Please add an option to allow us to mark TV episodes as watched before the air date listed by TMDb. TMDb rules require that moderators enforce air dates based on when episodes are aired on the “official” network. Many, many shows are now having their episodes available on streaming media before they are aired on those “official” networks. Episodes often appear on streaming services like Acorn before they are aired elsewhere. We should be able to mark episodes watched when we watch them, regardless of the air date TMDb insists on using. Personally, I think the first available date should be the one used by TMDb, but they’re never going to listen to me on that. As it stands, we can sometimes not mark an episode watched for several weeks after we actually watch it.
I just accidentally found on beta 4.7.2 that you have implemented this in quite a nice way. Thank you. I would still very much like for you to give us a detailed list of changes made in each release, so we can focus on testing them for you and so we can take advantage of any improvements more quickly. Telling us that an episode has not aired yet, according to TMDb (even though it is already available for streaming) but giving us the option to mark it watched anyway is really a nice solution.
There is a little issue of how such shows are listed on the Progress screen. I just marked the first two episodes of “The Winter King” as watched even though they are listed as not aired yet. It worked great except the Progress listing for the show says that I have watched 0/0 episodes. It I look at the season details, the episodes are marked as watched, and they are in the history. I realize there is a question of how such episodes should be reflected on the Progress List. I suggest that any episodes marked as watched be included in both counts, even if they are listed as not having aired yet. For instance, since I have watched the first two episodes, you might list the show in the Progress list as 2/2 episodes watched, even though the episodes haven’t aired yet, according to TMDb. As I watch more episodes (at least 5 are already available), they should be included in my counts as I mark them watched. So it might show 3/3 or 4/4 or 5/5, as I mark additional episodes as watched.
Thanks very much for allowing us to mark such episodes as watched. It’s a great improvement. TMDb does a great job, but they have a few rather silly rules from my perspective. Not recognizing episode availability when it happens, whatever the source, is one of those, IMHO.
It’s quite hard to find a solution that fits to really not released TV shows or if the user has watched TV show which might be released already.
The best solution would be if I get much more precise data from TMDB or trakt.
I understand fully. It is much better the way it is now, and I have no problem with leaving it the way it is. TMDb really causes the problem. Their rule is that the air date for an episode is the date it is first shown by the network they consider the originator. Lots of people, like me, think it should not work that way. Very often episodes appear on a streaming service before the air date that TMDb uses. They know about this problem but refuse to change their policy. I think the original air date should be for wherever the episode shows up first. Unless they change their policy, there is really nothing you can do to fix that. What you are doing, allowing us to mark it viewed even when TMDb says it hasn’t aired yet, is a great solution.
I only thought you might want to consider changing the Progress list display to reflect the epsodes we mark watched, i.e., instead of showing 0/0 episodes, show 2/2 episodes. That is, just treat the episodes marked as watched, as though they had aired, even though TMDb says they haven’t. But if not, I certainly understand and am still very happy with the change.
