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[akira54]

Some time ago I followed up Glynor's suggestions to add various elements to the watched status of films and video material, for which I am very grateful, but now find it stops me from watching bits and pieces of things again because I fear it might incorrectly change the number of times watched setting.

So I would like to go back to basics, which in my case is a trustworthy watched status (i.e. one that only switches to watched when a film or tv episode has been watched for say at least 90-95%) but does NOT record any other info, like how many times it was watched or how many % of it have been watched. Is this at all possible and if so, what fields can I get rid of and what should I keep?

[6233638]

I don't think it's possible, since the watched status increments when the file is played beyond 50% and there is no preference for that.
 
I'd also like to change it to around 90-95% for video files as well.

[MrHaugen]

Me too. Watched increase at 50% for video is just not reliable at all. It should be up to at least 90% for videos that are 20 minutes or more.

As a side note to the developers, the Watched() function are probably also still incorrect. Only two of the tree possible states worked last time I checked.

[glynor]

So I would like to go back to basics, which in my case is a trustworthy watched status (i.e. one that only switches to watched when a film or tv episode has been watched for say at least 90-95%) but does NOT record any other info, like how many times it was watched or how many % of it have been watched.

You could just modify my system to show you less information.  The problem doesn't seem to be what it is actually tracking, but what it is showing you.

That's easily modified.  You don't have to show the percentages, or the number of plays.

[akira54]

You could just modify my system to show you less information.  The problem doesn't seem to be what it is actually tracking, but what it is showing you.

That's easily modified.  You don't have to show the percentages, or the number of plays.

Sure but that does not address the problem of the 50% and it is a patch work solution. I implemented your solution a while back and now I cannot find my way around it anymore to change anything. I must because some new films located in a different folder suddenly no longer even let me touch the watched state by means of the number of plays filed. When I enter 0, nothing happens.

[glynor]

Please describe the behavior desired in detail and I can help you modify the setup you have to achieve that.

The default behavior is as described: it marks things as watched at the 50% mark.  The way to change this is (at least unless they add a new feature) is to use my system, or something like it.

My system can be easily tweaked to trigger at whatever percentages you want.  In fact, I've tweaked my own since that was written (though I made it go the other way and it checkmarks at a lower percentage now).

[MrHaugen]

I have to agree with akira that it's kind of not the point that you CAN do what people want with a complex expression. This should be easy to have working properly without getting help from the experts. The default views should behave like people expect. A watched break point for longer video at 50% is just not good.

This have been recurring topic for many, many years. 50% works for music and short videos. For longer video, I would think that 90% would be much better suited. This should not be a huge task to correct? Are there obstacles I do not see here?

[Hendrik]

The Watched() expression gives you a "partially watched" above 15% and a "watched" state over 90%.
Or are we talking about something else?

Edit:
Looks like the Number Plays is incremented at 50%, which causes Watched() to misbehave .. that might explain why the logic isn't being triggered correctly.

Anyone see a reason to not move this to 90% for all videos? I would rather avoid having some sort of duration heuristic in there.

[glynor]

Edit:
Looks like the Number Plays is incremented at 50%, which causes Watched() to misbehave .. that might explain why the logic isn't being triggered correctly.

Had no idea this was even intended originally, because it has always triggered at 50% (which is why I made my system in the first place).  90% seems good as a default.  Only thing that might want special handling is [Media Sub Type] = Music Video.  But, even that isn't a huge deal, I'd guess.

The 50% mark is basically that way for music, though, so if it is easy to special-handle Music Videos, you might want to consider that.

[MrHaugen]

The Watched() expression gives you a "partially watched" above 15% and a "watched" state over 90%.
Or are we talking about something else?

Edit:
Looks like the Number Plays is incremented at 50%, which causes Watched() to misbehave .. that might explain why the logic isn't being triggered correctly.

Anyone see a reason to not move this to 90% for all videos? I would rather avoid having some sort of duration heuristic in there.

Thanks for looking into this, Hendrik! It's been a thorn in my side for quite a long time.

To me it looks like the partially watched status flag is totally busted for partially watched. If I remember correctly, the flags was 0, 1 and 2. Flag 1 and 2 are busted when it comes to partially played/watched. It does not output anything for partially played stuff. Not sure if its because of the 50% Number Played threshold though.

The Number Plays is incremented at 50%, as you say. And as Glynor mentions, I also believe the best way would be to treat shorter movies differently. This does not only go for Music videos though. Things like short comedy stuff, super short films or series would also perhaps not trigger the Number Played increase if people stop it before the credits are done. Would it be problematic to check for a duration or the videos, instead of a type or sub type? Personally I would not do any change to videos below 20 minutes. But above, 90% would work rather well I think.

Here's a previous thread on this discussion, with a user poll for what people expect and want.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77937.msg529392#msg529392

One another thing to consider. Does the clearing of the Playing Now also clear the bookmarks? If so, this should not be an issue any more. But if not, the Watched() function also needs to consider the marking of content as watched if it's not been watched in MC, and Not Watched if it's been marked as an error. Previously I've been using the bookmarks field my self, for this purpose.

[Hendrik]

The Watched() logic is quite simple:

Code: [Select]

If Number Plays > 0, return Yes
else
if Bookmark > 90%, return Yes
else if Bookmark > 15%, return Partial
else return No

This is how it works today. The only problem is that Number Plays increments at 50% already, which causes the 90% rule in Watched() to not really account for much.
I could add a time-based component, say 90% or within 5 (10/15?) minutes of the ending, or something like that. Would that make sense? It would cover shorter videos somewhat. Tilting the percentage over depending on the overall length seems rather fragile, imho.

All 3 Watched(1) states work fine here, 0 for No, 1 for Partial (between 15% and 50%), and 2 for Yes (above 50% due to the mentioned bug before). After the fix Partial would go from 15% to 90% of course.
Watched(2) actually outputs a half-transparent checkmark for partial watched (would show grey-ish), but that difference is probably only visible in Theater View, not in Standard View, and even then probably not all that obvious.

I would be open to alternate visual indicators for Watched(2) for the Partial state.

[MrHaugen]

The logic looks good, yes.

I could add a time-based component, say 90% or within 5 (10/15?) minutes of the ending, or something like that.

Would it not still be problematic for, say music videos? Let's say it's 4 minutes long. 90% would mean that you would have to stop it after 3 and 36 seconds for the 90% to trigger. If you add your suggestion of "within 5 minutes of the ending" it would trigger immediately after playback have been initiated, right? So, it does not sound like an optimal solution. The easiest I can think of right now is to check the length of the video. But yes, it would be a pretty hard break point. People can question why it behaved so differently. Not optimal. Another way is to add different sub types of media. However, this will get messy when more types are added. And it's bound to be a lot of different lengths in each sub type as well. So, no. That's not a great approach I think.

I personally use the "!" character for partially watched. I don't know if there are more "graphical" representations of this. The optimal thing imoh, would be to create a custom "Open" and "Closed Eye" icon for this. It would work very nicely in Theater View. It would probably look nice in Standard view as well. Most popular Media Centers often use this icon to indicate played/not played status.

[Hendrik]

How about, over 90%, or within 5 minutes of the end, but not sooner than 50%?
This is getting complex to explain.

In code:
Threshold = Max(Duration * 0.5, Min(Duration * 0.9, Duration - 5 minutes))

The other option would be like you guys suggested simply acting different if the movie is short, but where is the limit there, anything we pick would be super arbitrary as well.

[Hendrik]

This is the logic I went with now:
Changed: [Number Plays] is incremented for videos more consistently (at 90% or within 5 minutes of the end, but never before 50%).

[MrHaugen]

Sounds like a good solution to me. Thanks a lot for taking the time to look into this!

[dean70]

This is the logic I went with now:
Changed: [Number Plays] is incremented for videos more consistently (at 90% or within 5 minutes of the end, but never before 50%).

Some movies can have a good 10-15 mins of credits at the end. Not everyone watches the credits right through

[Hendrik]

If a movie is at least 100 minutes long, then the 90% will allow for 10 minutes of credits.
If its a 80 minute movie with 15 minutes of credits, I would feel ripped off!

The 5 minutes is mostly there as a tolerance value for shorter videos, as 90% gets pretty short if your movie is shorter.