Pass recording same "Special" multiple times

@chDVRuser One other question about your Survivorman example. A while ago I tried an advanced pass to record all Rick Steves shows (using a title contains), instead of lots of individual passes to capture his individual shows (which have different titles). But what I found is that when using this kind of advanced pass, Channels was no longer smart enough to skip already recorded shows, and I ended up with lots of duplicate recordings. Is that not happening with your pass?

I thought this was correct.
A series pass uses the seriesid and will not rerecord something. A title contains pass will so you have to keep up with your scheduled recordings and prune as necessary.
Until Edwin proved me wrong

I thought this was fixed someone had the same question and they said it compares series iD's. Scroll down a bit.

I guess the only way to know for sure is try it. It's been a long time since my last Survivorman episode recorded.

Maybe setup a test recording of something and see if it records duplicate episodes.

I did this and it told me that shows were already recorded ... so it will not rerecord.

norerecord

Thanks, updated my post. Good to know.
I do remember having to babysit the recording schedule when I did mine, but that was quite a while ago.

I’ll have to give it a try again. I know for a fact that when I originally tried with the title contains that it was recording the exact same episodes multiple times.

I had the same experience. Must have been fixed since we last tried it.

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Late reply to this, but in fact with the title based pass it is recording multiple of the same episode. Too bad.

So Title == something or Title CONTAINS something
records the same episodes of a series more than once?
Is it a real Series?

Title contains Rick Steves

Records the same episodes multiple times. Rick has multiples series/shows. The pass will record all of them since they have his name in the title.

Interesting.
Does it record multiples of his Rick Steves' Europe series?

or just multiples of his Specials (to be expected), like
Rick Steves Fascism in Europe
Rick Steves' Europe: Remote, Sacred, Wild
Rick Steves' Tasty Europe

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Great question. I just did a major pruning but I know it recorded multiple of the specials. I'll have to check what it does with his proper series.

I've found if I set a Series Pass for a Special, it will keep recording it over and over because the SeriesID is the same for each airing of that special, but the ProgramID is unique for each airing since it includes the date/time of the airing and so is considered a different "episode" of the series.

If I use a Title search (== or CONTAINS) it does the same with specials, but the ProgramID of an episode on a series is the same for that episode no matter when it airs and does not record duplicates.

What are the ProgramIDs you're seeing on those specials?

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Six examples.

title: Building Off the Grid: Killer Views
SeriesID: 15652288
tmsId: SH029942570000
ProgramID: SH029942570000-1566349200
ProgramID: SH029942570000-1566360000
ProgramID: SH029942570000-1567548000

Title: Downton Abbey Returns!
SeriesID: 16837553
tmsId: SH032123090000
ProgramID: SH032123090000-1566747000
ProgramID: SH032123090000-1566774000
ProgramID: SH032123090000-1567321200

Title: Rick Steves Fascism in Europe
SeriesID: 15636765
tmsId: SH029916210000
ProgramID: SH029916210000-1566356400

Title: Rick Steves' Europe: Remote, Sacred, Wild
SeriesID: 11424790
tmsId: SH021083750000
ProgramID: SH021083750000-1566518400
ProgramID: SH021083750000-1566558000

Title: Rick Steves' Tasty Europe
SeriesID: 14159875
tmsId: SH026966940000
ProgramID: SH026966940000-1566621000
ProgramID: SH026966940000-1567427400

Title: Rick Steves' Europe: Great German Cities
SeriesID: 13744791
tmsId: SH026081020000
ProgramID: SH026081020000-1566975600

Normal Building Off the Grid Series episode

Title: Building Off the Grid
EpisodeTitle: Massive Mud Home
SeriesID: 10480715
tmsId: EP018607440019
ProgramID: EP018607440019

Normal Rick Steves' Europe Series episode

Title: Rick Steves' Europe
EpisodeTitle: Sicilian Delights
SeriesID: 477118
ProgramID: EP003926090129
tmsId: EP003926090129

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FYI:

Was setting up tests...

Today I added DTA but no 2nd showing until 8/27 for me. But it seems PBS does set broadcast by market/region. For example, Richard Smith had a showing today...not me...my setup could have been set too late... to catch.

Looks like no 2nd showing on Building at all.

This doesn’t comport with my expectation...but you may have changed basic design...since Alpha/Beta.

Glad you are here. So much easier!

Those all have the same episode identifier. The SH identifier is for the specials, and the part after the hyphen (ie, 1566621000), is the time the program airs expressed in epoch format. (Epoch format is the number of seconds since midnight on 1 Jan 1970, which most every Unix and Unix-like system use internally to express time.)

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//thanks, I tried but only had “Discovery” results. Don’t have DIY.