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[RD James]

As I add more and more media to my library, it becomes more work to manage, and more work to find what I am looking for.
I have many separate categories and sub-categories, and use a 3-pane split view to manage it all (zones/video/audio).
Here's a sample of what I find myself interacting with in a typical week:

• All Movies
• New Movies
• Old Movies (previously watched)
• TV shows
• Downloaded Videos (Podcasts, YouTube, Vimeo etc.)
• Music
• Artists A-Z
• Albums by Import Date
• Views for specific genres.
• Music Videos
• Podcasts
• Playlists

It's a lot, and that's not even counting the views I have for actually managing the library, or if I'm looking for something extremely specific.
 
Search in Media Center is mostly confined to the current view, and even then I wish that I could configure search and exclude it from searching tabs in pane #1, as it's at least 50/50 when I use it, if search actually searches the view I intend it to or if I have to clear search, click somewhere else and enter it again.
But while I would like to see that fixed, I'm not asking for changes to search in here.
 

I would like to see an enhanced Play Doctor.
 
Play Doctor is a great feature that I almost never use.
I just don't use random playback unless I'm entertaining. I listen to albums.
 
What would be really useful to me, is if Play Doctor was updated to act as a universal search field.
This would be a "smart" search field:

• I could type an album name, hit enter and have it play the whole thing.
• Type an artist name and have it queue up their discography - optionally shuffling the albums (not tracks).
• Enter the name of a movie and have it start playing fullscreen in the correct zone.
• Enter the name of a director or actor and list all of their movies.
• Enter a TV series and have it pick up where I left off, queuing up all unplayed episodes.
• Enter the name of a podcast and have it start playing from the most recent episode, optionally working backwards through the list.
• Type the name of a song or genre to generate a Play Doctor list.

It should be as easy as typing one or two words, selecting an item from the results, and having that media automatically play in the correct zone (no matter where search was initiated).
 
I think this is one of the large reasons that more people are moving towards online media these days - even people that have been heavily invested in using Media Center in the past.
You don't have to manage it or go hunting for it. You type the beginning of what you're looking for, it shows up in a list and plays when you select it, picking up where you left off.
 
It doesn't have to replace the traditional library browsing experience, but I would like my primary interface for Media Center to become a search box.
I would like to see the search presentation improved as well, but maybe that's not something for MC24.
What I am imagining would primarily be an enhancement of the current Play Doctor at the moment.
It seems like Media Center has most if not all of the functionality required to power such a feature, but it needs the interface for it.

[JimH]

Would you mind changing the subject?

I think what you're asking for would be something like "Search and Play".  It isn't Play Doctor.

Also, Play Doctor isn't the same as random playback.  It's smarter than that, and it learns from your skips.

[RD James]

Would you mind changing the subject?
I think what you're asking for would be something like "Search and Play".  It isn't Play Doctor.

It seemed like something that could be built off the current Play Doctor search interface, since that already covers searching and playing in one function.
Enabling it to search your entire library and making it content-aware, so that it has different functionality depending on the media type you select, is why I thought of it as a "next-gen Play Doctor".

The current Play Doctor functionality would still be present if you are selecting a song or genre, and it would still be doing smart generation of playlists rather than playing a single item - as "search and play" might imply.

Also, Play Doctor isn't the same as random playback.  It's smarter than that, and it learns from your skips.

Yes, Play Doctor is more advanced than simple random playback, but it's still playing a random assortment of somewhat related tracks, which is just not how I listen to music.

[mattkhan]

by the sounds of it, I use MC in a similar way to RD James so I also think this would be a good thing to add. I actually added an interface a bit like this to the webapp remote I use (i.e. a context sensitive auto completing text field which lets you choose discrete items to play, it's way simpler and much more limited then the feature request here though)