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[Blaine78]

a good feature would be resume bookmarks for video album. i.e. if you 'play' the album (not individual files) season 1 futurama, so all 9 episodes go direct to play now list, if you stop it anywhere in the cue, say half way through episode 3, if you come back to it by adding whole album to playlist again, it will resume halfway through ep 3. will be helpful as i watch a few videos a night, and lose where i am in the seasons. think this would be awesome feature

[MrHaugen]

I think it would be a more work than it's worth, and it's not really that logical either. You'll need more library fields, and way to handle them. And people might not be expecting this exact behavior.

A more logical way of handling this would be a to add filters. Ways of filtering out all the episodes watched as one example. You don't really need to look at episodes watched if you're going to pick new episodes, do you? Even a way to see which episodes is played or not, in a quick overview, and start watching from that point would be more enough to fix your problem I think. This is both things that is needed in a good MC. At least in Theater View. I'm posting a thread with suggestions like this around this weekend.

[Blaine78]

I think it would be a more work than it's worth, and it's not really that logical either. You'll need more library fields, and way to handle them. And people might not be expecting this exact behavior.

A more logical way of handling this would be a to add filters. Ways of filtering out all the episodes watched as one example. You don't really need to look at episodes watched if you're going to pick new episodes, do you? Even a way to see which episodes is played or not, in a quick overview, and start watching from that point would be more enough to fix your problem I think. This is both things that is needed in a good MC. At least in Theater View. I'm posting a thread with suggestions like this around this weekend.

I don't see how you would need more library fields? i just tag all season 1 in one album called i.e. 'futurama season one'. JRiver then groups these automatically in a stack.  if you play that album (stack) direct, think would be a great idea for it to resume where it left off. think it's pretty logical. an option to turn this feature on or off would please all.

[MrHaugen]

Album is a library field. New or not. If you need to tag all seasons in albums, you kind of just waste your time unnecessarily. I can't see how this is logical. A way of filtering out unwanted things, or looking at where you left off in the normal views, would give pretty much exactly the same effect.

I will not use my time on trying to stop you with this request. It just seems to me that you're attacking the from a wrong angle that's all.

[Blaine78]

Album is a library field. New or not. If you need to tag all seasons in albums, you kind of just waste your time unnecessarily. I can't see how this is logical. A way of filtering out unwanted things, or looking at where you left off in the normal views, would give pretty much exactly the same effect.

I will not use my time on trying to stop you with this request. It just seems to me that you're attacking the from a wrong angle that's all.

it took 3 seconds to tag all episode in an album, JRiver is set up that way. it's cleaner and easy to find seasons. it works the same principal as a music album. select all file in that season, and tag it. J river groups them to organise better. back to original request, a resume on an album, is a logical idea, like playing a dvd with multiple episodes, jriver plays from last stop point.

[bunglemebaby]

While it will still take a quick glance on your part, you could just add [Last Played] (and/or [Number Plays]) to your thumbnail text. In theater view you could add [Last Played] to either the thumbnail text or to the File Info Panel.

Alternatively, filtering out watched (or just recently watched) episodes would work fairly well. The one caveat here is that I think MC marks a file as being watched before the end of the file, so you have to watch each episode to the end for the filtering method to be useful.

These aren't quite as automatic as you are looking for, but it should at least help you out until you can convince the J River crew to implement what you do want.

[MrHaugen]

Alternatively, filtering out watched (or just recently watched) episodes would work fairly well. The one caveat here is that I think MC marks a file as being watched before the end of the file, so you have to watch each episode to the end for the filtering method to be useful.

Yes. Number plays will probably trigger fast. Another alternative is to exclude all episodes with play number above 0, but to include those that have a bookmark. Bookmarks will usually be cleared if you watch more than 90% or the episode or movie. I have not tried it, but it might work. I think it's a lot better alternative than to expect people to Albumize all their seires

[Blaine78]

Thanks for your help guys, i was looking for the automatic resume rather than filtering and sorting. it's about ease of use than having to think about it. have to mention, i don't use theatre view. i always use JRiver in standard view.

[Blaine78]

Yes. Number plays will probably trigger fast. Another alternative is to exclude all episodes with play number above 0, but to include those that have a bookmark. Bookmarks will usually be cleared if you watch more than 90% or the episode or movie. I have not tried it, but it might work. I think it's a lot better alternative than to expect people to Albumize all their seires

i don't expect people to put seasons into albums, but for the number of people who do, this feature will be welcome. i think you're missing the point because you decide not to organise your videos this way. is like saying not many people use blu ray, so ignore blu ray resume?

[MrHaugen]

I'm not saying it would be useless. But I think that to introduce new features that perhaps aims at 1% of users, might be considered a bad priority. Especially when there is similar things that needs to solved, and can be solved pretty much the way you like it, with the library fields that most people use.

[Blaine78]

I'm not saying it would be useless. But I think that to introduce new features that perhaps aims at 1% of users, might be considered a bad priority. Especially when there is similar things that needs to solved, and can be solved pretty much the way you like it, with the library fields that most people use.

how do you know that it's 1%, don't think you know that for sure. it's a feature request, not asking if you approve. If the JRiver crew thought people wouldn't put episodes of a season of the same show into an album for easy sort, the tag option would not have been available in the first place.

[MrHaugen]

You're able to tag what ever field you want to, for what ever media you want. It's one of the strengths of MC. But you're right that a default value is given to albums. It's a date, that have little to do with the season. So, it would need some work to be made usable. And most people don't do that. I'm not sure of any numbers of-course. But I can guarantee that the number is low. People already have a library field for seasons. It's called "Season". I highly doubt there is plenty of people tagging albums as well. That's why I'm trying to give suggestions as to how this can be solved for everyone. Not just a small group that goes "out of the standard".

It is a feature request, and I can't stop you asking for it. But I would not get my hopes up to high, when it's use have such limited effect and most people will not benefit from it. That's all.

If you absolutely have to do this with the album field, what about thinking of a way of doing it with this field, and fields that is more common to use?

[Blaine78]

You're able to tag what ever field you want to, for what ever media you want. It's one of the strengths of MC. But you're right that a default value is given to albums. It's a date, that have little to do with the season. So, it would need some work to be made usable. And most people don't do that. I'm not sure of any numbers of-course. But I can guarantee that the number is low. People already have a library field for seasons. It's called "Season". I highly doubt there is plenty of people bothering albums this. That's why I'm trying to give suggestions as to how this can be solved for everyone. Not just a small group that goes "out of the standard".

It is a feature request, and I can't stop you asking for it. But I would not get my hopes up to high, when it's use have such limited effect and most people will not benefit from it. That's all.

If you absolutely have to do this with the album field, what about thinking of a way of doing it with this field, and fields that is more common to use?

i wish i could upload a picture here to show what i mean and how elegant the solution would be without the use of extra fields that clutter a screen. to be honest, i don't know how people can easily see and sort upto 26 eps a season without the use of albums. is like having music cds with out an artist or album tag and have to find it by file name

[bunglemebaby]

i wish i could upload a picture here to show what i mean and how elegant the solution would be without the use of extra fields that clutter a screen. to be honest, i don't know how people can easily see and sort upto 26 eps a season without the use of albums. is like having music cds with out an artist or album tag and have to find it by file name

If I get what you mean, it seems that [season] = [album] and [episode] = [track #], while [series] = [artist] for the comparison at hand. So you have tools to keep everything organized already. In other words you can sort on a priority of [series], [season], [episode].

Personally, I also fill [album] automatically with an expression using [series] and [season] (maybe the same as you're doing?), but I have to agree with MrHaugen that this isn't particularly normal especially given that there are an increasing number of automated tools to fill in metadata (which do not utilize the [album] field).

Anyway, what I'm really trying to emphasize here is that there is a good chance that your request won't be at the top of the list and that you do definitely have some options to create a view scheme that is fairly workable for what you want.
-JB

[Blaine78]

If I get what you mean, it seems that [season] = [album] and [episode] = [track #], while [series] = [artist] for the comparison at hand. So you have tools to keep everything organized already. In other words you can sort on a priority of [series], [season], [episode].

Personally, I also fill [album] automatically with an expression using [series] and [season] (maybe the same as you're doing?), but I have to agree with MrHaugen that this isn't particularly normal especially given that there are an increasing number of automated tools to fill in metadata (which do not utilize the [album] field).

Anyway, what I'm really trying to emphasize here is that there is a good chance that your request won't be at the top of the list and that you do definitely have some options to create a view scheme that is fairly workable for what you want.
-JB

automated tools don't tag random web downloads from other sources like tv. blu ray and dvd. how will the tools know what it is? you have to tag manually. i like the way it is organised and will never change, i'm sure many people tag this way too. the request to resume album when it is played at top level at the album, is warranted.

[gappie]

i do organize my series that way, with albums. i think your idea is interesting. although i have to say that using number plays (see that as your track number) works nice in both standard and thv. or: it always has for me.

 
gab

[rick.ca]

i like the way it is organised and will never change, i'm sure many people tag this way too.

Regardless of how sure you are or what number you consider to be many, the number of users organizing TV Series using fields primarily intended for music rather than Series-Season-Episode like the rest of the world is relatively small. More importantly, an unwillingness to conform to the manner in which such media is commonly organized is likely to result in foregoing the convenience of features added in the future. I can't predict what those will be, but many of us hope it will include the automatic recognition and tagging of media with meta data from external sources. If the system that does that is completely open and flexible, there's a chance you would be able to configure it do the same thing using Artist-Album-Track for episodes rather than Series-Season-Episode. But that would just amount to an unnecessarily complicated workaround. Sometimes it's easier and more effective to go with the flow.

automated tools don't tag random web downloads from other sources like tv. blu ray and dvd. how will the tools know what it is?

If the file pathnames of media to be imported is truly random, then no system can "know" what it is. But then neither can you. But you do know. And you're also the one configuring whatever it is that's causing media files to appear in your system in the first place. It's a simple matter of doing that in a way that ensures the file recognition system in MC is able to understand the patterns used in naming the files.

[Blaine78]

i do organize my series that way, with albums. i think your idea is interesting. although i have to say that using number plays (see that as your track number) works nice in both standard and Theater View. or: it always has for me.

 
gab

are you able to see number of plays in thumbnail view, in standard view?

[Blaine78]

Regardless of how sure you are or what number you consider to be many, the number of users organizing TV Series using fields primarily intended for music rather than Series-Season-Episode like the rest of the world is relatively small. More importantly, an unwillingness to conform to the manner in which such media is commonly organized is likely to result in foregoing the convenience of features added in the future. I can't predict what those will be, but many of us hope it will include the automatic recognition and tagging of media with meta data from external sources. If the system that does that is completely open and flexible, there's a chance you would be able to configure it do the same thing using Artist-Album-Track for episodes rather than Series-Season-Episode. But that would just amount to an unnecessarily complicated workaround. Sometimes it's easier and more effective to go with the flow.

If the file pathnames of media to be imported is truly random, then no system can "know" what it is. But then neither can you. But you do know. And you're also the one configuring whatever it is that's causing media files to appear in your system in the first place. It's a simple matter of doing that in a way that ensures the file recognition system in MC is able to understand the patterns used in naming the files.

or, use right click tag, add album info. easier.

[rick.ca]

use right click tag, add album info. easier.

No, nothing is easier than fully automatic. But if you prefer to tag manually, entering the data in the correct fields is equally easy.

[MrHaugen]

are you able to see number of plays in thumbnail view, in standard view?

Yes. At least it was possible before. Look for Caption under options. Probably hidden under some advanced section. Try the search function in options.

[gappie]

are you able to see number of plays in thumbnail view, in standard view?

yes you can, as Mr Haugen just said. when you go to the header of a view with thumbnails and you hold the mouse there, a menue will popup with
List style
sort by
thumbnails

choose the last one, and then thumbnail text. add [number plays], maybe put 'plays' behind it.

 
gab

[Blaine78]

yes you can, as Mr Haugen just said. when you go to the header of a view with thumbnails and you hold the mouse there, a menue will popup with
List style
sort by
thumbnails

choose the last one, and then thumbnail text. add [number plays], maybe put 'plays' behind it.

 
gab

Thanks for that. it's working and doing it's thing.   not the most elegant solution cause still need to check if halfway through that episode and if you play and stop an ep, it registers as a play, so can be confusing unless you watch all way through.

[MrHaugen]

You can add bookmarks as well. So, you can look at both fields and know where to start. A more visually route might be to make an expression to combine this two fields, in a new field.

Example: If (([Bookmark] not empty and [Number Number Plays] > 0) or ([Bookmark] equals (empty) and [Number Number Plays] > 0)) then [Expression field] = "Continue", else "Watched"

This expression will NOT work as it is. Hehe. What a bad programmer I am! I have no idea of the format it needs to be in, but I think it might work, yes? Someone else might be able to fix it?
Continue is starting where ever you left off. Bookmarked episodes or totally new ones. As long as you sort on episode numbers or episode and season numbers in each season or series.
This MIGHT give you a field that looks like this :

Watched
Watched
Watched
Continue
Continue
Continue

[Blaine78]

You can add bookmarks as well. So, you can look at both fields and know where to start. A more visually route might be to make an expression to combine this two fields, in a new field.

Example: If (([Bookmark] not empty and [Number Number Plays] > 0) or ([Bookmark] equals (empty) and [Number Number Plays] > 0)) then [Expression field] = "Continue", else "Watched"

This expression will NOT work as it is. Hehe. What a bad programmer I am! I have no idea of the format it needs to be in, but I think it might work, yes? Someone else might be able to fix it?
Continue is starting where ever you left off. Bookmarked episodes or totally new ones. As long as you sort on episode numbers or episode and season numbers in each season or series.
This MIGHT give you a field that looks like this :

Watched
Watched
Watched
Continue
Continue
Continue

thanks again. but may just have to remember what i've watched or guess by the number of plays.

[rick.ca]

but may just have to remember what i've watched or guess by the number of plays.

Using the information recorded in [Number Plays] and [Bookmark], what is it you would have to remember or guess? In a view that includes all episodes, these fields (or, as suggested, and expression combining them) will provide a clear visual indication of the viewing status of a season. The same information can also be used to create a view in which fully viewed episodes are excluded. Such a view would provide precisely the play behaviour you're looking for—playing a season will start with the first episode not fully viewed, and continue from there. This works particularly well in Theatre View, if what you want to do most of time is to just start playing the next available episode of whatever series you're in the mood to watch.

[Blaine78]

Using the information recorded in [Number Plays] and [Bookmark], what is it you would have to remember or guess? In a view that includes all episodes, these fields (or, as suggested, and expression combining them) will provide a clear visual indication of the viewing status of a season. The same information can also be used to create a view in which fully viewed episodes are excluded. Such a view would provide precisely the play behaviour you're looking for—playing a season will start with the first episode not fully viewed, and continue from there. This works particularly well in Theatre View, if what you want to do most of time is to just start playing the next available episode of whatever series you're in the mood to watch.

because as mentioned above, it might work. i'm still gunning for an album resume feature

[MrHaugen]

Could you explain what you can do with albums, that you can not do with Seasons? I just don't get the obsession.

[Blaine78]

Could you explain what you can do with albums, that you can not do with Seasons? I just don't get the obsession.

already tried to explained it. an auto resume from clicking play directly on the album of episodes. if there were say 15 eps and you started the album from ep 1 and it rolls on to ep 2. if you stop it at ep 2, it will auto resume at that point if you click album top level, and not individual file. it's just easy and convenient

[MrHaugen]

No. You have not explained what you are using Albums for. In what way. I fail to see it. What is so different using "Media Sub type -> TV Shows -> Name -> Albums", than using "Media Sub type -> TV Shows -> Name -> Season"? Or do you browse in a different way? If not......

The solutions we have described would in this case work almost exactly similar to what you want. Instead of playing directly from the time you click the Album (which will not happen even if your suggestions gets through), you'll have to hit enter to enter the season, enter again to get at the secondary roller and play, and enter the third time to play the correct episode. If you do this from album, you'd have to do just the same amount of clicks. This is from a Theater View point of view. From Standard view you'd only have to double click the first episode of the season (again, all the things you have completely watched, is filtered away), and all the episodes is played, and you're brought to display view. You'll actually need to use an expression, and change a couple of options though. Change the default double click behavior as well as the standard playback behavior. This solutions might very well be added to albums as well. So, you have the possibility of ending up with ONE double click or three very quick clicks. Both taking less than a second. What is the problem with this?


What you have to do, if you want to solve this, is to look at the actual possibilities. Not just clinging to your exact needs. You'll need to explain why you use albums, and in what way . If you do not want either of this, the it's probably not that important at all.

[bunglemebaby]

No. You have not explained what you are using Albums for. In what way. I fail to see it.

I'm just taking a stab here, but I think the difference might be the ability to use "Album Thumbnails" (we don't have "Season Thumbnails" option). Using this view scheme setup, you play a season by double clicking the thumbnail for that season. So I'm thinking he'd like to be able to double click that album thumbnail and just start back up from where he left off within that season/album.

because as mentioned above, it might work.

By might work, he was saying that you'll need to try it to find out whether or not it will work. If it works in an experiment it will continue to work for regular use. It's an option that you are able to investigate now, without having the software developers add anything new. You will need to explore the MC expression language a bit to get it to work, but the knowledge you'll garner by doing so will be well worth the time. (Wiki: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center_expression_language ) If you have specific questions about the expression language, people are always willing to help with those too.
-JB

[MrHaugen]

I'm just taking a stab here, but I think the difference might be the ability to use "Album Thumbnails" (we don't have "Season Thumbnails" option). Using this view scheme setup, you play a season by double clicking the thumbnail for that season. So I'm thinking he'd like to be able to double click that album thumbnail and just start back up from where he left off within that season/album.

In that case, yes. It should work like this, if you use expressions and configure the view correctly like we've mentioned. The albums will contain only bookmarked and not completely watched files (if you filter out everything else of course), and you're able to click the album and play away.

And if this is done because of the art-work I have to agree. This is a missing piece indeed. I really hope the Artist Image function is expanded soon, to include TV Show, Season, Banner art work and so on.

[rick.ca]

By might work, he was saying that you'll need to try it to find out whether or not it will work...

If I haven't tested a solution I'm suggesting, I'll normally say so. In this case, I was describing how the program works. The desired behaviour is already provided for in the existing design, so there's no need for an additional feature. Especially one believed to be necessary (it isn't) to support an unconventional use of the existing design.

When the program is asked to play all episodes, it plays all episodes. To play only episodes not yet watched, ask it to do that (as has now been explained several times). The way MC and any similar application works is you first select or display a set of objects (e.g., episode files), then the operation to be performed on those objects (e.g., Play). It's illogical and pointless to add additional operations designed to work on some of the objects selected and not others. But the program is not even as arbitrary as this implies. Given any set of selected objects, play can be started anywhere in an ordered list of those objects (i.e., the file list) and the remaining items in the list will be played in order. So the conventional options are to (1) display the file list and do that, or (2) introduce a "watched status" category to the view to segregate items not fully watched.

[Blaine78]

I'm just taking a stab here, but I think the difference might be the ability to use "Album Thumbnails" (we don't have "Season Thumbnails" option). Using this view scheme setup, you play a season by double clicking the thumbnail for that season. So I'm thinking he'd like to be able to double click that album thumbnail and just start back up from where he left off within that season/album

that's what i'm getting at, i did explain it in the beginning of the thread, but hard to explain better without a picture i can upload. i'm not great at programming, so it was getting bit confusing for me with the bookmark watch/continue mention before.

[MrHaugen]

The problem is that you left out which view you used and why you used Albums instead of Seasons.
If you had done that, the answer would probably be reviled withing a few replays.

What you have to do is:
1. Make an expression library field. Use Option, create a field. I have no clue what format this must be in, but you should try. There an expression builder there to help you out. And there is much documentation on Wiki. The pseudo code should look like something I think: If (([Bookmark] not empty and [Number Number Plays] > 0) or ([Bookmark] equals (empty) and [Number Number Plays] > 0)) then [Expression field] = "Continue", else "Watched". You could start a new thread asking for some help here.
2. Edit the Album view, and Set rules for file display. Add Rule based on the expression field, and choose "Does not contain" and write Watched.

Wanted effect achieved.

[Blaine78]

The problem is that you left out which view you used and why you used Albums instead of Seasons.
If you had done that, the answer would probably be reviled withing a few replays.

What you have to do is:
1. Make an expression library field. Use Option, create a field. I have no clue what format this must be in, but you should try. There an expression builder there to help you out. And there is much documentation on Wiki. The pseudo code should look like something I think: If (([Bookmark] not empty and [Number Number Plays] > 0) or ([Bookmark] equals (empty) and [Number Number Plays] > 0)) then [Expression field] = "Continue", else "Watched". You could start a new thread asking for some help here.
2. Edit the Album view, and Set rules for file display. Add Rule based on the expression field, and choose "Does not contain" and write Watched.

Wanted effect achieved.

Thanks. i did mention what view used in the forth post when i was asked, also i did say i tagged in 'album' the show and season name.

[MrHaugen]

Yea. I think I knew about the view type. The biggest problem is when someone has an unusual way of doing things, and people don't see the reason. Then there is a big chance people will spend their time trying to explain the normal way of doing things, and how to deal with the problem/solution there. Which might not help anybody, and just ends up wasting time

Back to the subject. Perhaps Rick or someone else have an idea of how to construct this expression? I would like to use it in theater view my self, until we get filtering in place

[Blaine78]

Yea. I think I knew about the view type. The biggest problem is when someone has an unusual way of doing things, and people don't see the reason. Then there is a big chance people will spend their time trying to explain the normal way of doing things, and how to deal with the problem/solution there. Which might not help anybody, and just ends up wasting time

Back to the subject. Perhaps Rick or someone else have an idea of how to construct this expression? I would like to use it in theater view my self, until we get filtering in place

didn't mean to waste people's time, but there were a few posts of other people that seem to have understood what i was talking about.