[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #2320: Add a 'watched' flag to recordings

[Stuart Morgan]

On Friday 08 September 2006 00:49, Bruce Markey wrote:
> 1) There is no algorithm that can determine if a user has
> "watched" (whatever that means) a show to her satisfaction.
>
> 2) There is no universal correct decision that the system can
> make based on it's inference that something has been "watched".

Hence what I said in the original email to the list -
One thing I can guarantee is that the automatic detection of a 'watched' 
status will never work 100% of the time. When it doesn't work the fallback 
will be that they can be flagged manually.

This 'feature' may never work for a minority of people, but if it works for 
the people who would find it useful then that's enough.

> I may add a lot of extra time on the end of a baseball game and
> exit when the game ends well before the end of the recording.

In this particular case we ignore padding at the end of the recording.

> There is no way to say whether or not any of these were watched
> (whatever that means), however, I have a very reliable method
> that I use. When I'm done watching something, I press "D" and
> select "Yes, delete it". There, it's "watched" and still marked
> as previously recorded in the 'oldrecorded' table.

If you delete recordings immediately after watching them, then you clearly 
will have no need of the watched flag.

> So, things that are untouched I obviously don't care about and
> the things that I've seen (however that's determined) and didn't
> delete, I want to keep. Whether it is a favorite scene, song,
> quote, or I want to see the whole thing again, I kept it for a
> reason. The assumption that "watched" things can be thrown away
> sooner or the desire to re-record can be determined by such a
> flag is, to me, backwards(!).

I already added the settings to disable the two auto-expire related bits by 
default. It took five minutes to put them in which was considerably quicker 
than debating their value.

> I'm guessing that there is an assumption that a lot of people
> finish watching a show, decide they are done with it but don't
> delete it and wait for auto-expire to do the deed. This approach
> baffles me.

Three examples immediately come to mind - Isaac apparently doesn't ever 
manually delete anything, he leaves it all to auto-expire. My parents, who 
know how to delete a recording from their myth box, yet still regularly 
forget. A couple of people have commented to me that their young children 
can't or forget to delete their cartoons after watching them.

It was as a result of a conversation in IRC that the idea was conceived, Isaac 
mentioned how he let auto-expire do everything and the consensus was that 
others would do the same, if auto-expire culled things they had already 
watched first.

If you want to keep a recording then toggling the auto-expire flag seems 
sensible. Anything else is akin to putting out a much loved item in a yard 
sale but hoping that no-one buys it.

> So, I've entered playback and I've triggered some arbitrary
> criteria then exited and chose not to delete. What does the
> system now know about how I feel about that file? Do I hate the
> show? Do I love it? Is it a waste of space that must be cleaned
> up or should it be preserved at all costs? What? I don't get it.

The auto-expire flag ... it's why it exists.

-- 
Stuart Morgan