# Season Pass - Channel choice



## dcoleman (Oct 4, 2002)

Probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it:

Why do season passes not capture episodes on channels different to the one set in the season pass? 'Upcoming episodes' lists them, but they will not be recorded.

e.g. Season Pass for Tractor Tom (ITV), does not record episodes on CHITV.

It's messy and error prone, having to have passes for each channel the program is likely to be shown on.

Dave C.


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## chrisd (Oct 24, 2003)

I guess it's got something to do with the different series that are shown on the channels...
eg if the brand new series of Lost is on SKY, but Channel 4 are still showing old repeats, then by only picking up the ep's from SKY using the season pass you avoid recording all the old episodes from channel 4.

Of course, I could be way off the mark on this one


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## Rob Nespor Bellis (Feb 17, 2001)

dcoleman said:


> Why do season passes not capture episodes on channels different to the one set in the season pass? 'Upcoming episodes' lists them, but they will not be recorded.


Because a season pass is channel specific, it is most unusal for a season of a programme to be shown across multiple channels.

What you want is a wishlist based on the title of the programme, that will pick up all episodes of a show across all channels that you receive.

Rgds,

R.


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## Stradlingp (Sep 11, 2001)

Rob is right about series not generally being spread over several channels but there are several cases where, in this multichannel TV world, repeats may be shown on other channels.

Wishlists are usually the solution for this but occasionally they misbehave. e.g. I have two season passes for "The Bill", one for ITV1 and another for ITV3. If I create a Wishlist for "The Bill" I get loads of old episodes from UKGold even though I set it up with 'First Run' only.

However, if a series is on more that two channels (very rare!) and the Wishlist gets too many false positives I create a 'normal' season pass *and* a Wishlist

I then put that Wishlist low down in the Season Pass order so any false positives won't clash with something I really want to record.

This seems complicated but the great thing with TiVo is that it is flexible enough to do this if you have the time/inclination


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

For Torchwood, I have two SPs set up - one for BBC3, one for BBC2. I have the BBC3 one higher up the SP list, and that seems to give the required effect of getting the earlier BBC3 showing if there's no clash with something else, but the BBC2 one cutting in if the BBC3 one can't be recorded.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

ndunlavey said:


> For Torchwood, I have two SPs set up - one for BBC3, one for BBC2. I have the BBC3 one higher up the SP list, and that seems to give the required effect of getting the earlier BBC3 showing if there's no clash with something else, but the BBC2 one cutting in if the BBC3 one can't be recorded.


Sorry - not really in the topic of this thread, but.... I missed Torchwood last Sunday because of a season pass clash. TiVo recorded it on BBC Twom last night. As BBC 2W (Wales) differs significantly from BBC2 during the evening, a BBC 2W logo is unfortunately used in the corner of the screen throughout the programme to emphasize this fact (and to rub in the fact that many programmes talked about by friends aren't available on BBC2 Freeview in Wales, or will be on later in weeks/months time, as the BBC have used this method to effectively sneakily introduce a new Welsh english language channel in Wales without going through OFCOM).

Despite the fact that Torchwood is on both the national version of BBC2 and also on BBC2W, the BBC seem to want to emphasize that it's a BBC Wales production. They made a big deal of this in the continuity before the programme started and then left on the 2W logo, throughout the programme.

Lesson learned. Luckily I have Sky so I've now removed 2W from the channels I recieve and rebooked the BBC2 season pass on a "proper" version of BBC2. Thankfully all the older season passes that I set up before moving to Wales revert to the national version of BBC2 up in the 9** channel numbers.

If you complain about BBC2W being so different on their viewer enquiries line and that you're a Freeview user, you're told that the national version of BBC2 is still available via analogue. Encouraging news for digital switchoff then Apparently, for the first major experiment in digital switchoff which took part in Ferryside in Wales a couple of years ago BBC1, ITV and S4C were switched off - but for this very reason they left BBC2 analogue transmitting and is still the case as far as I'm aware today!


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ndunlavey said:


> For Torchwood, I have two SPs set up - one for BBC3, one for BBC2. I have the BBC3 one higher up the SP list, and that seems to give the required effect of getting the earlier BBC3 showing if there's no clash with something else, but the BBC2 one cutting in if the BBC3 one can't be recorded.


But however you record it Torchwood is a pretentious pile of something rather unpleasant not worth watching. And I say that as a sincere and long term lover of all episodes of Dr Who new and old.

I'm finding it annoying that BBC Two are showing two episodes of This Life back to back each night as separate episodes and not sticking to the Start and Stop times as a result of which I'm losing parts of the start of one program which is tacked on to the end of the other. Endpad doesn't help in this situation.

This Life is still brilliant though 10 years on. A shame though that so few of the actors seem to have had successful subsequent acting careers.


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Lemon curry? How is the goat? Lovely toe cheese we're having, for the time of year.


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## johala_reewi (Oct 30, 2002)

dcoleman said:


> Probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it:
> 
> Why do season passes not capture episodes on channels different to the one set in the season pass? 'Upcoming episodes' lists them, but they will not be recorded.


Season passes are for a single channel only. Tivo uses the channel name (not channel number) so if a channel changes number (like on Freeview), the season passes will be retained. If the channel changes its name, season passes will be lost.



> e.g. Season Pass for Tractor Tom (ITV), does not record episodes on CHITV.


You will have to either set up two season passes (one on each channel) or create a wishlist item for the programme title (wishlists are cross-channel).



> It's messy and error prone, having to have passes for each channel the program is likely to be shown on.
> 
> Dave C.


It does make for lots of season passes but unfortunately that is how it works. It isn't too messy to set up because upcoming episodes will find all episodes of the programme and you can just go through them setting a season pass for each channel the programme was found on. The downside is that if the next series is aired on a different channel, Tivo won't automatically pick it up  On the bright side, you could always downgrade to Sky+


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

dcoleman said:


> It's messy and error prone, having to have passes for each channel the program is likely to be shown on.
> 
> Dave C.


I disagree with you, there. Mostly, the first airing of a series is shown on a single channel at a time, and subsequent airings are also limited to a single channel at a time. So, to get a specific airing, to watch all episodes of a season in the right order, you want your season pass to be limited to one channel. If not, you get into messes with, say, five, Sky One, Sky Mix and Sci Fi all showing episodes of mixed up seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and you don't know where you are with them.

If what you want is to catch every episode of a programme, regardless of which airing/season it is, and with no regard to order, then you don't want a season pass - you want a wish list.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ndunlavey said:


> I disagree with you, there. Mostly, the first airing of a series is shown on a single channel at a time, and subsequent airings are also limited to a single channel at a time. So, to get a specific airing, to watch all episodes of a season in the right order, you want your season pass to be limited to one channel. If not, you get into messes with, say, five, Sky One, Sky Mix and Sci Fi all showing episodes of mixed up seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and you don't know where you are with them.


I think there should have been an option to either "Record only episodes found on this channel" or "Record episodes found on all channels I receive". However in the absence of that a Title Wishlist seems to achieve much the same thing.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> I think there should have been an option to either "Record only episodes found on this channel" or "Record episodes found all channels I receive". However in the absence of that a Title Wishlist seems to achieve much the same thing.


 Season pass/view upcoming eps shows all episodes accross different channels, so can't you just tick them all in there?


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

No. (Gotta love the easy answers) However, you can select any one and _then_ set a SP for it on that channel.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Season pass/view upcoming eps shows all episodes accross different channels, so can't you just tick them all in there?


Yes you can add those episodes there to record but that doesn't help with future episodes on those channels. The point of a Season Pass is to be automatic rather than having to constantly manipulate it.


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## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

I always thought the season passes were channel specific, but get this.

I set-up a season pass for Lost on Sky two by mistake and a day later went back in and created a new season pass on Sky One. I didn't cancel the Sky Two ones, but I noticed that Tivo automatically deleted the recordings on Sky Two to record the Sky One showings instead.


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Yes - it won't record a programme (unless you force it to) if there's another showing already recorded or scheduled within a certain window of time.
I'd like to understand better what the prioritisation is - my experiementation with Torcvhwood (see message a bit further up this thread) suggests that the priorities work on the priority order in the SP list.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

ndunlavey said:


> I'd like to understand better what the prioritisation is - my experiementation with Torchwood (see message a bit further up this thread) suggests that the priorities work on the priority order in the SP list.


Exactly right


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Is that documented anywhere, and are there more subtelties to it than that?

Obviously programmes higher up the SP list are recorded in preference to those furtehr down if there is a clash, but is this feature of which of two duplicate programmes will be recorded (when there isn't a clash) also documented?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ndunlavey said:


> Is that documented anywhere, and are there more subtelties to it than that?
> 
> Obviously programmes higher up the SP list are recorded in preference to those furtehr down if there is a clash, but is this feature of which of two duplicate programmes will be recorded (when there isn't a clash) also documented?


When one recording of a show is already on the Tivo the Tivo won't record a duplicate with the same TMSID within 28 days of the first one having been recorded on whatever channel. Thus whichever Season Pass records a show first the other Season Pass will then not record it unless you manually add it to the list of programs it is going to record.

Unfortunately this does not work where Tribune are lazy and only provide generic program data and a generic program id for a series. This seems to be becoming more and more common sadly.


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Yes, but what I was asking about is which SP takes priority if the same programme can be recorded by two of them. For example, Torchwood is showing on both BBC2 and BBC3, and I have SPs for both. I *think* the BBC3 one is taking priority, but I'm unsure if that's because the BBC3 SP is further up the SP list, or because the BBC3 installment is shown earlier in the week.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ndunlavey said:


> Yes, but what I was asking about is which SP takes priority if the same programme can be recorded by two of them.


Whichever channel broadcasts the program first takes priority as when the other SP tried to record the same episode the 28 day rule is breached and so the program is ignored.

You can see all this in Recording History.


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## Cainam (May 25, 2004)

> Whichever channel broadcasts the program first takes priority as when the other SP tried to record the same episode the 28 day rule is breached and so the program is ignored.


I don't think that is true. Whichever channel is higher in the SP list will record, regardless of when it is being shown.

e.g.
Torchwood on BBC3 = top of Season Pass list
Torchwood on BBC2 = bottom of Season Pass List

Assuming that the same episode is shown FIRST on BBC2 on Saturday, and repeated on BBC3 on Sunday, you will get the Sunday episode recorded as that is higher in the Season Pass list.

If you then looked at the Recording History against the Saturday showing it would says "there is already something in now playing or the to do list within 28 days"


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## steveroe (Oct 29, 2002)

The logic works in the following way:

Taking Torchwood as an example program:

Suppose you have two season passes:

Position 10: Torchwood on BBC3
Position 20: Torchwood on BBC2

Let's say the schedule is as follows:

Sunday 21:00 BBC3 Torchwood
Wednesday 21:00 BBC2 Torchwood
Thursday 01:00 BBC3 Torchwood

Assuming no clashes, Sunday 21:00 is recorded. This is because the BBC3 season pass takes priority

Assume Sunday 21:00 clashes with something, but Wed and Thu have no clashes. Thursday 01:00 is recorded. Again this is because BBC3 is higher priority.

The BBC2 showing would only be recorded if none of the BBC3 shows (even if they are on later) cannot be recorded.

TiVo will record the first available showing on the higher priority season pass. Only if there are none will it drop down and record from the lower priority season pass.

On the other hand as a Wishlist is channel independent then it records in time priority. 

IMHO a Wishlist with "First Run Only" selected (to avoid old episodes/repeats) is often better than multiple season passes, for this reason.


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## ndunlavey (Jun 4, 2002)

Thanks, Steve - that was my initial thinking from the behaviour I'd been seeing, but I hadn't experiemented enough yet to confirm it.

Thanks for making the time for detailed scenarios - much appreciated.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

steveroe said:


> IMHO a Wishlist with "First Run Only" selected (to avoid old episodes/repeats) is often better than multiple season passes, for this reason.


Surely only for a series that has non Generic program data and where the First Run flag is known to be set reliably by the data provider for the EPG on that channel. A Season Pass on each of the two different channels and picking up First Run and repeats is safer as long as you have plenty of hard disk space.


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