confused about inconsistent "Recordings" presentation

[wjcarpenter 7]

I'm kind of new to emby, so maybe there is some combination of settings that I don't yet grok. I can look at my Live TV recordings via a couple different pathways in the Android app or the web client.

If I go to the upper left menu and select "Recordings", I see the view in the first image. The episodes of a show are grouped under a single thumbnail with a little annotation with the count of unplayed episodes.

If I got Live TV and select the "Recordings" tab, I see the view in the second image. Each episode has its own thumbnail. There is no aggregation. If one has a lot of episodes of various shows, that's a pretty poor arrangement. I could probably adapt to this OK except that I'm the complaint department in the household, and I'd quickly get tired of telling people to "do it a different way".

Is there a good functional reason for these two things with the same name to have different behavior, or is it just a matter of them being coded differently on different days? Is there a way to get the aggregated view in the Live TV > Recordings pathway?

[ebr 15433]

Hi.  The first one is showing them as an Emby library with all the features of a library.  The second presentation is meant to be quick access to the individual recordings.  They should be sorted by record date descending.

[wjcarpenter 7]

Thanks for the info. That seems like something that seems rational to the developers, but kind of confusing in the user experience, given that they are called the same thing. I only have a smallish collection of Live TV recordings. Is there a significant speed difference for large collections? (I get that I can re-order the presentation various ways in either view.)

[ebr 15433]

In the first instance “recordings” is just the default name of the library that is created. Perhaps we should change that to “recorded items” or something. 

[Luke 38823]

@wjcarpenterdo you still feel this way?

[wjcarpenter 7]

@luke Yes, what I said above is still my opinion. However, I don't know where I'd rank this in the "things that you could work on" list, which is probably pretty full of your own ideas. I'm not just waiting around for this, if that's what you're asking.

Over the last couple of years, I've experimented with a number of media management applications, and most seem to suffer from similar sorts of problems. They have great features but have these UX inconsistencies that bedevil casual users. (I'm a software developer myself, so I appreciate how this can be a complex matter beneath the surface. But I'm also the "IT guy" for the family, and in this case I can't use my go-to answer and blame Microsoft :-).)

 

[Luke 38823]

@sa2000what do you think?

[Carlo 4478]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:13 PM, ebr said:

In the first instance “recordings” is just the default name of the library that is created. Perhaps we should change that to “recorded items” or something. 

Recording Library

[wjcarpenter 7]

Changing the name partially solves the problem of confusing them as being the same thing. It side-steps the problem of why they aren't the same thing to begin with. A casual user doesn't see why they should behave differently.

[Carlo 4478]

@LukeHe is not the first to say he doesn't like the different presentations of recording and prefers to not see individual episodes in the LiveTV section.

This does feel out of place to me as well. I believe this is the only place in Emby that a "show" does not appear in the traditional series/season/episode format.

In the settings for Recordings in the LiiveTV section there is a "Group Items into collections" options. Would it be possible to add another option to "Organize Episodes by Show & Season"? If so, I'd suggest enabling it by default as that will be the view everyone is used to.

Actually, what would be really useful and I think satisfy everyone would be to have a checkbox "Show Individual Episodes" or "Episode View" or don't use a checkbox, instead a button "Episodes View" and if click it becomes "Series View".  Put this between the filter button and 3 dots.  This would make it simple to switch views depending on the best way to view it and everyone should be happy as it can be easily switched without searching for the option.

Edited November 21, 2024 by Carlo

[sa2000 255]

14 hours ago, Luke said:

what do you think

@LukeYes - we should change the default name for the recordings library to: "Recordings Library"

User can add to that specific separate libraries they can create for Recorded Movies and Recorded TV Shows.

And with regards to the "Live TV" Recordings tab, the name is ok. If we can build the options for alternative views as suggested by @Carlo here, then that would be good

[Luke 38823]

8 hours ago, sa2000 said:

@LukeYes - we should change the default name for the recordings library to: "Recordings Library"

Recordings is not sufficient?

[Carlo 4478]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Recordings is not sufficient?

It's just semantics, but having the same media in two different places using the same name "Recordings" that are shown/viewed different ways seems broken or not thought out.

If got no other reason it would be helpful to be able to talk about the Recordings or Recordings Library in the forum and know which one is being referenced.

[sa2000 255]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Recordings is not sufficient?

Sorry, I go with Carlo's feedback. 

Recordings would be fine if the other one is called something else. Best to have two different names

You could have:

Recordings and Recordings Library

Recorded Items and Recordings

In both cases, the first is the Live TV tab and the second the library

 

 

[sa2000 255]

On 22/11/2024 at 22:25, sa2000 said:

Recordings and Recordings Library

Recorded Items and Recordings

In both cases, the first is the Live TV tab and the second the library

As I looked into scheduling adhoc timebased recordings, discovered that the Live TV Recordings tab is used for adding recordings. So suggest, we leave the Live TV as current title "Recordings" and just rename the default recordings library to either "Recording Library" or "Recordings Library" - the former is probably better as users may add other recording libraries - eg separating TV and Movies.

So my vote for chanding the title of the default recording library to being a "Recording Library"

 

 

[pwhodges 1743]

That's inconsistent, in that it is not usual to include the word "Library" in a library name.  I think changing the LiveTV "Recordings" tab to "Recorded Items" is more natural.

Paul

[Carlo 4478]

That is true about the library naming, and I did think about that, but thought that was ok compared to leaving the library name as "Recordings" and changing the recording section in Live TV to "Individual Recording", "All Recordings" or "Recordings View" or similar name that conveys they see everything.

Maybe we're overthinking it but I think 2 different names are needed just to clarify which one a user is referring to:
Recording Library
TV Recordings

The Recording Library could be renamed if the admin wanted dropping the Library part. At least here in the forums it would be a lot easier to talk about these two sections using those two names.  TV Recordings only ads 3 letters, so it shouldn't affect the tab bar too much either.

However, I really think the better way to handle this would be allowing both views in the TV Recording section. A button on the page itself to change view would be great.
"Library View" / "Flat View"
"Series View", "Episode View"

[Luke 38823]

On 11/27/2024 at 7:52 AM, sa2000 said:

As I looked into scheduling adhoc timebased recordings, discovered that the Live TV Recordings tab is used for adding recordings. So suggest, we leave the Live TV as current title "Recordings" and just rename the default recordings library to either "Recording Library" or "Recordings Library" - the former is probably better as users may add other recording libraries - eg separating TV and Movies.

So my vote for chanding the title of the default recording library to being a "Recording Library"

 

 

This probably makes the most sense.