Plugin: Limit Intelligent Recordings

[tmiranda]

I'm doing some final testing on this (not available in the repo yet) so I thought I'd solicit recommendations before rolling it out.

I really like Sage's intelligent recording capabilities but I find it frustrating that there is no way to limit the number of recordings of a show that it will make. I currently have 124 episodes of House Hunters recorded and my wife won't let me delete any of them (but she insists she doesn't want it added as a Favorite) so I figured I'd write a plugin that will prevent that many from being recorded in the first place. Enter this plugin.

The plugin lets you enter the maximum number of intelligently recorded episodes for any specific show. It also lets you set a global maximum for shows that do not have specific maximums. It will also optionally delete all of the shows above the maximum specified (gee honey, I don't know what happened to those House Hunters. I guess the new plugin I wrote has a bug or two )

You can select to keep the oldest shows, or the newest shows.

It's also possible to set the maximum allowed to 0 which prevents any episodes from being recorded. (Think of it an an anti-favorite for intelligently recorded shows.) I added this because no matter how many times I mark "Criminal Minds" as "Don't Like", it keeps recording them.

Anybody want to see any other features or bells and whistles while I'm working on this? I will test it for about a week to make sure it's not deleting things it should not be. If you're brave and want to try it out before I finish testing let me know.

Tom

[KJake]

Sounds like a good idea. I actually had to turn my IR off because it was just running wild recording anything and everything - this might let me turn it back on!

[tmiranda]

I tested this on two machines for a few days and the results were better than expected (and my wife didn't complain too much after 60+ episodes of House Hunters disappeared) so I've released the plugin. Here is a quick overview.

All configuration is done through the plugin manager. The plugin appears under the "General" tab as "Limit Intelligent Recordings". The configuration options are as follows:

Global Maximum to Keep - This is the default maximum number of episodes to keep for any IR show. For example if you never want more than 20 episodes of any IR show (that does not have an individual maximum, see below) set this to 20. If you want to completely erase the database used by the plugin enter 5309 in this field.

Keep the Oldest Recordings - Determines which episodes to delete first, the newest or the oldest.

Choose a Show - Used to select a specific show that you want to set a limit for. When you select this all of the current IR shows recorded on your system will be displayed, choose the show you want to limit.

Max to Keep for This Show - Only appears once you have selected a show (using the previous setting). Enter the maximum number of episodes to keep for this specific show. Use -1 for unlimited. If you enter 0 it will delete any episodes that are recorded. (Effectively creating an anti-favorite for this show.) This value overrides the global maximum.

Use Default for This Show - Only appears if you have selected a show and you have set a maximum for the show. Select this setting to remove the maximum for this specific show.

Delete Excess Recordings - If set to True the plugin will delete episodes that exceed "Max to Keep For This Show" (if there is a max defined) or the global max (if the show does not have an individual max.) The deletion is triggered the first time a new episode is recorded.

Debug Logging Level - Keep this at Warn unless you have a problem, then set it to Trace or Verbose and send me the logfile.

Note that the plugin will only effect Intelligent Recordings. Any Favorite, Manual, or Timed Recording will be ignored.

SRE users should note that if a game is extended it is marked as a Manual record so this plugin will not delete it. I suppose before next year's college football season starts I'll have to find a way to delete all of those college games that I'm not interested in.

[jbrandon]

I've installed the plug-in and configured, set maximum to keep to 1 (for now), Delete newest first to False, and delete excess to keep to true.

Under Choose a Show in the configuration I only have two shows listed - I expected a lot more... The two listed are ones I do want.

When I look at my recording schedule it is full, every tuner, every time slot. Just a lot of junk I am not interested in such as sports talk, Judge Judy (DUH) I guess a reality show.

How do you configure it not to record a category such as sports talk.

I assumed if I set a category to "don't like" it would not be record but seems to anyway. Using the web interface when I select sitcom (230 shows) and try to set it to don't like the interface just goes to a white screen, is there another way to set a category to don't like? I know you are not the author of the web interface but looking for another way for now.

I guess I was expecting the recording schedule to only show the single show not all of them. Maybe SageTV/Limit Intelligent Recording is smart enough to know to only record the one show but will display all possible recordings?

I have stopped the service and restarted...

Thanks again...

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

I've installed the plug-in and configured, set maximum to keep to 1 (for now), Delete newest first to False, and delete excess to keep to true.

Under Choose a Show in the configuration I only have two shows listed - I expected a lot more... The two listed are ones I do want.

When I look at my recording schedule it is full, every tuner, every time slot. Just a lot of junk I am not interested in such as sports talk, Judge Judy (DUH) I guess a reality show.

How do you configure it not to record a category such as sports talk.

I assumed if I set a category to "don't like" it would not be record but seems to anyway. Using the web interface when I select sitcom (230 shows) and try to set it to don't like the interface just goes to a white screen, is there another way to set a category to don't like? I know you are not the author of the web interface but looking for another way for now.

I guess I was expecting the recording schedule to only show the single show not all of them. Maybe SageTV/Limit Intelligent Recording is smart enough to know to only record the one show but will display all possible recordings?

I have stopped the service and restarted...

Thanks again...

When you first enable IR Sage will try to record everything under the sun, there is no way to prevent that. What you need to do is run through the upcoming recordings and mark the ones you don't want as Don't Like. Do this for 3 or 4 days in a row and Sage will get better at knowing what it should not record. This initial behavior can turn people off from IR, but once you get Sage trained you'll really like IR.

My plugin will only allow you to limit shows that are already recorded so what you need to do is wait until the show records, limit it as you see fit, then delete the show. (Once it's in the plugin database it will remember the settings.) I thought about adding the ability to manually enter shows instead of picking from the recorded shows but I ruled this out because it's too easy to make a typo and not have the title match exactly.

Maybe I can gather the shows that are scheduled to record and put them in the list. Would that make sense?

Tom

Edit: Just realized I didn't answer one of your questions. This plugin does not change what's scheduled to be recorded. It applies the limits only after the show has been recorded.

[tmiranda]

I looked at the code and it's a one line change to have it display upcoming scheduled intelligent recordings. Try this new jar file (backup your old .jar just in case you need to revert)

Stop Sage and the Sage service.
Rename LimitIntelligentRecordings.jar to something else (that does not end in .jar)
Put this new jar in the JARs directory.

Let me know how it does.

Tom

[jbrandon]

Installed the new jar last evening and looked this morning and is easier to use. I like that I can tell SageTV to record only one episode globally but override for a given show.

I'm finding I like this very much now that I know how to get rid of shows I don't want to record. In fact it is finding even more of the show I do like to record and decide if I do want to watch them or not.

Again good job and thanks for the plug-in and the added suupport.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

How do you configure it not to record a category such as sports talk.

I assumed if I set a category to "don't like" it would not be record but seems to anyway. Using the web interface when I select sitcom (230 shows) and try to set it to don't like the interface just goes to a white screen, is there another way to set a category to don't like? I know you are not the author of the web interface but looking for another way for now.

There's another plugin called "Favorite Excluder (Anti-Favorites)" that you can use to automatically set "Dont' Like" state on a category or show title among other things. Despite it's title, it's a handy way to help train your Intelligent Recording.

John

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

Installed the new jar last evening and looked this morning and is easier to use. I like that I can tell SageTV to record only one episode globally but override for a given show.

I'm finding I like this very much now that I know how to get rid of shows I don't want to record. In fact it is finding even more of the show I do like to record and decide if I do want to watch them or not.

Again good job and thanks for the plug-in and the added suupport.

Glad it's working out. When I can I'll make an official 1.01 release that contains the update.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

There's another plugin called "Favorite Excluder (Anti-Favorites)" that you can use to automatically set "Dont' Like" state on a category or show title among other things. Despite it's title, it's a handy way to help train your Intelligent Recording.

John

Agreed, Favorite Excluder works great for training. Limit Intelligent Recordings is really aimed at managing how many of the intelligent recordings you want to keep on your system. Having the ability to set the max number to keep to 0 is just a side effect.

[jbrandon]

I was just getting ready to post a list of "would like to see..." but the suggestion by JREkiwi works just fine.

Thanks to both of you...

[Skirge01]

Tom, any chance you'd be interested in (and able to find time to) add an option for limiting the channels IR's are allowed to record on? We mostly watch TV series (partly due to the reason below), so the IR's Sage finds are predominantly TV shows. Due to that, we have IR disabled.

However, there are plenty of movies we've missed or don't know about and have no clue when they're on. That's pretty sad, given the overall effectiveness of Sage. We actually have a text file on the desktop to list movies we want to see and randomly search for them in Sage*. For this reason, we're actually considering cancelling our premium DirecTV package and finding alternative (legal) sources. The cost just doesn't seem justified at this point.

It'd be great if I could just set IR to only record off of the premium movie channels. This could actually make us reconsider that premium package.

* Yes, I've heard of Netflix and am familiar with their queue. I don't want another monthly bill, though. Plus, I like using Sage.