Plus of course "Rerun" is set to "1" if the "Repeat" tag is set in any EPG data MC acquires. Correct?
Yes, Rerun is the field to look at.
Rerun is set to true, when epg data contains "rerun". It is set to false if epg contains "new". It is set to true if the data has a "original air date" that is older than the schedule date. It defaults to false.
I have very occasionally seen programs tagged with a Keyword of "New", when the show is considered by the broadcaster to be a new show, as differentiated from a show that has been around a while. In Australia of course the broadcasters pretty often put NEW! as a prefix or suffix in the show name. But that gets stripped out of my EPG data I think, and doesn't get added as a Keyword. Maybe I should ask for that to happen... (That is an EPG Collector issue, not MC.)
Anyway, just thought I would share as I wasn't sure when I first read your post if you were looking for non-repeat airings or new shows based on some rule.
Yaobing, while the "Rerun" tag is used by the "Do not record reruns" flag in the Recording Rules, the "Do not record programs that have been recorded in the past" flag looks for matches with previously recorded programs using the fields defined for the rule,
but what does MC search for those matches?
Is it just programs that are still in the library, or does it include programs that were previously in the library, but have now been deleted? I have wondered this in the past, and I know you have provided some information previously, but can't find it or remember the answer.
What I'm thinking is that if the answer is all existing programs, plus all that previously existed and have been deleted, then there is a great source of information to compare against when looking for actual "New" programs or series.