Topic: Different types of TV productions

[GSyren]

There have been many arguments about what is a genre, and most people agree that ”Television” is not really a genre (except in Profiler’s world). I agree that it isn’t a genre. A more interesting discussion, in my opinion, would be how one could classify different types of television productions. Here is one possible suggestion:

1) TV shows with completely separate story lines in each episode. Most common in older TV shows, like Perry Mason.
2) Like 1) but without recurring characters, more like anthologies. Example: Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
3) Shows with complete stories in each episode, but with some overriding story arcs, like CSI.
4) Shows with only an overriding story arc per season. Example: 24.
5) Shows with an overriding story arc over multiple seasons, usually with subplots. Example: Lost.
6) Miniseries; 2 - ? episodes with an single plot, and possibly subplots.
7) TV movies

One of the questions that comes to mind is - what constitutes a miniseries? If you take a three hour TV movie and split it into two parts, does that really make it a miniseries? How many episodes can a miniseries have before you consider it a regular TV show?

Does a classification like the one above fill any need? Well, it does to me. A season of Perry Mason and a season of 24 are two very different viewing experiences. I can watch an episode of Perry Mason today and another two months from now without needing any context. But with a show like 24, even a week between the episodes makes me lose some important context.

It seems to me that there are very few, if any, TV shows of type 1 today; shows where you can watch an episode that doesn't have any reference to what has gone before. Sure there are many TV shows where you can enjoy a single episode, but you miss something if you don’t have the reference.

Any thoughts on any of this?

[DSig]

I think you have hit the nail on the head.  TV is a classification like Movie where both are children of type Video.

And I like your basic 'types' under TV.  I think that most sitcoms can really fall under type 1, although they might have some reference to past happenings it tends not to be important. But most dramas cant as they do carry baggage from past shows.

Although I use profiler for my dvds, I actually use MediaMonkey for my library/db functions where TV is a type of Video.  Here I can add to/maintain this type of information in one of the custom fields.

Yeah I really like your list.

[Achim]

I like your list , too.

"Television" i DVD Profiler is simply indication the origin of the material, it is obviously not a genre in itself. I think your list would be best be implemented via tags (I might actually do that...), if it was a feature in DVDP it would become another struggle to agree on which category some TV shows fall into; especially 3-5 and 6-7.

[GSyren]

You're right, Achim. I didn't really envision it being implemented in Profiler. There is quite enough to argue about in Profiler without adding even more subjective information. I was just looking for other viewpoints. I think DSig has a point about sitcoms. They are usually quite close to type 1, but not entirely freestanding episodes. Would it be useful to add yet another type to the list, or is type 1 close enough?

You're right that tags would probably be the best way to go. It would have been nice if you could add custom lists in Profiler so you could have a dropdown list to select type from.

[Kinoniki]

Filter by tags works well enough for me, just click a box and you have a custom list. I have already implemented mini-series and tv-movies since many years.

[Achim]

You're right that tags would probably be the best way to go. It would have been nice if you could add custom lists in Profiler so you could have a dropdown list to select type from.

What do you mean by "custom lists", that come from a dropdown...?

You can use tags and then even select two at the same time for those ambiguous cases. Tags can be filtered on.

Another way would be custom collections, although you'd have to have one tab for each collection, so that is probably overkill.

Maybe both options combined Put all Television items in a custom collection and then additionally use the tags to filter for the "sub-genres". This is getting better by the day... (I'd have said minute, but this is a forum, not a chatroom )

[GSyren]

Check boxes (which is what tags are) are good for binary options (yes/no, on/off etc), but are - from a GUI perspective - ill suited for selecting one of several choices. Depending on available screen space, either radio buttons, a list box or a combo box is a better choice. But since Profiler only offers check boxes, that's what we have to make do with.

Then again, GUI flexibility inherently means more complex option settings, so it's a tradeoff. Quite possibly sticking with just check boxes is a good compromise.

[DSig]

I find that the problem with something like this and dvdprofiler is that dvdprofiler is not *really* about the film (or episode etc) but more about the DVD (dvd profiler not film profiler) ... the physical thing purchased.  I am sure that others will say this is not the case but just the way it seems to me.  Sometimes it is hard to get the two to work together.

It would be nice if dvdprofiler had a 'user' screen, like personal info, with 10+ added columns which could be drop down/edit fields for the user to use as they want.  But to make that work would take some serious design considerations (i've done that before and it is not easy) and I don't believe that is any direction dvdprofiler will go.