[mythtv] Proposed work on MythVideo - Re-tool video-manager for large libraries, Add the concept of a 'series'

[San Mehat]

Hey all,

  Just an update on my progress with the MythVideo retooling to add better
support for larger and more disparate libraries. This description does not
go into the UI portions very much, although I'm hoping to have some
screenshots in the next week.

  So I've spent the last week going through the code and spending a fair
amount of time on designing a combined 'browser/manager' interface which I
feel would handle larger libraries better. I call this 'Vex' for 'Video
Explorer' because I ran out of crafty names for things quite a few years ago
;). Vex works on tags instead of 'specific meta-data'. For example, an
episode of the Simpsons from my season 2 boxset might be tagged as SIMPSONS,
TV_SHOW, ANIMATED, MATT_GROENING, SEASON_2, BOXSET

The browser or 'media selection' paradigm is that instead of organizing your
data or metadata to meet the organization you want (ie: creating directories
for things and switching to the file-listings which is what I was forced to
do after my library got larger than 800 entries), you define 'Views' onto
the data which allow you to represent the data in whatever organizational
structure you desire. A view itself can be represented as

  - The view ID
  - The view name, ie: 'Sans Favorite Shows which arent animated'
  - The view expression which each movies metadata is evaluated against to
determine if its in this view, ie: 'TV_SHOW AND SANS_FAVORITE BUT NOT
ANIMATED'
  - A parent ID for the view, which allows views to be nested into 'trees'
for display.

  As you can see, this scheme allows the user a large amount of flexibility
in organization without needing to change the data in any way.

ADDING VIDEOS
   When adding files to the video_root, a daemon picks up the addition and
automatically tags the video with an internal tag 'RECENTLY_ADDED' There is
a canned 'view' which displays all content which is in this tag that can be
browsed just like any other 'view'. Users can select the video and use menu
options  to quickly scan imdb for a match which will automatically create
tags if desired. Also the user can at any point add or modify tags which are
applied. A cron job which runs nightly periodically removes videos from the
'Recently Added' list if they have been watched.

WATCHING VIDEOS
  Nothing really different here, although when you have been deemed to have
watched a video (and not just scanned through it), Vex tags the video with
another internal tag 'RECENTLY_WATCHED'.

DATABASE CONSIDERATIONS
  This new code does not share any existing tables in the database. I did
this initially because I wanted to be able to continue to watch movies while
I develop,but later I found that this scheme required a much simpler
database format. In it's current form, Vex does not mess with any of the
other MythVideo tables. You can use the existing video manager and the
gallery,list, or other views and it will not affect Vex. Any changes you
make to metadata or videos from within Vex will not be seen by MythVideo.
Vex is essentially bolted onto the side of the current MythVideo browsing
code, although it re-uses all other aspects (the player code, etc).

UI
  I'm currently trying to visualize Views as a tree which can be navigated
with the UIListTreeType (as opposed to the ManagedTreeType which is used by
the file browser). As I said earlier, I hope to have some screenshots
available soon.


Theres tons of more detail, but i'll stop here for now. My real question
is... Is the MythVideo community happy with such a 'drastic' change to
MythVideo? At the moment I'm doing it in a 'bolt on fashion' to provide the
other browsers as well. I really feel that this kind of model could really
work well.

Well, I've probably opened myself up to be shot at.. but here goes.. I
welcome all constructive criticism and suggestions. I have spent enough time
on the design to know that a viewer like this solves MY problem.... but does
it solve YOURS?..

Thanks so much..

-San.


On 9/20/07, Steven Adeff <adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/19/07, San Mehat <san.mehat at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Greetings all,
> >
> >   After talking with Anduin a bit on IRC, I'd like to volunteer to do
> some
> > work on MythVideo and the video manager for larger video libraries ( >
> 1100
> > videos). I'd like to do some re-tooling of the video manager, providing
> a
> > folder-based view for manipulating meta-data on your library. I would
> also
> > like to look at adding the concept of a 'Series' of videos to MythVideo
> (For
> > holding my Simpsons boxsets which I've ripped, transcoded recordings I
> have
> > made, etc etc).
> >
> >   At the moment I'm just throwing this out there as a 'is anybody else
> > working on this?' as well as a 'hey do you have any neat ideas for
> this?'.
> >
> > I expect to be starting on this work in the very short term.
> >
> > -san
>
> I, for one, welcome your new work on MythVideo!
>
> I especially like your Series idea since I have many series and then a
> bunch of random stuff (commercials i've saved, random clips of car
> stuff, etc) that all gets treated as one now, it would be great if
> along with the Series I could also create a "group" to group these
> random recordings and have them treated like a "series" (though they
> wouldn't really be).
>
> You will not find a lack of ideas for MythVideo (as with MythMusic),
> so I suggest going through the wiki wishlist and implement what *you*
> would find useful and once your done with that (or sick of it all) see
> how many more ideas come out of the wood work =D
>
> --
> Steve
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>
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