suggestion: anti-favorites....

[xlr8shun]

ive seen this suggested before, multiple times actually, and dont know why something like this hasnt been added yet, maybe someone could shed some light on the reasoning if any was given.

but basically a favorite.. but something sage never recorded.

for instance, just because i watch the news, doesnt mean i want it recorded, just because i watch all the atlanta braves (and even have a favorite; by title, to record all 'atlanta braves' games) doesnt mean i want sage to record all baseball games. just because i watch all the knicks games (and have a favorite to record them) doesnt mean i want to watch all nba games. just because i watch an infomercial doesnt mean i want sage recording infomercials. just because the lady of the house likes to watch 'as the world turns' (and have a favorite for it also) doesnt mean i want sage to start recording soap operas, and neither does the lady of the house.

anyway you get the idea. an informercial isnt really all that hard to fix, the news is a bit harder because im constantly telling sage i dont like news but then constantly getting episodes with watched status (that i inturn have to go back and mark dont like) and sports games are the worst. currently with only 1 tuner in the htpc, it ties up the tuner for 2 hours or more recording some game i dont want to watch and dont want recorded, with something that im SURE sage could find thats more suitable for me to watch. not to mention the gigs of space thats being occupied (not an issue for me but i know are for some people)

if there was an option to tell sage, to NOT record things by title, genre, director, cast, channel/network, etc.. then a lot of these issues could be resolved easily. the only thing would be to make sure that it processes favorites first THEN anti-favorites, so if sage decides its going to record something, lets say "atlanta braves" but i have an anti-favorite for "mlb baseball" it still records the braves because i specifically told sage to do that.

anyway, anyone else in agreeance? would you like to see anti-favorites? (and does anyone have a better name? )

--

decided to make a poll also, i'd like to get an idea of how many ppl would like to see this implemented

[xlr8shun]

this would also take care of all the users i see requesting a feature that sage never record XX channel when doing intelligent recording. ive seen this suggested a few times before also

and wasnt there a suggestions forum? or am i imagining that? was it removed?

[newmedia42]

I agree, I'd love to have this as well... My particular issue is that I have a Genre favorite for 'Anime', but I don't want it to record 'DragonBall Z" - now I have to keep looking in the upcoming recordings and setting DBZ as watched. Since I don't use IR, it doesn't effect that, but I'd rather have it accurately reflect what I'm doing...

[Mark SS]

Have been waving the flag for this one since I first started using sage.

[briands]

I currently have IR turned off because I get tired of the crap that it records... this might make it the tool it was intended to be.

[salsbst]

I want to permanently prevent recordings without "don't like"ing things. For whatever reason, SageTV records reruns of shows that we've already watched in its Intelligent Recording system. I would like it to cease recording Six Feet Under. We've seen every episode. We loved the show. It's over, though. Time to move on. I don't want to tell it that I don't like the show, but I definitely want no more recordings.

While "you're" at it, it would be nice if shows that are marked as favorites were inelligible for intelligent recording altogether. that way, since I have Six Feet Under as a "First Runs" favorite, reruns wouldn't be recorded.

[korben_dallas]

I've posted before that I'd like a more comprehensive way to add favorites. Being able to specify keywords, partial and exact phrase matching, date matching, and excludes would make the favorites much more accurate and flexible.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

I've posted before that I'd like a more comprehensive way to add favorites. Being able to specify keywords, partial and exact phrase matching, date matching, and excludes would make the favorites much more accurate and flexible.

Yes Yes Yes. Also the ability to specify multiple channels at a time without having to program in multiple favorites would be nice.

BobP.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by briands

I currently have IR turned off because I get tired of the crap that it records... this might make it the tool it was intended to be.

That's probably why it doesn't work. IR needs to be on to get better. I've been using it the entire time I've been using Sage, over 2.5 years since 1.4 and the IR has gotten better and better.

I think philosophy behind IR is the find stuff you may like. As I've been using it, I've seen less and less stuff I simply don't like. I do see indifferent stuff, but hey, I *may* like it.

One thing that I read here that caused a spike in IR's reliability was marking all additional airings as don't like. Time worked out IR kinks but that little jewel accelerated the process.

I think IR is one of Sage's best features.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jominor

That's probably why it doesn't work. IR needs to be on to get better. I've been using it the entire time I've been using Sage, over 2.5 years since 1.4 and the IR has gotten better and better.

Actually that is almost irrelevant. Sage is always calculating the IR selections it just doesn't put them in the schedule if you have it turned off. What makes it better is the selecting Don't Like for the shows it selects that you don't like. This is why the anti-favorite idea would be great - the don't likes get marked for you essentially.

BobP.

edit: re phrase the post.

[xlr8shun]

Originally Posted by jominor

That's probably why it doesn't work. IR needs to be on to get better. I've been using it the entire time I've been using Sage, over 2.5 years since 1.4 and the IR has gotten better and better.

I think philosophy behind IR is the find stuff you may like. As I've been using it, I've seen less and less stuff I simply don't like. I do see indifferent stuff, but hey, I *may* like it.

One thing that I read here that caused a spike in IR's reliability was marking all additional airings as don't like. Time worked out IR kinks but that little jewel accelerated the process.

I think IR is one of Sage's best features.

ive also been using sage for.. well since about the time i registered on the forums, little over 2 years, however my current wiz.bin is probably only 9-12 months old, and i agree that one of sages best features is the IR. that and its exceptional support for hardware recording cards and its ability to provide those recordings in an easy to navigate, networkable interface. and still after close to a year with my current wiz.bin im still setting mass (future) airings 'dont like', its almost counter productive.

i understand that sage finds things i like, by examining what i watch, but again, just because i watch something once, or even watch something every day (news for example) doesnt mean i want sage to record the news so i can see it if i miss it. i can always turn to the 24hr news channel to catch up on what i missed if i desire, or check out the next mornings newspaper

i just think if i could blacklist certian type of programming from IR by using certian filters. it could alleviate some of the minor annoyances some people face by the whole intelligent recording vision.

its not sages fault, nor the programmers really, other IR based schemes operate the same way. just in hindsight, i feel a premptive option to prevent recordings could come in quite handy.

and yes, a good way to accelerate sages IR learning is to set mass airings of programs you dont want recorded to "dont like". just awefuly time consuming

[jominor]

Originally Posted by xlr8shun

ive also been using sage for.. well since about the time i registered on the forums, little over 2 years, however my current wiz.bin is probably only 9-12 months old, and i agree that one of sages best features is the IR. that and its exceptional support for hardware recording cards and its ability to provide those recordings in an easy to navigate, networkable interface. and still after close to a year with my current wiz.bin im still setting mass (future) airings 'dont like', its almost counter productive.

i understand that sage finds things i like, by examining what i watch, but again, just because i watch something once, or even watch something every day (news for example) doesnt mean i want sage to record the news so i can see it if i miss it. i can always turn to the 24hr news channel to catch up on what i missed if i desire, or check out the next mornings newspaper

i just think if i could blacklist certian type of programming from IR by using certian filters. it could alleviate some of the minor annoyances some people face by the whole intelligent recording vision.

its not sages fault, nor the programmers really, other IR based schemes operate the same way. just in hindsight, i feel a premptive option to prevent recordings could come in quite handy.

and yes, a good way to accelerate sages IR learning is to set mass airings of programs you dont want recorded to "dont like". just awefuly time consuming

Day one Sage picked all manner of things, mostly Lifetime movies(????) for some reason, but I just kept marking them and eventually, they went away. IR locked itself into my lexicon when two items out of the blue appeared: Buck Rodgers in the 25th century and one of the Ice skating competitions that my wife likes. That told me that Sage actually LEARNED that I like some sci-fi shows(so grab anything I *might* like) and that my wife likes Ice skating.

Without IR, I would have missed both of those items, not to mention many shows that I actually ended up liking. We've been remodeling for the past couple of years and watch our share of home shows. For a while, some were favorites, but as I grew weary of them, I removed them from favorites, but never made them Don't like. Sometimes Sage would get them, sometimes not, but eventually, IR picked up "Sell this house". Both my wife and I like that show for a variety of reasons. Now they've got "Move this house" with the same cast. Thanks to IR, I found it.

I actually still use expanded basic because Sage, IR, my three tuners and nearly 1 TB of storage mines so much TV out of my cable, that I just don't need more channels. I always have something to watch when I need to watch.

One of the STVs has an option to do that "Don't Like" in one shot and I keep meaning to try the Studio to do the same thing, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I would certainly use a "Anti-Favorite" feature as part of a preemptive strike or even for things that don't have enough future airings to really nuke the show.

Every blue moon a goofy something or other pops in,but Sage removes it fairly quickly.

[mayamaniac]

Apparently SageTV creator likes things the way they are, meaning Intelligent Recording the way it is, no changes. Just either turn it ON or OFF, no options whatsoever. And they want you to make it habit, actually set time aside in your daily routine, to go through the list of IR shows and mark them "Don't Like" over and over again. You can make it a game to see how quickly you can mark them all down as "Don't Like". And don't cheat by using nielm's web interface to mark them. And if you really want to challenge yourself further, then just leave Live TV on one single channel for the entire night while you sleep. And when you wake up the next day, you'll find a pleasant list of IR shows and you can begin marking them as "Don't like". It's one of the benefits of SageTV, it's a fun game for the whole family.

Ok, sarcasm aside...

Seriously, as the OP said, this request has been asked a thousand time but hasn't been improved in SageTV. I love the idea of IR but I dare not use it because the "Don't Like" game is not fun.

And can we make a sticky on this topic so we can get Jeff's attention on the matter? Also, make a sticky of the Music and Pictures UI improvement thread. This way we won't have to have a new thread about it every two weeks.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Apparently SageTV creator likes things the way they are, meaning Intelligent Recording the way it is, no changes. Just either turn it ON or OFF, no options whatsoever. And they want you to make it habit, actually set time aside in your daily routine, to go through the list of IR shows and mark them "Don't Like" over and over again. You can make it a game to see how quickly you can mark them all down as "Don't Like". And don't cheat by using nielm's web interface to mark them. And if you really want to challenge yourself further, then just leave Live TV on one single channel for the entire night while you sleep. And when you wake up the next day, you'll find a pleasant list of IR shows and you can begin marking them as "Don't like". It's one of the benefits of SageTV, it's a fun game for the whole family.

Ok, sarcasm aside...

Seriously, as the OP said, this request has been asked a thousand time but hasn't been improved in SageTV. I love the idea of IR but I dare not use it because the "Don't Like" game is not fun.

And can we make a sticky on this topic so we can get Jeff's attention on the matter? Also, make a sticky of the Music and Pictures UI improvement thread. This way we won't have to have a new thread about it every two weeks.

So basically, don't use the feature correctly, then bitch when it doesn't work. I've yet to see anyone who actually trained the feature complain. For those people I say turn it off and spare themselves the hassle.

IR works. As a software developer, I know that you cannot code around stubborness.

The documentation described how to use IR and the feature worked as advertised. Don't blame the car, blame the driver.

[Mark SS]

We've been over this a dozen times before, it does not work!

If I'm working I might have BBCNews24 on in the background but I WILL NEVER EVER WANT IT TO BE RECORDED. I have marked the shows as Don't Like a thousand times but my subsequently watching for hours seems to reverse this.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by jominor

So basically, don't use the feature correctly, then bitch when it doesn't work. I've yet to see anyone who actually trained the feature complain. For those people I say turn it off and spare themselves the hassle.

Well you seen complaints here. I trained it for two years so I know how it works. I still have the same wiz.bin since I started using SageTV back then till now. All my watching history should be in there. So its not a matter of using it incorrectly, at least not for me. And I don't see how is it that people are using it incorrectly. You see a show it records that you don't like, you mark it "Don't Like", thats all there is to it. And this is not an attack on the SageTV developers, we are just asking for better ways to train it so its better at what it does.

IR works. As a software developer, I know that you cannot code around stubborness.

stubborness has nothing to do with it. IR works great when I was using SageTV by myself, but once I introduced it to the family and have many people using SageTV, some would leave it on Live TV all day long, thats when IR goes nuts and I had to turn it off. It was too much work to undo the mess, not without better ways of doing it.

The documentation described how to use IR and the feature worked as advertised. Don't blame the car, blame the driver.

In my previous post, the first paragraph was just sarcasm and not to be taken seriously. I'm glad IR works for you and you are happy with it, but this is not about IR not working as advertised, rather just suggestions on how to make it better and more accurate of what to record and what not to record.

[waynedunham]

What I see over and over in relation to the IR=Good vs IR=Bad arguments mostly comes down to people who don't watch live Tv (IR=Good) vs People who do watch Live Tv(IR=Bad).

IR works great for me. Like many here I've been using IR for a long time and it's pretty darned good at predicting what I "might" like. The only time I've ever watched Live Tv on my server is when I'm trying to tune up the settings on a card (color/brightness/saturation/etc).

My setup may be different than some which requires them to watch Live Tv. In my setup all of my TV's have a regular input with my Analog cable so on the off chance I want to watch live Tv I just use the regular input on the TV.

Maybe all we need is for the folks at Sage to give us a toggle on whether to allow Live Tv to be used in any IR calculations. That would help out people who watch Live Tv but don't necessarily want to record things like the News, Weather Channel, and infomercials (for when you fall asleep and the Tv runs all night long)

I firmly believe that if you could remove Live Tv from any IR calculations that 95% of the problems would disappear.

I must admit though that from time to time IR will "spaz" on me when I record something new and different. It will then start recording all kinds of new things. Just this past week all of a sudden it decided I like anything animated. I came home to about 40 recordings off Nick and Disney. Another short round of training (i.e. about 3 minutes) and it hasn't happened again.
This after several months of near perfect IR. As others have mentioned sometimes it finds things I never would have noticed. For me the many times it's done that FAR outweigh the few times I've had to do a few minutes of re-training. Just have to give it a smack on the nose (BAD Sagey!!) every once in a while.

[Tomahawk51]

I STRONGLY agree with this last post. I love IR, but this would alleviate alot.

[roxy99]

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think Sage should focus on the core product and making it as reliable and foolproof as Tivo.

The feature being polled upon to me is a fluff feature. I find that Sage is starting to get bloated as it is. Too many features make it more difficult for Sage to maintain. (See thread entitled 'Feature creep'). Remember, too many features means that many more to debug and document and answer newbie questions upon - like my studid questions : )

I've done some programming for clients before, and I can tell you, it isn't easy. You keep adding and adding features upon feature and eventually you have a monster.

No disrespect intended to the majority opinion here, but quite frankly, if you guys only want a particular show as favorite, then set the favorite for THAT show alone and NOT favorite by genre. And remember, you are not REQUIRED to use intelligent recording. Problem solved.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by roxy99

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think Sage should focus on the core product and making it as reliable and foolproof as Tivo.

The feature being polled upon to me is a fluff feature.

You do realize that Intelligent Recording is one of the features that ONLY Sage has and that differentiates itself from the rest of the computer-based products? Beyond TV, MCE, GB-PVR, Meedio-any of them that you find out there that does TV does NOT do this. So I think this feature is a little more than fluff. And it helps Sage to be seen as a formidable Tivo replacement. This was one of the features Sage had from the beginning.

Gerry