program

2 Likes
#23

I hadn't even considered such a use case. Your example got me thinking about Regional broadcasts of our local basketball team. These broadcasts typically include 15-20 minutes of "analysis" prior to the game. Omitting this portion from the recording is quite appealing to me.

The only shortcoming is when the team appears on a National broadcast that does things slightly differently. When that happens, I may end up with a partial recording of the game itself missing the first X minutes of play.

If only we could configure advance passes for a given recording on a per channel basis.

#24

Ahhh! So excited about the new padding features. I have my Grandmother using our Channels DVR and she loves to watch Family Feud, but only the Fast Money so that'll be so great to just be able to record the last five minutes of the bajillion Family Feud airings. Being able to record just the first half hour of the late-night shows, as someone here mentioned, is awesome too and I didn't even think of it. Can't wait to play around with the passes with this, thank you!

#25

Yeah I don't mind about recording all of a show (HD space is cheap!) - What I would love to see is negative padding implemented as a baked in Ad-Skip. (And maybe it's implemented this way right now because it can be, and implementing as an Ad-Skip is a future / separate feature).

For that Basketball example above, that would mean the recording would always come with a 15 minute ad-skip to easily skip the pre-game-analysis. If a broadcast doesn't have that, then you just don't do the ad-skip that time.

The podcast app I use "Overcast" has this, and it's called "Skip Intro" and "Skip Outro" -- maybe instead of being set with the recording, it makes more sense to be set with the playback settings for a show.

I do like the idea of combining with the Ad Skip UI / feature though. That means if you have auto ad-skip enabled the Intro/Outro skip would be automatic. If you like a little more control, then it would be just one additional "click" (two if you had intro and outro set) when you watched those shows.

#26

Sounds like you could do that with two passes.

One gets the Regional airings using whatever channels they air on and starts 15-20 mins late using negative pre-pad.
Another gets the National airings using whatever channels they air on and records the whole airing.

Don't know your specifics, but say...
Regional airings are on channels 10 and 20 and 30.
National airings are on channels 15 and 25 and 35.

Regional pass that starts 15-20 minutes late would have
Whatever SeriesID, Title, etc. to select the show
Start Padding 15 mins after (or custom defined # seconds)
End Padding None
Channel CONTAINS 10
Channel CONTAINS 20
Channel CONTAINS 30

National pass that records whole airing would have
Whatever SeriesID, Title, etc. to select the show
Start Padding None
End Padding None
Channel CONTAINS 15
Channel CONTAINS 25
Channel CONTAINS 35

#27

I thought Channels doesn't support multiple passes for the same recording/show? I could swear that is still a limitation.

#28

You originally posted "If only we could configure advance passes for a given recording on a per channel basis."

Like I said "Don't know your specifics". Since you didn't mention, we don't know.

If it's the same show/title and doesn't air on different channels, my idea won't work.
If it does air on different channels, my examples should work.

If you don't wish to provide specifics, that's fine. I was just offering a suggestion.