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[MrHaugen]

I know me and others have asked for this before in other posts, but I thought of bringing it up here so we might hear what the plans are, or maybe just give you some ideas or suggestions.

With the implementation of the Info Pane, MC is one step closer to good Movie and Series oriented Media Center apps like XBMC. One thing we're missing yet is a way for us to view info of series and seasons. Other smaller things would be to enable Star ratings as well as seen/not seen info in the Info Panel.

My suggestions:

1. Make Series and Video views able to show info panel above the details level. This is how you might be able to do it.
--- Enable the users to Select "Show Info Panel" for each category under Theater View Options -> "Items to Show".
--- Details could be pulled of the first file in the group
--- End result

2. Enable Graphical stars in Theater View
--- Enable rating as a graphical field in Info Pane
--- Enable users to select the field, hit enter and use left right keys to set the new rating. Another enter sets the new rating?
--- Would also be great to be able to enable Graphical star rating in the context of file details as well. Fits really nice in a list stile with Music tracks.

3. Make graphical icons for Watched/Not Watched and implement it in Info pane
--- Number of watched and not watched with graphical representation in the Info Pane (can be done today without the graphics, yes I know)
--- Gives a nice overview of what series, seasons or even movies in different genres, who you have left to watch
--- Kan even be added as an option for the Lineup style to give a great overview over your series, all at once
--- Example


This don't really seem like major implementations to me (please don't shoot me if I'm wrong), and it would add so incredibly much to the Theater View experience. Tree of my friends who I made go MC, have all pointed out this as the major difference to other good Media Centers which is based on Theater View experience.

Any thoughts?

[rick.ca]

Maybe I've been dreaming again, but I thought I saw a post not too long ago that said something to the effect some sort of series handling would be added first for TV, then rolled-out for video. Now, of course, I can't find the post. In any case, my thought was to be patient and see what they come up with.

Meanwhile, I'm giving myself a taste of what certain aspects of the solution might be like by using dummy files for series (I don't bother doing seasons) and tinkering with the Info Panel to provide a workable series/episode presentation. So far, that's suggesting I really don't care that much about the information. I'm normally familiar with the series, and just want to navigate to the next unseen episode, read the plot blurb, and play. That supports the kind of all-in-one view you seem to be advocating, but also, if you discount the eye-candy effect, any simple and effective solution might do.

While I do want something better and "built-in," I find a view that shows unseen episodes sorted within series (dummy files) is quite functional for seeing at a glance what episodes are up next and choosing one to play. So maybe it's worthwhile to consider what kind of enhancement would allow the creation of series/season/episode views within the existing framework. That might be more flexible than something completely different just for handling series. I don't know whether is possible or practical, but it would be cool if the same functionality that handles series/seasons/episodes also handles artists/albums and photo albums. I suppose this might be what you're getting at with the "show info panel above the details level" idea.

[JimH]

From build 58:

10. Fixed: Television subscriptions nicely handle the updated metadata layout of build 57 (so subscriptions look at series and name for deciding what to record).

[MrHaugen]

I don't know whether is possible or practical, but it would be cool if the same functionality that handles series/seasons/episodes also handles artists/albums and photo albums. I suppose this might be what you're getting at with the "show info panel above the details level" idea.

That's the whole point. If you could select at which level you want the info pane to show, you could have info for all categories of media types. Videos, Artist and Photos. I see my self looking at the artist Bios as well as series info. Not because I really need to, but it would be nice to get some more in depth info. If you also have useful info like episodes watched and average track rating for instance, this would add a whole new experience to the Theater View imo.

[MrHaugen]

I'm trying help out here with some ideas I believe could do really much for the Theater View experience, and it might be easy to implement as well.

I want to hear if this is something the rest have been looking for, if it's easy or hard to implement, if the idea is rubbish or if others have better ideas.

[rick.ca]

That's the whole point. If you could select at which level you want the info pane to show, you could have info for all categories of media types. Videos, Artist and Photos.

If that kind of information is going to be available in the Library, this should be addressed in the context of Standard View. There has been much discussion about how to handle this sort of relational data. Some of us went to great length to explain how it might be done using the current database architecture (i.e., the discussion had nothing to do with relational databases). But, it seems that idea is dead—we're not going to stray from the idea that all information must be associated directly with a media file.

But, since this sort of information can still be stored in the Library (even if it's inconvenient to do so), it's reasonable to ask for a way to display it in Theater View. I have difficulty imagining how some sort of "Display Category Info Panel" function might be added to the current system in an intuitive way. Perhaps it could be implemented at the file list level, where categories could be listed, and information about the categories displayed in exactly the same manner as it is for files (i.e., you would configure a panel for the category to display the relevant fields). It might even intelligently combine data from different file records that varies (e.g., to display average time, rating, etc.). These categories would then expand (tree-like) to display the files (and file information) associated with them.

Personally, I think I would probably ignore any such feature. Without the means to efficiently manage this sort of relational data in Standard View, I rather not waste my time trying to include it. I guess what we're going to end up with is something that will handle the special case of series-seasons-episodes. That's going to require the handling of information not directly related to files (i.e., information about the series), so it will be interesting to see if the mechanism for that can be adapted to other uses.

[MrHaugen]

Why make it so difficult? Why would you want the category info at the file level? I'm not starting on relations talk here, that's not really necessary imo. We are used to storing every tag in the file it self, and what is really the problem in saving a tag to 100 files instead of one? Most of the information you would want from such a category view is already provided by many MC users (episodes, seasons, plot, rating, tracks, bios). Why not just use this information in an good way?

First of all, you need to separate what is shown at the file level, and what is shown in categories (Artist, Series, Season etc). Combining this two will give the same info in each level (category and details/file level), and would look pretty messy. The easiest way of dealing with this might be to implement a "Display Category Info Panel" next to todays Configure Info Panel option (with ability to turn it off for those that don't need it). Another solution, maybe even better,  would be to include a "Show at category level" check mark next to each field, so you can choose if it's going to trigger the info pane at the category level as well.
With a separation of the two, we end up with the same as we have today for the info pane: You show information that is relevant for the media type (video, music, images), and the other stuff is left out because it's no tags for it. A simple edit of the config page would give you all the fields you want to show at a category level.

In this simple example I've added a few custom fields (don't look quite right. Was falling asleep while I did it. Better to look at Darichmans examples in my initial post). They could just as well be default expressions in a standard TV setup, which combines the data from different tags. Things like plot and other stuff that is relevant for the whole category could easily be picked up from the first files tag.

[rick.ca]

I want to hear if this is something the rest have been looking for, if it's easy or hard to implement, if the idea is rubbish or if others have better ideas.

Sorry for making it so difficult. I could have saved us both time by answering this more directly.

[MrHaugen]

So, no one else wants to play with the rather old category info idea?
I presumed this was something a lot of Theater View users would find useful.

[glynor]

3. Make graphical icons for Watched/Not Watched and implement it in Info pane
--- Number of watched and not watched with graphical representation in the Info Pane (can be done today without the graphics, yes I know)
--- Gives a nice overview of what series, seasons or even movies in different genres, who you have left to watch
--- Kan even be added as an option for the Lineup style to give a great overview over your series, all at once
--- Example

I personally don't care much about the Category Info stuff, as I wouldn't use it.  However, this is a very good idea.

[park]

I have been thinking on similar lines recently. My question was:

How do JRiver suggest we organize our videos?

Looking at the evidence, we have a number of defualt categories such as series and season to get ourselves started, but there are two things that constantly niggle me.

1. Metadata. Integration with myMovies is looking good, though I haven't taken the plunge myself yet. So assuming that users now have plot summaries and lists of actors/directors etc for all their movies, how can JRiver leverage that? I think that the info panel is one way, but like Mr Haugen, I think it comes too late. We are not using the info to navigate, we are merely seeing it at the end of our journey as a kind of decoration. I think that Mr Haugen is on the money with the focus on "Series". This is a natrual stopping point, where the user might want more info. It also leads to my second niggle...

2. Albums or series? I really really believe that JRiver should lead us on this one. They need to show us a standard organization method for videos. At the moment, we have a number of ways to tag and make viewschemes but it seems as if MC itself is sitting up on the wall and saying "I dont know... do what you want man!"

What is an album, when it comes to video?

Is it a "Title"? If so then it is a logical way to group multi-file movies (movies ripped to many files, each the size of a CD) into one element. In this case we should tag each movie name to be the album name, and browse by album thumbnails.

However, MC automatically groups files by date imported and fills the album with this info. It is messy and has always annoyed me. It doesnt even help for home movies. Also (but this may be a library server tagging bug), when you clear an Album field from a file MC automatically repopulates it with something. It's like MC is scared of having an empty album tag.

Also, if we use "Album" to mean "Title", then when we get to the Album level in theater view, and press enter on one, we go in one more level to the file view which shows exactly the same file. The file level becomes an arbitrary and time wasting place to go most of the time. As a user I either have to just double click on the same file twice to play it (once for the album level and then once again for the actual file), or I have to remember to press "Play" on an album thumbnail when at the albbum level.

Is it a series?
I have given up on Album, and now use series to organize and browse both my movies and tv shows. For movies (like the die hard and other franchise movies) "Series" works nicely at the start of the browsing process. If there are no franchises for a specific genre then MC very thoughtfully skips that whole category and takes me to the next meaningful one (excellent feature by the way).

So now I mostly browse my movies by [Genre] [Series] [Name] and it is simple and works fairly well. But multi-file movies still mess up the list a bit. (still better than adding the extra [Album] level and having to double click on the play the movie though)


Small aside: In England "Series" means "Season" and refers to the number of a "Programme" ("Show"). So semantically, there is confusion before we even start tagging. This is why MC needs to show users a preferred way of tagging, organizing and browsing videos. Default viewschemes and Theater views, and auto metadata grabbing jump out to me as the best ways.

My point
How many of the users "Titles" are muti file entities? If there are lots (as is the case with music) then there is a strong case for using "Album thumbnails" and auto filling the album tag with some value (personally I prefer the Volume name (for DVDs) or the file name, than the current Date Imported). If the majority of a users movies and TV shows are likely to be contained in one file (probably the case), then MC could better group the titles for us by using Series or some other category for the "Album thumbnail" and could perhaps become more intelligent at autofilling that category value for us upon import.

[raldo]

So, no one else wants to play with the rather old category info idea?
I presumed this was something a lot of Theater View users would find useful.

Am I right in saying that the gist of this idea is simply allowing info panels above the file level, and then selecting the first file for info display?

I think this is a good idea. I agree that this is something that probably is "easy to implement" for JRiver.

Since we can now configure the info panel ourselves, I think this could be a very flexible solution which probably could be used also for images and audio too.

[MrHaugen]

Am I right in saying that the gist of this idea is simply allowing info panels above the file level, and then selecting the first file for info display?

Correct. It's a very easy way of treating categories which probably contains much of the same tags anyway. Only thing that would have to be thought of is to differentiate tags in file level and category view. As an example: Plot or Bios for category only. Title, Duration and so on only at File level. When it comes to plot we might also enter a challenge as it can be used for Series, Seasons as well as movies.

I also agree with you Park, when it comes to a "standard" way of handling series and video. It can't be forced on the users, but a built in  Standard View view and Theater View view for Series and Video with a reasonable setup for info panel should be present after the first install. Would make it easier for users, and perhaps easier to implement further improvements and features regarding categories.

[raldo]

[...]Only thing that would have to be thought of is to differentiate tags in file level and category view. As an example: Plot or Bios for category only. [...]

What about images? For example differentiating between backdrop, season, series?

I also agree with you Park, when it comes to a "standard" way of handling series and video. It can't be forced on the users, but a built in  Standard View view and Theater View view for Series and Video with a reasonable setup for info panel should be present after the first install. Would make it easier for users, and perhaps easier to implement further improvements and features regarding categories.

I've always thought that there are too few default view schemes for all media types. I'd think that many more default view schemes (than other media players) would both indicate to new users the configuration possibilities of MC and make the "cost of entry" to view configuration a lot lower...

[IlPadrino]

Count me in...  I'd find the ability to better manage the "series" experience very helpful.