[mythtv] Mythwish version 2 -- much more powerful, with "critic" ability

Brad Templeton brad+mydev at templetons.com
Thu Jan 20 01:03:40 EST 2005


I have rewritten the mythwish program entirely, and it now works an
entirely different way.   Web description and perl source at:

    http://www.templetons.com/brad/myth/mythwish.html

Like before it lets you take a giant wishlist of movies you would like
to see, and queues Myth to record them if they ever show up on your
lineup.   It now allows individual episode requests, requests for the
first episode of a series or any series in a category (ie. Record
the first episode of any SF series that airs) and generalized SQL queries
for those who know what they are doing.  I have built a sample file with
270 top movies for people to start from, plus a list of 110 top series to
hunt for first shows in, and a list of famous TV episodes.  (ie. want
it to catch the MTM "Chuckles the Clown" episode if it ever shows up?)

However, by far the most interesting new feature is what I call Critics.

It will process your own wishlist, but it also allows you to include
other wishlists from web URLs.

The idea is you can take a trusted "critic" who maintains a file of things
they recommend you watch, either coming up soon or in the future.  You
import their list (at low priority so it doesn't conflict with your
direct requests) and those shows will be recorded if they are coming up!

Possible examples include:

    a) A professional critic who gets TV shows in advance on tape puts them in
    their list if they are highly recommended.  Then you record them
    when they air for the first time.  Delete if you don't like, of course.
    Know how the newspaper always has reviews of new shows airing tonight?
    You could get that made into an auto-recording.

    b) Friends or groups of people on the web rate shows when they first
    air and put the best into lists.  Your Myth box catches the rerun later
    in the week, or possibly even in the summer rerun season.  
    (Later people might even blog recommended shows and I could modify the
    code to pull them from RSS feeds.)

    c) Trusted critics look for shows that will generate "buzz" like
    the first Survivor or Apprentice or Who wants to marry a multimillionaire.
    If they like the buzz, they put it in their list, and you import it.
    You record it, and if the buzz turns out to be right, you watch it.
    Otherwise delete it.

    d) Later the critic's lists could be expanded and turned into a suggestions
    feature, which records in spare disk space a random selection of
    what people you trust are saying is good.

Of course for now you will want lists to be small and finely tuned.  With
more UI, they could get bigger.

This could be a first step into interesting ideas in collaborative TV.

Of course there aren't any publishing critics yet, but I have prepared
a bunch of wishlists to get things started.

In order to do this, I changed the program from simply a bulk import
of search requests into myth (which didn't work due to performance issues)
to a standalone program you run from the cron as often as you like.
(Once a week would do for static lists, but once a day after mythfilldatabase
is probably good.)  It checks for all your wishes, imports your critics
and checks for theirs, and queues up individual recordings.

Right now it has a flaw in that Myth's recording types don't include a
request to record a particular episode of a series whenever it's on,
except as a search.  So for now it just queues a specific recording of
the first instance, which may unfortunately get lost as a conflict.

Your comments are welcome.   Plus if somebody wants to help build up
the list of "Most famous TV episodes" that might be fun.  The goal would
be to list episodes of two types.  Those that stand alone for non-fans
of the series, and those which, for fans if they missed them, must be
seen.   You are welcome to build your own recommendation lists of 
movies and series to catch the 1st episode of too.

Mythwish does not need Myth CVS.  If we put in a patch for a slightly
smarter episode record request, that version might need it.  It works
fine with Myth 0.16


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