TV Series Enumeration and Last watched notifier

I noticed that if I have a TV series with over 10 episodes that Serviio will not pad the first 9 with a zero. What this ends up looking like on the XBox is the following:

1. Episode 1 Title
11. Episode 11 Title
12. Episode 12 Title
2. Episode 2 Title
3. Episode 3 Title

and so on. I *think* if you pad the first 9 episodes with a zero (such as 01.) that it will show up in the correct order on the XBox360.

My second feature request is along the lines of how Netflix does this for the XBox and that is it automatically selects the next episode that I have yet to watch. It also shows the percent complete of the episodes I've watched. Now I don't expect either one of these as the solution, but It would be very cool if we can devise a method that will easily allow us to know what Episode we left off at. Perhaps adding "Last Watched" to the Title of the stream last played by Serviio.

[zip]

I *think* if you pad the first 9 episodes with a zero (such as 01.) that it will show up in the correct order on the XBox360.

Yes, maybe. I can give it a try.

Perhaps adding "Last Watched" to the Title of the stream last played by Serviio.

That's already there, right? We have 'Last viewed' folder that was requested by my beautiful French girlfriend just for this purpose

That's already there, right? We have 'Last viewed' folder that was requested by my beautiful French girlfriend just for this purpose

Ahh, I'll have to give that a look when I get home, I didn't notice it. But question, does that folder have a "Last Viewed" on a Per-series basis or does it just hold the last video streamed by Serviio or perhaps its more like a history folder which holds a circular buffer of the last ~10 or so watched streams. What I'm looking for would be an at-a-glance method to see what episode you just watched on a per-series basis and then play the very next episode without having to jump between folders.

And tell your beautiful french girlfriend she has good ideas =)

[zip]

Yeah, it's the last 10 streamed videos. I was thinking about this 'next to watch' concept but cannot figure out any cool way how to do this. I mean I could add a container 'Next episode to watch' folder including list of series but how do I know if the last episode that has been streamed was watched completely or just few first seconds? Would I display the last streamed episode and all following (from that season)? ... I guess that could work.

I want to keep the browsing categories reasonably simple and also include an editor of what categories to serve and how they should be hierarchically designed in a future release. There are already some users complaining there are too many categories now, so this needs to be configurable.

Rather than making a new category, can't you just alter the actual Title with either some sort of moniker to denote it was the last watched, perhaps make this user configurable. This has the all the benefits that I described above. You know instantly what file you just watched and thus which you should watch next, and more importantly you do not have to flip-flop folders to choose which episode to watch (presumably the next.)
For example: (using the new zero-padded feature )

  Code:

01. Episode 1 Title
02. Episode 2 Title
03. Episode 3 Title**
04. Episode 4 Title
05. Episode 5 Title


Or

  Code:

01. Episode 1 Title
02. Episode 2 Title
03. Episode 3 Title  =Last Watched=
04. Episode 4 Title
05. Episode 5 Title


As soon as Episode 3 is watched the moniker would then be moved to the Episode 4 title and be removed from Episode 3. I'll assume from you last statement that you do not (currently) maintain the percentage of a stream that was last watched. If that is the case I wouldn't be disappointed if viewing 1 second of Episode 4 would move the moniker. However, I would imagine the episodes duration is part of the meta data available online (or perhaps part of the file itself) so could you not start a timer when serviio starts streaming and then when it ends calculate 'streamed time / total episode time' to get the percentage watched and also have that available as a moniker that alters the title name. Perhaps this one could be persistent just like Netflix.

That would be a nice feat, or to have some sort of folder structures for unwatched episodes.

In Swisscenter, you can toggle between showing all episodes, and just unwatched.
Which is awesome, because it allows you to keep track of episodes, and you can easily access the first unwatched episode.

Also, Swisscenter indicates the watched/unwatched status by a green / red icon. I reckon you could manage something similiar through the thumbnails?

[zip]

  Code:

01. Episode 1 Title
02. Episode 2 Title
03. Episode 3 Title**
04. Episode 4 Title
05. Episode 5 Title


This is doable

I'll assume from you last statement that you do not (currently) maintain the percentage of a stream that was last watched.

Yes, how much has been streamed is not in my control (controlled by low level Java classes).

[zip]

In Swisscenter, you can toggle between showing all episodes, and just unwatched.

That's the device's controls, I only serve the content is a particular hierarchy.

I reckon you could manage something similiar through the thumbnails?

This sounds cool, but not all devices could have any use from this (not all display the thumbnails, eg xbox).

This is doable

Awesome. I was thinking, maybe it would be better to put said moniker in the front of the Title because I don't know if it would be visible if the title were very long and it was on the end.

Yes, how much has been streamed is not in my control (controlled by low level Java classes).

I see. I'm not a big OOP person but I'm assuming you mean this information is private data in lower-level classes that you can't get to? If the duration of each video file can be known (which I think it can from online db's), could you infer the percentage by calling something like gettimeofday() just before you make the call to the Java method which actually starts streaming the video file and then once that method returns call gettimeofday() again and subtract the two times for total play duration? This info plus the total video duration would give you the percentage. It may not be super accurate but within a few percent which is more detail than we (or at least I) care about anyway. I would be happy if we just knew in 25% increments of how far we were, any resolution better than that is just a plus.

[zip]

Awesome. I was thinking, maybe it would be better to put said moniker in the front of the Title because I don't know if it would be visible if the title were very long and it was on the end.

I think this would screw up ordering on your xbox again

I see. I'm not a big OOP person but I'm assuming you mean this information is private data in lower-level classes that you can't get to?

It's more like I just open a stream of data and let it do its work - the TV is consuming that stream. Some devices can also send different requests, e.g. give me all the stream, give me portion of the stream starting on byte xx and ending on byte yy, etc. Including FFWD and REW functions, this might be turn up as quite a big task... I might look at that in the future, but the first version of this will definitelly just mark the last episode of a season that has been streamed.

I think this would screw up ordering on your xbox again

I was thinking more on the lines of:

  Code:

01. Episode 1 Title
02. Episode 2 Title
03. **Episode 3 Title
04. Episode 4 Title
05. Episode 5 Title


Either that or if you want to keep it on the end you could use ellipses if the title is past a certain length (minus 2 for the **'s). For example if Episode 3 had a title of "Episode 3 really really really really long episode title"

  Code:


03. Episode 3 really really really really lon...**


this might be turn up as quite a big task... I might look at that in the future, but the first version of this will definitelly just mark the last episode of a season that has been streamed.

Ya, if this feature is non-trivial than I wouldn't put too much effort into it. Just knowing what Episode I watched last gets me 95% the way there.

I'd like that too. Oh, or maybe add the **'s for watched or unwatched episodes in general?