Good news, everyone! *
This year, I’m going to dedicate all my free time to work on MyTVShows 2.0
It’s been 2 years since we had to shut down the sign up form due to some scalability and performance problems. Unfortunately, during that time, I haven’t been able to work on fixing MyTVShows as I wanted, and time went by. I’ve tried to create a new version from scratch, but it never went past 30% of completion, again, due to lack of time.
So, this year, my goal is to have MyTVShows back up again, and add all those most wanted features you’ve all been asking for.
In order to open registrations as soon as possible, I’m going to focus on having the basic and most fundamental features working for everyone (adding shows and marking episodes as seen/unseen). All the other features, like the friends list, statistics, timelines, etc will be added later.
Of course, I’ll also have to fix the scalability problems and try to incorporate some new features like adding the episodes automatically and add notifications for new seasons of the shows you’re following.
I’m also considering ditching theTVDB.com and moving to TVRage as our source of data. It seems TVRage is a bit more stable than a user generated database like theTVDB.com (which keeps adding duplicated episodes).
So, I hope I can accomplish this as soon as possible, but don’t expect anything to be ready in just a month or two. It will probably take some time to do all the work, and I’m still going to do it on my free time.
Wish me luck 
* Quote from Professor Farnsworth on Futurama
That looks like good news indeed. Break a leg!
Good luck! =D
Nice, very good news, best of lucks, yo are doing a very good job
Good work! Good luck!
Boa sorte Ivo!
Perfect, thanks and happy new year!!!
these are great news! and those new features you’re talking about are a must! good luck!
Moving to TVRage? Oh, god, please, no….
Alex, why do you say that? We have a lot of problems with theTVDB because of duplicated episodes. Why do you think that the TVRage database is worst?
Hi!
Good luck and waiting to accept new users
TVRage is more crappy to edit and add new episodes… the mods are slow, they don’t accept the changes so quick, but in theTVdb is quicker, because there is no need of approval… I used to contribute to TVRage, but since I’ve found theTVdb I never edited or added anything in TVRage… and about the duplicates, why are they not deleting when they are removed from thetvdb? Like trakt’s sync to thetvdb.
Thanks for your input.
The duplicated episodes are not deleted from our database because the TVDB API only tells us the ones that are new or edited. They don’t tell us which ones were deleted, so they remain in our database until we manually remove them or force a complete update on the show
Why don’t you just drop APIs all-together. You probably have enough people to simply have them add the shows and episodes themselves, with a bit of moderation. I have a list a mile long of shows that I wish to watch, that aren’t even on TVRage yet. They are slow, they have very poor standards, and they have a lot of mistakes themselves. I refuse to even add anything there, as do many others. They are way behind the times and openly admit they don’t care about the API because it isn’t a major source of revenue.
The whole site is just off, to me. For example, two episodes that air together, to launch a show, are listed as one episode. Shows that clearly are connected, get separated there. They have user added content and poor moderation, so it results in their additions getting added and removed, changed over and over. Seriously. Both MyEpisodes and FollowMy.tv use them and they aren’t any better. They screw up the API non stop with all the changes they make.
You seem to have enough people to simply use your own system and to not rely on an API. People could submit shows and episodes as they want, then you can add flagging, reporting, locking, etc… You could start with the data that already exists on the site and just build off from it.
I’m just saying this all without having actually seen your site from the inside. You stated how many people you have and I have seen the screenshots.
@Allie, the goal of MyTVShows is not to be a database of shows, but just an app that helps you manage your episodes.
If we had to create that database, we would still have the same problems as theTVDB or TVRage. Because we would have to implement a moderation system, and people would still create duplicated episodes and have different opinions on wether two episodes that air together are just one or are two different episodes
Ivo, I know what you are trying to be. I just feel that eliminating the third party makes far more sense.
I actually disagree with the having the same problem as those two. They are both designed to maintain, lets say accurate records for the average home user. You, on the other hand, do not cater to that user. The standards that they have, are not the same ones that appeal to the users of a site like this. You will end up having to play by their rules, which means that putting up with all of the combined episodes that should be one, the changed tv show titles because they can’t decide, and so forth.
Why? Well, they aren’t built for checking off episodes. Actually, having had a few back and forth emails with one of the people behind TVRage, showed me that they don’t even care about you or any of the other API sites. What they have for standards would be nowhere near what a check off your tv type site would desire.
Thus, it begs the question. If you are already storing all that data, then why not make it far more accurate by using your own data?
The difference between the people here and the people there is that people who mark off episodes have different standards than those that are just filling in information on episodes. In my opinion, it would be far more likely to line up with data created by people on your site, than it would by either of those APIs.
Of course, who am I to be trusted? All I have to offer is that I have a collection that is well over two years worth of watched material, all in exact order. I keep up with hundreds of shows to see if I want to watch in the future. I have accounts at multiple sites and have since the beginning of them. I know how both TVRage and TheTVDB work.
I never figured you would change to it, but at the same time, the first one of these types of sites to change will probably be better off for it. Those two APIs lack big time.
I understand your goal. I just hope that someday, you do.
Allie, thanks for your valuable opinion.
Right now, our main focus is to get MyTVShows back up again (opening registrations and improve the performance). We will keep using theTVDB API until we decide where do we want to go.
Sure, we can import the entire TVDB database and start from there, but will our users be bothered to add the information missing? I think for now, they are only interested in getting the list of episodes so that they can mark them as seen, but it will surely be one thing we will consider in the future.
I understand. I would like to make a suggestion, though.
Pay attention to what your competitors do in terms of dealing with the situations that arise. I think some handle them poorly and others decently well. Say for example, MyEpisodes and FMTV both use TVRage, but yet run into different problems. MyEpisodes lets you pull new shows down at any time, FMTV doesn’t. MyEpisodes checks multile times a day, but FMTV only checks once a day, so MYEpisodes gets their changed data faster.
But… MyEpisodes seems to struggle more with changes that are very confusing from the API side. It isn’t unusual for something to be broken for longer on MyEpisodes, yet FMTV seems to trip up on other things. It is strange to say, but what effects one doesn’t always effect the other.
This is of course true with the superior TheTVDB. If you can figure out how to get your site to talk to it better and correct problems, perhaps a user reporting system leading to an admin API check or something, then you might be set.
The problems will always be there, but trust me, TVRage is not better. You won’t be any happier. In fact, feature wise, you may actually take a step back and have to go through all that effort to convert over for nothing.
I don’t think you will ever defeat the changes made on the API providers, but maybe you can simply get your site to respond quicker and more accurately to changes. This haunts every site I have ever seen using either of those, but… some definitely handle it better than others.
As for your users things, I have never been in your site. I am just guessing based off from the way other sites run. If you have enough users, there are always people looking to contribute. I find both database providers to be weak, so I would love to see someone that has the checking off feature to actually come up with it’s own database, someday. The problem with TheTVDB and TVRage is that they aren’t all that interactive, which is what separates this type of site from those. The more you can do to follow along, the more you want to contribute. If you go to mark off a show and it isn’t there, you would be more inclined to add it. I don’t get that feeling from the providers, because there is less at stake. The people going to mark things off here don’t feel like going elsewhere to jump through hoops to add a show. I know I wouldn’t.
Either way, the better you can handle and keep up with the data, the better the site will run. It doesn’t matter if you use an API or not. So… I completely understand what you mean and where you are coming from.
Can you just make good moderators system? I mean, put button in every episode or show for reporting by users and give permission to moderators to fix shows and episodes, will handle duplicate episodes faster. You hardly can escape duplicates i think. TVRage approve slow but i still think is better then TVDB.
First of all, Ivo, i’m very glad to hear that you are planning to work on the new version this year.
Second of all, imho tvrage’s api is the best solution for mytvshows because of the way it’s uses the data from that kind of site (epguides, tvdb etc).
Let me explain what i’m saying, mtvs add new episodes the SAME day the episode airs in television, it doesn’t need this kind of information 1 or 2 days before the airing, tvrage do exactly that, add new episodes or season or whatever the last minute, so the slow approval system doesn’t affect mtvs.
I know my english is a little bit rusty but i hope you got my idea.
I’m so glad reading the good news!
I think that making moderators system is a very good option and I will be so happy if I can help
An easy UI to report dupes, incorrect and missing information, would go a long way towards keeping everything nice and neat.
¿When will be the registrations opened? I’m waiting for an invitation since September
Nice to hear the sites going to be updating i was having loads of problems with loading time etc so i switch to Next-Episode for awhile im glad i can now move back.
Thanks. Really looking forward to trying the site. All the competition is not at the same level in my opinion.
Good Luck!
Obrigado pelas notícias Ivo.
Estou muito animado com a reabertura do site!
Procurei muito tempo por uma solução como esta e finalmente achei!!
Quero muito fazer parte desta comunidade!
¿When will be the registrations opened? I’m waiting for an invitation since September
I’m so excited to hear this! Good luck, Ivo.
I think no matter which database you choose to use, just assigning moderators could work really well to remove duplicate shows. Although, I’m not really finding duplicates much of a problem because it is so easy just to delete that episode from your library.
Switching databases will take much time, and there are lots of people just waiting to get in to the site (^^^ exhibit A
). As the site isn’t suffering majorly atm, I think it would be better just to stick with theTVDB and just work on a system to make deletion possible without doing a forced reset.
Best of luck!!
¿Any news?
Any news???
When will be the reigstration opened?
Is registration going to be opening up at any point in the near future? I am very interested in this website.
I think this website is a project dead
Fuck shit sex check
This is a fucking shit, any news in several months.
Well, the year is almost ending… some news would be great.
Been a dedicated used of MyTvShows for a few years now, but hasnt had any development in way too long.
Moved over to Trakt now, has built in scrobbling via your favorite media centre etc. I’m afraid it’s already head and shoulders past mytvshows now!
I’m afraid sonicbob is right, i was too a dedicated user of MTVS but i think it’s time to move on, it has been a long time…
Almost 3 years
I hope this happens. I’ve been waiting quite a long time for an email notification to be able to sign up. Good luck!
This is a fucking shit. Less promises and more actions.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about this,
like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you could
do with some pics to drive the message home a
little bit, but other than that, this is fantastic blog. An excellent read.
I’ll certainly be back.
Ivo Gomes, are you still alive?! If so, is there anything going to happen, ever?! If so, could you please give us an update?! It has been over a year since your last post, which is way too long if you ask me. You can’t just promise us great updates and then just leave us be without a word!
Hello.
I’m still alive, but the project is stalled. Unfortunately there are no updates and I don’t think there will be any in the following months. I’m considering opening MyTVShows code to the community, make it open source so that anyone can pick up where I left, but first I need to think about how I’m going to do it.
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Hi Ivo,
It would be great if you can share the code with the community. MyTVShows is just too great to let it die. The only feature I miss is the possibility to have a Plan to watch folder, bacause now I have mixed to shows I’m currently watching with the ones I plan to watch, so if you free the code, maybe I will be able to implement it myself.
Thanks!
Hello again.
The good news is that I finally got some help to work on MyTVShows. Me and a couple of friends are working on it on our spare time and we will try to release a new version during the summer, and it will have customizable folders
Great news!!
Please make it more automatic, remove the manual adding of episodes and seasons.
I’m using followshows and watched.li with this one too.
And please a better iOS web/app.
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