Setting Up Possible Future Showings Not on the Live TV Guide

[CompuPaul 2]

The good news is everything is set up and working well to record TV shows. I have a question, and I haven't found a way through the web interface to do what I want...

I've got a number of old recordings that I managed to bring over from MythTV. With some programming skills I managed to get them all properly stored in directories as Emby would prefer. Episodes I have were properly identified by Emby, etc.

However, I found MythTV had started quietly deleting some episodes of one show. That TV series isn't currently being broadcast on any TV station I receive.  Is there a way I could set Emby to automatically record any missing episodes of the TV series that might be broadcast sometime in the future? (E.g. Like a link from the recorded TV Shows page for that series, to set up future recordings for it on any channel?)

If I can figure out all the data items, I suppose it might be possible to manually add to seriestimers.json (ew)... Obviously that isn't for the faint of heart, and won't work in the future if that is moved into the database. Is there some easier way to set up recordings of the missing episodes, that I am missing?

Edited September 4, 2023 by CompuPaul
clarification

[Luke 42078]

Hi, how would the server become informed about these airings?

[CompuPaul 2]

I have the guide up and is functional recording other TV series. There is already an existing option to record when a series comes on any channel, so that part is covered. In the old recordings, the series is identified with the IMDB Id, TheMovieDB Id, TheTVDB Id, and the Zap2It Id for the series. Surely Emby uses one of these, or similar ID's to identify when a series is airing.?

[Luke 42078]

44 minutes ago, CompuPaul said:

I have the guide up and is functional recording other TV series. There is already an existing option to record when a series comes on any channel, so that part is covered. In the old recordings, the series is identified with the IMDB Id, TheMovieDB Id, TheTVDB Id, and the Zap2It Id for the series. Surely Emby uses one of these, or similar ID's to identify when a series is airing.?

We use the guide data source that you configure. That's the only way the server knows that a new airing will be happening.

[CompuPaul 2]

Sorry, a lot has happened since I set up the EPG. One of those out of sight, out of mind unless something doesn't work right. 

Guide Data Source: Emby Guide Data: USA-OTA<my-zip-code>

I see the seriestimers.json file includes the Zap2Id ID. Without references I'm in the dark about some of the fields. Maybe that's what you meant that Emby would need those values as well...

The Avengers (1961) TV show: https://tvlistings.zap2it.com/overview.html?programSeriesId=SH00004206&aid=gapzap

{"Id":"???","ChannelIds":[],"ProgramId":"???","Name":"The Avengers","Overview":"","StartDate":"2023-09-05T00:00:00.0000000Z","EndDate":"2023-09-05T01:0
0:00.0000000Z","RecordAnyTime":true,"KeepUpTo":0,"KeepUntil":"UntilDeleted","SkipEpisodesInLibrary":false,"RecordNewOnly":false,"Days":["Sunday","Monda
y","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday"],"Priority":0,"PrePaddingSeconds":60,"PostPaddingSeconds":60,"IsPrePaddingRequired":false,"IsPo
stPaddingRequired":false,"SeriesId":"EP00004206","ProviderIds":{"gracenote":"???","Zap2It":"EP00004206"},"MaxRecordingSeconds":0,"Keywords":[],"TimerTy
pe":"Program"},

[SamES 1057]

Can you just add a new recording based on keyword? Once you add the keyword then you can edit the recording settings and select 'Don't record episodes that are already in my library'

[Luke 42078]

19 hours ago, SamES said:

Can you just add a new recording based on keyword? Once you add the keyword then you can edit the recording settings and select 'Don't record episodes that are already in my library'

I think what he's saying is, the programs are not in the guide data, therefore the keyword recording feature won't help.

He wants us to incorporate data from external websites to try and figure it out.

Am I right?

[CompuPaul 2]

The Keyword may have done it.(?) Of course I won't know for sure until some station begins airing the series again. But it created a new recording, and associated it with the primary image for the series. I had never investigated that tab before so I only knew of adding recordings from the guide or from search returning a listing that is in the guide. This is great to know about the keyword and channel&time options. 

[Luke 42078]

Quote

This is great to know about the keyword and channel&time options.

What prevented you from discovering them before?

[CompuPaul 2]

If I clicked on the Recordings tab before, I probably just saw the list of all my recordings, and didn't think "Add Recording" would be any different than going from the Guide (the default tab, and where I would schedule most recordings) or clicking Search.

[Luke 42078]

Thanks for following up.

[SamES 1057]

15 hours ago, Luke said:

I think what he's saying is, the programs are not in the guide data, therefore the keyword recording feature won't help.

Maybe it isn't supposed to work this way, but I've added keyword recordings for brand new series that I knew were being first aired in a months time.  I only have 7 days of guide data. When the time came it found the program in the guide, did the recording and updated nfo, images etc.  Worked just as well as if I had added it to the guide.

This might not be how it was expected to work, but it works great.  Thinking about this topic, I can see that an option to record by Provider ID could be useful.  Could ProviderID just be added to the KeywordType search filter?  

Edited September 7, 2023 by SamES

[Luke 42078]

Yes it could.