Richer Keep Settings for Recordings

Channels DVR Server Feature Requests
#1

Coming from other DVR solutions in the past (TiVo and more recently Plex), one piece of functionality I've missed is having more fine-grain controls over which episodes get kept.

Consider this use case:

I record news and news-related programs on a daily / weekly basis. I may or may not watch these shows in a timely fashion, but the news being a time-relevant thing, I'm only really interested in the last 2-3 days of news at best and I if/when I do watch them, I want them deleted automatically after I watch them.

There is no way to do this today with Channels DVR. You can choose to keep a certain number of shows (last 1, 3, 5). You can choose to keep ALL unwatched shows, or ALL unwatched shows plus a certain number of watched shows.

What I want to be able to do:

  1. At a minimum I should be able to dictate the total number of unwatched shows and watched shows to keep. In the scenario above - I only care about keeping the most recent 2-3 shows, and once I've watched them, I expect them deleted. Channels doesn't give me the flexibility to do this today. I can keep 2-3 shows regardless of watched status, or I can keep all unwatched episodes.

  2. Set time-based keep parameters. Again, using my news analogy -- I don't care about last week's news, I only care about keeping things that were recorded in perhaps the last 2-3 days. Channels should let me say "only keep episodes recorded in the last 2-3 days".

Both of these things would be terrific enhancements to make the keep functionality more feature-complete and on-par with what some of the more advanced DVR users have come accustomed to on other platforms.

Thanks!

#2

I have my news based shows set to keep "last 3". That keeps the last three days worth and deletes the rest. I'm not following why that doesn't work for you

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#3

That’s a limited view and not as useful in a news context in some use cases such as mine.

On Plex, for instance...the options are for what to keep:

Keep 5 latest episodes
Keep 3 latest episodes
Keep latest episode
Keep episodes added in the past 3 days
Keep episodes added in the past 7 days
Keep episodes added in the past 30 days

The options on Plex for when to delete:

Delete episodes after watching after a day
Delete episodes after watching after a week

What I want - keep episodes added in the last 3 days and delete episodes after watching after a day.

This is NOT the same as “keep the last 3 episodes”. If the last 3 episodes are from two weeks ago I am uninterested in them. This is not possible today on Channels. My options are keep the last 3 episodes, which is a less than ideal solution here.

Thanks.

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#4

Just to add to this for clarity...it’s not just being able to dictate keeping a certain number of shows based on the date they were recorded, it’s also being able to keep watched shows a certain amount of time before deleting.

For the latter...consider a use case where you’re in a family setting. I may watch a particular episode and tell someone else in my household about it, or they may want to be able to watch it at some point that week. Historically on other platforms, I’ve solved this by basically saying “hey delete the watched show after X days (usually 5)”. That allows me to watch the show, and anyone else within a certain window of time that’s more flexible.

Sure...you can mark the shows as unwatched, etc...but that’s a suboptimal UX, I would suggest.

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#5

Just to revive this thread...is there any hope of getting these richer options for keeping / deleting recordings in the future? :slight_smile:

Just trying to set our expectations...

#6

There hasn't. The keep settings are the same as they originally were. There's no current plans to re-visit this in our timeline right now.

#7

Thanks for the insight and the candor. Refreshing and appreciated!

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