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[RoderickGI]

The change below was a big improvement for my recordings that need large pre-padding.

24.0.3 (3/5/2018)
8. Changed: When calculating "Watched" status in Standard television "Recordings" view, the pre-padding ("Start recording early") value is removed from calculation so that recordings with large pre-padding relative to duration will not erroneously be marked as "x%" watched.

But for lots of late-night sports shows I need a pretty large post-padding as well. Australian late-night TV can get pretty far behind schedule, and there is nothing worse than watching a MotoGP race recording, only to find the last few laps weren't recorded!

Unfortunately, as side effect of using a large post-padding is that if the program runs on schedule I don't need to watch to the end, or indeed until I get 90% of the way from the scheduled start (i.e. Recording start plus padding) to the end of the recording.

So MC never marks the recording as Played, via incrementing the [Number Plays] field by one.
Also, the program only get a tick mark, indicating that it has been partially watched, rather than a bold tick mark, indicating that it has be watched at least to 90% through the program, as per the default functionality, and the watched(2), and TVInfo(WatchedDisplay) functions.


So, could the Watched(2), and TVInfo(WatchedDisplay) functions take into account the recording post-padding? I'm not sure if that padding information is saved with the recording, which would also be good, because if the padding in the Recording Rule was used, and then changed, it could give unexpected results.

Why do this? Well, I'm starting to build Theatre View Views that use Watched() as a parameter in the "Set rules for display" settings, and I'm finding quite a few TV Recordings remain in my Views even though I have fully watched the program. Many of these are older recordings which get to 63% or 89%, but never make it to 90% and so never get marked as played.


BTW, even recent 90 minute MotoGP recordings that have +30 minutes pre-padding and +60 minutes post-padding are still getting a non-bold tick mark next to them in Episode listings in Theatre View, even though they have not been watched at all yet (because I've seen them elsewhere or streamed them).  For those recordings, using a specific example which has a non-bold tick mark and a duration of 3 hours and 3 seconds, the Bookmark is 1799039, or 29.98 minutes, so that is the pre-padding only;
[Number Plays] is blank.
Watched(0) is blank, indicating the percentage watched is less than 11%, which is the point at which Watched(0) starts to show a human-readable Watched Status.
Watched(1) gives a value of 1, meaning partially watched, and is equivalent to a non-bold tick mark.
Watched(2) shows a tick mark in Standard View, and a non-bold tick mark in Theatre View
The watched field in Theatre View is blank, which is logical because it is the TVInfo(WatchedDisplay) function.
The Episode listings in Theatre View, which is the TVInfo(NameDisplayWithDate) function, shows a non-bold tick mark.

So it looks like the above change was only applied to the "Watched" status in Standard television "Recordings" view and hasn't been propagated out to the Watched(), TVInfo(WatchedDisplay), or TVInfo(NameDisplayWithDate) functions.

Could that be done, in addition to taking into account the post-padding?


Thanks for your consideration.

[Yaobing]

I had thought about post-padding but decided not to exclude it because it would cause a long show to be erroneously marked watched.  It can not be satisfactory going either way.

[RoderickGI]

How so?

My example above is a 3 hour recording, with 90 minute program embedded. So 30+90+60.

If all the watched functions started at 30 minutes, and the recording was watched until the Bookmark was at 120 minutes, then it would show 100% watched. Current functionality shows 90/(90+60)=60%. If it hit 111 minutes it would have been watched 90% and marked as watched. Current functionality shows (111-30)/(90+60)=54%. Anything before 111 minutes and it would be considered partially watched. Anything up to 30 minutes would be considered unwatched. It should work the same as if there was no padding, only the starting position needs to be at the end of the pre-padding, and the duration needs to be the [Duration] minus both paddings.

I guess I can't see the scenario where the suggested change would erroneously mark a long program as watched.

Well, except in the circumstances that the program actually runs late, so in my example if the program actually ran from the 60 minute mark to 150 minute mark, then yes, at the 111 minute mark it would be considered watched when there were 39 minutes of program content to go. But that is the exception, and it would be fair that the watched functionality wouldn't work correctly. MC shouldn't try to cater to the exception.

Basically, I would like the watched functionality to work with padded recordings in the same way that a video ripped from a DVD would work. Which means excluding the padding at each end from the calculation of watched %, and hence watched status. Ripped videos don't have any padding, and the watched status works fine for them. Better than for recordings currently.



Also, your current pre-padding functionality only seems to apply to the "Watched" status in Standard television "Recordings". Any comment on the other functions, Watched(), TVInfo(WatchedDisplay), and TVInfo(NameDisplayWithDate)?

[Yaobing]

How so?

My example above is a 3 hour recording, with 90 minute program embedded. So 30+90+60.

If all the watched functions started at 30 minutes, and the recording was watched until the Bookmark was at 120 minutes, then it would show 100% watched. Current functionality shows 90/(90+60)=60%. If it hit 111 minutes it would have been watched 90% and marked as watched. Current functionality shows (111-30)/(90+60)=54%. Anything before 111 minutes and it would be considered partially watched. Anything up to 30 minutes would be considered unwatched. It should work the same as if there was no padding, only the starting position needs to be at the end of the pre-padding, and the duration needs to be the [Duration] minus both paddings.

I guess I can't see the scenario where the suggested change would erroneously mark a long program as watched.

Well, except in the circumstances that the program actually runs late, so in my example if the program actually ran from the 60 minute mark to 150 minute mark, then yes, at the 111 minute mark it would be considered watched when there were 39 minutes of program content to go. But that is the exception, and it would be fair that the watched functionality wouldn't work correctly. MC shouldn't try to cater to the exception.

Basically, I would like the watched functionality to work with padded recordings in the same way that a video ripped from a DVD would work. Which means excluding the padding at each end from the calculation of watched %, and hence watched status. Ripped videos don't have any padding, and the watched status works fine for them. Better than for recordings currently.

If you record a show with a large post padding, and the show actually does extend into the post padding, like most sports games always do, you would not want to mark it watched until you finish watching the entire show (including the post padding).

Also, your current pre-padding functionality only seems to apply to the "Watched" status in Standard television "Recordings". Any comment on the other functions, Watched(), TVInfo(WatchedDisplay), and TVInfo(NameDisplayWithDate)?

I will have to look into that.

[RoderickGI]

If you record a show with a large post padding, and the show actually does extend into the post padding, like most sports games always do, you would not want to mark it watched until you finish watching the entire show (including the post padding).

Actually yes, I would.

That is an example of the exception I mentioned. I would expect to manage that myself. Either I would watch the whole thing through in one sitting, or if I had to stop playback and come back to it later, I would use a View that didn't filter out programs marked Watched to find the program again and finish watching it.

I would much prefer that MC worked correctly for the non-exception instances, than have it worked "incorrectly" to cater for the exception cases.

I will have to look into that.

Thanks