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Diffstat (limited to 'MANUAL')
| -rw-r--r-- | MANUAL | 125 |
1 files changed, 125 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -480,6 +480,8 @@ Version 2.4 "forever", and a value of 0 means that this recording can be deleted any time if a recording with a higher priority needs disk space. + Pattern: The pattern to use for recordings matching events (only available + for pattern timers). See section "Pattern timers" below. File: The name under which a recording created through this timer will be stored on disk (the actual name will also contain the date and time, so it is possible to have a "repeating timer" store all its @@ -511,6 +513,129 @@ Version 2.4 The "Red" key in the "Edit timer" menu opens a list of folders, which can be used to define the file name in which the recording will be stored. + The "Yellow" key in the "Edit timer" menu toggles the timer between "Pattern" + and "Regular". + + When editing the "File" field, the "Blue" key in can be used to insert useful + macros. + +* Pattern timers + +There are cases where it would make sense to have a more flexible kind of +recording timer. For instance, some channels that provide VPS don't always +use the exact same VPS time for a series, which is extremely annoying. +Or you might want to record all films that have a certain pattern in their +title, no matter when they are broadcast. In such cases, "pattern timers" +can help. + +In the "Edit timer" menu press the Yellow button to turn a regular timer into +a pattern timer. Pressing this button again switches back to regular. + +The following rules apply to pattern timers: + +- Pattern timers can only work for channels that provide EPG data. +- When using pattern timers, there should always be at least one free device that + can be used to regularly receive the EPG of the pattern timer's channel. +- A pattern timer records every matching event on the given channel that overlaps + with the given start/stop time. Overlapping events are recorded in full, + even if they extend outside the given start/stop interval. +- In order to actually record an event, a pattern timer "spawns" a separate timer + that does the recording. At most two timers are spawned from a pattern timer at + any given time, one for the next upcoming matching event, and one for + the event immediately following that one, in case it also matches. +- Spawned timers are marked with the flag tfSpawned. +- Spawned timers take the Priority, Lifetime and VPS settings from the pattern timer. +- The special pattern "*" matches every event. So a timer with + a start/stop time of 00:00/23:59 will record every event of that day + into separate recordings. Note that when using this pattern there should + be no other timers for the same channel, because these might interfere. +- Once a timer has been spawned, it is treated like any other regular + timer. Any changes made to the corresponding pattern timer thereafter will have + no effect on spawned timers. Note that after deleting a spawned timer, + the corresponding pattern timer may respawn it. +- Recording is done according to the event's begin/end times, either + by adding the start/stop margins (for non-VPS timers) or by using the + event's running status (for VPS timers). +- The recording of a pattern timer is stored under the given file name, just like + regular timers do. In addition to the "TITLE" and "EPISODE" macros the file + name of a pattern timer can also use "{<}" and "{>}" to reference the part of the + event's title before and after the pattern, respectively. For instance, + if the event's title is "Abc def ghi" and the pattern is "def ", "{<}" + would contain "Abc " and "{>}" would contain "ghi" (note the matching of the + blanks). For completeness, "{=}" can be used to reference the matching + pattern itself. +- In the "Timers" menu pressing the Red button on a pattern timer only toggles the + timer between "on" and "off", even if this is a repeating timer. +- In the "Timers" menu pattern timers are sorted alphabetically to the end of the + list of timers. +- A regular timer that is currently recording can't be changed into a pattern timer. +- In the "Edit timer" menu the file name and pattern are displayed as + separate items. The Yellow button can be used to toggle between a regular + timer and a pattern timer. When going from regular to pattern, the Pattern item will + be initialized with the base part of the file name. +- The characters '^' and '$' can be used at the very beginning and end of + the pattern to anchor the pattern to the begin or end of the title. + Using both of these will match only titles that consist of exactly the given pattern, + with nothing before and nothing after it. +- The Pattern field in the "Edit timer" menu allows blanks at the end of the string, + which may help to separate the text after the matching pattern. +- If the first character of the pattern is '@', an event that matches the + rest of the pattern is only recorded if the resulting recording's file + name (without any folders) is not contained in the donerecs.data file. + This avoids duplicate recordings of the same programme. Timers spawned from + such a pattern timer are marked with the flag tfAvoid. +- When editing the "File" field of a timer, the Blue button can be pressed to + insert one of the macros "TITLE", "EPISODE", "{<}", "{=}" or "{>}", + respectively. Pressing the Blue button repeatedly loops through the available + macros. The "{...}" macros are only available for pattern timers. +- In the "Schedule" and "What's on...?" menus the events that will be recorded + by a pattern timer are marked in the same way as regular timers. +- The TIMERS column in the LCARS skin doesn't show the basic definitions of + pattern timers, it only shows timers actually spawned from pattern timers. + +If the pattern is prepended with '@', the name of the resulting recording (everything +after the rightmost '~', or the entire file name, if there is no '~') will be stored +in the file donerecs.data, so that multiple recordings of the same programme can be +avoided. When using this feature, special care must be taken regarding the recording's +file name. For instance, with a combination of + + pattern file name + @Columbo Movies~TITLE + +if the event's title is just "Columbo", this pattern timer would only record once, +and ignore any future events with that title, even if the episode would be different. +So you may want to use the episode name, as in + + pattern file name + @Columbo Movies~TITLE - EPISODE + +to make the file name unique. If you have several pattern timers for the same show on +different channels, chances are that the broadcasters handle title and episode +differently, as for example in + + TITLE EPISODE pattern file name + Columbo Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo$ TITLE - EPISODE + Columbo - Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo TITLE + Columbo: Blueprint for Murder @^Columbo:_ Columbo - {>} + +(note the '_' in the pattern of the third example; this is just used to visualize +the blank at the end of the pattern) + +In order to have the same episode result in the same recording file name on all +channels, the file name needs to be generated differently for each channel. First +you need to decide on a proper combination of title and episode name, preferably +one that is already used by one of your channels (let's say the second one). +In the first case, title and episode name are correctly put in their respective +places, and "TITLE - EPISODE" as file name will do. The second case is our common +version, where everything is in the title, so TITLE is just fine. The third case +poses a problem, because everything is in the title, but with a different separator. +Here the special macro "{>}" can be used in the file name, which contains everything +following the matching pattern. There are three macros that can be used here: + + {<} everything before the matching pattern + {>} everything after the matching pattern + {=} the matching pattern itself (just for completeness) + * Managing folders The "Select folder" menu, which can be accessed by pressing the "Red" key in |