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[jkauff]

I've imported a lot of movies that I've watched in other players. I'd like to update the Number of Plays field in the tag to reflect that. The field has a drop-down, but there are no values (even though the database contains values for the field) and I can't type in a value. Is this field user-editable, and if so under what conditions?

[6233638]

If you create an expression field with =[Number Plays] you will be able to edit it.
I don't know why it's locked out in the first place though.

[glynor]

I don't know why it's locked out in the first place though.

+1

[Boltron]

+1

[Arindelle]

+1

[jgreen]

+11

[MusicBringer]

+1+1

[terrym@tassie]

+1 recurring

[crisnee]

Plus 1

[InsaneRC]

+1 again

[rjm]

+1

[Hendrik]

I wonder why it is locked. I shall write Matt a mail and ask, and change it depending on the answer.

[MrC]

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63182.msg440151#msg440151

[Hendrik]

I found myself wanting to edit this particular field myself, so maybe this one in particular does want to be editable and still auto-updated by MC?

[MrHaugen]

It's always annoyed me as well. I understand that it needs to be auto populated, but a simple +1 on it for each play should be more than doable even if the users are allowed to set the integer value them self.

[Arindelle]

I found myself wanting to edit this particular field myself, so maybe this one in particular does want to be editable and still auto-updated by MC?

Yes

I normally would not want to touch this at all ... however, recently I have had a lot of problems with "buffering" over my network and songs are being marked played when they haven't been. Worse, a year and a half ago through stupidity I had to reload everything from scratch which makes it look like I have never listened to 3000 albums .... some kind of bulk work around to at least mark things played or not played "once" would be fine by me ... although a +1 to whatever the counter says would probably be best, like MrHaugen suggests.

[6233638]

some kind of bulk work around to at least mark things played or not played "once" would be fine by me ... although a +1 to whatever the counter says would probably be best

If you create the =[Number Plays] Expression Column, you can select the files you want to change, right-click on the selection and "rename" it with =math([Number Plays]+1) to increment the play count by 1.
 
It should also be possible to only do this if the file is unplayed, if you prefer:

Code: [Select]

=if(isempty([Number Plays]),1,[Number Plays])
 
This sets empty fields to 1, and ignores them if they have a value.

[Arindelle]

@ 6233638 thank you very much ! I'll try that this weekend 

[glynor]

I think what most of us actually want is not the easy ability to change it from 16 plays to 22 plays (or whatever).  For that, what we can do now is probably fine.

I'm guessing here, but what most of us really want is an easy way to "mark as Played" and "mark as New".  That's certainly what I want, anyway.

I want to be able to toggle this from both Standard View and, more importantly to me, Theater View.

Quite often, I will have a file that shows as Played that really isn't, because I "checked" it or something, but didn't actually watch the file.  Or, I have a file I watched/played via some other mechanism (usually for me it is AirVideo on my iOS devices) and it still shows in MC as new.  I want the ability to mark said files in Theater View as Played/Not-Played so that they show up "properly" in my lists, and so I don't get confused in the future about where I "left off" on some show or whatever.

For that, you have to toggle more than just Number of Plays.  You have to also clear the Last Played field (to make it new) and maybe the Bookmark too.

Some kind of easy-to-access (from both Right-Click in Standard View and from Theater View) is what I'm looking for...

[Hendrik]

I was thinking about this, maybe its better to simply add a option "Mark as Played" and "Mark as New" (although I'm not sold on the naming of the un-played option yet). That seems to be the major use-case here.
Standard View of course, and i suppose its such an option that might even be useful in the theater view roller.

[MrHaugen]

I was thinking about this, maybe its better to simply add a option "Mark as Played" and "Mark as New" (although I'm not sold on the naming of the un-played option yet). That seems to be the major use-case here.
Standard View of course, and i suppose its such an option that might even be useful in the theater view roller.

Bingo. A right click item for standard view, and a roller item in Theater View would be very very handy. More user friendly than locking up the field it self. It's just so frustrating when you find a movie in theater view that you've watched in another place, that you now have to exit to standard view and edit a custom field for it to disappear. Both mark as Played and Marked as Not Played should be available.

[JimH]

I wonder why it is locked. I shall write Matt a mail and ask, and change it depending on the answer.

Or you could change it and see what happens....

[Matt]

Play stat fields are marked as 'clear only'.  This means you can edit them, but only for the purpose of emptying them.

Since the program manages last played, last skipped, number plays and number skips, it's never been clear to me why a user would want to edit them to arbitrary values.  I don't feel strongly about it.

A tool to set or reset the watch mark makes sense to me.  However, if the program is consistently getting watch marks wrong for some reason, we should focus on that problem first -- don't ask a user to do something manually if an automatic system could do it instead.

[Hendrik]

The way it is for me, I usually want to correct it only in cases where MC can't know.

For example, I re-watch some series occasionally, and i clear the mark before so MC keeps track of where i was for me.
Or, I buy a Blu-ray of a show and delete the old TV recordings of it, and import the BD episodes. Even if I'm going to rewatch it eventually, for the time being I like to mark them as watched again.

Sometimes it also happens that this information is lost when i move the files on the filesystem and MC re-imports them in their new location. I guess this is something that can indeed be fixed.

I will look into adding an option to clear/set it.

[DoubtingThomas]

It would be great if MediaCenter could somehow know how many times I've played "Pink Floyd / Dark Side of the Moon" since I first bought it in 1973...

[MrC]

Since the program manages last played, last skipped, number plays and number skips, it's never been clear to me why a user would want to edit them to arbitrary values.  I don't feel strongly about it.

From this home's perspective...

MC is not the only program we use to play media.  Sometimes we play directly to our SB system.  Or sometimes we play some music on a portable system while at the gym.  Or sometimes via Spotify.

There are cases where playback fails via MC and the DLNA renderer, yet play stats are updated (incorrectly).  And sometimes via DLNA, MC updates play stats twice for a single track.

Since play stats are used to help populate smartlists and determine playback frequency in Play Doctor, then it is useful to allow users to set the correct* values to adjust for the cases where MC can't update stats, or the cases where MC incorrectly updates stats.

* the term "correct" should be relative to the user's perspective, not MC's.  It is entirely uninteresting how many times MC has cycled some track.

[jgreen]

The answer is that the user-resettable values are not necessarily arbitrary.  Carbon-based life forms may want to reset the value if they have a number of plays from a previous program that they wish to add to the current count; if they have reverted to a previous library and wish to update the count; or if they have paid good money for the program and feel this entitles them to mastery over non-arbitrary values (that's me).  

I like JimH's suggestion for getting new things done in Minneapolis.

[glynor]

A tool to set or reset the watch mark makes sense to me.  However, if the program is consistently getting watch marks wrong for some reason, we should focus on that problem first -- don't ask a user to do something manually if an automatic system could do it instead.

For me it isn't that MC is getting it "wrong" it is just that sometimes I do things that MC can't possibly know about.  Two common examples are:

1. I check through (by skipping ahead) a file that I've recorded to ensure that it has recorded properly.  I didn't "watch" the episode, but MC thinks I did, because I skipped ahead well past the mid-point and watched snippets here and there.  I do this occasionally if my SageTV install is being flaky, just as a sanity check (make sure it isn't the wrong channel, make sure the recording doesn't cut off half-way through, or break up, or whatever).  I then "rewind" the file back to the start (to reset the bookmark), but that still counts as a "play" and marks it as watched.  If I'm going to come back and watch the show later that day, then I don't care, but if we won't actually watch the episode for an indeterminate period of time, I prefer to reset the watched "marks" so that we don't get confused down the road.

2. I play two episodes of a particular show using AirVideo on my iPad up in bed, and want these episodes marked watched so that next time we go to watch the series, we know where we left off.

[glynor]

For example, I re-watch some series occasionally, and i clear the mark before so MC keeps track of where i was for me.
Or, I buy a Blu-ray of a show and delete the old TV recordings of it, and import the BD episodes. Even if I'm going to rewatch it eventually, for the time being I like to mark them as watched again.

This stuff happens to me too.

Though, I'm usually pretty rigorous about not reimporting anything even if I get new-and-improved copies.  The "decide to re-watch" thing does happen occasionally though.

I'm doing just that now with The West Wing.

[jkauff]

A very common use case for me--and perhaps for others as well--is that often when I get a new Blu-ray disc, I play it using PowerDVD so I have the menus and can explore the extra features. Later I'll rip it and add it to the MC library. I don't want the movie to appear in my list of unwatched, pre-ripped movies, such as ones I had on DVD that I'm replacing with the Blu-ray. If I've watched the DVD three times, I'd like to set number of plays for the new Blu-ray to three.

Number of times I've watched a movie and number of times I've played it in MC are often not the same. Maybe we need two fields instead of one.

[nitephlight]

For me it isn't that MC is getting it "wrong" it is just that sometimes I do things that MC can't possibly know about.  Two common examples are:

1. I check through (by skipping ahead) a file that I've recorded to ensure that it has recorded properly.  I didn't "watch" the episode, but MC thinks I did, because I skipped ahead well past the mid-point and watched snippets here and there.  I do this occasionally if my SageTV install is being flaky, just as a sanity check (make sure it isn't the wrong channel, make sure the recording doesn't cut off half-way through, or break up, or whatever).  I then "rewind" the file back to the start (to reset the bookmark), but that still counts as a "play" and marks it as watched.  If I'm going to come back and watch the show later that day, then I don't care, but if we won't actually watch the episode for an indeterminate period of time, I prefer to reset the watched "marks" so that we don't get confused down the road.

2. I play two episodes of a particular show using AirVideo on my iPad up in bed, and want these episodes marked watched so that next time we go to watch the series, we know where we left off.

wish i had done what i preach so often to others and do a forum search, but +1 for sure. as glynor points out, the system can only make intelligent assumptions about our unique uses and expectations of data resulting- i have the opposite expectation that skipping through a video in a similar vein would count as a play for my purposes. especially for a product of this nature which is geared towards data-driven views, lists and catalogs i had naturally assumed these were user-editable lol. good to hear though that a choir of voices behind this one.

[wig]

From this home's perspective...

MC is not the only program we use to play media.  Sometimes we play directly to our SB system.  Or sometimes we play some music on a portable system while at the gym.  Or sometimes via Spotify.

Yep. I edit my plays to match my last.fm scrobbles. For my purposes, last.fm is platform-independent, and a much better representation of how many times I've listened to a track.

I've been attempting to automate the process, but it involves a bit more coding than I'm able to perform.

[Hendrik]

As a first step, in the next build:
Changed: The "Number Plays" field is now editable.

I'm still contemplating more convenient options like "Mark as Played" and "Mark as ... New? not Played?" .. still not sure about the name on the second.

[ivb]

cool thanks.  If there's any way people can think of to use this new capability in Theater View, please let me know. I'm still coming up to speed on how that works, and if there's a way for me to trigger a set/reset for a field.

[connersw]

Ah, progress.  Thank you Hendrik.

[MrHaugen]

As a first step, in the next build:
Changed: The "Number Plays" field is now editable.

I'm still contemplating more convenient options like "Mark as Played" and "Mark as ... New? not Played?" .. still not sure about the name on the second.

I think "Mark as New" would create a bit confusion as to what's really new. New imported time stamp, changing some other dates, resetting number plays? Is there a function for new stuff? And so on. "Mark as Not Played" would be the more safe bet I think. Played is also more universal than Watched. Otherwise, you'd have to differentiate Watched or Listened to when it comes to video or audio.

Having "Mark as Played" and "Mark as Not Played" in both Theater View and as a right click option would be super useful.

Thanks for looking into it!

[glynor]

I have an idea I've been mulling over for some time.  When in the file detail screen in Theater View:



The tags shown can be highlighted (which "opens" them if they're truncated), but hitting Enter on them does nothing.  In some cases, for example [Duration], it doesn't make sense to do anything here.  But for many other cases, it would be handy to have it do something.  I can see two basic options here (maybe some kind of combination of the two could work):

1. I often wish that I could scroll down and select the Genre, or Director, or Actors, and Enter on them to bring up a search for that particular tag.  Much like the "magic arrows" in Standard View, but from within Theater View.  I think Matt vaguely expressed support for this idea in the past when it was brought up.

2. In other cases, such as Watched (and other "toggle on/off" items) it would be handy if you could toggle them from right there, since Entering on them is otherwise useless.  That way, it wouldn't need a roller option with a label of any kind (clumsy or confusing).  I'm also sure that some users would want to be able to actually tag things from here too, though I'm not sure if that is a good idea since most people won't have a keyboard (and would seem to conflict with item #1).  Perhaps you have the current "Tag" roller item activate Tagging mode in here, whereas the default mode is #1 for most tags, but for simple on/off items like Watched it could just do the toggle (and maybe numbers that don't make sense to search, since many remotes have number keys anyway).

In any case, I think it is worth considering.  It could be a very simple UI without adding any additional "noise" to the UI and rollers.  Of course, I don't know how nightmarish from an architecture point-of-view this would be.

[William-NM]

I often download an episode or movie and watch it. Later on, I'll clean up the name and other info, put it in a folder, move it to an external drive, etc.  So, it gets marked as unwatched. Others have mentioned that the opposite can also be true - you check the file quality, and it gets marked 'watched' and no longer appears in the 'Unwatched' view. I use the workarounds for these - but it would be great if there was a more intuitive way to edit without leaving the current view.

I often wish that I could scroll down and select the Genre, or Director, or Actors, and Enter on them to bring up a search for that particular tag.  Much like the "magic arrows" in Standard View, but from within Theater View.

+1 ... that would be very elegant!

[connersw]

1. I often wish that I could scroll down and select the Genre, or Director, or Actors, and Enter on them to bring up a search for that particular tag.  Much like the "magic arrows" in Standard View, but from within Theater View.  I think Matt vaguely expressed support for this idea in the past when it was brought up.

Totally agree. This is my number 1 wish for both Theater View and Gizmo.  I believe the issue is that since views are so customizable, you could potentially not have a Director view.  MC would then need to create the view on the fly.  I suppose that is thought for a different thread.

I agree with #2 as well, but it would need to be thought out a bit if #1 is implemented (ie what is dynamically linked vs what is edited).  Perhaps it just works like the Rating field; except instead of stars increasing/decreasing, the check mark appears/disappears?  I agree though that I'd prefer not to see it as a roller function.  It's getting crowded now that Zones and Users have been added. 

[MrHaugen]

Yes, that would be a very hand way of editing multiple fields. Change genre, add/remove actors and so on. If we could somehow get back the ability to select multiple items, I would still have a Mark as Played/Not Played on the roller though. The multi select option was removed quite a while back, right?

[6233638]

When [Number Plays] is reset to zero, would it be possible for Media Center to automatically clear the bookmark field for that file?

[Hendrik]

When [Number Plays] is reset to zero, would it be possible for Media Center to automatically clear the bookmark field for that file?

No, but a future "Mark as not played" option in the context menu would reset both, as well as Last Played, i guess.

[glynor]

No, but a future "Mark as not played" option in the context menu would reset both, as well as Last Played, i guess.

I'd greatly prefer it to not clear [Last Played] if possible.

[MrHaugen]

Yea. Leave the last played please. People might use the number played just as a way to "not hide" something in views, or to add it to the list of things they want to watch again. They do not necessarily want to forget when they saw it last.

[Hendrik]

I wasn't sure about that field anyway, since its only indirectly related. I'll leave it.

[glynor]

Basically, what I'd like to see is:

Mark As Watched:  [Number Plays] increments by one (maybe only if it is currently zero, I'm not picky here).  Bookmark goes to 100%.
Mark as New/Not Watched: [Number Plays] goes to zero.  Bookmark clears.

[Last Played] is certainly related, and it would be weird for it to have zero "plays" but for the Last Played field to be valid.  However, if you clear it, then it is impossible to "undo".  As long as it doesn't "hurt" to leave it, that'd be better.

[Hendrik]

Isn't bookmark clear the same as 100%?
I'm not 100% deep into this yet.

The way I see it, the options should only set a 0 to 1, or clear the flags. Ideally it should only show one of them, unless you act on a mixed group of files, but not sure if that's easily possible.

[glynor]

Isn't bookmark clear the same as 100%?

It is effectively the same thing, and it makes no difference to me if it clears it or sets it to 100% with my system.

However, I noticed that MC does store them as 100%, and I wasn't sure if "internally" there was any difference.  I think the way it works is that upon the next playback, it ignores any bookmark > whatever percentage means reset to beginning (98% or something like that).  But it stores them for everything, or seems to most of the time, I think that decision is made at playback time.

Technically, for "Mark as Watched", setting it to 100% would be "correct".  In practice, I doubt it'd make any difference if you just cleared it.  Leaving it alone though is probably bad.  If the person "marks" it, they probably want it reset next time it is played, not to resume where it left off (at 78% or whatever).