[WINDOWS] SABSync - TV Show Syncing

[markus101]

@Larz

I am now showing the Best Possible, Xvid or 720p, depending on the quality set for that show instead of 0, 1 or 2 respectively.

I'll try my best to clarify what is going on with the download quality (and the seemingly duplicated options).
The setting in options defines your default download quality (when new shows are added), so if you only had xvid there it would default newly added shows to xvid instead of Best Possible, with 720p set in Options it will default to 720p for newly added shows and since you have xvid; 720p it uses best possible since both are accepted. I should clean up the label for that in options since it does mislead a little bit.

I'll see what I can do to make a button to default the download quality of all shows to "X", something I had initially thought would be useful, but opted for a default quality instead (albeit mislabeled in Options).

I agree with the usability bit, though I'm not aware of a control that will show editing in a clearer way (DataGridView will, but it looks like trash in comparison and isn't as nice to work with, that said I'll see what i can do to make things more intuitive.


-Markus

[LarzJG]

Aha! So what Download Quality option under TV Shows is, is a default value for new shows?

How about this idea then:

Default Value under options has the same options as quality for shows. "Xvid only", "720p only", or "Best Possible".

All new shows get added with "Default Value"-quality and takes their value from there unless you change it. Changing the Default Value in options then changes it for the majority of your shows, with whatever exceptions you might have added on a per-show basis.

Unrelated, but I keep having two instances of the program running. That kinda fucks stuff up, as one won't have all my history and RSS feeds, any way to prevent it from running in more than one instance?

[markus101]

Aha! So what Download Quality option under TV Shows is, is a default value for new shows?

Yes, any new shows added will use that quality (unless you change it after it is added to the Database)

Default Value under options has the same options as quality for shows. "Xvid only", "720p only", or "Best Possible".

This is done, also changed it to Default Quality (so it should make more sense).

All new shows get added with "Default Value"-quality and takes their value from there unless you change it. Changing the Default Value in options then changes it for the majority of your shows, with whatever exceptions you might have added on a per-show basis.

I'm a bit iffy on changing the quality and all shows change to follow suit, given this usability issue, I have it set to xvid, add 10 shows, change a couple to 720p and then go back into options, change the download quality to 720p and then save, which would update all the ones currently set to xvid (show quality doesn't have the notion of 'default' it is statically set for that show once added), then decide to change back to xvid (for whatever reason), now all my shows would be set to xvid (since they were all 720p before). A couple solutions, one being to have a default quality selection for show quality (User would see Default in the shows view and have to look in Options to see the actual value), or enable multi-select for the shows view and provide a drop box and set quality button that will change the quality for all selected shows (which I like better, plus you can delete multiple shows at once now too) - So far I have implemented option 2, since it was easy to implement.

Unrelated, but I keep having two instances of the program running. That kinda fucks stuff up, as one won't have all my history and RSS feeds, any way to prevent it from running in more than one instance?

Yes, this is a pain, there is a way to restrict it to a single instance, I just need to get it implemented, looking at how to do it - doesn't look to be too difficult, just need to find a way to open the existing copy as well, just to keep things easy.

*BUG* I found a bug with the TvDBUpdates where new episodes (and changes to existing ones, new title or description for example) do not get added to the database - which is an issue in that new shows (after the ones currently in your DB will not be named with Episode Names) - I have a fix that will go out in the next version, but wanted to make everyone aware of the issue.

-Markus

[LarzJG]

How do we fix shows that aren't identified correctly?

I got shows in my list that I can't actually match to a folder - adding the folder as a column might be good too.

[markus101]

How do we fix shows that aren't identified correctly?

I need to figure out a way to edit shows properly. There are some that come back with weird or no results if they are named different than TheTvDb has it, best option is to name the folder more closely to the way TheTvDb has it and use aliases to straighten out the feed to actual show mapping), hopefully I'll be able to add a better way to add shows, possible a manual scanner that allows you to chose from the results.

I got shows in my list that I can't actually match to a folder - adding the folder as a column might be good too.

The show name column is the name of the show's folder, then TheTvDb Name column is the name that SABSync matched it to, it should be pretty straight forward to track down that show in your TvRoot folder, unless you have a bunch of them... Currently folders aren't mapped to shows in the Database, but I'll look into what I can do to add it.

-Markus

[LarzJG]

I'm thinking an option to "not download" a show might be useful as well. It could really just a be a quality-setting per show, if I want to keep the files I have but don't want new episodes - think CSI after Grissom left and the thing fell apart, or similar situations.

It was a bit of a pain to edit the quality of all my shows, but I've got most of them set to what I want now, and it seems to work well. I considered deleting the DB and readding them with xvid as default option - but didn't want to risk any bugs.

I think you might want to look at the list-view interface at some point - you have a lot of data there, and it can be a little hard to make out the stuff that's critical. Since you have TVDB link, there are so many options for how you can present all the data you have.

If you have an iPad, the way they design the layout in landscape is pretty awesome - in the mail-application, there's a list of e-mails in a column on the left, and when you select an e-mail it gets displayed in the larger window on the right. You know from TVDB when the next episode is being shown, when the last one was shown, and there is an entire list of episodes you can use as well. Matching them up with what the user has in the TV root folder and identifying which episodes are missing might be awesome too. Flagging a show that has had an episode downloaded within the last 24 hours would be cool too.

[jrussell]

Is there any chance you could get the nzbs sent to a specific group? I have a group called "SD Series" that I use to sort my series as they are downloaded from my RSS feeds, but all nzbs added with SABSync just go into no group and for some reason, even if i select "None" under "TV sorting" it wont sort my nzbs from SABSync. Any Ideas?

Jason

[markus101]

I'm thinking an option to "not download" a show might be useful as well. It could really just a be a quality-setting per show, if I want to keep the files I have but don't want new episodes - think CSI after Grissom left and the thing fell apart, or similar situations.

Ignore season is intended for this purpose, it will ignore any season lower than the season number defined, so set it to something high (99) and it will ignore all epiosdes.

It was a bit of a pain to edit the quality of all my shows, but I've got most of them set to what I want now, and it seems to work well. I considered deleting the DB and readding them with xvid as default option - but didn't want to risk any bugs.

Deleting the DB would have been fine, but editing many of them can be a pain, I hope to find a way to clean that up.

I think you might want to look at the list-view interface at some point - you have a lot of data there, and it can be a little hard to make out the stuff that's critical. Since you have TVDB link, there are so many options for how you can present all the data you have.

If you have an iPad, the way they design the layout in landscape is pretty awesome - in the mail-application, there's a list of e-mails in a column on the left, and when you select an e-mail it gets displayed in the larger window on the right.

I like the idea, sounds like a good alternative to the way I have it (sounds a lot like TVRename, if you've ever used it).

You know from TVDB when the next episode is being shown, when the last one was shown, and there is an entire list of episodes you can use as well. Matching them up with what the user has in the TV root folder and identifying which episodes are missing might be awesome too.

Interesting Idea - Not sure how easy it is to accomplish, but I'll give it some thought.

Flagging a show that has had an episode downloaded within the last 24 hours would be cool too.

Another good feature, something I miss from TVRename (I use TV Forecast on my iPod touch, but its limited).

Is there any chance you could get the nzbs sent to a specific group? I have a group called "SD Series" that I use to sort my series as they are downloaded from my RSS feeds, but all nzbs added with SABSync just go into no group and for some reason, even if i select "None" under "TV sorting" it wont sort my nzbs from SABSync. Any Ideas?

Jason

I'm sending it to the "TV" group, if you deleted it, it may be the reason you are having issues. I'll look at a configurable option, though I see a limited use for it.


Any thoughts on a Web UI? I may move towards one from the current Forms UI since it is more accessible, so a lot of this work could be for not, though I may continue some Forms work since it can be nice to have both.

-Markus

[DaFederal]

Are the episodes listed in the upcoming tab going to downloaded if a match occurs?
There are lot of shows in there for which I have set the ignore season to 99.

I just had a S03E03 episode download from a show I had set to ignore.  I checked the Upcoming tab, and it shows the S03E04 episode.

[markus101]

Are the episodes listed in the upcoming tab going to downloaded if a match occurs?
There are lot of shows in there for which I have set the ignore season to 99.

Next release will hide episodes on the upcoming tab if the season is ignored.

I just had a S03E03 episode download from a show I had set to ignore.  I checked the Upcoming tab, and it shows the S03E04 episode.

I have tested this scenario and I'm unable to reproduce it, can you send me (pastebin) a log of when it happened?

-Markus

[LarzJG]

All my shows are now set to Best Possible again, and I sure didn't ask for it. I'll have to do the "Delete DB" thing.

I'm thinking this might be related to opening multiple instances of the program?

/Lars

[markus101]

That's pretty weird, I can't think of a reason why that would happen, even multiple instances shouldn't have that effect, though the next version has implemented a fix for preventing multiple instances. Also started work on the new shows screen, though I may make that an option to show the initial one or the new one.

-Markus

[markus101]

Quick Screenshot of 0.9.9.4 for everyone, showing off the new shows view:

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5638/sabsyncshows2copy.png

-Markus

[LarzJG]

YES! Awesome stuff, Markus.

On design, I would really highlight when the next episode is coming, and what the last is. Those are the pieces of information that are most often changing, that kind of makes them what we will most often look for when we go to that screen. I'm also a huge fan of having dates shown relative to the current date. It means if its Wednesday and CSI broadcasts on Thursday, the date for "Next Episode" is like this:

Code: Select all

Tomorrow, 8:30
Today, 8:30
Thursday (23rd), 8:30 (if it is less than a week)
Thursday, 23rd October, 8:30 (more than a week)

I'd also suggest making a list of seasons and episodes, with the current season episode list on the show-page. Checking the program, I'd want to know if I have missed any episodes this season, so some indication on what episodes have been broadcast would be awesome too.

I might be out of my mind here, but now you have a serious application that you can use for backfill. You have complete episode lists, and you know what episodes I have on disk - now you need to just give me the option to backfill all my missing episodes! Technically, I'd suggest doing it by asking people for a "Search"-rss feed. I have a search option from NZBMatrix, where the term= parameter gives a search option. So if you know where you can get an RSS-feed and enter a search term, you can enter Show Name, Season and Episode to find the missing episodes.

[LarzJG]

Oh, and my installation reverted to "Best Possible" again. I'd REALLY like that "Set all shows to 720p/xvid" button.