Feature Request: one-shot favorite

[robind]

(If this is already easily doable in a non-kludgy way, please let me know the details.)

A feature I've often wished for is something that I call a one-shot favorite, or maybe episode-favorite. Basically it would work just like favorites currently do, but only for selecting which instance of a single movie or show episode should be recorded, and then it would go away without leaving now useless entries in the favorites list.

Here is my typical use case where I've wished for this feature: I see a movie in the program guide that I want to record, and look at the future airings and see that there are eight of them coming up. I know that some of them will conflict with some manual recordings and favorites but I don't know for sure when I have space in my schedule. So I think it would be nice to be able to say "pick one of these for me that fits into my recording schedule." If it also acted like real favorites for conflict resolution, etc. then it would be great.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by robind

(If this is already easily doable in a non-kludgy way, please let me know the details.)

A feature I've often wished for is something that I call a one-shot favorite, or maybe episode-favorite. Basically it would work just like favorites currently do, but only for selecting which instance of a single movie or show episode should be recorded, and then it would go away without leaving now useless entries in the favorites list.

Here is my typical use case where I've wished for this feature: I see a movie in the program guide that I want to record, and look at the future airings and see that there are eight of them coming up. I know that some of them will conflict with some manual recordings and favorites but I don't know for sure when I have space in my schedule. So I think it would be nice to be able to say "pick one of these for me that fits into my recording schedule." If it also acted like real favorites for conflict resolution, etc. then it would be great.

In your example Sage already does this by default. It won't geberate a conflict if it knows it can reschedule the recording. It just goes ahead and reschedules and records it. Reference the manual for more information.

Gerry

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by gplasky

In your example Sage already does this by default. It won't geberate a conflict if it knows it can reschedule the recording. It just goes ahead and reschedules and records it. Reference the manual for more information.

Gerry

No it doesn't. It will do that for a Favorite, but not for a Manual Recording. When you create a Manual Recording in Sage, you specify a single airing at a particular time and it takes precedence over any Favorites that might conflict. So, for example if you have a Manual Recording and a Favorite that conflict, Sage will record that Manual instead of the Favorite even if the EPG data shows that the Manual will be on 100 more times in the next week or two and the Favorite will never be on again. It will try to re-schedule the Favorite, but it won't try to reschedule the Manual.

If there was a conflict between two favorites, but the EPG guide showed that one of them would be on again in the near future, Sage would re-order the recording schedule to try to get them both.

Basically, the OP would like for something that is a hybrid between a Manual Recording and a Favorite...

There is no way to do that right now that I am aware of and I don't know if Sage will consider it (you could always email Sage or submit your request through the Bug Reporting system)...

[btrcp2000]

what about setting the movie as a favorite, keep only one "episode", and set to "keep until I delete"?

[stanger89]

I don't really think we need any more recording logic formats (ie we don't need a special type of favorite or a new type of manual recording), but on several occasions I've thought it would be useful for the "Record one on x future airings" screen to show which of those future arirings would cause conflicts.

Of course that only works if you're within the scheduling lookahead window.

[briands]

Originally Posted by robind

(If this is already easily doable in a non-kludgy way, please let me know the details.)

A feature I've often wished for is something that I call a one-shot favorite, or maybe episode-favorite. Basically it would work just like favorites currently do, but only for selecting which instance of a single movie or show episode should be recorded, and then it would go away without leaving now useless entries in the favorites list.

Here is my typical use case where I've wished for this feature: I see a movie in the program guide that I want to record, and look at the future airings and see that there are eight of them coming up. I know that some of them will conflict with some manual recordings and favorites but I don't know for sure when I have space in my schedule. So I think it would be nice to be able to say "pick one of these for me that fits into my recording schedule." If it also acted like real favorites for conflict resolution, etc. then it would be great.

Agreed... I expressed this previously here

[briands]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I don't really think we need any more recording logic formats (ie we don't need a special type of favorite or a new type of manual recording), but on several occasions I've thought it would be useful for the "Record one on x future airings" screen to show which of those future arirings would cause conflicts.

Of course that only works if you're within the scheduling lookahead window.

I disagree... I think this is a perfect improvement that should be investigated. Recording a movie from a movie channel is certainly a pretty common occurrence for people and there is not a reason that Sage should not address it using the conflict management. Actually I think it would be pretty easy to execute as there have already been work arounds suggested. Just need to implement the work around into the code.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Tiki

No it doesn't. It will do that for a Favorite, but not for a Manual Recording. .

But that's what I'm saying. Choose the movie and make it a favorite. If there are 8 showings of it coming up and my Law and Order favorites conflicts with it tonight, won't it just record my movie on the next showing of it? And there's no conflict because it was able to reschedule it. Isn't this the type of functionality the OP is looking for?

Gerry

[robind]

Originally Posted by gplasky

But that's what I'm saying. Choose the movie and make it a favorite. If there are 8 showings of it coming up and my Law and Order favorites conflicts with it tonight, won't it just record my movie on the next showing of it? And there's no conflict because it was able to reschedule it. Isn't this the type of functionality the OP is looking for?

Yes, but without making an entry in the favorites list that I'll have to go search for and delete later (so the list doesn't grow to thousands of entries.) In other words, instead of a a favorite for a series, I see it as a favorite-like thing for a single episode that removes itself from the list after a showing of that episode has been recorded.

Robin

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by gplasky

But that's what I'm saying. Choose the movie and make it a favorite. If there are 8 showings of it coming up and my Law and Order favorites conflicts with it tonight, won't it just record my movie on the next showing of it? And there's no conflict because it was able to reschedule it. Isn't this the type of functionality the OP is looking for?

Gerry

Except that the favorite that's created won't nuke itself once the recording has been made.

[GKusnick]

Seems to me this is a prime candidate for a third-party plugin that could set up a temporary Favorite, check periodically to see if it's been recorded yet, and then remove the Favorite and convert the recording to Manual status.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by robind

Yes, but without making an entry in the favorites list that I'll have to go search for and delete later (so the list doesn't grow to thousands of entries.) In other words, instead of a a favorite for a series, I see it as a favorite-like thing for a single episode that removes itself from the list after a showing of that episode has been recorded.

Robin

Right.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Except that the favorite that's created won't nuke itself once the recording has been made.

Right.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Seems to me this is a prime candidate for a third-party plugin that could set up a temporary Favorite, check periodically to see if it's been recorded yet, and then remove the Favorite and convert the recording to Manual status.

Right on.

Gerry

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by robind

Yes, but without making an entry in the favorites list that I'll have to go search for and delete later

There's no need to go searching for the Favorite. I do this once in a while for movies -- simply use the Record command on the recorded movie & choose Remove this Favorite (or: Record command followed by Favorite command). If you want to turn it into a Manual Recording, use the Record command twice in a row on the recording.

- Andy

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Opus4

There's no need to go searching for the Favorite. I do this once in a while for movies -- simply use the Record command on the recorded movie & choose Remove this Favorite (or: Record command followed by Favorite command). If you want to turn it into a Manual Recording, use the Record command twice in a row on the recording.

While that is an easier method to find and remove the favorite, it does not address the problem that you still must remember to go back and manually remove the favorite for each movie sometime after the recording has completed.

but on several occasions I've thought it would be useful for the "Record one on x future airings" screen to show which of those future arirings would cause conflicts.

I've thought of this idea too. At first I thought it would be easy to make an STVi to do this, but I think it is more complicated than it appears and could cause some performance problems (especially on multi-tuner systems where there could potentially be multiple conflicts that would each need to be resolved).

Seems to me this is a prime candidate for a third-party plugin that could set up a temporary Favorite, check periodically to see if it's been recorded yet, and then remove the Favorite and convert the recording to Manual status.

This is probably the best idea and I don't think it would be too difficult to implement.

[sundansx]

It seems like a good/simple solution would be (at least for this case) is to have an record option for a manual recording called "reschedule upon conflict" that would put the priority below a favorite and move it to a future airing if necessary. This could be defaulted to off and have an "always_on" option in the properties. This may not be as simple as it seems- the devil is in the source code.

[tmiranda]

I hate to be a necroposter but it's probably better than starting a new thread. I want to record some movies and need this functionality so I went ahead and wrote the plugin.

It's pretty simple; 13 lines in Studio and 29 lines of Java. I'll do some more testing and release the plugin in a few days. If you want to help beta test let me know and I'll post a manifest.

[robind]

I can help test.

[Fuzzy]

I was always wanting to code this as well, until I enabled IR and it seems to just record all the movies I'd want anyways.. but I will certainly test this out for you.

[tmiranda]

Put the attached manifest in the sage install directory on your server. In the plugin manager you'll see "OneTimeFavorite" under the UI Mod section. If you are using a SageClient you must install the plugin on the server as well.

The only difference you will see is in the menu where you set the Favorite details. There will be one extra setting (at the bottom) for "One Time Favorite".

[tmiranda]

I've been testing this for a few days and have not had any problems (except that IR now wants to record every movie it can, but that's another issue.) Unless somebody is having problems I'll probably upload the official plugin tonight.

Tom