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Token Conservation and Reclamation

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Octavean

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With respect to AnyStream we are effectively operating within a "Token" economy. Tokens are necessary and have value within AS and while most of use will rarely run into a deficit of Tokens no one wants to run out.

Therefore it's necessary to address the fact that failed or stalled downloads that are aborted consume tokens on a one to one basis without actually providing a download. Therefore, there is a situation when a token is taken where nothing has been given in return.

The natural response to this would likely be to address the fault that caused the download issue rather then bother with the fact that a token was taken for a failed download but both are actually important.

A failed, stalled, or aborted download should be detectable.

To be fair there are other issues that could necessitate a redownload that isn't easily discerned such as an audio sync issue or a corrupted resultant file. Perhaps nothing can be done about that other then attempting to get at the root of the fault.


Prospere said:
One can watch trailers in the browser. Why bother spending your download token for a trailer? Unless, of course, you'd like to add it to your collection.
Click to expand...


While out of context, I totally agree that no one want's to waste tokens. Nor would anyone want to feel as though Tokens are being taken from them unjustly.
 
This will sound flippant, and it is not intended to be, but why not just wait?

There are so many other features for the team to work on, and if you've maxed out your tokens it seems like you probably have some shows/movies to watch to kill the time.
 
jayper said:
This will sound flippant, and it is not intended to be, but why not just wait?

There are so many other features for the team to work on, and if you've maxed out your tokens it seems like you probably have some shows/movies to watch to kill the time.
Click to expand...


I totally respect your opinion on this matter.

I'll answer your question like this:

1.1.5.7 beta 2021-07-20
  • change: renamed "Hulu" to "Hulu USA" to avoid confusion with "Hulu Japan", which is not yet supported
  • new provider: HBOmax
  • many minor changes and fixes
  • updated languages
Click to expand...

Here you see a great new feature, HBO Max support. Its safe to assume we all love to see new features and functionality. This gets a lot of attention I'm sure on the part of the devs and on the part of the users. Presumably this won't untimely be a free feature if its an AnyStream Pro only feature but I will gladly pay for AnyStream Pro.

Still, if we look a little further we also see "many minor changes and fixes". One would think that such things are often if not always part of updates. Its not eye catching or glorious but necessary work that also deserves respect,....though easily overlooked by some.

So simply put, I see it as an odd kind of bug. There are bigger bugs to be sure. I'm not suggesting that this be prioritized over something more pressing. For example, I haven't been able to login to HM at all via AS, not even once.

The change log shows that even though big things get done little things get addressed as well. Therefore its a fallacy to suggest otherwise.

BTW, I'm sure its easy enough to say that this is just how AS functions and its not a bug. Sure, but the end results of taking something and giving nothing in return sure sounds like a bug.
 
It's not as though you can't watch your movies on your browser. You just can't save them, as I agree just wait until it's fixed, what's the rush to save them?
 
It's not like you guys didn't understand how the token system worked BEFORE you purchased - perhaps not losing one via failed downloads. But it's also not a permanent loss - it comes back after 36 minutes. I am continually blown away by such a petty request.
 
HAMsmoke said:
It's not like you guys didn't understand how the token system worked BEFORE you purchased - perhaps not losing one via failed downloads. But it's also not a permanent loss - it comes back after 36 minutes. I am continually blown away by such a petty request.
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lol. where did it say 'if download fails, you lose a token''? must have missed that part.
 
Wait 35 minutes and don’t try that movie again until the next version is out, it doesn’t take much sense to do that


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
*shrug*

Are there times I get frustrated with the 'pool' of tokens? Yes. Right now, I have like .. six days to get the entire run of X-Files from Hulu. (I just found out it is going away, and it is worth the re-watch to see if it holds up.)
But you recover ~40 tokens a day. I usually keep my downloads around that number just in CASE i realize an entire series is going away with short notice or something.

Where I suspect this will bite me, is that HBO max has a handful of movies that are going away on the 31st, and with max currently broken for me until the next update .. I might be running close on the 31/1st.
So I get the 'once in a while' pressures that can come up where you have a limited amount of time - and tokens - to get something and are racing the clock.

But yes .. we all read that you CAN get 280 ish downloads a month, but a LOT of folks don't realize that you only have a pool of 100 tokens, and only populate back up to 100. It isn't hard to manager your pool so you can make a bunch of last minute downloads if you are racing the clock.
 
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StevenIvan said:
*shrug*

Are there times I get frustrated with the 'pool' of tokens? Yes. Right now, I have like .. six days to get the entire run of X-Files from Hulu. (I just found out it is going away, and it is worth the re-watch to see if it holds up.)
But you recover ~40 tokens a day. I usually keep my downloads around that number just in CASE i realize an entire series is going away with short notice or something.

Where I suspect this will bite me, is that HBO max has a handful of movies that are going away on the 31st, and with max currently broken for me until the next update .. I might be running close on the 31/1st.
So I get the 'once in a while' pressures that can come up where you have a limited amount of time - and tokens - to get something and are racing the clock.

But yes .. we all read that you CAN get 280 ish downloads a month, but a LOT of folks don't realize that you only have a pool of 100 tokens, and only populate back up to 100.
Click to expand...
Its better than being locked out by your provider, then you have no downloads from that provider.
 
Lowpro said:
All 9 seasons of The X-Files (including "The Event Series" and "The Complete Season 11") are available on Blu-ray in 1080p with lossless audio.
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They are. And the box set runs about $340. Currently they are free on Hulu. :) MOST of the content we all download is available in some form of hard copy.

I just want to re-watch the series once, I don't necessarily need to own it.

I've enough time to download it all - I rarely use more than 40 tokens a day, so I was full up.
Was mostly pointing out that with proper usage, (after your initial massive download when you buy AS the first time) most folks don't generally run out of tokens unless it is a special circumstance.

Always cracks me up when these threads pop up.
 
I’ll add my 2 cents again.

Tokens should be by provider and not a single total especially since you can download from multiple providers at the same time. As an ex-programmer and database designer I am guessing that RF has a database with your license # and number of tokens available. It would be easy to change the database to include the provider along with the license #. This will not bring any more attention to getting you blocked since right now you can use all you tokens on one provider anyway. We all have high speed internet so it makes sense to download from multiple providers at the same time which would make running out of tokens happen quicker with a single token system.

If the download fails then AS should report back that it failed and put the token back. You should be penalized for a failure.

For those that say just stream the episode/movie if you run out of tokens is wrong. The purpose of purchasing AS is to download and not stream. The same goes for saying buy the DVD/Blue-ray instead.

If a queue or season download ever gets implemented I think it makes it even more important to have tokens by provider since they would get used up quicker.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
StevenIvan said:
But yes .. we all read that you CAN get 280 ish downloads a month, but a LOT of folks don't realize that you only have a pool of 100 tokens, and only populate back up to 100.
Click to expand...

i think tokens replenish from 0 to 100 in roughly around 48hrs. so, if my math is correct: 1st of month you have 100 tokens. you use them all in 48 hrs, for instance. its 3rd of the month at that point. you now have to wait another 48 hrs to get up to 100 tokens. its 5th of the month now. you can start the process all over again. 5 days later you have another 100 tokens. repeat until the end of the month. sooo, 600 tokens all in all? a few hundred more if youre done with 100 tokens in less than 48 hrs.
 
zanetti said:
i think tokens replenish from 0 to 100 in roughly around 48hrs. so, if my math is correct: 1st of month you have 100 tokens. you use them all in 48 hrs, for instance. its 3rd of the month at that point. you now have to wait another 48 hrs to get up to 100 tokens. its 5th of the month now. you can start the process all over again. 5 days later you have another 100 tokens. repeat until the end of the month. sooo, 600 tokens all in all? a few hundred more if youre done with 100 tokens in less than 48 hrs.
Click to expand...

Tokens regenerate every 35 minutes. They will regenerate if 100 > your token pool >= 0.
Considering the system is (essentially) anonymous, there is no way for them to know a download failed. (you don't 'check in' to the token server again when a download finishes, you burn a token when the request is made).
It is also unlikely that you don't 'replenish' tokens when you are downloading, as AnyStream has zero knowledge about how long your downloads are taking.

So every 24 hours period, you recover up to ~40 tokens. or ~60 hours to get your pool back up to 100 if totally drained (2.5 days). If you download less than 40 'things' a day, you should always be at (or near) 100 at the start of each day.

In your example, you are downloading 100 things in 48 hours, or one show (on average - assuming a consistent rate) every 28.8 minutes. At the end of 48 hours, you would (roughly) have somewhere between 96 and 100 tokens in your pool.

Even if you weren't downloading one at a time, or at consistent speeds, or you finished in the beginning of day 2. if you burned 100 tokens inside of 48 hours, your pool would still be positive at 12:00AM on day 3.
 
Just a minor clarification here. The token system isn't entirely anonymous. It's tied to your license number, how else would the system know from whom to deduct a token :) You wouldn't want my downloading something deduct a token from your bucket would you ;)
 
Ch3vr0n said:
Just a minor clarification here. The token system isn't entirely anonymous. It's tied to your license number, how else would the system know from whom to deduct a token :) You wouldn't want my downloading something deduct a token from your bucket would you ;)
Click to expand...

that is why I said 'essentially' :) It kinda has to know your account # (and only that one assumes .. not a name etc.) but not what you do with that token, who you are downloading from, if the download is aborted/failed etc.

So basically, the OP's request is basically impossible with how I suspect tokens work currently.
In order to make a token 'refundable' .. the token API would have to do a LOT more than just say 'yes, account #12345789283 you have tokens, here is a token'. It would have to constantly communicate with AS during the download process - which has a MUCH higher potential to gum up.
 
Maybe not. Currently it deducts a token immediately when the download begins. Even if the download then fails, the token is still deducted. A simple fix (and no token refund needed) is to:

1. Check user has tokens available. If yes > move to 2. If not tell users "limit reached" as it does now
2. Reserve token but don't deduct.
3. Download completes succesfully (aka post processing done), deduct token reserved in step 2. If download fails for some reason > move to 4
4. Release reserved token, bucket count remains the same.
 
Ch3vr0n said:
Maybe not. Currently it deducts a token immediately when the download begins. Even if the download then fails, the token is still deducted. A simple fix (and no token refund needed) is to:

1. Check user has tokens available. If yes > move to 2. If not tell users "limit reached" as it does now
2. Reserve token but don't deduct.
3. Download completes succesfully (aka post processing done), deduct token reserved in step 2. If download fails for some reason > move to 4
4. Release reserved token, bucket count remains the same.
Click to expand...

This seems like a good alternative. Deducting the token at the end of the d/l (post processing) seems a fairer option.
 
RedFox 1 said:
The rewatch it, it is always there on the provider.
Click to expand...

Not after July 31st.
Hulu announced it is leaving the service, and Hulu (Disney) owns the broadcasting rights.
hence why I'm downloading it, instead of streaming it.
 
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