[mythtv-users] Labels instead of Recording Groups

[Joseph Fry]

In an age where strict "folder based" organization is losing it's appeal, I
find that recording groups are very frustrating.

Both my personal and work emails are organized using labels (categories in
MS Outlook).  I frequently assign multiple labels to a single email and
when I click on the "folder" representing that label I see all the
associated emails, even if they appear in other "folders" too.  I haven't
moved email out of my inbox folder in years, opting to filter it with
labels instead.

Currently we have several hundred recordings, many of which 3 or more
members of my family are interested in watching.  While we can mark an
episode watched, or move it to someones recording group... there is no way
to easily know if everyone interested has watched it so either it sits on
the system until I can get everyone in the same room and go through them
all... or we delete recordings that not everyone has seen; both options are
frustrating.

I would like to propose a bounty to have recording groups replaced by
labels, similar to labels in gmail; I would be willing to contribute $40
for this feature and would like to see if anyone else would be willing to
add to it.

Here is what I propose.

   - Two classes of labels are created, "viewer" and "info"
   - An "info" label contains information about the recording; Movie,
   Football, Hockey, News, Cartoon, HD, SD, Close Captioned, Commercial
   Flagged, etc.
   - A viewer label consists of a customizable name and a user-selectable
   color (Mom, Dad, Daughter, Son, for example).
   - A recording with no viewer labels assigned is considered "deleted" and
   is purged according to the system's schedule for deleted recordings
   - When creating/modifying a recording schedule, you select one or more
   viewer labels to be pre-assigned, according to who is interested in
   watching that recording.
   - An easy method of toggling the labels on an existing recording must be
   provided.
   - As recordings are watched the viewers should be able to easily toggle
   labels off, perhaps an optional prompt upon exiting could be provided.
   - Rather than filtering on the recording group, filtering on labels
   would allow a user to see all recordings that they are interested in... so
   if the wife and I are watching TV, we can easily filter to only shows that
   neither of us have watched; or we could filter to only movies that neither
   of us have watched, or I could filter it to hockey games that both my son
   and I haven't seen.
   - Themes would be modified to display the labels associated with
   recordings so you can see at a glance what a recording's labels are.
   - Pre-defined filters could be created for the watch recordings
   screen... so you could create filters for "Mom and Dad", "Kids", or "The
   Boys" that you could then choose from when entering the watch recordings
   screen (or scroll through using the FFD button) as we do now with recording
   groups.

Optionally, I would suggest that the use of labels be expanded to include
some built-in labels to incorporate existing functionality so that the
label system is more than just about organizing the recordings, but about
how the system works with them as well.

   - Rating labels; when configuring the recording we should be able to
   assign an appropriate "rating level" label and if pin access controls are
   enabled they will be enforced when viewing or if removing the label.
   - Commercial Detection labels, a label is assigned if commercial
   detection is desired, its remove and another label assigned when complete.
   - User Job labels, works just like commercial detection.
   - Auto Expire
   - Storage Group Labels - perhaps with the ability to move a recording
   from one SG to another just by changing the SG label.

Essentially, if properly implemented, labels could provide a means to
greatly simplify the organization of recordings.  Much of the functionality
would be behind the scenes; DB changes and the like, but there would
definitely be some theme changes needed as well.

Anybody else want in on this bounty?


Joe
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