Recording NBC news Seattle question

[Gravydog]

I have "NBC NIghtly News with Lester Holt" set as a series for every day at 6pm, but I noticed it wasn't going to record today (Sunday) even though it is in the guide at the correct time and with its exact full name. It has the choice to "cancel series" so obviously it should already be part of the series that is set. It looks like it won't record in two weeks on Sunday again though all the other showings not on Sundays say they will record. (It's in the schedule for next Sunday but not at its usual 6pm) I clicked it to single record today. Any ideas? Who should I direct this to?

Maybe related somehow, I also record local NBC news at 6:30 on King5 and it isn't going to record today either. A little research shows that on Sundays it is titled "King 5 News" but every other day of the week it's titled "King 5 News at 6:30". Setting another series for "King 5 News" for Sundays at 6:30 picks up the missing episodes. Very puzzling.

Rob

[Space]

How do you have the Series set? "New" or "New & Rerun"? If set to "New" and the OAD is wrong it may not record (if it is more than 7 days wrong).

Also, it's possible that the "unique" episodeID assigned to the episodes are duplicates of prior episodes (which would be a error in the source data).

It would be a good idea if you also posted your zip/lineup so someone can look at the data to see if it has incorrect information.

[Gravydog]

I do have it set to new, I should try new and rerun because I only keep the current episode anyway and actually there shouldn't be a rerun shown at the regular time anyway. OK, I just set it to new and rerun, any time and restarted MC it's still skipping the next two Sundays. My zip is 98012 and my lineup is EPG123 Comcast Snohomish County Digital (Everett). Is there a website where I can actually see the listings with all their details? Do you have an opinion as to why the local news has a different name just for Sundays?

Rob

[Space]

If you set it to "New & Rerun" and it still doesn't pick up the Sunday airing of the "NBC Nightly News" news program then it is most likely because the guide data is marking those episodes as being the same as previous episodes and since the WMC Series already thinks it recorded them, will not record them again. This is either a problem with the data provider or with the way EPG123 is handling this program.

As for the local NBC news, that is a different issue. Your local station has most likely chosen to use different names for the news program that is aired on Sunday as opposed to the rest of the week.

Normally, if a show is given a different name, then it gets a different SeriesID, and therefore you need to set up a separate Series to record it.

It may be possible to fix by notifying Schedules Direct, but if it actually is the station that is purposely using a different series name, and they want to keep it that way for some reason, then there may not be much Schedules Direct can do. I'm not sure if they can set up special edits on their side to fix stuff like this (or if it is something they would want to do).

I asked for your zip/lineup so that Gary might be able to look at the data to see exactly why the nightly news is not recording, so hopefully he will be able to add his input to this thread.

[garyan2]

For "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt", the showing on 2/2 is a repeat of the showing on 1/26... that is why it is not being scheduled to record.

For the other news (Title - SeriesID):
KING 5 News - 00597215 (Su)
KING 5 News at 11 - 02365763 (M-Su)
KING 5 News at 4:30am - 01068737 (M-F)
KING 5 Early Morning News - 00597217 (M-F)
KING 5 Morning News - 00327621 (M-F)
KING 5 News at Noon - 02365756 (M-F)
KING 5 News at 7 - 02365762 (M-F)
KING 5 News at 6:30 - 02365759 (M-Sa?)
KING 5 News at 5 - 02365758 (M-F)
KING 5 Weekend Morning News - 00327623 (Sa-Su)

All the news programs have different series IDs and are therefore separate and distinct. You will need to setup a series record for "KING 5 News" for Sundays.

[Gravydog]

Thanks for the help, guys. This is very curious. I see in my guide that Nightly News on the 26th is marked as a rerun of the 19th which I am pretty positive a "news" show would never rerun week-old news. Also, my series setting is for New and Rerun, any time, channel 105, yet the future recordings in Series Info skips both the 26th and Feb. 2nd. (which is also marked as a rerun of the 19th in my guide!) There must be more going on here than the simple error of these being marked as reruns. I just tried deleting and recreating my series for NN and now it says it will record on the 26th but still skipping the 2nd. I will try to contact Schedules Direct about the mistaken reruns.

Rob

[joeer77]

I switch to ABC world news on the weekends

[Space]

Note that when you have a Series set to "New & Rerun" that means it will record EVERY unique episode of the show ONCE. So if the same episode has already been recorded in the past (by this Series) or is already marked to be recorded at another time, it will not be recorded again (or be marked to record).

This is a general rule for ALL Series: the same episode will not be recorded more than once. This is regardless of the parameters of the Series ("New & rerun", "New", etc.).


Every episode of a show has a unique episodeID (assigned by the data provider) which is used to determine if an episode is the same as another episode. This episodeID is not viewable within WMC.

It is not completely clear how this episodeID is assigned, but I would assume it is based on the title of the episode given by the network that the show is being run on, as well as maybe other information. For a news program, I don't know how they would make the determination that an episode should be given the same episodeID as a prior episode (i.e. that it's a repeat).

[garyan2]

Your typical daily news programs will just be a generic program ID, they will all be flagged as "new", and will be recorded as a series every time. The series "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt" does not use generic episode numbers and according to the data from Gracenote/SD, the broadcast on 2/2 is the same episode that will be shown on 1/26. Like Space said, even though you would consider the 2/2 broadcast as a Repeat, WMC still will not record it because you already recorded it on 1/26.

If you want to run an experiment, you can cancel the recording of the 1/26 episode and I believe WMC will then schedule the 2/2 episode to record.

[Gravydog]

Thanks. Schedules Direct is looking into it. I already kind of figured that it will get sorted out as time goes by and the listings get updated. We shall see.

Rob

[Space]

...
If you want to run an experiment, you can cancel the recording of the 1/26 episode and I believe WMC will then schedule the 2/2 episode to record.

I'm pretty sure that telling WMC to "do not record" an episode will cause the Series to never record that episode (so the 2/2 episode will not be scheduled).

However telling WMC to record the 2/2 episode may cancel the 1/26 recording.

[jwk]

DELETED

[Gravydog]

Ok, some time has gone by. I looked at my schedule just now (2/2) and "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt" wasn't going to record. I'm set for new and rerun, any time. I clicked on the entry and it shows the option to "cancel series" so it knows the program and it shows original air date of today. It accepted "record" without any complaints. I looked ahead to next Sunday and it shows it will record and the original air date of 2/9 so that's not why it was skipping today. Very strange to me.

Rob

[garyan2]

Your typical daily news programs will just be a generic program ID, they will all be flagged as "new", and will be recorded as a series every time. The series "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt" does not use generic episode numbers and according to the data from Gracenote/SD, the broadcast on 2/2 is the same episode that will be shown on 1/26. Like Space said, even though you would consider the 2/2 broadcast as a Repeat, WMC still will not record it because you already recorded it on 1/26.

Tonight's episode is probably a repeat because of the Super Bowl. Since it is a repeat of last week's episode, which you recorded last Sunday, WMC will not record it again.

[garyan2]

I just took a look at Zap2it, and it looks like it was a NEW episode tonight. Gracenote corrected the program ID, and we were downloading the correct ID, but WMC would not accept the "change". Because of the error originally of having a specific episode on 2/2, WMC locks it and it can't be overwritten. Unfortunately, the only way to correct this would be to perform a database rebuild from the client and import the latest guide listings.

[Gravydog]

Thanks for looking into that. I ticked the "record" button icon and it did record the program. Another odd thing: I have it set to only retain one recording but this time when it recorded the new program it didn't erase the previous day's. I'm ready to let the matter rest now and just hope it doesn't happen too often. I'm grateful for your work and mean no criticism of anything!

Rob

[garyan2]

That is probably because you demanded recording doesn't count towards the series recording count. Could be a WMC quirk.