How do you organize your recordings?

[gveres]

I am coming from BTV and I just don't get it. I don't understand how to navigate and organize my recordings.

How do people do it in general? It seems that there are only two views: sort by EPG assigned category or view all the recordings you have ever done (and not deleted).

Is there another way? I know I can't do what I truly want to do - I want to have certain shows recorded into certain directories and then I want to browse by directory.

But is there a way to just get a list of the shows so that it looks like a list of folders for each show (even if there is only a single recording of that show?) And have it sorted alphabetically by show name?

A frustrated BTV user,
Greg

[Opus4]

What STV are you using?

For the latest default STV, check the icons on the left-hand icon bar to configure the recordings list's method of sorting, grouping, and filtering the recordings. You can group them by title.

The default STV also has a 2-pane recordings view as part of the hidden extras, which has more sorting/grouping/filtering options.

Edit: For both recordings views, you can customize the alternate views to display the recordings in different ways.

- Andy

[gveres]

Well the hidden extras really helps. Why are they hidden???

I think part of my problem is that by default it doesn't seem like there are good key bindings for important things - like stop. I need to spend some time and set this up on my TV and setup a remote to see how it feels when using a remote. I had a horrible experience right after posting this because I got stuck with Live TV playing and I couldn't get it to stop for love or money. I was ready to throw my computer out the window at that point. I was using SageMC so I am not sure if that was part of the problem or not.

Thanks for your help Andy.

[gveres]

Is there a way to get rid of the count of the recordings in each series in this two pane view? I really don't want that. The * is good to show me there are new recordings there.

Thanks
Greg

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by gveres

I want to have certain shows recorded into certain directories and then I want to browse by directory.

But is there a way to just get a list of the shows so that it looks like a list of folders for each show (even if there is only a single recording of that show?) And have it sorted alphabetically by show name?

A frustrated BTV user,
Greg

I know BTV lists by folders, but SageTV doesn't work this way. It does the sorting for you by Title, Date, Category, Air Date, Channels, Intelligent, and Show ID. I suggest you use the default STV first and once you are familiar with it, then try the SageMC one.

[gveres]

So I am asking how people use it, because I just can't see the given options scaling up to the 400+ recordings that I have at any given time. I so desparately want to like SageTV because I want to run the client on a new Mac I have (BTV doesn't have that option) but I am just banging my head against brick wall after brick wall.

The lastest one this morning was that I recorded bunch of episodes of Pinks last night on SpeedTV so that I would have an example of multiple episodes of one series. All of a sudden this morning it was taping Unique Whips for no reason at all. I have intelligent recording disabled. I would have understood if intelligent recording was enabled but I know I don't want it to do this so the first thing I did was turn it off.

Then to top it off, I just can't find a way to make it stop the recording. I marked it as "dont like" but I couldn't find an option to cancel this recording. I finally went to the Program guide and said "record this show", then went back and was able to "cancel this recording". (crap, I just checked again and it is still recording!)

I also was trying to look at my recording schedule. I want to record Heroes. So I searched by title and found Heroes and said record. Ok I read somewhere else that it does First runs and reruns by default - but it was picking only reruns to record. I switched it to first runs and now it isn't going to record anything. What's up with that?

Greg

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by gveres

The lastest one this morning was that I recorded bunch of episodes of Pinks last night on SpeedTV so that I would have an example of multiple episodes of one series. All of a sudden this morning it was taping Unique Whips for no reason at all. I have intelligent recording disabled. I would have understood if intelligent recording was enabled but I know I don't want it to do this so the first thing I did was turn it off.

Then to top it off, I just can't find a way to make it stop the recording. I marked it as "dont like" but I couldn't find an option to cancel this recording. I finally went to the Program guide and said "record this show", then went back and was able to "cancel this recording".

Are you watching anything live? And/or do you have video playing in menus all the time? "Live TV" will continue as long as you watch it, or the preview window/menu background can play live TV if nothing scheduled is recording. Use the Optiosn command on a menu & configure menus to play video either "Never" or only "If Active" (top of p. 29 in the PDF manual has info & a link to more details). Live TV is really a recording played at the same time it is recording.

I also was trying to look at my recording schedule. I want to record Heroes. So I searched by title and found Heroes and said record. Ok I read somewhere else that it does First runs and reruns by default - but it was picking only reruns to record. I switched it to first runs and now it isn't going to record anything. What's up with that?

Check this FAQ or p. 58 of the v6.2 PDF manual -- by default, a show usually won't be scheduled unless it airs within the next 3 days.

Perhaps you should check out more of the manual -- there is a quick start guide that begins on p. 18 & then there are often tips or further info for a specific menu's features in chapter 3.

- Andy

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by gveres

The lastest one this morning was that I recorded bunch of episodes of Pinks last night on SpeedTV so that I would have an example of multiple episodes of one series. All of a sudden this morning it was taping Unique Whips for no reason at all. I have intelligent recording disabled. I would have understood if intelligent recording was enabled but I know I don't want it to do this so the first thing I did was turn it off.

Another possibility (besides the one Opus mentioned) is that you may have set your favorites up incorrectly; are you recording your favorites by title or by keyword?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gveres

Then to top it off, I just can't find a way to make it stop the recording.

I always put Sage to sleep when I'm done using it.

[gveres]

Ok I have been exploring the hidden extras menus a bit more. I am soooo close. I think the one feature request that would get me there is the ability to add custom categories to recordings.

I really don't care much about the categories that the EPG assigns, but what I do care about is the category that I want to assign. And this category would be the same for every episode recorded for a favourite. So if in the favourite details, I could assign a custom category, then I could use the hidden extras screen to setup a number of top level menus that filter by these custom categories. The end result would be I would have my shows filtered exactly the way I want them filtered. I wouldn't have to try to guess the category a show will be tagged with and then go update my menu filters if I decided to pick a show that was categorized with a category I had never used before.

I don't know how feature requests work around here, but it would help in the conversion of BTV users. I would even be willing to write up a how to covert guide. Well, once I get com skip and compression going.

I think the import of existing recordings wouldn't be that hard. BTV has an API for getting at the meta data. I think there is even a tool to convert the meta data to .my files and I have seen reference to a tool that imports .my files. I will be looking into that soon.

Greg

[bcjenkins]

You can use JREKiwi's metadata editor to create your own categories. The only drawback is that it requires typing the name in. If you use SageTV with a remote, it could make it tedious. But, if you could do that piece on a computer with a keyboard, you could zip through.

B

[gveres]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

You can use JREKiwi's metadata editor to create your own categories. The only drawback is that it requires typing the name in. If you use SageTV with a remote, it could make it tedious. But, if you could do that piece on a computer with a keyboard, you could zip through.

B

Thanks, I will definitely check that out.

Greg

[gveres]

Ok this morning I was reading through other user's wish list for v7. I saw a lot of requests for multi-user features. I even saw somebody else ask for custom categories so I had to respond with my ringing endorsement for the suggestion since I was there to post the very same request.

Well, a little bit later somebody else posted a response that my request was actually just part of a good multi-user solution. I agree completely but I think it should be so much easier for the Sage Wizards to add this feature than to add full fledged support for multi-user.

Anyway, it then hit me as I was shovelling the snow this morning, that this is exactly why I am having such a hard time adjusting to Sage after coming from BTV.

BTV has better support for a multi-user environment with its video folders.

BTV's video folders let me organize my household recordings into nice logical groupings so that I don't have to wife's recordings and she doesn't have to wade through mine. And we both don't have to look at our kid's recordings. I think this is 75% of the multi-user problem solved. And I think that adding custom categories will solve this problem in much the same way.

Anyway, I am off to try the above mentioned plugin. Here's hoping it does what I need.

Thanks for listening.
Greg

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by gveres

BTV has better support for a multi-user environment with its video folders.

BTV's video folders let me organize my household recordings into nice logical groupings so that I don't have to wife's recordings and she doesn't have to wade through mine. And we both don't have to look at our kid's recordings. I think this is 75% of the multi-user problem solved. And I think that adding custom categories will solve this problem in much the same way.

Greg

Maybe its 75% of your problem, but I think having multi-user Watch(ed) status is more important than a logical way to wade through other users recordings.

Why? Because it involves the deletion of shows. SageTV handles all disk space managements, meaning it deletes recordings when space is needed. You just tell it where to store recordings and it takes care of the rest. You never have to worry about not having enough space or deciding what to delete to free up space. SageTV automatically does it for you, which is a nice and useful feature.

But, this presents a problem when SageTV deletes something you might want to save, such as a show you haven't watched, but someone else already watched. To prevent such deletions, after a user watched a show, he/she must reset the Watch status, or else SageTV might delete it if it needs space for new recordings.

Now having multi-user settings, SageTV would not delete a show unless everyone already watched it, or it would delete these shows at higher priority. There are other benefits for Multi-user support, such as resuming a partially watched shows. This means that each user has their own resume/watched status. So you can resume watching a show where you last left off, and not have your watch status changed if someone watched the same show.

[gveres]

Fair enough.

I am constantly running at 15 minutes free on my system. But I cope with it by having it delete the kids shows. The adult shows are all set to manually delete and we delete them after we are done, which works quite well for us.

On the topic of the watched flag, that's another area I need to get used to. I can see the usefulness of having the system "know" that I watched something so it can delete it automatically, but I never watch anything to the end. Mostly because I have 3 minute padding on both ends of my recordings and I think I would find it annoying to have to remember to mark it watched.

Oh well, I think this is just a matter of I have been conditioned by BTV's "new" flag instead of a "watched" flag. They are two completely different beasts and the user has to adapt to each one differently. I have been conditioned to deal with the "new" flag, now I will have to change that adaptation to deal with the watched flag.

Greg

[Opus4]

You don't need to watch completely to the end, especially not the padding at the end. But, for simplicity's sake, I often just use FF2 to jump over the end padding & delete it when asked at the end of playback.

If the title is italicized or it has the W (watched) icon on it in the recordings list, it is watched & will remain wathed when you delete it. Also, the hidden malore menus have an option to "Delete & Set Watched" when the Delete command is used on a recording, so that would just be 1 command + verification.

- Andy

[gveres]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

You can use JREKiwi's metadata editor to create your own categories. The only drawback is that it requires typing the name in. If you use SageTV with a remote, it could make it tedious. But, if you could do that piece on a computer with a keyboard, you could zip through.

B

Ok, I downloaded this and installed it, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how you add a custom category to a favourite recording. There is also no mention in the release notes for the plugin about adding categories.

Are you saying that with this I have to go hand edit the .my file every time?

If you know how to add a custom category with this plugin, please let me know.

Thanks
Greg