How Do You Handle Duplicates?

I create a folder to download the program into in DVA. Occasionally, I view the folder, sort by the description manually, then delete the dupes.

I'm sure there's a way to automate it, but I haven't explored that.

Since you're asking . . . . . . . . every morning I take a look at my three ReplayTV boxes with DVArchive. If I spot any duplicates in the themes, I delete the duplicate on the most filled ReplayTV. I also delete any X-Flies or Fletch that shows up. Are you sorry you asked?

Bye.

I set up DVA to download any show titled "X-Files" (for example), but tell it to check for duplicates on the show title and description - that way, only non-dupes are stored in DVArchive (sometimes there are two-part episodes with the same title but different descriptions). DVA dumps them into an "Uncategorized X-Files" category and then deletes them from the ReplayTV.

Then, I create a folder for each season of the show, and rename the show from "X-Files" to "X-Files 113" (where 113 is the show number from tv.com). That way, if I wait long enough, I can have the entire series and then watch them in order. (Usually, I have to fill in a few with Poopli.)

Of course, I have 1TB of disk space, so this may not work for you....

Oh, and then when I'm done watching a show, I just create an empty file for the MPG. That way, it's not taking up space, but DVArchive still thinks it has it and doesn't re-download it.

I do the same as rherbert now. I use a slightly different naming convention, that is, 1-13 would be the 13th show of the 1st season. I think if I was starting over, I would use the straight numeric that he suggested. Just remember to pad the first of the three digit with zeros so that it will sort properly later on. Ex: 1-13 would be 013.

I used to go through the guides on the RTVs (6 of them) every day looking for duplicates to save the download time but it became a chore that took 10 to 15 minutes per day. My RTVs have 40g drives and I record a lot of stuff, so I needed to download before they deleted to make room. These days, I just let dva download all the stuff I want, then delete them fro dva when I feel like spending the time. Unecessary wear on the hardware, but saves me a lot of time.

I have found that watching an entire series from start to finish over a much shorter period of time than originally broadcast makes the show seem better than it would be otherwise.

Hope that helps.

why don't people use DVArchive w/the No_Dups.Bat Scripts? is there somethign wrong with it?

Why doesn't gerry just incorporate the [guessing] 30 lines of code? lawsuit?? snark

DVA does handle the majority of non-dup cases. Places where it doesn't work as well include shows that always have the same title and/or description.

There is another aspect, sometimes lumped into "no dups" and that is the desire to not keep a show around and to not download that deleted show in the future. I look at that more as a "ignore list" than no-dup processing, but that would be an area where DVA could potentially grow some code to maintain a listing of "ignored" shows that it never downloads outside the list of normal shows. However, it would be subject to the same problem for shows with no unique characteristics.

While I know this area is important to some folks, I've never felt too bothered by it and so am happy others like ClearToLand have found workable solutions with add-on scripts.

Gerry

I've always had a phobia that if I ran the NoDUP!! script DVA's GUI would be colorized with tacky colors.

Sample of BeerToGland's code:
10 If TitleName1=TitleName2 ergo TitleName3=TitleName4
20 Goto 30

Just a note for anyone doing the show rename mentioned earlier; Changing the showname from "Xfiles" to "Xfiles 113" defeats one of the logic traps in dva for deducing whether a show is a duplicate. Dva will think the newly recorded "Xfiles" is a different show entirely (as it should) and download it. You can deselect the "show name" checkbox in the area where dva looks for duplicates to keep this from happening. I let dva think it is not a duplicate so I can "clean" my tiny 40g drives in the RTVs before they purge.

Minor nuance, easy workaround.

Hope that helps.

I usually delete them. I find watching them again is just redundant.

Yeah, we already know about your nodups script, and don't care. Check the poll.

Zzzzz.....