Any way of marking media as "watched" by various users?

[peter_h]

I'm looking to see if GBPVR will allow me to browse my video library and add a marker to any file, to indicate that a particular individual has watched it.

Currently, I'm just using the free Xplorer2 file browser, in Details view with the Comments field visible. In the comments we put the initials of those people who have already watched it (Xplorer2 makes it easy with a quick ALT-Z) , i.e. "ap" would mean that Ariana and Pete have both watched this video. This is REALLY useful, as it keeps track of what episodes each person is up to, and when you're by yourself, you may choose to watch something that your partner has already seen, leaving more choice for when you watch things together.

We also have a convention putting any paused position in brackets after the person's initial, e.g. "a(23)p(37)" would mean that Ariana has watched this up to the 23 minute and Pete the 37 minute. This helps when anyone comes back to finish watching a movie or episode. [We don't actually do it, but Ratings could also be stored like this, e.g. "a[4]" meaning Ariana watched it and rated it a 4.]

Storing this info in the file's Comments field ( which is saved in an Alternative Data Stream) means that we can also move the file around to other drives or machines (backups, to the van's laptop, etc) and the info travels with it. And viewing the server-located file from any machine on the network exposes the Comments info too, without needing any client-server database sync.

(Aside: In order to supports the Comments field, files can not have an .avi extension (I'm not sure why?). I just mass-rename .avi files to .mp4 extension, and my preferred VLC player plays them fine.)

I haven't yet found a media player that can meet these requirements as effectively as a simple file-based explorer like Xplorer2. What about GBPVR?

[sub]

Sorry, its unlikely I'd add this sort of thing to GB-PVR. This would only be useful to a very small percentage of users. There is tons of other features on my to-do list that would benefit a much wider set of GB-PVR users, so hard to justify the effort for this sort of feature.

[peter_h]

Wow - what a quick response!

Is it something that could be written with a plug-in, or added to an existing plugin? (as I can understand you already have lots to do, Sub

[sub]

You might be able to implement it in the plugin, but it'd only effect that plugin's screen, not the built in screens like the Recordings and Video Library screen.

[pBS]

avi's have their own actual built-in comment field so it probably would work if you put it in there...but it uses a diff. mechanism to do so, so would have to add another way.....
it seems to in the encoded file's header, so not sure how to add that easily..
they may show up in plugin, not sure..