Req: In regards to intelligent recordings

[Kanati]

I think this has been rehashed a bit in older threads but rather than revive a thread long since dead I thought I'd start a new one.

Intelligent recordings... Are far from intelligent. They are indeed recordings though I suppose.

All shows should be treated as neutral. No like or dislike. And LiveTV recordings shouldn't affect that. Lets take tivo (because that seems to be the standard by which intelligent recording is measured). If you mark something in tivo with a thumbs down... That particular show probalby won't get recorded any more. Ever. No matter how many times you watch it live. But it will still probably record shows from the same genre. But if you mark it with three thumbs down, the four horsemen of the apocalypse spreading death and destruction could ride down upon you and yours, and tell your tivo that you DO like that show... And tivo would laugh at them and refuse to record it. But it's not the thumbs down really that is what makes the tivo "suggestions" the best... It's the thumbs UP. One thumb up means you kinda like that show. Two thumbs up... you like that show quite a bit. Three thumbs up means that show and any like it will probably make it into the tivo suggestions at one point or another. It takes your "favorites" into account when determining it's suggestions... It takes into account the genre... And the ratings you have given shows in the past.

There should be a sliding scale of like and dislike in sage. Three sage-thingies worth of dislike == don't record this show upon fear of death. One sage-thingy of dislike == eh... don't record it. But I won't be horribly ticked off if you do. And just the opposite of that for sage-thingies of LIKE. Now, anything at all that gets recorded is marked as "like" I suppose, since there is no way of telling it you like something other than favorites. That's why all shows should be neutral to begin with. Then with a sliding scale it will be easier to call intelligent recordings truly intelligent.

[nielm]

Watching a show all the way through (leaving it marked as watched) tells sage you like:

• the show
• the actors/directors/writers in that show
• the genre
• the channel

Setting don't like on that show tells sage you don't like all of the above.

These like(watched)/dont like markings give a positive/negative score to each of these show/genre/channel/actor/director/etc things, and when Sage checks the upcomming shows, if any have a score above a certain threshold, they get Intelligently recorded.

Ok it may not work like this, nobody apart from the developers really knows, but from 2 years or so of using sage, it appears to work like this...

This is therefore your sliding scale -- you just need to give Sage enough data (in terms of shows marked watched and don't like) to allow it to become more intelligent.

This is way better than your description of Tivo's in some respects:

• No need for activly saying you like a programme: just watch it
• if you have watched a few Clint Eastwood movies: Sage will record them all!
• if you watch documentaries on BBC1 (yes I am a Brit!), Sage will record them all!

but worse in others: Watch the news every night... Sage will record all news broadcasts... oops!

But this goes along with Sage's disk space management you just allow it to fill the disk and eventually it will contain favorites, manual records, and the highest rated IR's

After less than a month of posting to the forums (and therefore possibly only using Sage for less than a month), its a bit soon for IR to build up a profile of what shows you like, so it is likely to be a bit sensitive!

[Kanati]

Yeah, I realize that in the beginning it's going to be picky. But I just feel it could be better with a bit more user intervention. Easier to train so-to-speak. And for that to happen it needs a user grading scale of some sort. And definitely a way for you to say "Do not record this show ever again or I will break your keyboard!!!"

I didn't mention some tivo stuff, like you mention... If you delete a show that it has recorded for you as a "tivo suggestion" without watching it, it will remember that and eventually even shows that you like will be dropped out of the recording schedule.

As an example, I was watching a TON of Buffy the Vampire slayer for quite a while, but I didn't have it in my favorites. Tivo would record tons of it. But when I had seen all the episodes I had originally missed, I started deleting them unwatched. Tivo took a while but it eventually decided "he isn't watching that show I keep recording... so I'll just stop recording it." Once I told it to record a couple episodes manually, it decided "he must like this again. I'll record it once in a while and see." And now it's recording some Buffy once again.

The same goes for hte clint eastwood and documentary thing. If I am just watching it on live tv though I'm pretty sure that doesn't influence what it thinks I like. I might be wrong on that but I can't remember it ever doing that. Only what I TELL it to record, or what I've watched/deleted that it has recorded for me that it thinks I might like.

[nielm]

Regarding episodes -- Sage will never re-record an episode you have already (marked as) watched (caveat: if the EPG contains Epsiode info, and the episode has a unique EPGId EPxxxx)

The 'never record this show' option has been asked for a couple of times, but nothing comes out of it -- clearing the watched flag on old airings and setting all airings to Don't like has the same effect (this can be done in my webbrowser through the search page, and in Malores/Maldudes/Cayars STV though Viewing History).

There is also a hidden option to make Don't like give a more negative score than normal (aggressive_negative_profiling=true)

[briands]

Originally Posted by nielm

Watching a show all the way through (leaving it marked as watched) tells sage you like:

• the show
• the actors/directors/writers in that show
• the genre
• the channel

Setting don't like on that show tells sage you don't like all of the above.

It might reveal too much of the logic, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell it what category you don't like???
Don't Like > default (all)
> Actor
> Genre
.....

It just seems that it does not allow ANY direct control so it makes for very slow learning and occasional just plain silliness.

By the way, I have no experience with any other PVR applications (or CE devices for that matter) what does everyone else do?