For me, the series link facility is probably the most useful feature of Freesat+ but, after suffering numerous failures, I have rather lost confidence in it. I assume that failures are due to the broadcaster not sending the required data, but the HDR does not log what data is received, so there is no way to prove this.

I now check the schedule list regularly, and sometimes find that the next recording date has not been changed. I assume that the next recording date is broadcast along with each episode, so I delete the entry and re-enter the series starting at the next episode. Am I wrong about this? Can the next recording date in the schedule be changed by the broadcaster after the previous episode has finished?

You can display the crid codes on a hdr. See this thread from post 52 on

http://www.hummy.org.uk/forums/showt...?t=6095&page=6

Thanks for the information. At least I will know who to complain to now.

I am still not clear as to whether the next episode time shown in the schedule can be updated automatically at any time after the previous episode has ended, or whether it will definitely fail to record next time if the schedule is not updated during the broadcast.

After a programme set to series record has recorded the epg is scanned for an entry that has the same series crid as the recorded programme and a different programme crid, if it finds one it updates the schedule with the next episode. If not it leaves the last recorded entry in the schedule and continues scanning for 13 weeks. If for instance the next episode is more than 8 days ahead like a series not being on in a specific week the schedule won't update until the next episode (if any) enters the epg 8 days before the event.

One thing I think I can say with confidence is that we have put more cases into the recording checking. It will probably cope better with the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies of the broadcast stream. One trade-off I can see so far is that the new software will ask you to resolve more things that aren't clear because of erroneous broadcast data. But this will hopefully substantially reduce the risk of actually missing a recording and will reduce in time as broadcasters get better with their metadata management.

Bob

Bob that's great news, pretty sure that's going to be major 1 up on the Panny opposition . By the way thanks for providing the capability to show crid codes in prog info a bit of a mini masterstroke

Thanks for the clarification. I can now be sure that if the next episode is in the guide but has not appeared in the schedule by the end of the of the previous episode, the series link will fail unless the broadcaster corrects the crid.

Thanks for the post, Bob. It's reassuring to know that Humax are aware of the problem and are trying to do something about it.

Thats good to know. One oddity I have found is this. If there are multiple episodes of a series within a week - lets say a soap thats on everyday Monday to Friday and lets imagine its Monday and the broadcaster messes up the CRID data for Tuesday episode. After Mondays episode has finished the next recording in the schedule would be for Wednesday. If the broadcaster then corrects the CRID data for Tuesday episode this does not enter the recorded schedule list unless a full Guide refresh is done (i.e. pressing Guide whilst nothing is recording).

Pretty rare scenario but its happened to me - channel 4 in case you can't guess.