Can anybody explain how recording series actually works?

[NH001]

I have tried to tidy up my planned series as I have a number of series listed more than once (200+ series in total). I have probably added them more than once when deleting if a clash occurs and re-adding. However, it seems that some do not actual find episodes as you would expect. When checking “view episodes” nothing is shown.

A couple of examples are:
Numb3rs (Five US) – Not picked up anything even though episodes exist.
Gavin and Stacey (BBC Three) – This was there from the old series but has not picked up the new series. Titles are exactly the same.

It could be that you need to delete and add for each series?

When deleting a duplicate series it also seems to delete the original item as well that is a bit irritating. It also takes a long time to delete a series and to do page up/down.

[cimt]

I think it uses the time, date and channel to pick up episodes. Not the episode name. I could be wrong though.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by NH001

200+ series in total

Wow! That could be a record.

Originally Posted by NH001

A couple of examples are:
Numb3rs (Five US) – Not picked up anything even though episodes exist.
Gavin and Stacey (BBC Three) – This was there from the old series but has not picked up the new series. Titles are exactly the same.

Originally Posted by cimt

I think it uses the time, date and channel to pick up episodes. Not the episode name. I could be wrong though.

It doesn't use either. There are hidden identifiers that define the series, and the episodes within the series. So in the examples that NH001 lists, the identifiers being used for the current Numb2rs and G&S series must be different from those at the time he set up the links. The only solution is to delete and re-add the links.

The links are all defined by humans. This means they are subject to human error, but it's not really viable to automate the process. If you think about something like Deal or No Deal, the episodes have no names, and every day the synopsis says something like "Dull quiz show where people open boxes in front of an ecstatic audience". There's no way a computer could distinguish between new episodes and repeats. (Nor could I, for that matter)

[NH001]

Now down to about 60 after deleting duplicates and old series which unsurprisingly makes it a bit faster! Once nice feature would be if when viewing the series list it automatically indicated if any episodes were due to record.

Agree with some human intervention somewhere as when re-added Gavin & Stacey automatically picked up that this week is a double episode.

[MonTheFish]

tivo's dont have that problem....so I would blame the humans at virgin!!!!

[hokkers999]

Originally Posted by MonTheFish

tivo's dont have that problem....so I would blame the humans at virgin!!!!

Yep, my Tivo recorded last week the first MotoGP of the year (all practise sessions the lot), the last time it was broadcast was the season review over xmas, racing season ended in sept/oct time. It "just remembers"....