Random Movie display? (1 Viewer)

[totopsgr]

Hi Guys,

I have quite a large collection of movies in my list. Sometimes I think it would be awesome to be able to have Myfilms suggest one. Doesn't have to be complicated, no need to set criteria, just click on a "Random Movie" and get to the overview page of a movie that you haven't seen yet that is part of your collection. I don't think it would be difficult to implement and I have the gut feeling that other people with huge collections would appreciate that.

Kind Regards

 

[Guzzi]

You're talking about something like "suggest a movie" - indeed, that isn't hard, but imho we have something much better:
See in the What's New in 6.1 section -> >Trailer Scrobbling

"Trailer Scrobbling" is a "preview mode" that can be launched from the context menu in a film list - e.g. category "action" - and will then play randon trailers from the current movie selection (if local trailer is available). It will continue playing random trailers, until the user stops that mode or presses "enter" to get to the currently playing movie details screen. It is a nice alternative to "browse" the DB with the possibility to preselect the type of movies interested (by choosing respective category or other view). OSD will be loaded with film info and can be used in that mode. When a new trailer is started, the notification window will indicate the currently selected randomm movie with title and year. When trailer is playing, the "next" button skips to the next random trailer, is user does not want to wait for the trailer to finish. Additional Details from duplicate Issue #244 - Trailer Scrobbling: Stop returns to the film list, setting the facfade to the last randomly selected movie, so uit is possible to directly enter details or e.g. play further trailers (if present) of that film. Prerequisite is having local trailers available and registered into the catalog. The feature is available in test mode already (post V6 beta).

This allows you to preselect an area (e.g. year or category) and let MyFilms just play previews/trailer for you - trailers you can get with the new trailer downloader, that is also available. From my experience that is a REALLY nice way to find something, if you're not sure what you're after.

 

[totopsgr]

That sounds great but the idea is to be able to access a random movie card without necessarily watching the trailer first. Additionally if I understood correctly you need to have all the trailers downloaded locally in order to do that. I can imagine that downloading trailers for a 1000+ movies maybe a significant task unless it can be done automatically for all movies on the list, and somewhere there there may be a HDD space problem. How much space will a 1000 trailers need and how much time will it take to download them? How would you know if all your movies have trailers attached to them? I am just sharing my thoughts.

 

[Guzzi]

That sounds great but the idea is to be able to access a random movie card without necessarily watching the trailer first.

I had such feature started long ago, but never properly finished, because I finally wasn't really happy with it - and I didn't really use it - while the "trailer scrobbling" I really use a lot.

Additionally if I understood correctly you need to have all the trailers downloaded locally in order to do that.

Correct, downloaded and registered to the catalog.

I can imagine that downloading trailers for a 1000+ movies maybe a significant task unless it can be done automatically for all movies on the list,

... so you didn't really read the what's new in 6.1 page ;-) - a feature to download trailers for all your movies (or parts) is also there ...

and somewhere there there may be a HDD space problem.

Well, yes, you'll need the space to store the trailers ...

How much space will a 1000 trailers need and how much time will it take to download them?

It's some time ago that I tested it, but iirc, it took 1 day to load 100 GB trailers for a test catalog.

How would you know if all your movies have trailers attached to them? I am just sharing my thoughts.

You usually won't get trailers for ALL movies. It is very much depending on what type of movies and what age they have. There is a global filter to only show movies with trailers - or you could check out the trailer source view, which will also show you for how many movies you do have trailers (and "show empty" if you want to know where you don't have any).

 

[totopsgr]

Thanks Guzzi,

Ok, I suppose if I have space for 300+ HD Movies (aprox 5GB each) (only part of my collection is downloaded movies. Most of it is hard copies), I can afford to have 100GBs of trailers.

I did read all about whats new in 6.1...after I wrote the message above (awesome staff as usual). Ok I will go with it,

One last concern based on your last point. If not all movies have trailers because they can not be found online (I suspect that will be applicable to the classic 1930s to 1950s movies I own) does this mean that they will never be randomly selected? That would be limiting.

 

[Guzzi]

One last concern based on your last point. If not all movies have trailers because they can not be found online (I suspect that will be applicable to the classic 1930s to 1950s movies I own) does this mean that they will never be randomly selected?

Yes, movies without trailers won't ever be selected as "trailer scrobbling" is purely based on trailers.

That would be limiting.

Limiting with looking at it as replacement for your initial suggestion "random movie selection" - yes.
If you think that "random movie selection" is useful, I'd suggest to add it to the tracker - it is not much effort to do that and if others star it, it can be added too...

 

[Dadeo]

Ok, I suppose if I have space for 300+ HD Movies (aprox 5GB each) (only part of my collection is downloaded movies. Most of it is hard copies), I can afford to have 100GBs of trailers.

Just to remind you - you can store the trailers wherever you want - using the Extended Trailer search path in Setup > Trailers tab. So they don't HAVE to be in your movie folders, nor on C: drive, nor even on the same drive as your movies. Could even be on an external HDD as long as you connect it before you try and register or play trailers in MyFilms. And you can add trailers for any movies in your catalog - so if you have your hardcopy movies added to your movies catalog/Db you can download and scrobble trailers for them all, even if the movie itself is not on HDD.