Missing/Future episodes - how to handle them

[Luke 37060]

A while back I mentioned that items with LocationType=Virtual are not playable. If you haven't implemented that yet, you should now. You can display it with full metadata, but no play button. You can also not send remote control play commands for these as the server will now throw an error.

 

If you want to exclude these items from a query, you can do so via the following:

 

ExcludeLocationTypes=Virtual

 

This applies to regular item queries as well as next up queries.

 

I'll leave it up to you to decide where to show them. Web client is showing them in regular season view, but not in latest episodes or next up. (Although I might add a button to toggle them in next up).

 

If you want to get future episodes but not missing episodes, or vice versa, there are parameters that allow you to do that - HasPremiereDate, MinPremiereDate and MaxPremiereDate. The format for dates on the query string is yyyyMMddHHmmss.

 

 

Obviously there's a million things that can now be done with this data - upcoming episodes anyone?

 

 

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll get the wiki and ApiClient updated later.

[ebr 14910]

This sounds great but I'm missing the logical leap in my head of how to derive a "missing" episode from a Min or Max premier date...  Or, did you mean we could derive them as missing from their location type?

[Luke 37060]

No derivation. Right now clients dont have to think of them as future or missing, just think of how you will extend your client to work with virtual items. (LocationType=virtual).  Missing episodes are just one example of a virtual item. There could be other examples down the road.

 

So for a detail page that means no play button. Or if you don't want to show them at all, that means filtering them out.

 

I don't want clients to have to derive, so if there is a need to actually know it's a future episode or missing episode then we can always add separate properties.

[ebr 14910]

Okay.  I already have the virtual part covered in MBC but this is the part I didn't follow.

 

If you want to get future episodes but not missing episodes, or vice versa, there are parameters that allow you to do that - HasPremiereDate, MinPremiereDate and MaxPremiereDate. The format for dates on the query string is yyyyMMddHHmmss.

 

 

Thinking more about it, you could derive a missing episode (if, for example you were building an interface to show you the episodes you are missing) from a combination of the two properties.  i.e. a virtual episode that has a premier date in the past.

[Luke 37060]

yes you could. i think it's pretty straight forward too so an extra property might be overkill.

[gcw07 347]

Yeah I definitely don't have virtual in there. It will probably crash when they go to start to play the file. So if we just want to exclude them because it would seem strange imo to be displayed with everything else in actual playback clients, we just use the "ExcludeLocationTypes" on the episode fetcher?

[Luke 37060]

yea that'll do it.

[gcw07 347]

OK, thanks.

[ScottIsAFool 517]

Yeah, I don't have anything for this, will have to add it in

[gcw07 347]

OK, there is a flaw/bug in this. There is no way to get actual episode counts now. For instance I have a TV Series "Arrow". Well I only have 24 episodes of it. This new stuff added in 6 new virtual ones. That is all fine. I exclude the virtual location from the episode list and it removes the episodes. But the counts at the series level are incorrect. It returns that I have 30 episodes and returns that I've only played 80%. We need a way to get the correct numbers without the virtual stuff added in. Thanks.

[gcw07 347]

While we are at it, there is also no way to remove seasons that you don't have files in. For instance a show may only have Season 1 and 2, but Season 3 has already been added to TVDB so it now shows up. There isn't a way to remove that season from showing up. Thanks.

[Luke 37060]

yup, i'll fix that.

[gcw07 347]

Thanks.

[Luke 37060]

So here's what I've done which should make it easier. You can still blanket-exclude these using ExcludeLocationTypes. If you want to exclude one other the other, there's two new params.

 

IsMissing 

IsUnaired 

 

 

Here's what the web client is doing:

 

        if (item.Type == "Series" || item.Type == "Season") {

            if (!user.Configuration.DisplayMissingEpisodes) {

                query.IsMissing = false;

            }

            if (!user.Configuration.DisplayUnairedEpisodes) {

                query.IsVirtualUnaired = false;

            }

        }

[Luke 37060]

The question now is should we have the server-side setting at all, or should we leave it to every client to have their own settings.

[ebr 14910]

The question now is should we have the server-side setting at all, or should we leave it to every client to have their own settings.

 

You need the server side setting for the web-client.

[shaefurr 1337]

While I like the idea of future episodes, having 4-6 extra virtual episodes makes it a bit annoying when browsing inside seasons. Yes I could turn them off, but here's my request first.

 

I think it would be nice if the unaired episodes had a generic thumbnail that said "upcoming episode" or something. I know right off the unaired episodes only have a date on the bottom right and no play option, but a thumbnail would make it much quicker to distinguish them while browsing. Just an idea if its even possible

Edited October 26, 2013 by shaefurr

[Luke 37060]

well i think we should use the episode image when we have it. also, once this goes public, it will be off by default and will have to be specifically opted into in order to see them. within the seasons i mean. they'll still be imported for the upcoming view and missing episodes filter.

[Luke 37060]

While I like the idea of future episodes, having 4-6 extra virtual episodes makes it a bit annoying when browsing inside seasons. Yes I could turn them off, but here's my request first.

 

I think it would be nice if the unaired episodes had a generic thumbnail that said "upcoming episode" or something. I know right off the unaired episodes only have a date on the bottom right and no play option, but a thumbnail would make it much quicker to distinguish them while browsing. Just an idea if its even possible

 

If you're talking about an htpc client, then yes i agree about distinguishing them. the web client is pretty clear though with the missing banner, no?

[shaefurr 1337]

Ya I mainly meant this about inside MBT.

[Luke 37060]

Oh right, yea. I just haven't done anything with them yet in MBT. There will be a banner in the top right, and the list view will indicate them pretty nicely as well.

[shaefurr 1337]

Awesome. I'm happy then

[ebr 14910]

Here is what MBC looks like (at least in chocolate and it is similar in default).  Note the titles are grayed out in the list and there is a banner on the detail area.

 

[Luke 37060]

Yea, I think that's nice. I think it adds value. I can understand how some will want to hide them from kids and other less technically savvy users who might get confused into thinking their playable, but for others i think that's cool.

[uspider7 17]

Hope someone can give me some insight as to why the following is not working;

http://10.x.x.x:8096/mediabrowser/Users/<UserID>/Items/?ParentID=<ItemID>&recursive=true&MinPremiereDate=20131103120000&MaxPremiereDate=20131201120000

When I run it I get a list of all the episodes within that folder, instead of items with a PremiereDate between November 03 - December 01 2013.  Am I missing something, or did I write that incorrectly.

 

Thanks