My one major usability issue remaining is that if I queue up a bunch of shows to decode before
heading away from my computer for a bit, they all get encoded with the global encoder settings.
But often I'll want to queue up several different programs and use different settings for each. For
example, I might want to queue up The Daily Show, for which I can use a relatively low bitrate,
and NFL Primetime, which as a sports show needs a significantly higher bitrate, and Late Night
With Conan O'Brien, which is letterboxed so I use special settings (see Issue 63). (Also, I tend to
disable commercial skipping for most shows, because it sometimes misfires and snips a segment
of actual show; but I often turn it on for letterboxed shows, because the letterboxing provides a
strong cue that really boosts comskip's accuracy.)
What would be really nice is if each time I queued or started to download a show, iTivo asked me
which one of my presets to use *for that show*, and each time it began a new show in the queue
it would know to switch to the appropriate settings.
I think this would also allow a better solution to Issue 47, which asks to use different formats for
SD vs HD shows. Rather than having this switch automatically each time it begins encoding a
new show in the queue, the user could simply choose an HD preset each time he adds a HD show
to the queue and choose an SD preset each time he adds an SD show to the queue. (To address
Issue 47 even better, you might then have the "choose a preset" drop-down default to on option
for HD shows and another option for SH shows. You then might even have a different default for
letterboxed vs fullscreen shows, see Issue 63, or default to a different video bitrate depending
on whether the show was originally recorded in Basic/Medium/High/Best quality.)
This might require a bit more restructuring than most enhancements, so I know it might not get
top priority, but I think it's something that would be valued by a large number of your users
(since I see other people posting similar requests, like the SD vs HD presents issue).
Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enhancement