Feature Request: More configuration to the Auto-Delete feature

[jbarr]

I just I purchased SageTV last night, so I figure that it's time to start to influence its development direction.

I have been playing with SageTV, and so far I love it. But there's one area that's been bugging me about how SageTV handles certain recordings. Specifically, how recordings made on a channel while tuned to Live TV are handled.

When I tune to a channel to watch Live TV, SageTV begins recording the current show. This is expected. When the show completes and a new show starts, SageTV stops recording the completed show and starts recording the next show. This makes sense, and though it differes from many other DVR's, it effectively mimics the "buffer" concept of other DVR's. I like the ability to "go back in time" a bit to view something that I may have missed on the current channel.

So, what happens to the completed show recording? Well, it depends on the setting in Setup > Detailed Setup > Customize > Delete Live TV files when not using Intelligent Recording

Page 189 of the manual reads:

Delete LiveTV files when not using Intelligent Recording

Choose whether SageTV should automatically delete live TV recordings shortly after the show has finished airing and you have stopped watching the recording. By default, this will be on. If you disable live TV autodeletion, the recordings will still be deleted when disk space is needed for a new recording.

OK, I understand the choices, but it brings me a problem: If I enable this feature, then completed shows get automatically deleted. While this is OK, and it certainly saves disk space, I am finding that the completed shows tend to get deleted before I have the chance to make the decision as to if I want to watch them or not. On the other hand, if I enable this feature, then my hard drive quickly fills up with shows recorded from the current channel. Yes, SageTV will eventually delete these shows as it needs disk space, but with a 320GB drive, it will fill up with TONS of shows--most of which I have no intention of watching.

So the manual reads, "SageTV [will] automatically delete live TV recordings shortly after the show has finished airing and you have stopped watching the recording." My question is, just how long is "shortly", and can this value be changed?

This boils down to my feature request: I would like to be able to configure SageTV to either:

1. keep these shows for a user-definable period of time before SageTV auto-deletes them, or

2. keep a certain number (user-definable) of these shows before SageTV deletes them. (For example, "Retain the last 5 live-recorded shows" or something like that.)

Another possibility would be to simply have a menu command that would allow me to "Purge all Watched shows". Yes, this would be a manual operation, but it would solve the problem.

Comments?

[blade]

My question is why are you recording shows as live TV? That's what favorites, manual, and timed recordings are for. I doubt many people are tuning to a channel and letting Sage record it for hours then going back to try and find something to watch. With all the ways recordings can be setup in Sage it doesn't make sense to use its least intelligent form of recording.

Maybe I'm missing what you're trying to accomplish.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jbarr

but with a 320GB drive, it will fill up with TONS of shows--most of which I have no intention of watching.

How do you manage to get a disk full of live TV shows that you haven't watched & have no intention of doing so? Do you just leave it playing live TV all the time & then just turn off the TV when you are done, letting SageTV continue to record, play, & mark all the shows from then on as Watched? You will lose everything but Manual Recordings and manual-delete Favorites that way, since Watched shows can be deleted when space is needed. Plus, it affects yor viewing history, in case you ever decide to rty out Intelligent Recording.

- Andy

[jbarr]

Ahhh. OK, I understand what you are saying. I think I simply have a different mindset based on my experience with how other DVR's handle things, and how I used them. For example, with ReplayTV and Moxi, it was common practice to turn on the TV and start watching Live TV. Then, when I was through, I'd just turn off the TV. The DVR continued to "buffer" what was on the current channel (up to device-specific limits.) When I came back to the TV at a later time, whatever channel it was tuned to had been buffering. (The actual channel may have changed if recordings were made on other channels.) If what is currently airing interested me, I could just rewind back into the buffer to watch it. And yes, that's what SageTV does too by recording whatever is currently live--so that's not a problem. But what about the show before the current one? If it interested me also, I could always rewind back through the buffer to view it. That's what I'm referring to. Also understand that I do ecord lots of other recordings too and don't rely on Live TV.

OK, so my misunderstanding is that it seems that SageTV is really geared more toward planning, managing, and viewing recordings as opposed to watching Live TV. Note that this is not to say that SageTV doesn't handle Live TV well--actually quite the contrary. SageTV just handles it differently from the other DVR's I have used.

You also mention that keeping tuned to a channel can affect Intelligent Recording selections. Again, it does make sense. Again, a potential difference here (from say, TiVo) is that it appears that SageTV uses your viewing history (and probably other factors) as criteria to schedule Intelligent Recordings as opposed to simply looking at recording history. (I have never actually used a TiVo, and I do understand that its "Suggestions" are more comprehensive than just viewing or recording history.)

So that said, what do you all recommended as "proper practice" when you are done watching Live TV and want to turn off your TV? Do you leave SageTV tuned to Live TV? Do you put SageTV in Standby mode? Do you switch to the "Home" screen? Is there some other "mode" to put it in? I know it's all personal preference, but I'm certainly willing to adopt other methods if they make more sense and help SageTV work better for me.

I'm sorry if my past DVR experiences are bleeding into my current perceptions of how SageTV works (or should work.) I learned long ago that a "this versus that" attitude often gets me into trouble so I now just like to draw on what I know. Admittedly, comparisons are always inevitable. And the kicker in all this is going to be to explain to my wife how things work....

Anyway, I simply LOVE SageTV, so any of these little idiosyncracies that come up will be dealt with. Oh, and I do mean "little"! SageTV is pleasantly feature-packed and very intuitive.

Thanks!

[gplasky]

Good questions and points. We're not using Intelligent recording. So I make sure the wife and I stop all the video playing and just go back to the Home menu. Then turn off the TV and stereo but leave the PC running.

Gerry

[ke6guj]

I rarely watch Live TV except to let the news at bed time. I installed flachbar's cool Sleep Timer, so that I can set Sage to sleep in an hour, at the same time I tell the TV to turn off.

ONe nice feature, would be if Sage could be set to automatically go to sleep if it didn't receive any remote/mouse commands over a specified time frame.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jbarr

So that said, what do you all recommended as "proper practice" when you are done watching Live TV and want to turn off your TV? Do you leave SageTV tuned to Live TV? Do you put SageTV in Standby mode? Do you switch to the "Home" screen? Is there some other "mode" to put it in? I know it's all personal preference, but I'm certainly willing to adopt other methods if they make more sense and help SageTV work better for me.

My solution is I just don't watch live TV & just watch recorded shows..

Unless you are "Always" using video playback as your menu background or in the preview window, all you really need to do is use the Stop command when done watching TV - that will stop playback & live TV recording, then return to a menu. If video always plays in the menus, then you'll need to put it to sleep to stop recording live TV. There is more about live TV in the Quick Start Guide section of chapter 2 in the PDF manual. See p. 20 (in v5.0) for info about "Watching Live TV".

- Andy

[Mark SS]

I'd got nuts for IR to use a Tivo style thumbs system instead of monitoring whats watched/recorded.

[blade]

The best thing is not to use live TV unless there is something specific you want to watch and then stop it once you're finished.

Say you've left it in live TV mode for several hours and it records a show and marks it as watched. You think nothing of it and it's deleted. A week or month later you watch an episode of the show and realize you like it and set it up as a favorite. Any episodes previously set as watched will not be recorded by Sage unless you think to clear the watched history when you set it up as a favorite. So you end up missing episodes because Sage thinks you've already seen them.

Once a favorite is actually setup this isn't a problem, unless Sage is set to auto delete. Then if you leave live TV running and a favorite happens to come on I believe it will be set as watched and could be deleted by Sage before you've actually seen it. Also it wouldn't be recorded again because Sage thinks you've actually watched it.

As mentioned before it will also affect intelligent recording. I don't actually use IR, but I use the plugin that allows you to view the list IR would record if it were turned on so you can manually select shows from it. This allows you to benefit from Sage's IR suggestions without filling up your drives.

I know it's different than what you're used to, but the fact Sage is more intelligent than most if not all other PVR apps means you have to treat it a little differently.

[briands]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

I'd got nuts for IR to use a Tivo style thumbs system instead of monitoring whats watched/recorded.

IR also uses "Don't Like" and with Strong Negative profiling it will eventually learn not to recordsome things.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by jbarr

keep these shows for a user-definable period of time before SageTV auto-deletes them

I see no harm in this request. I'd suggest the variable be in 15 minute increments, with a max of 24 hours. I think it could be a useful little addition.

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by briands

IR also uses "Don't Like" and with Strong Negative profiling it will eventually learn not to recordsome things.

Still not as good as Tivo, in particular because several people use the system so the good work is quickly undone. The other factor is undoubtedly the comparitively poor quality guide data.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

Still not as good as Tivo, in particular because several people use the system so the good work is quickly undone. The other factor is undoubtedly the comparitively poor quality guide data.

There is also an anti-favorite import that will automatically mark certain shows as do not like. I agree though that there needs to be a way in the default stv to tell Sage to never record certain channels, shows, or other keywords.

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

I see no harm in this request. I'd suggest the variable be in 15 minute increments, with a max of 24 hours. I think it could be a useful little addition.

And realistically, I'd probably keep it set to say, 2 or 3 hours.

But that said, after thinking about this issue overnight, I probably have to retract the request due to the potential effects of leaving SageTV tuned to a channel. Because SageTV flags these shows as "Watched" and then uses that history to determine if Favorites will record or not, this could be very problematic. Is there a SageTV screen to manage the Watched history? On the Web Interface plugin, there is a very nice "Watched Shows" screen that I could use to manage this, but what about from SageTV itself?

Originally Posted by blade

I know it's different than what you're used to, but the fact Sage is more intelligent than most if not all other PVR apps means you have to treat it a little differently.

I understand. Per gplasky's suggestion, we'll just get into the habit of stopping video playback and going to the Home menu.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jbarr

Is there a SageTV screen to manage the Watched history? On the Web Interface plugin, there is a very nice "Watched Shows" screen that I could use to manage this, but what about from SageTV itself?

malore's custom menus includes a Viewing History screen, where you can see all the past airings in your database from more than 2 days ago. You can use the Unofficial Secret Extra v5 UI Features to access this & other features in the default STV.

But, in the default STV w/o doing anything special, you can also simply check the Future & Past Airings for any show that you select. And, the Favorites Details screen has the ability to set or clear the Watched status for all of its own airings in the Advanced Options dialog.

- Andy

[jbarr]

I was again playing around with SageTV last night, and I think I found a simple solution to this issue. (OK, I didn't really find it...it was suggested. I just validated it in my thick head.)

When you're done watching TV (live or otherwise) just press the green "power" button on the remote (it's the green button on the upper right of the Hauppauge 45-button remote) and SageTV simply goes into "Standby" mode. All live TV recording stops, and SageTV's screensaver comes on. (Turning the TV "off" is, of course, up to the viewer.) When you later want to resume using SageTV, press the power button again, and you the Home screen nicely comes up. Sweet and simple. Note that I opted for this method instead of pressing the "Stop" button (which brings up the EPG) because I don't know how things will be affected if I install the Stop enhancement plugin. Pressing "Power" seems to be the best solution.)

For users new to the DVR concept, this should be a no-brainer. For those coming from standalone DVR's like ReplayTV or Moxi, this is a simple minor "mental adjustment" to get used to.

Thanks for the help with this. I'm now one step closer to moving to SageTV full-time!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Mark SS

The other factor is undoubtedly the comparitively poor quality guide data.

AFAIK, Sage gets the same guide data Tivo does, that being Tribune Media Services (ie Zap2It) data. Same as pretty much every other DVR out there.

Originally Posted by jbarr

Because SageTV flags these shows as "Watched" and then uses that history to determine if Favorites will record or not, this could be very problematic.

Just to be clear, Sage doesn't use your viewing history for determining which favorites to record, viewing history (including watched/don't like) is used for scheduling Intelligent Recordings.

The only thing that comes in to play with Favorites is if you've watched that episode already it will "usually" not record them in the future (maybe this is what you meant).

[jbarr]

I mentioned above that the SageTV manual states that "SageTV [will] automatically delete live TV recordings shortly after the show has finished airing and you have stopped watching the recording."

Can anyone tell me how long "shortly" is? Is this seconds or minutes? Can this value be user-customized?

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by stanger89

AFAIK, Sage gets the same guide data Tivo does, that being Tribune Media Services (ie Zap2It) data. Same as pretty much every other DVR out there.

For UK users its XMLTV grabbing Radio Times data which has pretty poor categorisation and is very hit and miss with episode numbers and/or descriptions. The first show in a series might be 1 of 6, the subsequent may not be numbered.

Then again we probably shouldn't complain too much as its free! I have been meaning to switch to Stephane's importer which has more options but haven't found time yet.

[nielm]

Note that I opted for this method instead of pressing the "Stop" button (which brings up the EPG) because I don't know how things will be affected if I install the Stop enhancement plugin.

Press Stop once -> popup displayed with 'what do you want to do'
Press Stop twice -> Same as Stop in default STV (playback is stopped and Sage goes to a relevant screen depending on what you are playing)
Press Stop 3 times -> Same as Stop in default STV + goes to main menu...