MB Intros - remember already watched trailers??

[foghat 65]

Ya, with the rating, I was thinking about kids - makes sense for the horror genre as well.

 

I get what you are saying about director and that makes sense as well.  I guess I am just of the mindset of: sure, show me trailers that are similar in nature to the movie, but if you can't do that, then at least show me something I haven't seen, if nothing at all.  While I can 'endure' watching the same trailer again (and again), it becomes more of an issue when my wife and/or kids are watching with me.

 

Regarding your reasons for not wanting to include the option:

1. Fair enough, however from user complexity pov, this does not need to be complex.  I would also argue that anyone using something like MBS/MBT/PLEX/XBMC/etc, is likely above average when it comes to computer skills and probably has a bit of a penchant for tweaking things to their liking.  

2. Again fair enough, and while I am honestly quite surprised only myself and one other person have mentioned this, I do not see how giving the user configuration options (to a point) is a bad thing.  Default things to the way you think is best and let the user take it from there. 

3. I get what you are saying about the novice user - but if the option clearly explains that 'selecting this means potentially no trailers will play' you should be okay.  This is why I also suggested an option of being able to 'ignore best match logic' could work well with the 'do not play watched trailers' option.

 

At any rate, we will see if anyone else chimes in on this, though if they haven't already, perhaps it wasn't meant to be. 

 

Maybe a something like this as a compromise?  Since you currently don't speak anywhere to the fact that there is all this 'matching' logic going on, in theory, people aren't necessarily expecting it.  So:

1. Match the trailer to movie as best you can (as you currently are).  But if the the match based on scoring ends up being an already viewed trailer, then

2. Randomly play an unwatched trailer.  Maybe this isn't completely random, i.e. look at your horror logic, maybe rating still as well.  If after doing this still can't find an unwatched trailer, then

3. Play something that has already been watched.

 

I appreciate all your work on this and won't harp on it any longer.  You know my thoughts on this well enough by now. 

 

This said, I have downloaded the dev version and will give that ago.  I will let you know if it is still re-playing trailers when I think there are other unwatched ones that could have been a good match - so maybe the logic can be refined further.

 

Thanks for your work on this.

Edited March 23, 2014 by foghat

[foghat 65]

Okay, I have version 1.0.1.1 installed. I set number of trailers to 2.

 

Just finished watching Three Kings (great show btw).  It has:

    - Genres: Action / Adventure / Comedy. 

    - Director: David O. Russell

    - Main Characters: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze

    - Rating: R

 

Trailers played were:

1. The Amazing Spider Man 2.   - this was good.  Was not marked as watched.

    - Watched Status: Not watched

    - Genres: Action / Adventure / Fantasy

    - Director: Marc Webb

    - Actors:No actors from Three Kings.

    - Rating: Does not seem trailer has rating

 

2. X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Not so good.  This one was marked as watched and this was probably about the 4th time it has played.

    - Watched Status: Watched

    - Genres: Action / Adventure / Fantasy. 

    - Director: Brian Singer

    - Actors: No actors from Three Kings

    - Rating: Does not seem trailer has rating

 

Other unwatched trailers that I have with at least 2 matching genres which I think should have played instead of X-Men:

1. 22 Jump Street - Genres: Action / Comedy / Crime

2. Divergent - Genres: Action / Adventure / Romance

3. The Expendables 3 - Genres: Action / Adventure / Thriller

4. Guardians of the Galaxy - Genres - Action / Adventure / Sci-fi

5. How to Train Your Dragon 2 - Genres: Animation / Action / Adventure

6. Pompeii - Genres: Action / Adventure / Drama

7. Transformers: Age of Extinction - Genres: Action / Adventure / Sci-fi  (this one even has mark wahlberg staring)

 

And there are at probably 3 times this that have one matching genre - would have preferred to have seen any of those vs. x-men.

 

Given that Transformers had the same 2 matching genres as X-men, plus the same starring actor, I am not sure why it wasn't picked over x-men, or even Spider-man for that matter. 

 

Edit: I notice that the two trailers played have the exact same genres.  Is it possible that somehow the second trailer is trying to match the genres from the first trailer played vs. the movie and then the 100% match on genre is superseding the watched flag/score?  Or maybe this was coincidence.

Edited March 23, 2014 by foghat

[foghat 65]

for fun I tried playing Three Kings again.

 

this time 22 Jump Street played first (this actually has Ice Cube in it as well) and then again played x-men for the second trailer.  Not sure why it has such a thing for the X-men trailer..

[ebr 14913]

The final piece of the puzzle I hadn't revealed to you yet is that, once it has a set of trailers sorted by score it then takes the first x number of them and scrambles them randomly and then plays the first n ones after the scramble.

 

This last piece was an attempt to get different trailers on subsequent viewings but the "random" functions in c# are known to not be very random at all so that is probably why you keep seeing X-men.

 

This scramble logic pre-exists my weighting for unwatched and, I think, the two are kind of defeating one another.  I'll try eliminating that scrambling and see if the unwatched scoring can accomplish the task better.  I'll put up a new dev version in a minute.  Please let me know how that works out.

[mboehler 94]

Here's a thought:

 

Instead of NEVER playing a trailer marked WATCHED, perhaps it could not play that trailer for x number of days.  So if X-Men was last played on March 24th, 2014, it won't play it again until say March 31st, 2014.  Or something along those lines.

[Pelon 160]

I'm curious both on the development side an on the user side about what would happen if a new trailer for a movie is added. Would the plugin, ignore the new trailer, even if it is different from the one previously watched?

 

Would the OP care to see the new trailer even if it is for a movie that it was previously displayed?

 

I'm not sure if we even get new trailers for the same movie in the trailer plugin, but I'm just curios if you don't want to see the same trailer again, or you don't want to see any trailers for a movie that already displayed a trailer.

[foghat 65]

If it is a brand new trailer for a given movie, I have no issues with the new trailer playing.

 

FYI ebr, I've got the latest dev version. Will let you know how it goes. I did do a quick test with three kings again it played two unwatched trailers this time. So that is good.

Edited March 25, 2014 by foghat

[foghat 65]

Hi,

 

Last night I watched:

- Shooter: Action / Crime / Drama

- Almost Famous: Drama / Music

 

This Morning I watched:

- Stargate: Action / Adventure / Science Fiction

 

For Shooter the trailers that played:

- The Outsider: Action / Crime / Drama

- Brick Mansions: Action / Crime / Drama

Both were previously unwatched.

 

For  Almost Famous:

- The Double: Drama

- Brick Mansions: Action / Crime / Drama

The Double was unwatched. Brick mansions just played for the previous movie

 

For Stargate:

- How to Train Your Dragon 2: Animation / Action / Adventure

- X-Men: Days of Future Past: Action / Adventure / Fantasy

Dragon was unwatched, X-men has been played about 5 times now....

 

So something is still not working ideally.  The 2nd trailer is often something I've seen before.  I have plenty of other unwatched Action  / Adventure trailers that would have worked instead of x-men.

 

There are plenty of trailers I have that are drama.  so not sure why Brick Mansions played a 2nd time when watching Almost Famous.

 

@@ebr, do you have any other ideas?  It is getting to the point where I will likely just remove the trailers piece. which is unfortunate.  Or maybe just play one trailer, as it is the second one that seems to be the issue - or maybe just coincidence at this point.  I don't know.

[ebr 14913]

Please try out the dev version I just put up.  I wasn't able to do much testing so let me know if it works okay.  Thx.

[foghat 65]

Thanks ebr.  Will give it a go. Probably won't be until the weekend though.

[foghat 65]

Just installed the plugin and noticed you added a 'Never play trailers I've seen' option. I very much thank you for doing this. I will let you know how things go this weekend.

[foghat 65]

@@ebr, watched Gran Torino this morning.

 

Gran Torino - Drama

 

Trailers:

- Draft Day - Drama / Sport

- Brick Mansions - Action / Crime / Drama

 

Draft Day was unwatched.

 

Brick Mansions was marked as watched this was the 3rd or 4th time it has played.

 

So, would seem even with 'Never play trailers I've already seen' checked off, the second trailer still has a propensity to play if already watched.

 

Thanks.

[ebr 14913]

Are you positive it was actually marked watched?  I don't see how that could happen.

[ebr 14913]

I just put up another dev version.  All it does is add a logging message so I can see what is happening a bit better.  Please try with that one and post the server log.  Thanks.

[foghat 65]

Are you positive it was actually marked watched?  I don't see how that could happen.

I am sure. I actually had the trailers screen up on the server before I started the movie. Looking at it after watching the movie, without refreshing the page, I could see Brick Mansions was marked as watched and Draft Day was marked as unwatched. Once I refreshed the page, Draft Day was showing as watched as well.

 

Will try the new version, most likely tonight.

[foghat 65]

I just put up another dev version.  All it does is add a logging message so I can see what is happening a bit better.  Please try with that one and post the server log.  Thanks.

Okay, I decided to do a test run. I played Gran Torino again. The exact same trailers played in the same order. Draft Day and then Brick Mansions.

 

Here is a screen shot of my trailer screen BEFORE I played the movie.  You can see both are marked as watched:

 

Log file attached.

 

 

server-63532291738.log

[ebr 14913]

Okay, there must be a hole in my logic somewhere that I am just looking past...

[ebr 14913]

I think I found it.  Watched status was never getting read properly.  Its possible it would have worked several versions ago if I had discovered that and we wouldn't have needed the new option.

 

In any case, please try the new version.

[foghat 65]

Good stuff.  Just gave it a quick test with gran torino again and got 2 new trailers - awesome.

 

I think the way you implemented the 'not show watched' is clean, easy to understand and is clear that you may not see any trailers.  I think it is a good option and hope it stays...

 

Will let you know how things work over the next few movie watches.