Topfield v2.0 manual Xx %

v2.0 user guide Page 18

UNIQUE: A programme is said to be unique if its description and title are different to those of other programmes matching the same pattern. Using the “UNIQUE” setting you can choose to stop any future “copies” (repeats) of a programme getting timers set for them, once one version of that particular episode has been recorded successfully.

For example, every episode of EastEnders on BBC1 is repeated later in the day on BBC3. If a pattern is created for all EastEnders episodes on all BBC channels with UNIQUE set to “yes”, then iGuide will note that the BBC3 episode is a copy of the earlier BBC1 episode, and not set a timer for it. More importantly, if the BBC1 episode fails to record then iGuide will create a timer for the BBC3 episode in its place.

In iGuide, it is possible to have gradations of uniqueness (despite what Simon Fisher1 may maintain). iGuide uses a simple statistical analysis to compare two programme descriptions to see if they are the same as each other. This is useful where, for example, the BBC1 episode of EastEnders is described as “Billy buys Peggy a metronome”, while the BBC3 episode describes it as “Billy buys Peggy a metronome. Followed by the news” – we can see they’re the same episode, even though the descriptions are different. iGuide potentially allows a certain degree of difference so that these will match.

The UNIQUE settings (changed by using the [LEFT/RIGHT ARROW] therefore can be one of:

yes:	If the description and title match exactly (other than for punctuation and case)
	the second programme will not have a timer created for it.
no:	We don’t care about a recorded episode being unique, so every episode will be
	recorded regardless.
xx%:	Programmes will be considered the same – i.e. the second episode will not have
	a timer set for it – if they are statistically xx% similar to each other. The default
	of 70% seems to work fairly well in most cases where there’s doubt.

Note that the UNIQUE setting is made largely redundant by bdb’s CRID TAP – since each series and episode is uniquely identified by a crid code, there is no need to analyse the description to see if a show is a repeat. However, UNIQUE is still useful if CRID is not running, and for those channels which are still not broadcasting crid codes consistently.

FOLDER: Specifies the folder into which the pattern’s recordings will be placed. Use [LEFT/RIGHT ARROW] to cycle through the list of existing folders; [OK] to enter Edit Mode to create a new folder; or [SLOW] to create a new folder (or find an existing one) from the pattern’s title. If a folder specified here does not exist, it will automatically be created when the pattern is saved, or forgotten about if the changes are cancelled.

EXPIRES: Specifies the time at which recordings made through this pattern will be automatically deleted after they have finished recording – useful, for example, if you want to set a series pattern for the daily news, but aren’t interested in keeping yesterday’s recording after today’s has been recorded.

1Google it. Go on. Google it.