United States of America
I have an idea which which I call 'MyTVChannel'.
Let the user define certain folders (or subfolders, etc) that contain files they want to have played. These can be defined thru the plugin configuration screen, and also live thru MP while browsing. The program parses through the filenames, and determines the correct play order for each TV series. The program then creates a 'playlist' of files to play, based on the length of the videos, and how many there are in each series.
A simple example:
I tell the program to use the following:
'Star Trip: Original Series', 50 episodes
'Star Trip: The Next Generation', 100 episodes
The program then looks and calculates that there are twice as many 'ST:TNG' episodes as there are 'ST:OS' episodes. It comes up with a playlist something like this:
St:tng episode 1
St:tng episode 2
St;os episode 1
St:tng episode 3
St:tng episode 4
St;os episode 2
St:tng episode 5
St:tng episode 6
St;os episode 3
etc...
Now, all I need to do is choose 'MyTVChannel' and it would start playing those episodes, in that order. I can Pause or Stop the playback, exit 'MyTVChannel', come back another time, and it picks up right where it left off. Like a TV channel that only shows what I want to see, when I want to see it!
I could add series at any time, simply by navigating to the appropriate folder through 'My Videos' and hitting a button on the remote. The program would re-calculate the playlist based upon what un-watched episodes remain, combined with the new series episodes.
For instance, if I added
'Star Trip: Dark Star 9', 100 episodes
to the playlist above, it might look something like this:
St:tng 1
St:tng 2
St:ds9 1
St:ds9 2
St;os 1
St:ds9 3
St:ds9 4
St:tng 3
St:tng 4
St;os 2
St:ds9 5
St:ds9 6
St:tng 5
St:tng 6
St;os 3
etc...
OR, depending on settings (Make episodes of same show adjacent? <y/n>), it might be like this:
St:tng 1
St:ds9 1
St:tng 2
St:ds9 2
St;os 1
etc...
Note how the tng/ds9 shows alternate, instead of being contiguous. Much more complex playlists would be possible, of course.
A nice feature to have would be a way to 'skip' the show currently playing. There are three types of 'skipping' that should be taken into account:
1) Skip this episode, play the next scheduled episode (even if it's a different series)
2) Skip this episode, play the next episode of this series
3) Skip this series (ie: no longer play this series until the next time 'MyTVChannel' is opened), but play the remaining series episodes in their scheduled order. (The playlist will automatically be re-calculated the next time 'MyTVChannel' is opened.)
As you can see, these all do different things. One is a 'I know this episode, but want to see the next episode of this series' button. One is a 'I know this episode, but want to see the next scheduled video' button, and one is 'I'm sick of this series, but want to see the other series' button.
(An alternate possibility to the 3 types of 'skips' is a way to 'prioritize' the series. Raise the priority, the playlist is re-calculated so the episodes from that series are scheduled to play more often. Lower the priority, they play less often. This way, if you don't want to see a particular series, you can lower it's priority to 0. When you do want to start seeing it again, simply raise the priority.)
There is also the possibility of multiple 'channels', a 'comedy' channel, a 'sci-fi' channel, 'anime' channel, etc...
Let the user define certain folders (or subfolders, etc) that contain files they want to have played. These can be defined thru the plugin configuration screen, and also live thru MP while browsing. The program parses through the filenames, and determines the correct play order for each TV series. The program then creates a 'playlist' of files to play, based on the length of the videos, and how many there are in each series.
A simple example:
I tell the program to use the following:
'Star Trip: Original Series', 50 episodes
'Star Trip: The Next Generation', 100 episodes
The program then looks and calculates that there are twice as many 'ST:TNG' episodes as there are 'ST:OS' episodes. It comes up with a playlist something like this:
St:tng episode 1
St:tng episode 2
St;os episode 1
St:tng episode 3
St:tng episode 4
St;os episode 2
St:tng episode 5
St:tng episode 6
St;os episode 3
etc...
Now, all I need to do is choose 'MyTVChannel' and it would start playing those episodes, in that order. I can Pause or Stop the playback, exit 'MyTVChannel', come back another time, and it picks up right where it left off. Like a TV channel that only shows what I want to see, when I want to see it!
I could add series at any time, simply by navigating to the appropriate folder through 'My Videos' and hitting a button on the remote. The program would re-calculate the playlist based upon what un-watched episodes remain, combined with the new series episodes.
For instance, if I added
'Star Trip: Dark Star 9', 100 episodes
to the playlist above, it might look something like this:
St:tng 1
St:tng 2
St:ds9 1
St:ds9 2
St;os 1
St:ds9 3
St:ds9 4
St:tng 3
St:tng 4
St;os 2
St:ds9 5
St:ds9 6
St:tng 5
St:tng 6
St;os 3
etc...
OR, depending on settings (Make episodes of same show adjacent? <y/n>), it might be like this:
St:tng 1
St:ds9 1
St:tng 2
St:ds9 2
St;os 1
etc...
Note how the tng/ds9 shows alternate, instead of being contiguous. Much more complex playlists would be possible, of course.
A nice feature to have would be a way to 'skip' the show currently playing. There are three types of 'skipping' that should be taken into account:
1) Skip this episode, play the next scheduled episode (even if it's a different series)
2) Skip this episode, play the next episode of this series
3) Skip this series (ie: no longer play this series until the next time 'MyTVChannel' is opened), but play the remaining series episodes in their scheduled order. (The playlist will automatically be re-calculated the next time 'MyTVChannel' is opened.)
As you can see, these all do different things. One is a 'I know this episode, but want to see the next episode of this series' button. One is a 'I know this episode, but want to see the next scheduled video' button, and one is 'I'm sick of this series, but want to see the other series' button.
(An alternate possibility to the 3 types of 'skips' is a way to 'prioritize' the series. Raise the priority, the playlist is re-calculated so the episodes from that series are scheduled to play more often. Lower the priority, they play less often. This way, if you don't want to see a particular series, you can lower it's priority to 0. When you do want to start seeing it again, simply raise the priority.)
There is also the possibility of multiple 'channels', a 'comedy' channel, a 'sci-fi' channel, 'anime' channel, etc...
