Serial link failure on TPTV

I've been recording "Public Eye" under a serial link on Talking Pictures
TV. However, the serial link has failed permanently (ie it doesn't miss
just one programme as all scheduled recordings are not made) on two
occasions after recording for 2 or 3 weeks, resulting in lost episodes.
My Panasonic PVR just shows "No data" for Public Eye in the programming
schedule for any future recordings. Serial links for other channels are
fine.

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

--

Jeff

Surely this has to be at their end then.
Maybe they are just not bothering with serial linking as their series are
not always complete or in order?
Brian

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"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
I've been recording "Public Eye" under a serial link on Talking Pictures
TV. However, the serial link has failed permanently (ie it doesn't miss
just one programme as all scheduled recordings are not made) on two
occasions after recording for 2 or 3 weeks, resulting in lost episodes. My
Panasonic PVR just shows "No data" for Public Eye in the programming
schedule for any future recordings. Serial links for other channels are
fine.

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

--

Jeff

I just realised that I wasn't quite clear. The serial link will work and
record a dozen programmes or so, then fails. It can be set up again, but
fails after the same number of recordings. It doesn't appear to be
related to which episodes ate being shown (ie it has failed in the
middle of the 1971 episodes, not between 1970 and 1971 as one might expect).

--

Jeff

On 08/11/18 08:58, Brian Gaff wrote:
Surely this has to be at their end then.
Maybe they are just not bothering with serial linking as their series are
not always complete or in order?
Brian

Maybe its when an episode is missing and the following one is not in fact
flagged as one is missing?
Brian

--
----- --
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
I just realised that I wasn't quite clear. The serial link will work and
record a dozen programmes or so, then fails. It can be set up again, but
fails after the same number of recordings. It doesn't appear to be related
to which episodes ate being shown (ie it has failed in the middle of the
1971 episodes, not between 1970 and 1971 as one might expect).

--

Jeff

On 08/11/18 08:58, Brian Gaff wrote:
Surely this has to be at their end then.
Maybe they are just not bothering with serial linking as their series
are
not always complete or in order?
Brian

On 08/11/2018 08:15, Jeff Layman wrote:

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

Not on TPTV but on BBC2 HD of all things.

They had a series that was broadcast on Mondays to Thursdays each week,
and I had it set to series record.

The second week, it continued the series for Monday and Tuesday, but
then the next in series was set to record the following Monday. Luckily
I spotted that, and went into the programme guide and set the Wednesday
episode to series record. That replaced the Monday one in the recording
schedule. The Wednesday episode recorded OK, and then the next in
sequence was again the following Monday. So I set the Thursday episode
to series record and it recorded that and then it correctly set the
Monday one as the next episode. After the Monday one recorded the rest
of the series was found OK.

Clearly nobody in the BBC checked their settings! It was a good job I did.

Jim

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
I've been recording "Public Eye" under a serial link on Talking Pictures
TV. However, the serial link has failed permanently (ie it doesn't miss
just one programme as all scheduled recordings are not made) on two
occasions after recording for 2 or 3 weeks, resulting in lost episodes. My
Panasonic PVR just shows "No data" for Public Eye in the programming
schedule for any future recordings. Serial links for other channels are
fine.

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

Yes. I it seems that TPTV uses a different ID number for each series of
Public Eye, Gentle Touch etc. So if you select an episode of Series 1 and do
a series record, you will only get S1 and not S2 onwards.

Either you need to make a new series link for each series as an episode of
it appears in the EPG, or else you need to make a manual series link (not
from an EPG entry) which is identified only by its title and not by the
invisible ID. That will match all episodes irrespective of which series, at
the risk of also matching other programmes with similar titles. If you use
the exact title (ie not just "Public") as the thing that the PVR will search
for in the EPG list, then you shouldn't get any false positives.

I suggest you do a spot-check to begin with to make sure that all the
episodes that you expect to be recorded in the future are actually listed.
Trust no-one! :-)

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
I've been recording "Public Eye" under a serial link on Talking Pictures
TV. However, the serial link has failed permanently (ie it doesn't miss
just one programme as all scheduled recordings are not made) on two
occasions after recording for 2 or 3 weeks, resulting in lost episodes.
My Panasonic PVR just shows "No data" for Public Eye in the programming
schedule for any future recordings. Serial links for other channels are
fine.

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

Yes. I it seems that TPTV uses a different ID number for each series of
Public Eye, Gentle Touch etc. So if you select an episode of Series 1 and
do a series record, you will only get S1 and not S2 onwards.

Either you need to make a new series link for each series as an episode of
it appears in the EPG, or else you need to make a manual series link (not
from an EPG entry) which is identified only by its title and not by the
invisible ID. That will match all episodes irrespective of which series,
at the risk of also matching other programmes with similar titles. If you
use the exact title (ie not just "Public") as the thing that the PVR will
search for in the EPG list, then you shouldn't get any false positives.

I suggest you do a spot-check to begin with to make sure that all the
episodes that you expect to be recorded in the future are actually listed.
Trust no-one! :-)


I've just seen the other comments, in which people have said that it stops
finding new episodes *half-way through* a series. And I've seen that too. It
seemed as if when you created a new series link , you would get all the
episodes that were currently in the EPG and a *few* subsequent ones, and
then it would suddenly stop seeing any new episodes as they were added day
by day.

When I first saw it, I didn't know about this issue of using a different
programme ID for each series of a programme, so I didn't know to check
whether the problem happened at a change from S2 to S3 or whatever, but I
don't think it was that clear-cut.

I use TVHeadend on Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi. Having deleted all the
"autorecs" for Public Eye and The Gentle Touch, and added them afresh, I
seem to be getting all the episodes, but I will still keep checking every
few days to make sure it hasn't gone loopy again.

I suppose it depends how the PVR firmware (for a dedicated PVR) or software
(for a PC) handles recording of a repeated programme. If it uses an
invisible magic number to identify the programme, then you are at the mercy
of that information being correct. If it uses the programme title, and looks
for anything in the EPG with that title, then you will be fine. I *think*
that Windows Media Centre and NextPVR may have used programme title (I never
had this problem with them) whereas TVHeadend uses a broadcaster-supplied ID
number and so can be prone to the problem if the broadcaster uses IDs in a
non-intelligent way. By "non-intelligent" I mean giving each series of the
same programme a different ID: it is almost certain that if someone has said
that they want all episodes for a specimen episode in S1, they will also
want all other series of the same programme as well.

Interesting that we are all complaining about Public Eye - shows how many
people are watching it, even though it is nearly 50 years old. Did anyone
actually understand that episode about the wife who was getting blackmailing
phonecalls? Why was she so ready to pay him - were her occasional lifts with
the chap in Leicester not as innocent as she claimed? Was her strange
behaviour due to the trauma of losing a baby? Who was the blackmailer - was
he someone that the husband had been in prison with? Interesting that the
episode talked about the wife's trauma of losing the baby, without
mentioning the husband's trauma - sign of those times, I suppose.

On 08/11/18 12:07, NY wrote:
"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
I've been recording "Public Eye" under a serial link on Talking Pictures
TV. However, the serial link has failed permanently (ie it doesn't miss
just one programme as all scheduled recordings are not made) on two
occasions after recording for 2 or 3 weeks, resulting in lost episodes.
My Panasonic PVR just shows "No data" for Public Eye in the programming
schedule for any future recordings. Serial links for other channels are
fine.

Anyone else noticed this when trying to record "Public Eye" - or maybe
other programmes - on TPTV?

Yes. I it seems that TPTV uses a different ID number for each series of
Public Eye, Gentle Touch etc. So if you select an episode of Series 1 and
do a series record, you will only get S1 and not S2 onwards.

Either you need to make a new series link for each series as an episode of
it appears in the EPG, or else you need to make a manual series link (not
from an EPG entry) which is identified only by its title and not by the
invisible ID. That will match all episodes irrespective of which series,
at the risk of also matching other programmes with similar titles. If you
use the exact title (ie not just "Public") as the thing that the PVR will
search for in the EPG list, then you shouldn't get any false positives.

I suggest you do a spot-check to begin with to make sure that all the
episodes that you expect to be recorded in the future are actually listed.
Trust no-one! :-)


I've just seen the other comments, in which people have said that it stops
finding new episodes *half-way through* a series. And I've seen that too. It
seemed as if when you created a new series link , you would get all the
episodes that were currently in the EPG and a *few* subsequent ones, and
then it would suddenly stop seeing any new episodes as they were added day
by day.

I just checked and I got it wrong. You were right (maybe - see below!).
it was the first episode of 1972 which was lost last night; I'd watched
and deleted the last one of 1971, whilst leaving the penultimate
episode, which I had also watched, still on the recorder! And I just
checked back on IMDB for the 1969/71 episodes. I saw all but the first
couple, and lost the first one of 1971, which wasn't recorded.

When I first saw it, I didn't know about this issue of using a different
programme ID for each series of a programme, so I didn't know to check
whether the problem happened at a change from S2 to S3 or whatever, but I
don't think it was that clear-cut.

I use TVHeadend on Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi. Having deleted all the
"autorecs" for Public Eye and The Gentle Touch, and added them afresh, I
seem to be getting all the episodes, but I will still keep checking every
few days to make sure it hasn't gone loopy again.

I suppose it depends how the PVR firmware (for a dedicated PVR) or software
(for a PC) handles recording of a repeated programme. If it uses an
invisible magic number to identify the programme, then you are at the mercy
of that information being correct. If it uses the programme title, and looks
for anything in the EPG with that title, then you will be fine. I *think*
that Windows Media Centre and NextPVR may have used programme title (I never
had this problem with them) whereas TVHeadend uses a broadcaster-supplied ID
number and so can be prone to the problem if the broadcaster uses IDs in a
non-intelligent way. By "non-intelligent" I mean giving each series of the
same programme a different ID: it is almost certain that if someone has said
that they want all episodes for a specimen episode in S1, they will also
want all other series of the same programme as well.

I've never tried setting up the Panasonic PVR for a manual series link.
I'll look into it.

Having said that, I've just checked what programmes are set up to record
with the series link I arranged last night after the end of last night's
Public Eye. This shows four episodes only on 8, 9, 12, and 13 November
(see last sentence of next paragraph below - it seems the EPG was
updated somehow in the last few minutes).

The last one in the link is "The Man Who Said Sorry". According to IMDB,
this is the penultimate episode for the 1972 series. The last one of
1972 is "Horse and Carriage", which appears in my PVR's EPG for
Wednesday 14/11, but is not in the scheduled list of programmes to be
recorded. In the EPG any programmes set to record with a series link are
marked with an "S". But "Horse and Carriage" does not have an "S" in the
EPG. It would fit with your theory about the next series having a
different ID. But why then, is the episode for 15/11, "A Family Affair"
- which is shown by IMDB as being the first in the 1973 series (and,
incidentally, as from 1973 in the the PVR's EPG) marked with a "S", so
it is part of the series link! The episode on 15/11 is also marked with
a series link! Now if I check which episodes are in the series link by
selecting that on 15/11 as the "base" programme, it shows all episodes
from 8/11 to 15/11, with the exception of 14/11! I guess I'll have to
add the 14/11 episode manually from the EPG.

Anyway, I've sent a question to TPTV to ask if there is a series link
problem.

Interesting that we are all complaining about Public Eye - shows how many
people are watching it, even though it is nearly 50 years old. Did anyone
actually understand that episode about the wife who was getting blackmailing
phonecalls? Why was she so ready to pay him - were her occasional lifts with
the chap in Leicester not as innocent as she claimed? Was her strange
behaviour due to the trauma of losing a baby? Who was the blackmailer - was
he someone that the husband had been in prison with? Interesting that the
episode talked about the wife's trauma of losing the baby, without
mentioning the husband's trauma - sign of those times, I suppose.

The only programme review for that episode ends with the comment "...and
as usual I am baffled by the ending!", so you are not alone.

I think "Public Eye" appeals to those of a certain age as it is so
true-to-life at the time it was made. You just have to see the TPTV
announcement at the start about "outdated attitudes and language" to
appreciate that. It has a wonderful "seediness" in Marker that just acts
as a perfect foil to all those flashy crime series on TV today. I have
this silly grin every time I see the gas ring and whistling kettle in
Marker's "office"!

--

Jeff

On 08/11/18 13:39, Jeff Layman wrote:

Having said that, I've just checked what programmes are set up to record
with the series link I arranged last night after the end of last night's
Public Eye. This shows four episodes only on 8, 9, 12, and 13 November
(see last sentence of next paragraph below - it seems the EPG was
updated somehow in the last few minutes).

See below...

The last one in the link is "The Man Who Said Sorry". According to IMDB,
this is the penultimate episode for the 1972 series. The last one of
1972 is "Horse and Carriage", which appears in my PVR's EPG for
Wednesday 14/11, but is not in the scheduled list of programmes to be
recorded. In the EPG any programmes set to record with a series link are
marked with an "S". But "Horse and Carriage" does not have an "S" in the
EPG. It would fit with your theory about the next series having a
different ID. But why then, is the episode for 15/11, "A Family Affair"
- which is shown by IMDB as being the first in the 1973 series (and,
incidentally, as from 1973 in the the PVR's EPG) marked with a "S", so
it is part of the series link! The episode on 15/11 is also marked with
a series link! Now if I check which episodes are in the series link by
selecting that on 15/11 as the "base" programme, it shows all episodes
from 8/11 to 15/11, with the exception of 14/11! I guess I'll have to
add the 14/11 episode manually from the EPG.

Just checked again, and the 14/11 episode is now included in the series
link! Perhaps someone at TPTV has looked at the Public Eye series link
info after my comment to them.

--

Jeff

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
news
Anyway, I've sent a question to TPTV to ask if there is a series link
problem.

Snap! So have I. I wonder if they will be deluged by Public Eye fans :-)

Did anyone
actually understand that episode about the wife who was getting
blackmailing
phonecalls? Why was she so ready to pay him - were her occasional lifts
with
the chap in Leicester not as innocent as she claimed? Was her strange
behaviour due to the trauma of losing a baby? Who was the blackmailer -
was
he someone that the husband had been in prison with? Interesting that the
episode talked about the wife's trauma of losing the baby, without
mentioning the husband's trauma - sign of those times, I suppose.

The only programme review for that episode ends with the comment "...and
as usual I am baffled by the ending!", so you are not alone.

Yes, that episode was pretty good until the last five minutes when I
expected a bit more explanation of who the culprit was and (hopefully) what
his motive was. If he had been a stranger and it had been without a motive,
well I could have lived with that. But to find out it was someone the
husband knew, but for the audience not to be let in on the secret was a bit
frustrating.

I think "Public Eye" appeals to those of a certain age as it is so
true-to-life at the time it was made. You just have to see the TPTV
announcement at the start about "outdated attitudes and language" to
appreciate that. It has a wonderful "seediness" in Marker that just acts
as a perfect foil to all those flashy crime series on TV today. I have
this silly grin every time I see the gas ring and whistling kettle in
Marker's "office"!

Yes, and the fact that the bottle of milk has gone off or he keeps
forgetting to buy some more coffee - well, I can identify with that. I like
all those nannying "outdated attitudes and language" warnings. Old buses,
Ford Zephyrs, references to "the new money". There are plot devices that
just wouldn't work these days like when Marker is struggling to unlock the
office door so he can answer the ringing phone, and not quite managing it -
nowadays he'd just dial 1471.

It's interesting to see all the locations. The exterior of the shop
https://goo.gl/maps/STmqfBPb9Gx is identical to what you see on Google
Streetview now, and the half-timbered pub opposite is the same, though not a
pub any more. Even the Chinese restaurant is still there under the same
name. And the block of 1960s flats at the other end of the alley beside his
office that we see in the S5 title sequence (it's where the husband and
wife, and the teacher, in the blackmail case lived) are very similar, and
the little church is the same.

The only liberty that they have taken is that some of the shop fronts seen
out of the window of the studio set of Marker's office are in a slightly
different position to real life - the Chinese restaurant is on the same side
of the road (as seen in shots of the street) but is opposite in the studio
shots :-)

After a lot of hunting, and looking at details of all the different shops
that Woolworths used, I eventually managed to find the exterior of Mrs
Mortimer's boarding house in Brighton: Marine View - 24 New Steine,
Brighton, if anyone cares :-)

I've only got as far as Who Wants to Be Told Bad News? (episode 5.8) about
the Indian con man, so I've got a bit of catching up to do.

Interesting to see various actors when they were much younger: Stephanie
Beacham, Tessa Wyatt, Deborah ("Mrs Bergerac") Grant, and good old Terence
Rigby with his instantly-recognisable Ernie Cade / Big Al (*) voice. Even
Anna Wing ("Lou Beale" in EastEnders) appeared as a garage owner in one
episode - instantly recognisable even if she was a bit younger then.


(*) Airline and The Beiderbecke Affair, respectively