Combining two feature requests already mentioned into a new use case

Feature Requests
1

I’ve seen two requests in this feature section that both tie into a use case I wanted to suggest:

  1. Trakt.tv integration (Trakt.tv Integration)
  2. Don’t record things I’ve deleted (Option to have deleted programs not re-record)

I came across these when I was searching to see if anybody had recommended the feature I wanted to recommend. Similar to the users in item #2, I’ve been using watching reruns of old shows that I haven’t seen before. (In my case, things like Mayday, Highway Thru Hell, etc…) Because they’re reruns, I’ve got the recording set to ‘All’. But this is resulting in several shows recording that I have seen, that I have to then delete. I’d love to see an option for “Not watched” instead of just “All” or “New”. With this, we’d have the ability to record every episode that we haven’t seen before.

Now, keeping track of what we’ve seen or haven’t seen can be a lot to ask of the Tablo. That’s where an integration with something like Trakt.tv can come in. The heavy lifting of keeping track of what we have/haven’t watched can be handled by them. All the Tablo would need to do is:

  1. Integration with the Trakt.tv API to update an episode as being ‘watched’ when it updates its internal DB that an episode is watched.
  2. Integration with the Track.tv API to check if an episode has been watched when it decides whether or not to record an episode.
  3. A configuration in the settings menu to allow a user to log in with their Trakt.tv credentials.

Now, a caveat with this approach is that it only allows for a single Tract.tv account to be associated with a Tablo, but I think that could be an acceptable tradeoff. With my family at least, I wouldn’t be deleting episodes that my spouse hasn’t watched yet and expecting them to re-record for her.

If there was an episode that I wanted to re-record, like say, if a storm resulted in a poor recording or there was a breaking news interruption or something, I would be able to go into Trakt and just unmark the episode as being watched, where the Tablo would just fall back into treating it like any other unwatched episode so there’s no maintenance for Tablo in that regard.

2

I don’t use a show/movie tracking app, but I see the appeal of the integration… I’ve thought it’d be cool to integrate where you can stream a show you’re watching (in case you missed episodes or signal was poor)and it seems like Trakt does that too.

3

This is a great idea. Have you noticed the date of the posts you references? If they haven’t moved on either since 2015/2016 …it’s unlikely they’ll decide now is the time.
Hopefully they’ll let you know it’s on their road map, or something they’ll look in to.

4

Yes, I did notice, that’s one of the reasons I created this as a new thread instead of reviving those old ones.

As far as getting it to bubble up their road map, they probably just need the right use cases. Integration with Trakt merely for the sake of people tracking what’s watched has one value, but integration with Trakt for the sake of driving a set of recording options has a different value.

And I didn’t want to mention this in the original request, but this is something I could them see them either adding on as a value add to one of their original subscription offerings (14 day EPG or ComSkip) or as a new stand-alone offering. Monetary possibilities are yet again another value.

5

Tablo might think Trakt could potentially drive people to other outlets for entertainment besides OTA, thus reducing the number of existing Tablo owners paying future subscription fees.

6

I can understand that reasoning, but I don’t really see it as a competing space. Trakt (and any other sites like JustWatch, etc…) focus on streaming options. Tablo doesn’t claim to compete with streaming services, they’re a DVR, competing with other DVRs. Now, if I was suggesting they sync with Tivo, or Plex (which offers DVR services) or things like that, then yeah, I can see that being a big concern.