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Guaranteed Recordings (automatic retries)

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mike young
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As someone who would LIKE to end my expensive relationship with my Satellite provider and probably like many PLAYON users, having a multitude of access to devices which can access streaming content..Apple TV, Roku, SmartTV's, Phones, Tablets etc. There is only one feature of PLAYON that means anything to me at all. The ability to schedule recordings of online content. IMO this is the only substantial feature that differentiates PLAYON from any other streaming methodology. Since I already make heavy use of streaming to my existing devices in addition to my satellite use, the missing link is how to get the remaining content we watch on the satellite 100% available despite having a marginal internet connection (6-10mbs).  I have seen requests for automatic retry of recordings that go back YEARS. Why is this request ignored? Recordings are the one place PLAYON can differentiate itself. Trust me..nobody wants to continuously manually click on retry..particularly those that may have dozens of recordings scheduled. PVR should be set and forget..you should not have to wonder if you got your recording. Sorry to sound like a lecture..but I really don't get it..and I don't think I'm alone.

 

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4 comments

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    Dimitrios Kokkinis

    Agreed!

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    Steve Higdon

    Agreed as well.

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    Ed Brzozowski

    agreed!

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    Gregory Beitler

    I don't know if this is for you, but I've been working on better automating a lot of PlayOn's functions for a few years now --- the greater goal is what you described, more or less... being able to set and forget.

    I have a number of powershell scripts that run at regular intervals that do things like move downloaded content to a consistent folder hierarchy, detection and handling of watched media, consistent renaming with TheTVDB, etc. One additional thing I added a while back was automatically retrying partial recordings. I'm also debating adding some smarts in there at some point that can tell when content might think it's completely downloaded but it's not --- more than a few times you hit an issue with the browser and either the recording abruptly stops or gives up because of some issue with the site or service, and that doesn't seem to always be picked up by PlayOn as "not done". But it works most of the time. 

    If you're interested in checking it out:

    https://bitbucket.org/ParadoxGBB/mediapolling-release

    If you are looking for a pretty UI, then maybe this isn't for you, but if you're comfortable with scripts, then it'd be worth a look. It's fairly flexible, meaning that if there's specific functionality you don't like, it's not too hard to disable or modify it. In the case of failed recordings, I don't automatically re-record by default because usually it indicates a bug that needs to be addressed by a PlayOn update to work. But in very narrow circumstances, for example, Modern Family on ABC, the show is seen by a PlayOn recording for about 10 days and attempts to record automatically before the episode is available to download for free (without ABC credentials). So, there I do have a script that waits and automatically retries failed MF after that time period.

    Overall, I agree with you though --- cord cutting is getting better but right now it's not as effortless as a DVR and requires tinkering (at least it does for me to do what I want it to do).

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