See https://www.vdr-portal.de/forum/index.php?thread/135887-live-weiterentwicklung-v3-3-x/&postID=1376226#post1376226

Normally, I want to record an event with a timer. The question now is, how can I clearly identify an event? It's well known that broadcasters occasionally change times. So the options are:

1. VPS: Clearly defined and supported by both the VPS standard and the VDR without plugins: An event is assigned a VPS time, and this VPS time does not change, even if the event is postponed. With a VPS timer, VDR records all events that have this VPS time, even if these events are postponed and the start time of the events no longer has anything to do with the VPS time. The only disadvantage: The broadcaster has to support this.

2. Broadcast ID == "Event ID": The broadcaster sends an ID with each event. Unfortunately, it's not always the same ID, i.e., if the ID for "Avengers" was 4567 yesterday, it could be 1234 today. Some broadcasters change these IDs quite often, while for others they usually remain stable. Experience has shown that if a new event is added to the EPG, the ID is very likely to change. If the event has been in the EPG for 1-2 days, the ID usually remains stable. However, there are also broadcasters for whom this ID never remains stable...

3. Time: EPGsearch remembers the start and duration of the event and uses this data to try to find a postponed event. Advantage: This also works if the broadcaster changes the event ID. It should work very reliably, especially with minor changes to the start time. Broadcasters do not normally change the duration of events.

4. VDR without VPS and without EPGsearch: VDR selects the event with the greatest coverage. That is, the event that falls as completely as possible within the time period (timer start - timer stop). To achieve this as effectively as possible, VDR may shorten the timer margin (front and back) so that when the timer is created, the timer only covers one event. This is certainly the worst option: The irreproducible change to the timer's start and end times makes it more difficult to identify the original event. You can't even determine the length of the event for which the timer was created. The fact that the event might then no longer be correctly identified is less of a concern: VDR records from timer start to timer stop, so the event doesn't matter. The downside is that shortening the timer margins can result in a portion of the program being missing, even though it has only shifted very slightly. See "Pre- and post-run" in recordings.

~ Markus

