Question about duplicate installation for sports (1 Viewer)

[The3]

Hi all,

Longtime (i.e. about two years) TV Series user here, and I absolutely love it. Definitely become the centerpiece of my entire media center. I have a question/thought that I'm hoping someone here might have some advice on – I've done a bit of searching to see if it's come up before, and it seems it hasn't. Apologies, though, if I missed it somewhere.

I have a collection of sports videos that I would LOVE to be able to organize and access via the interface of TV Series. However, I don't necessarily like the idea of having to list them alongside all my other scripted series; I actually tried this briefly, and it was...not ideal.

So my question is this: would it be technically possible to modify TV Series' source code so that a second copy could be installed (with a different title and really nothing else changed) in MediaPortal, parallel to a normal TV Series installation? I've seen a lot of chatter in various threads throughout the MediaPortal forums talking about a desire for a sports-content-centric plugin, typically concluding with the sentiment that no one wants to bother to build one from scratch. But it seems like TV Series more or less IS that ideal plugin already, if only you could install a version of it specifically for sports. Is that theoretically doable?

I have enough limited programming experience (Python, PHP, some Java) to know that the idea doesn't seem all that outlandish, but I've never touched Visual Studio before, so I wouldn't know where to start myself.

Thanks,
-John

 

[Edalex]

Well, if you know programming then everything is possible but I suggest you to look at views/filters page in configuration first and try to make filters for i.e. Genre=Sport. Views scripting language is hard as any high-level programming language so it will be almost coding
https://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/wiki/GettingStarted#View/Filters

 

[RoChess]

Just add them manually to your existing MP-TVSeries install via the wiki explanation.

http://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/wiki/FAQ#Importing_Videos_Not_At_TheTVDB

The artwork section to go along with it specifically targets Sports -- http://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/wiki/FAQ#Custom_Artwork

And you can just use 'Views' to seperate them from the other content you have. Not really have to go fancy with an automatic pseudo-SQL way, but just manually add them. Disable the 'All View' and create a new one that shows all your other shows and make that the default view that MP-TVSeries loads.

 

[The3]

Thanks for the suggestion, Edalex & RoChess.

The manual importing process is no big deal, as I already have to do that with some of my other (old/obscure) TV shows.

As for views, I actually played around with them a bit in my previous attempt to get everything to "play nicely" together. It's definitely powerful, but not really what I'm looking for per se. My main issue with it, from a user experience perspective (I can't help it, I'm a UX researcher/designer!), is the process of switching views. The fact that you have to go into TV Series from the main menu, then move into the into the menu, choose the "change view" option, select the view you want to switch to, and then back out of the menu is simply tedious in the long run. That's a five step interaction, instead of the one step of being able to directly access a separate plugin from the main menu. Before people jump on me for saying that, I know it might come across as a bit lazy . But when you think about long-term use, being able to reduce user burden by 80% is a pretty big prospect.

Now, if it were possible to put shortcuts on the main menu of MediaPortal that jumped directly to a given view within TV Series......that would be a bit of a holy grail, as it would make the entire point I made above moot!

 

[Edalex]

Now, if it were possible to put shortcuts on the main menu of MediaPortal that jumped directly to a given view within TV Series......that would be a bit of a holy grail, as it would make the entire point I made above moot!

This should be possible in Basic Home since mptvseries supports loading with view as startup parameter as you see
https://code.google.com/p/mptvseries/source/browse/trunk/MP-TVSeries/TVSeriesPlugin.cs#591
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...s_Guide/1_Develop_a_Plugin/Startup_Parameters

 

[RoChess]

My default view = "ViewTags", so it shows all the views I have created. Some are PIN protected, others are open. It makes usage of views extremly easy and puts it in line with category view of Moving-Pictures. New shows go into the 'no view' one, which I renamed to "All New Releases" and is not visible inside the 'ViewTags' one. The 'All views' I totally disabled, because each show is configured to have a view, or they will be under the no view one. To change views from an existing view, I can just ESC out of it and am back at the overview, or left arrow into hidden menu and first item is "Switch View".

Shows can be assigned to multiple views.

Then I also have work-arounds in use that allow me to have a multi-user setup. For example "The Big Bang Theory" unreleased episodes go into the "US" view that is PIN protected, so my wife does not watch them without me present, but watched episodes go into the "Sitcoms" view.

PS: The default view can be configured easy with the TitanEditor.

 

[The3]

Wow, okay, I had no idea that views could be directly accessed from menus via launch parameters. That's actually really awesome. Thanks for the info!