I'm coming round to the HDR a bit more now as I get used to the interface. HD looks fantastic and SD looks much better than Tivo recordings that I'm forgiving the weakness in navigation and usability.


However, i'm still having a bit of trouble with recordings and scheduling:
- "Schedule" seems analogous to Tivo's "Season Passes" - these are programmes i've set to record. How do i tell which of them are 'dead'? Clicking on them for more info seems to show the time/date of the first instance. Over time loads of these are going to stack up - will they pick up series that return after a gap (such as, say, Doctor Who?). How do i know which of them are not currently active so that i can clean up the list?

- How smart are the 'Series Links' about recording only one instance of each episode? If I set on for Mad Men on BBC HD now will it pick up the first episode (which first showed before i got my HDR) if it's repeated later? Will it record the second episode again if it's in my library? Will it record episode 2 again if it had previously recorded it but i'd since watched and deleted? (Tivo had a 28 day rule about repeats - it would not record an episode again within 28 days but would later)

- is there a "to do list" anywhere? How do I see what my HDR is going to record over the next week or so? (ie that my 'schedules' are picking up the programmes that they are meant to.

The schedule is the "to do list". It contains both "Series Links" and programmes set for individual recording. It is normally displayed in the order that the next (or only) programme will be recorded. The information on them should be for the next instance.

If the next episode of a series linked recording is not available in the EPG, it will remain at the beginning of the schedule with the date of the last recording. Thus you can tell that there is no presently known next episode as the date/time will be in the past (there's probably a better way of doing this, but that's the way it is). This is not the same as the series link being "dead". If an episode of the same series subsequently appears in the EPG, it will be moved to the appropriate chronological position in the schedule. I believe that series linked recordings will eventually "die" and be removed from the schedule. I haven't had mine long enough to see this and I don't know how long eventually is.

I have not seen the same episode recorded a second time. I don't think deleting a recording will cause this to happen. Deleting an item from the schedule and then setting it up to record again will, presumably, cause previously recorded episodes to be recorded once again if they are repeated.

I think it's 13 weeks

Then there aren't going to be very many people who would have seen it happen .

The broadcasters attach a unique code to each programme in the series known as a series crid. Repeats of the same episode should have a different series crid. Sadly with some broadcasters they get this wrong and incorrectly flag the repeats with the same series crid. In this event you will get repeated recordings of the same episode

It's 13 weeks because there is no end of series flag available and 13 weeks is the minimum agreed interval before the broadcasters will reuse series crids

Thanks - that all makes sense. It would be a lot more obvious if the 'no scheduled recording' schedules were at the end and marked in some way without having to 'get info' on them (you know what i'm going to say next) which is how Tivo deals with them....

Actually, just look at these screenshots
http://www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/tivoinaction.htm

Another usability issue i'm having is when using Find - the results returned show every showing on every channel (including all BBC regional variant) with no way of working out what they are. It would make a lot more sense if each programme was only shown once and the next level of info down showed the different episodes (http://www.garysargent.co.uk/tivo/gl...leAlphabet.jpg). These things were sorted out nearly 10 years ago.