I'm sick of the watched feature

[TheraEdge]

OK, I'm sick and tired of it, is there anyway, I can make my sage set all my shows to not watched?

First I want to know if there is a way I can clear my watched history because I really don't mind getting recordings that I have watched because I like watching them sometimes.

The other issue is that I am getting upset that when a show gets to watched it gets deleted before the stuff I have not watched that are the oldest recordings. I would rather the autodelet just took the oldest file. I don't see that there is any way to keep shows from being set to watched after you watch them.

So, what I am looking for is a way just to keep shows from being ever set to watched I think.

[gplasky]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying you'd rather have a show that you recorded but never watched deleted before a show you have recorded and watched because the show you haven't watched is older? To me that doesn't seem to make sense. If I have recorded a show but haven't watched it yet I certainly don't want it deleted. I think you need to try and get use to how Sage works and maybe read the manual.

There are actually good reasons for shows being marked watched and not watched which works well with Sage.

Gerry

[deadtoaster2]

There really should be a way to disable the watched list that sage keeps, so it would record the same episode over and over again when they were aired if you wanted it to.

[ke6guj]

Basically it sounds like the OP wants to have Sage run in sort of a "channel surfing" that has only the show he likes. I do something similar all the time. There are plenty of movies that I have watched, and like to be able to watch occasionally. I just dont want to have a large collection of them filling up my HD.

So, I have favorites saved for the various movies that play regullarly on the cable channels. Sage'll record them when it can. If I am not in the mood to watch it, I will delete the movie. If I am in the mood, I watch it, set the flag to "unwatched", and then delete the movie. In either case, within the next month or so, It'll record it again, and I'll repeat the process.

[TheraEdge]

Apparently GPLasky was more interested in criticizing me for not reading the manual (which I have read 3 versions of now) than actually reading the question and understanding it.

The idea that the program adds a flag that says you already recorded that show so i am NEVER going to record it again always seemed really wierd to me. I mean common, people aren't ever going to want to watch that show again? There really should be a way to clear that or set a length of time even for when watched shows get cleared, so like after a month or whatever you set it will record the same shows again...so you can get repeats over the summer instead of just thinking that the show dropped off the face of the earth and having nothing to watch during the off season. The only thing that seems to save it from this, is that shows latter down the road typically get a new identification in the guide all the time even though they are the same shows

Anyway, I know why it works the way it does, which makes a whole lot of sense 'logically' so as long as we are all Vulcan's like you, gp, we would all be perfectly content with sage, but I'm sorry, there are some Boneses out here and a Captain Kirk or two and even an Ohura too...

So, back to the manual, it does not address this, that is why I posted it on here, because the manual doesn't address this. So I suppose since resistance is futile I should just be assimalated by gplasky and the rest of 'The Collective,' and conform.

As ke6guj figured out and understood, yes, I am using it kind of like 'channel surfing' where I record some shows that I might not watch, but would rather watch than a random TV show that might be on live TV. Shows really low on my priority list, that I might not even watch, and after I watch a show that I really like, it frustrates me that it keeps the really old garbage and then delet's the show that was just recorded. It is far too black & white. A 'Keep at Least' option would be a good start for the recording options, that would let you set both a number of shows and a number of hours or days or something it should keep each show for, to keep the good ones from being deleted too quickly and the bad ones from being saved forever. Who is OP by the way?

Here is a situation that might help you understand it. My wife was out today, and I watched Stargate SG-1 the new show as well as the new Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. So she got back while I was watching Galactica and wanted to watch Stargate because she had seen the 'to be continued' episode last week. So I go to look at it, and what do I find, but it had been freaking deleted to make room for more shows. I mean that was within an hour, and I would really prefer it would delete one of the old Buffy's than the brand freaking new stargate, or heck even an old stargate repeat since there were so many. I mean I have a 200gb hard drive which at the DVD Standard play setting I like, I have around 57 hours of shows. Now, I am never going to watch all of these. I like having the time to just sit around and not watch them when I would normally have to. It is just very inconvinient to set all the shows not watched manually. Which the way it is set now, is how I would have to do it, but dang it, it is so fast at deleting them sometimes, I can't get them all set manually to not watched unless I am really dilligent, which completly defeats the purpose of the digital video recorder making life simpler.

Sorry to harp on you a bit, gplasky, but I hate being patronized. Hope you enjoyed my colorful retort. Anyway, understand a little better what I was looking for now? I don't think there is a way to do this, but maybe I need to work on the idea a bit more and bring it up as an idea to add to sage to make it better. The wierd thing is I vaguely remember reading something about automatically setting shows to watched when you finish watching them, but I can't seem to find anything in the manual or in the settings areas in Sage.

[Opus4]

First, the obilgatory manual reference: see p. 70 of the v3 manual. For Favorites based on a show title, you can use the new Advanced Options to clear or set the Watched status for all episodes that match that fav. Watched all of a series & want to watch the shows again? Use this option.

That is in the beta, of course, so for other options: see some of the custom v2 STVs. I know MalDude 2 has an option to clear the watched status for every show for a fav. Then there is malore's Viewing History that is in a few custom STVs. you can look at your entire show history & set/clear some flags for whole groups of shows.

Oh -- also in the v3 beta: all search results (including Additional Airings and Historical Airings) allow you to check past, current, and future shows. You can then set/clear any changeable flags for any airing in the list... though it doesn't do that for the entire group.

In addition: don't want a show deleted automatically? Use the Record command to make it a Manual Recording or set the Fav such that auto delete is off. Edit: malore's SageTV Recordings menu also has an option to delete & clear Watched when you choose to delete a show.

There are quite a few options, but there isn't one to automatically clear the Watched flag after a certain amount of time.

- Andy

[TheraEdge]

Thanks Opus, so are they still taking suggestions for the new sage then? I hadn't even been checking on that new one. I suppose since I bought version 2 I am going to have to buy version 3 if I go that way huh? No free upgrade for me?

So a nice additional option would be a clear ALL watched shows, just to make some quicker work of things. Also, how would you clear watched on say a show you did a manual recording on since it would not be in your favorites. The watched option makes it difficult to find that it even has been set as watched without specifically searching for it again.

I kind of put together a list of things that I would really like to add to sage, but didn't know how to suggest them...

I still didn't see any suggestion for a standard setting of not setting any shows to watched. Setting the shows to Autodelete off is not what I was wanting, because then I have to micromanage all the shows, and delete them when I feel like...it would just be nice to have a keep at least option I think, thatt way for all the show I don't care about I could just set them to keep at least 0 for time and days...Just an unfinished idea, but I am really glad to see the clear watched included, just not to happy I will probably have to buy a new program when I have only had this one for less than a year I think. Don't want to get on the upgrade every year thing.

Also, while on the subject of manual recordings, one thing I don't like about doing it that way is that if you are done watching the show, you have to delete it manually right then and there. I would really like an option under the delete command or in the program recording detail to 'Add to Delete Queue' that would just put it in line with the other programs or watched programs if you were allowing watched programs to be deleted (which I wouldn't want to do). That way it woudl save it until it needed the space...I like having shows until they absolutly need removed for the space.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by TheraEdge

Thanks Opus, so are they still taking suggestions for the new sage then? I hadn't even been checking on that new one.

You can email suggestions to SageTV; I used to put them in the bug report form.

I suppose since I bought version 2 I am going to have to buy version 3 if I go that way huh? No free upgrade for me?

Well, you can buy v3 if you want, but SageTV previously said it is a free upgrade for existing customers...

So a nice additional option would be a clear ALL watched shows, just to make some quicker work of things.

You want it to clear every single show in your history? I never did this, but ***make a backup of your wiz.bin*** and then try the existing wizard/clearwatched property, by setting it to true. (Do this while SageTV isn't running of course.) When you restart, it _might_ clear every show. I don't know for sure.

Setting the shows to Autodelete off is not what I was wanting, because then I have to micromanage all the shows, and delete them when I feel like.

In v3, when a Manual Recording or non-autodelete show finishes playing, you are asked if you want to delete the show now, later, or not at all, so you don't have to remember to delete it later on if you no longer want it around. See p. 110 of the v3 manual for details of all the options given. (I'm a broken record: see chapter 8 of the v3 manual for a list of some changes.)

- Andy

[TheraEdge]

Originally Posted by Opus4

You can email suggestions to SageTV; I used to put them in the bug report form.

Well, you can buy v3 if you want, but SageTV previously said it is a free upgrade for existing customers...

And you can tell I haven't gotten in there yet, to looking at all the pretty v3 things, can't you? Anyway, that is way cool, life is good again, and that little annoying knot has gone away. So what is Sage's typical policy on when they won't let existing customers upgrade?

Originally Posted by Opus4

You want it to clear every single show in your history? I never did this, but ***make a backup of your wiz.bin*** and then try the existing wizard/clearwatched property, by setting it to true. (Do this while SageTV isn't running of course.) When you restart, it _might_ clear every show. I don't know for sure.

OK, yes, thanks for the help, as usually you are king Opus, but, and I know yee shall think me a lazy blaggard, but a button would be so much yummier.

Originally Posted by Opus4

In v3, when a Manual Recording or non-autodelete show finishes playing, you are asked if you want to delete the show now, later, or not at all, so you don't have to remember to delete it later on if you no longer want it around. See p. 110 of the v3 manual for details of all the options given. (I'm a broken record: see chapter 8 of the v3 manual for a list of some changes.)

- Andy

Yes, I am now going to read the 4th manual ever again, I will plan to look for a changes write up perhaps to start with though. And now that I have read page 110 Um, what functionality does delete this program when space is needed do? I mean, does this show become #1 in the delete list, or is it set to watched, which pretty much makes it #1 in the delete list, or is it added to the queue somewhere? Ooh, how is that determined? OH, that is only for manual recordings, so I suppose it would get in line right then with the favorites that are set the same way, and be deleted when all the current favorites set to that way had been deleted to make space. Anyway, so the don't delete command I assume would be like setting the show to not watched and then it would just get deleted in chronological order.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by TheraEdge

So what is Sage's typical policy on when they won't let existing customers upgrade?

So far, upgrades have been free. I don't make policy, so I can't promise that it will last forever.

And now that I have read page 110 Um, what functionality does delete this program when space is needed do?

It just clears the Manual Recording flag, making it a 'regular' recording, as if it were an Intelligent Recording w/no special status. It will get in line with all the rest of the deletable shows & be removed when its number comes up.

Anyway, so the don't delete command I assume would be like setting the show to not watched and then it would just get deleted in chronological order.

No, that option just leaves the show as it is -- as a Manual Recording that can not be automatically deleted.

- Andy

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by TheraEdge

Who is OP by the way?

OP is you

It stands for "Original Poster", starter of the thread. That way, one can be lazy, and instead of looking up your name and typing it out, just type "OP"

[nielm]

Another way of clearing the watched flag is through my webserver plugin:
There is a saved search for 'Watched Shows', and once in the search results, you can 'Select all'; Action on selected='Clear watched'; Set
(repeat for each search page until bored!)

(this means no restart is necessary).

No it is not perfect, but Sage is designed to remember what shows you have watched to avoid re-recording the same show that you have watched and deleted yesterday!

[gplasky]

As you can see. I wasn't being critical. Almost all the info you were looking for is either in the v2 or v3 manual. And if you can't find it in the manuals it is probably in the forums. Search is your friend. As you get more familiar with Sage and understand how it works you may adjust your watching habits, invest in bigger hard drives so your shows aren't deleted so often and wind up enjoying Sage much more and wondering how you ever did without it.

Gerry

[TheraEdge]

Originally Posted by gplasky

As you can see. I wasn't being critical. Almost all the info you were looking for is either in the v2 or v3 manual. And if you can't find it in the manuals it is probably in the forums. Search is your friend. As you get more familiar with Sage and understand how it works you may adjust your watching habits, invest in bigger hard drives so your shows aren't deleted so often and wind up enjoying Sage much more and wondering how you ever did without it.

Gerry

No, the info I was looking for is in the version 3 manual, which I didn't even realize was out, because it did not exist in the program before. I did do a search in the forums, and found no such inquiry about the watched function before. I was just simply unaware of version 3 being out. And why do you keep assuming I am not familiar with sage? I am just trying to find out if there are more advanced settings that I am possibly missing, and the correct answer was no, and that some of the settings are comming in the future version. Now that I have been using sage for quite some time, I have found some things I do not like or would think could be improved. And I am quite frustrated with the sugestion to "adjust your watching habits" is not at all, appropriate I don't think. Something more appropriate would have been that there are no current options, and listing some workarounds instead like everyone else did. Instead of starting off with, and let me see if I can get this right,

1.) telling me my watching preferences don't make sense.
2.) that I need to get used to how Sage works, like there was no hope that there might be a way to do it, or that I might be able to make suggestions.
3.) and that I need to read the manual like I had never even opened it.

Like I said I hate being patronized and given curt useless answers. Darn it, there I go again being all upset and way off toppic.

Anyway, with the suggestion of if I were to invest in larger hard drives, it still wouldn't matter with the way sage 2 still works because it would still do exactly the same thing in deleting the watched shows first and keeping the other shows for ever. So it wouldn't matter how large of a drive I ever got, the watched stuff would be deleted first. Maybe it is just because I have been able to compare things to TiVo and I like the way that TiVo does some of the things better. OK, well, I need to stop responding now, I have my answers and such, so I should stop getting frustrated and responding with my rude answers, when you feel you are trying to help me.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by TheraEdge

Something more appropriate would have been that there are no current options, and listing some workarounds instead like everyone else did. Instead of starting off with, and let me see if I can get this right,

1.) telling me my watching preferences don't make sense.
2.) that I need to get used to how Sage works, like there was no hope that there might be a way to do it, or that I might be able to make suggestions.
3.) and that I need to read the manual like I had never even opened it.

Like I said I hate being patronized and given curt useless answers. Darn it, there I go again being all upset and way off toppic.

Anyway, with the suggestion of if I were to invest in larger hard drives, it still wouldn't matter with the way sage 2 still works because it would still do exactly the same thing in deleting the watched shows first and keeping the other shows for ever. So it wouldn't matter how large of a drive I ever got, the watched stuff would be deleted first.

Chill Dude.

1) I opened up by saying I wasn't sure I understood what your problem was. But what I also said was it didn't make sense to ME. Not that it didn't make sense. The reason it didn't make sense to me was because I'm using the watched feature in the way it was designed in the program.
2) I had seen various posters in the past that wanted Sage to work like Tivo and not truly understand what Sage could do. And of course there are ways to do what you want. That's why I suggested you read the manual. And later referenced you to search the forums. Some of what you want to do have been available in STV's for over a year.
3) I apologize for inferring you hadn't read the manual.

And in reference to purchasing larger hard drives, like Opus had said:

Originally Posted by Opus4

In addition: don't want a show deleted automatically? Use the Record command to make it a Manual Recording or set the Fav such that auto delete is off.

So setting a Favorite so auto delete is off would help you, especially if you had more drive space, and is available now.

I didn't come back with all the references to all the STV's that could do or almost do what you wanted or quote the places in the manuals because, as I said, I wasn't sure I understood your issue. That's why I really didn't answer your question. I figured either after more posts or you coming back with maybe more info I could of been more helpful.

Why did I assume you weren't familiar with Sage? Like I mentioned above some of the features you were looking for had been available in STV's almost since version 2 came out.

I didn't post to piss you off. I posted what I did to hope you would look at the manuals, both version 2 and 3. I've been pretty active in this forum for quite awhile and have been very helpful to many people whether they were familiar with Sage or not.

Obviously I must rub you the wrong way or something so I'll just leave well enough alone and stop my replies with this one.

Gerry

[mayamaniac]

Another solution for this problem is a feature I suggested before in some older request thread, which is the option to set the delete priority. For example, with Auto Delete ON, but you have options to tell to delete any shows that are older than xx number of days or weeks or months. Or just delete oldest shows when space is needed. Other options would be to set what gets delete over what, between manual recording, favorites, watched, Intelligent recordings, etc. Right now, SageTV sets that priority and you can't change it. For v3.0, it would be nice to be able to let the user decide delete priorities.

[ke6guj]

Yup, more options in the delete priority or in the favorites config. Basically, we need some sort of "fuzzy logic" that we can set up the way we want, instead of having to live within Sage's existing delete and recording priorities.

Something as simple as setting up a favorite for a show like "King of the Hill", and telling it to keep a number of shows stored on the HD, no matter if they have been previously watched.

Because, there are plenty of programs I can watch over and over, and having to game the system to have Sage work the way I want it to can be a pain.

[TheraEdge]

Yes, mayamaniac's, suggestion is a little fuzzy to me, but seems like it would be nice, if we could somehow do a little more tuning of this stuff...it sounds like your idea would be to have some tweakable settings under the advanced settings so normal users would leave well enough alone, and us tweak freaks would still be able to use them.

My best thoughts so far on adjusting which shows get deleted would be to add a few options to the favorites menu to help determine which shows get deleted when. First I want to say that I love the Version 3 feature of clearing watched…I have already used it on several of my favorites. What do you guys think of these for additional suggestions for options to add to the favorite details menu?

Basically the idea is to add an additional menu called ‘Watched settings’ to the Favorite Details page. Under this, it would be nice to have the options of:

After watching show: Set Watched / Don’t Set Watched / Set Watched After < 0 days >
Watched expiration: < 0 days> (adjustable setting to clear watched setting of individual shows after a certain number of days)

Would make sense to move the Clear all Watched setting and Set all Watched buttons to this menu if it was added.

A nice addition to the New all Clear & Set all Watched options would be a button to push to clear or set specific watched settings that would list the shows that are either coming up if you want to set particular shows watched (I understand you could do this by going to upcoming recording schedule and setting shows as watched in there, but it just makes these settings more complete to include it here in the simpler form as well) or another list of shows that have watched status, with the show titles listed so you could clear ones you would like to have recorded again, even if they aren’t in the upcoming recording schedule. I know this seems a little um overkill I guess, but it doesn’t seem like the programming of this interface would be that difficult to do since all the watched information should be available, it just needs a way to access it through the menus. Plus it would be one more really cool feature of Sage, that I’m not aware any other PVR has.

Something that I feel goes along with this is a additional setting to the keep at most option, where you could do a keep at most days as well as most number of shows, just in case a marathon comes on. The thing it would probably need a setting to toggle to whichever is greater or whichever is smaller, so you could make sure that the number of shows doesn’t override the length of time to keep the show if a marathon comes on, or to have one override the other if you do want it that way.

Also another nice addition that relates to this would be a keep at least number, which relates to what we have been discussing with trying not do delete our favorite shows. I would love to make it keep at least 4 or 5 of my favorite shows and delete other unwatched shows before some of my preferred ones. A setting for keep at least number of shows as well as number of days would be nice, again with a toggle to whichever is greater or whichever is less.

I suppose with all these settings, there should also be an option on the video setup menu somewhere about the default settings for all of these options, or heck, even under Schedule Recordings, it would be nice to have a default setting menu.


gplasky, sorry about before, I don't know what it was, maybe because I was reading so late at night, but I just kind of went off, let's start new, and meet in another post some time.

[Watter]

I've always wished Sage had a "Watched Expiration" feature so that it woudl record the same episode for a specified period of time but that after that time had passed, it would go ahead and record it again. There are several shows that I have no problem seeing reruns of, but I don't want to see the same episode twice in the same week. But twice after a few months have passed? I'd love that.

[Freegoo]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Another solution for this problem is a feature I suggested before in some older request thread, which is the option to set the delete priority. For example, with Auto Delete ON, but you have options to tell to delete any shows that are older than xx number of days or weeks or months. Or just delete oldest shows when space is needed. Other options would be to set what gets delete over what, between manual recording, favorites, watched, Intelligent recordings, etc. Right now, SageTV sets that priority and you can't change it. For v3.0, it would be nice to be able to let the user decide delete priorities.

AMEN.

Sage kind of sucks for deleting shows if more than one person uses it. Person A watches Arrested Development, Sage box gets full and deletes said show because it's the oldest "watched" show even though persons B through Z haven't seen it yet. But at least we got those 5 week old Seinfelds!

I wrote a little program to just delete old files in a directory when the hard drive drops below a certain point. It's still posible to miss a show, but at least we have 3-4 weeks opportunity to see it. It works ok, but for some reason I get orphaned Comskip files accumulated in their. Not the best solution but its worked well enough the last year or so.

Delete oldest really should be an option in Sage. But oh well.