Recordings, Suggestions & Alerts

About

This page will cover schedules created via the ARGUS TV interface. Recording schedules can be created via client software, however the options may be more limited.

Recordings

Recordings are programs scheduled to record. They can be one off instances or "Smart" rule based recurring schedules, or even manually configured based on time. Recordings are shaded red and have a red circle icon.

Suggestions

Suggestions are programs the user may be interested in, their purpose is primarily to draw the users attention. Suggestions are not recorded autmatically and displayed as a normal EPG entry, with a green ticked circle icon.

You may want to add suggestion plans to (potentially upcoming) shows that follow the given rules: maybe certain actors, certain categories, you want to highlight, or the start of a series through season and/or episode number, etc.

The suggestions have a list view, like the recordings. And they're marked, "highlighted", within the EPG view.

Alerts

Alerts are similar to suggestions, but are shaded yellow and have a yellow alert triangle icon. If the client software supports it, ARGUS TV can display a popup window asking the user wants to switch channels, and view the program.

For more information on the displayed icons, see Meaning of Icons.

Recording from the EPG (Electronic Program Guide)

Recording schedules can be created from the Electronic Program Guide or "EPG". To create a schedule, right click the show and choose a record option.

Record will create a one off recording.

Record Daily will create a schedule that records that show every day at about that time.

Record Weekly will create a schedule that records that show once a week at about that time on that day of the week.

Record Any Time will create a schedule that records that show every time it appears in the EPG.

Once the schedule has been created, it will show each show in red with the appropriate icon. You can cancel individual recordings or whole schedules by right clicking a scheduled show and selecting an action.

Creating schedules

The process for creating schedules is essentially the same for Recordings, Suggestions & Alerts, this guide will cover recordings.

First select Recordings from the Schedules section, then click the "Create Schedule" button. The Schedule Editor will display and you can begin to create the rules that will form the schedule.

Schedule Editor

This will explain the different sections of the schedule editor. Any field left blank, has no effect on the schedule rules.

General

Basic settings for the schedule.

• Name: Name of the schedule, it is only used to identify the schedule, does not affect the schedule in any other way.
• Priority: The priority of the recording in the event of conflicts. See Conflicts for a full explanation.
• Pre-record:/Post-record: The length of time to record before and after the show. Entering a value over rides the global settings. See Pre/Post-record for a full explanation of pre and post record.
• Keep: Rules for how long to keep the recording(s). See Keep Settings for more detail.
• Processing: If you have processing commands, you can configure them for the recording schedule here.
• File Format: Allows you to chose the format the file is saved in.

Program

Program information for the schedule rules. All these fields are optional.

• Title: Specify part or all of a show title to include or exclude in the rule.
• Episode: Specify part or all of a Episode name to include or exclude in the rule.
• Episode number: Specify an Episode number to include in the rule.
• User configurable field Specify other information that must exist.

When

Limit the schedule to recording on specified times, days and dates.

For example. Checking "Sa", "Su" and setting "Starting around" to 17:30:00, will only record shows on the weekend which begin at around 5:30pm.

You can also choose to limit the schedule to New Episodes and Unique Titles as well as skipping shows marked as repeats.

Channels

Select channels to include or exclude in the rule. leaving the field blank will include all channels.

Categories

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Directed By/With Actor

If used, the schedule will only include shows with the director(s)/actor(s) listed

Programs:

The "Programs" pane at the bottom includes all shows in the Electronic Program Guide, that match the current rules of the schedule. The list is dynamic, so changes made can be seen immediately. Shows which are greyed out, will not be recorded due settings in the schedule or conflicts with other schedules.

Creating Manual Recordings

Manual recordings are quite different to schedules, and it can be a very useful function. There are some minor differences which can trip up new users.

A manual recording is just an old fashioned recording, it doesn't care about show names or when they start, it just does as it's told.

To set up a manual recording, first select Recordings from the Schedules section, then click the "Create Manual" button. The Manual Recording Editor will display, and you can begin to create the rules that will form the manual recording. You may notice that the manual recording editor is very similar to the schedule editor.

Manual Recording Editor

General

Basic settings for the Recording.

• Name: The name of the recording is used to name the recorded program.
• Priority: The priority of the recording in the event of conflicts. See Conflicts for a full explanation.
• Pre-record:/Post-record: The length of time to record before and after the show. Entering a value over rides the global settings. See Pre/Post-record for a full explanation of pre and post record.
• Keep: Rules for how long to keep the recording(s).
• Processing: If you have processing commands, you can configure them for the recording schedule here.
• File Format: Allows you to chose the format the file is saved in.

Remark: Sometimes, shows in the Electronic Program Guide are broken up into sections, this can make recording and then watching the whole show a bad experience. Manual recordings are a perfect solution to this problem.

Manual Schedule

• Channel: Channel to record from.
• From Date Recordings will not occur before this date.
• Time/Duration: The start time for the recording and the Duration (NOT the stop time)
• On Days If no days are checked, the recording will be a one off, otherwise the recording will recur every on the day(s) specified, indefinitely.

Remark: Manual recordings may not display in the Electronic Program Guide.

Keep Settings

Keep settings tell ARGUS TV how long you want recordings kept. New shows will always be recorded, old recordings that fall outside the keep settings will be deleted.

Keep settings are saved with the recording. If you change the keep settings for a schedule, the settings will not apply to shows already recorded. If you wish to change the keep setting for a recorded show, open the "Recorded Programs" page, find the show and edit the Keep setting in the details section at the bottom of the page.

• Until space is needed - Deletes recordings when the (lack of) available disk space has exceeded the limits set in "disk space" section of ARGUS TV Scheduler Console, Settings.
• Days - Deletes recordings X days after they were recorded.
• Most recent recordings - Will keep X number of recordings. Watched status doesn't matter.
• Watched recordings - Keeps ALL unwatched recordings AND X number watched recordings.
• Forver - ARGUS TV will never delete this recording itself.

Pre/Post-record

Pre-record and Post-record affect when a recording starts and stops. It is useful to ensure a recording does not start late, and is not cut short. Client software will typically begin playing the recording at the end of the pre-record period, if the program has already begun at that point the user can rewind to find the beginning.

Post-record requires no action by the user, they simply watch till the end of the show and press stop when it has finished.

Example: Pre-record is 5 minutes and the program starts 2 minutes earlier than it is supposed to. Post-record is 10 minutes and the program ends 6 minutes later than it is supposed to. The user presses play and finds they have missed the beginning of the program, so they rewind 2 minutes into the Pre-record and watch the show from the beginning. They then continue to watch the show until it finishes 6 minutes into the post-record.

There are two places Pre-record and Post-record can be set. The first, and most useful place is in the Settings page. Pre-record and Post-record settings in the settings page will be the default for all recordings. The second place is in the schedule editor page. Setting a Pre-record or Post-record time here will override the default settings.

Conflicts

In some situations, there can be more recordings scheduled than can be recorded, this is a conflict.

In the case of a conflict, ARGUS TV must decide which program to record and which to cancel. The process takes into account the Priority setting of each conflicting recording, as well as other factors. Recordings with a higher priority will record while recordings with a lower priority will be cancelled. Pre-record and Post-record are seen as a low priority

Exporting

At some point you may wish to export your schedules.

To do this, open the appropriate screen (Recordings, Suggestions or Alerts) select the schedules you wish to export, and click the "Export" button in the bottom right corner of the window and pollow the prompts.