Is bookmarks implementation planned?

[fabiotv]

I can see this is an old feature request never being implemented: is there any plan to do it in a near future?

Thanks.

[Brent]

Not sure what you're asking for.

If by "bookmarks" you mean saving your place in a show/video and the ability to start back where you left off, then that is a feature SageTV has and has had for a long time.

[fabiotv]

Sorry, I thought it was clear what "bookmarks" meant:

the ability to set an arbitrary number of "reminders" or "indexes" or "chapters" or whatever we want to call them in arbitrary points of a video or a recording while watching it.

And, of course, the ability to jump from one to the next during a playback.

I think I don't need to list the many situations when this would be quite handy.

IIRC, even the old VCRs had some sort of an indexing system.

Not to mentions 10-15 years old STBs with an hard disk.

Thanks.

[GKusnick]

This would be fairly straightforward to implement as a third-party add-on. I don't know offhand whether such an add-on exists; have you checked the Downloads section?

If there isn't one, that could explain why it hasn't been a priority for the Sage devs: if it's easy to implement, but nobody bothered, that implies a fairly low demand.

Also, historically it hasn't been the habit of the Sage devs to announce new features before they're implemented. Typically the first we hear about it is when it shows up in a beta.

[fabiotv]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

This would be fairly straightforward to implement as a third-party add-on. I don't know offhand whether such an add-on exists; have you checked the Downloads section?

Yes, and I didn't find anything.

If there isn't one, that could explain why it hasn't been a priority for the Sage devs: if it's easy to implement, but nobody bothered, that implies a fairly low demand.

Probably the demand is low among people who are able to create a plugin or an add-on because they use SageTV in a different way than the average user (and wives) do.
For instance, in the Foobar forum, I learned that programmers tend to use the keyboard and not the mouse so they will never need a mouse based add-on and probably will never develop one. But the average user would maybe be glad to have one. (This is just an example, of course)

Also, historically it hasn't been the habit of the Sage devs to announce new features before they're implemented. Typically the first we hear about it is when it shows up in a beta.

Yes, of course there is no reason to announce new features in advance. Mine wanted only to be a feature request gentle bumping.

Thanks.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by fabiotv

I think I don't need to list the many situations when this would be quite handy.
.

Actually, I think you might want to. I don't think I have ever had a need for this. The only reason I could see the need for a bookmark, is if there was a part of a show I wanted to revisit over and over again, and IF I ever had that need I would much rather clip that section out of my recording rather than keep the whole recording. Am I missing something?

[fabiotv]

Probably, we are finding bookmarks so useful because we are still using two Topfield STBs with hard disk to watch FTA satellite programs and with them you can easily place as many bookmarks as you like on a recording. Yes, they don't have the "auto bookmark at stop" and the "watched" features though.

We find it useful and time saving in everyday use at least for these reasons:

1 - while the daughter is at school, the wife can easily mark the beginning of each cartoon in a 3 hours recording done in the morning with no need of comskip or videoredo or else. That recording will be deleted in the evening after it has being watched. Unfortunately its content can change avery day.

2 - some show can contain many different performances and I don't see why I should be bothered to have to cut that in pieces insted of being able to place index marks to easily jump from one performance to the next

3 - I'm watching a course about impressionism and in different moments of a lesson they show the paintings they are talking about. I'd like to mark those points to be able to come back there whenever I like: shall I have to cut it in pieces?

4 - I can use Sage to watch family videos too. The same as above, just index your interesting points instead of tear everything out.

Am I correct that I should use an external app to do the cutting?

If yes, you can understand that, wifewise, it's not the best way.
We already have that time bar with differently marked points (watched till here; started from here; recorded to here and so on), so let's use it to place marks and to see where they are.

And: isn't already programmed a bookmarking function in SageTV? Yes, it is. Every time you press "stop" some code in SageTV will call the "please place a bookmark here" function. So, where is the problem (apart the programmers work, of course) in making this function avalaible as an independent command mappable to a keyboard shortcut?
When it's there, you are free to leave it alone.

Thanks.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by fabiotv

Probably, we are finding bookmarks so useful because we are still using two Topfield STBs with hard disk to watch FTA satellite programs and with them you can easily place as many bookmarks as you like on a recording. Yes, they don't have the "auto bookmark at stop" and the "watched" features though.

We find it useful and time saving in everyday use at least for these reasons:

1 - while the daughter is at school, the wife can easily mark the beginning of each cartoon in a 3 hours recording done in the morning with no need of comskip or videoredo or else. That recording will be deleted in the evening after it has being watched. Unfortunately its content can change avery day.

Sage records each show as a separate item/file/recording, it doesn't (if used optimally) record blocks of time on certain channels. So marking the beginning/end of shows is done automatically by the recording engine.

[fabiotv]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage records each show as a separate item/file/recording, it doesn't (if used optimally) record blocks of time on certain channels. So marking the beginning/end of shows is done automatically by the recording engine.

IIRC that depends from the EPG data.

Unfortunately, here in Italy, that data are not always reliable so, after many trials we have reverted using timed recording instead.

In any case, that children program we daily record in the morning, in the EPG is listed as a single block even if it lasts a couple of hours and it has many different sections inside: 3 or 4 toons + linking sections + ads.

Another annoying thing is that the content is not always the same: they don't always show the same toons and when they do, the starting time can be different. So we usually apply a large padding to be sure not to loose anything.
And for the ads, we just don't want to use another app to do indexing. Let alone the removal.

Thanks.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by fabiotv

And: isn't already programmed a bookmarking function in SageTV? Yes, it is. Every time you press "stop" some code in SageTV will call the "please place a bookmark here" function.

To be fair, what Sage does now is "please place the bookmark here." The hard part is not placing it, it's going from a single bookmark to multiple user-selectable bookmarks per recording, which requires not just the ability to store multiple bookmarks in the database, but also new UI for setting, recalling, and deleting them.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by fabiotv

1 - while the daughter is at school, the wife can easily mark the beginning of each cartoon in a 3 hours recording done in the morning with no need of comskip or videoredo or else. That recording will be deleted in the evening after it has being watched. Unfortunately its content can change avery day.
.

Do they move the time slot of the cartoons? Just wondering if smaller chunks of time would work better for this?

[ttriplett]

I record HD concert videos from my HD-PVR. Having a bookmarks feature would allow me to easily skip from one song to the next without having to search for the beginning of each song manually.

[Fuzzy]

You can always try adding your cutpoints to an .edl file, and use a comskip plugin or sagemc. This would allow you to skip through the cutpoints and get to your desired points.

[heffe2001]

I was going to suggest the .edl files as well, if there were a way to set them from the UI, then the functionality he's wanting would be there.

[hockeyfan]

Bookmarks is something I've always wanted, even back when I ran Windows Media Center. Sometimes I'll be watching a show or game and there is something that I want the family to see but I don't want to stop watching. To have dynamic bookmarks on the fly would be huge. I hate writing time stamps on white boards!

[ttriplett]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

You can always try adding your cutpoints to an .edl file, and use a comskip plugin or sagemc. This would allow you to skip through the cutpoints and get to your desired points.

Great idea! Wait... what's an .edl file?

[Fuzzy]

.edl files are "Edit Decision Lists". They are basically a list of timestamps to use as markers in the media. If I recall, the format is:
[Begin] [End] [Action]

Begin and End are numbers (in seconds) for the cut area. Action varies, but I believe it's 0 for cut, 1 for mute. All we're concerned with here is 0. My guess is you'd be okay making a .edl file with say a 0.1 second 'cut' region. It would allow you to skip ahead and back to each of these regions. The lacking feature here is an 'in-sage' method of creating/editing those files.

[Tiki]

Personally I wouldn't see much use for this for recorded TV shows (since I usually watch them once then delete them). However, for other video files that I keep and re-watch (such as movies) I could see an advantage.

DVD's support chapters, most other video formats do not. Of course the chapters can only be defined while the DVD is being authored. An external "bookmark file" to store user-defined chapters would allow you to have chapters in other video formats (like AVI, or MPG). Might be a neat idea...

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

I was going to suggest the .edl files as well, if there were a way to set them from the UI, then the functionality he's wanting would be there.

This functionality in the UI does exist! I think the "Video Editing" import by BobPhoenix will do bookmarks as you want by creating your own edl file (default or sageMC).
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22312

[Fuzzy]

I KNEW there was a plugin that could do this, jsut couldn't find it. Not sure how well that old plugin works, as it's a bit dated (last update in 07 I believe). Still, if it works, then yes, this IS close to what he wanted. Not quite as nice as a simple 'press this button while watching or paused', but a good start.