[adamsutton]

I'm still going through my list of issues with XBMC-PVR that stop it from being wife-friendly. Or at least allow me to replace my sky+ box with it without getting shot!

Series linking is one such feature currently lacking that is a blocker to this (autorec,regexp isn't really what is needed, though a useful fallback) and I've started looking at my backend of choice (tvheadend) to see how easy it might be to include it. Doesn't look too bad to be honest, though Andreas may shoot me if he sees my code!

Anyway I'm after any info that's been put together on the likely API that would be required from a client end (XBMC) to support this. Or general comments on what people want to see?

At the moment I've got a basic implementation (very hacked) which allows me, from the tvheadend webui, to select "Record Series" for any EPG entry, this creates a series link entry (special autorec) in tvheadend. This should add a schedule for the episode used to trigger it and will "hopefully" create the next entry after the current one completes. Much like what happens on a Sky+ box. Alternative would be to create scheduled recording for all available (in EPG) episodes, but I'm not sure I like that it will clutter the schedule list. Thoughts welcome.

Personally these are the functions I think are likely required in XBMC:

Add series link - params being the event to begin with
Delete series link - params being series link identifier, won't remove existing recordings, but will a pending record schedule?
Get series links - return list of all available series link IDs/Vals?
Get series link - get info for a series link?

For any scheduled records presumably a flag indicating whether it represents a series link with the identifier to the series link? This will allow skin to display series link entries differently (icon)

Though arguably delete and get are redundant? Since as long as there is a flag on the scheduled recordings, the info needed is all there and deleting a series linked schedule (i.e. next episode) should delete the parent series link (if that makes sense). This is basically how a sky+ box works.

Although the extra API might be useful for other views, like a list of current series links (separate from other scheduled recordings?).

Anyway I'm after thoughts and I'm definitely up for doing some work on this if people are interested.

Adam

[kiall]

Personally, I think the way Sky+ box's handle this is perfect.

Series Link is just a flag on the scheduled item to have the backend attempt to find+schedule the next episode once the current item starts recording.

Ideally, It would work even if the EPG for next week was not available (ie add it to a backlog that gets checked periodically)

[adamsutton]

I'm basically working on this premise, though at the moment I'm just doing some digging around various backend topics as I've had no feedback from any of the XBMC devs.

One of the areas I'm looking into at the moment is the EPG data. The Radio Times data used by the XMLTV grabber I use is pretty bad. However there are better sources of data out there, for some channels, so I'm looking at getting access to this and providing it in an XMLTV friendly format. This will hopefully make series linking simpler.

However some of the scheduling means that a naive approach of just record the next episode in series is not so easy. It may be that for some channels/sources it will be necessary to do a show+time based approach. However at least with the sources of data I'm looking at at least the "show" bit should be easier since it won't require pattern matching the title which has its own issues.

[tsp42]

You may want to take a look at the MythTV source code as the backend supports series linking. My xbmc PVR mythtv addon doesn't expose it yet but I'm working on it (although slowly).

[adamsutton]

I'd like to see some input from XBMC devs as to what they think is required. But also users.

I've been having an interesting discussion about this on another forum related to the atlas scheduling service (provider of the RadioTimes and other feeds). One thing that has come up is that the exact requirements for what to series link can vary.

A simple example is someone has mentioned that in Germany shows for a series (originally English) are sometimes aired out of order due to the order in which they get dubbed. MythTV handles this and records them out of order etc...

However I wouldn't want this to happen for many of the shows I record, which are in order. If I start a series link on a show halfway through the series I only want it to record from that point on (at least most of the time I do) and not fill in the "missing" shows if it finds them being repeated.

So that gives at least 2 classes of series link:

1. Record entire series regardless of ordering etc...
2. Record entire series from this point on (how this is handled I'm unsure, especially if aired out of order)

But there is at least one other:

3. Record entire brand (i.e. all episodes from all series associated with a given show).

I'm currently having a look at how my sky box handles some of these, just to get a rough idea of how they handle these things (since ultimately I need to at least emulate there behaviour as its what I'm used to).

I do intend to have a look at how mythtv handles things. But if you have any input it'll be very welcome

[james25182]

I know this thread is a bit old but it came up on a Google search and is just what I'm interested in.

I'm currently using Windows 7 Media Centre and it has the option to record only new episodes. This is particularly useful for shows that get endlessly repeated (I'm looking at you, Top Gear and Doctor Who in the UK). This would be a useful option in any series link function.

Anyway, very interested to see what develops here.

James

[opdenkamp]

I haven't checked it out myself, but as I understand it, VDR has extensive recording capabilities. you might want to take a look there, and post what interface changes that would need.

[adamsutton]

I'd completely forgotten about this thread....

There has been progress on this on several fronts:

1. I've re-written the tvh epg system to include more structure. This is maturing but is still under development, but I'm hoping to get Andreas to include in main repo in the near future.

2. The above provides a series link feature, currently via the UI (I still need to add to HTSP so XBMC can use it). I did speak to Lars about some of this, but as yet I'm not far enough on to get him looking at it. Note: this will not work with standard EIT or XMLTV data.

3. I've created my own EPG grabber script PyEPG which gets far richer data that will support series linking. This uses the Atlas system (UK only) to get the data, but at the moment you still need an API key (which you can request from metabroadcast.com) to get at the data.

4. This week I've written an OpenTV handler (proprietary protocol used by sky and a few others) that means a full 7 day EPG can be downloaded OTA. This includes the series link information, however I've not yet got to the point that I've actually processed this, but it will happen shortly.

5. With regards to the series link feature I did include some config to only take newer episodes, it'll only work where the series/episode numbering is available so not sure yet how this will work with regards to the opentv data. But the point I wanted to make was I've definitely got it planned...

5a. Oh and it shouldn't record duplicates either, like a Sky+ box will do. But using the XMLTV/EIT/OpenTV data this might not always work.

So stuff is definitely happening so watch this space...

[tsp42]

adam did you see this thread and the derived PR

[adamsutton]

Yeah I did see the thread. I've kinda been sidetracked though with adding all the clever stuff to tvheadend to enable all those (and more) clever features. I did put together a google doc that described some of my thinking. Currently its on hold though until I've updated the basic EPG code.

However I think the suggestions in the thread are a subset of what I was talking about. So its definitely along the same lines.