Include playlists and collections in "Next Up"

[Dreakon13 131]

Not to state the obvious, but lets say a MCU playlist, can't you go to the playlist and see what's been watched and what's next?  As opposed to watching them all in one sitting?  (EDIT: I see this has been refuted already, I guess I pictured a MCU playlist being moreso just the 20-30 films and easier to manage.)

I'm guessing the complexity in developing it comes from having to find a way to effectively treat playlists and collections of movies or mixed media as their own "TV series" as far as Continue Watching/Next Up is concerned... for lack of a better way of describing it.  Where the next item is the next episode.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Dreakon13

[Romek123 39]

Why not just make a "Check whats Next?" Option at the end of a movie.

When click yes than show the movie that comes after this one ("sort by name") from each list/collection that movie is in?

Could be even pinned to the whats next start window widget . Just the wallpaper from the movie and "check next" text.

 

So for example i watch rambo 2 and click at the end on "whats next?"

it shows me:

Collection: Rambo - Rambo part 3

Playlist: 80s Action - Predator

Playlist: One Man Army - Commando

... and so on

 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Romek123

[te5s3rakt 2]

I’ve been wanting this in Plex forever. Just moved over to Emby, and equally this is a must have.

Fundamentally it wouldn’t be that hard to implement. We have 3 considerations:

• Playlists in the database would have to have an ID associated with them? (I haven’t checked Emby’s database, but following standard DB design, it would have to be yes)
• And then we have a list of items attached to that playlist?
• And that list would have to have an index? (unless you’re presenting the order in the UI by date sort?)

If yes to these 3 conditions, then the solution is simple:

1. When a user goes to a playlist and hits play, simply add the playlist ID to the Continue Watching deck.
2. As playback advances through the playlist, the current/next item would be surfaced.

You would not be surfacing all the playlists associated with a media item to the deck on playback of an item as it’s been confusedly asked above.

Regarding item 2. Determining the current/next item of the playlist to present in the deck would require keeping track of the play state of the item within the playlist, not the item in the media database.

Watched status is likely stored at an item level attached to each movie/episode itself. Here we would need to store in the watched status of the playlist item itself. So in the table storing which items are associated with a particular playlist ID, would possibly need a new field to store the watch state. Watch state of a playlist item should be independent of the movie/episode watch state.

Get’s a little more complicated if a user is shuffling the playlist prior to playback (using Shuffle as opposed to Play). This is because then we’d have to shuffle the list, and store an index for the new temporary order while the playlist in its shuffled “state” sitting on the Continue Watching deck. This would likely require a new table to manage this functionality (or for only a single shuffle state, an additional index field in the original table). In this scenario, when a user “removes” the playlist from the deck, the “cached” index of the playlists shuffled state would be purged.

I would probably make it that users can only have a single entity of playlist on the deck at a time as the simplest solution.

Allowing multiple entities of a playlist on the deck would require “caching” the entire index playlist separately just to get each entity on the deck. It’s doable, but obviously needs another table to manage this data.

Complexity wise:

1. Allowing a playlist in its unaltered order on the deck would be relatively simple to implement. Less new fields required in the database.
2. Allowing a playlist original state + a single shuffled state would be slightly more complex. No massively so, as you could just have two index fields (original and last shuffle)
3. Allowing a playlist in multiple states (multiple progressions of original, multiple shuffles) on the deck would be the most complex. This would likely require a whole table to manage all this data.

Apologies for the long post 

I work in systems design and analytics, and had a lot of time to think this through on Plex (but they clearly stopped caring about customer feedback years ago, so never bothered detailing it there), so really wanted to articulate this request further.

Personally I use playlist very similarly to indicated above. I both use playlists of favourite “white noise” shows, i like to shuffle. I also maintain “canon timeline view order” lists of selected property’s (Star Wars, MCU, etc.) I frequently like to return to, and being about to simply came back to one of these and pick up where I left off would be fantastic. Lord of the rings, this is easy, just scroll down and hit play on where you left off. Doing this for the MCU is literally impossible.

Edited July 17, 2022 by te5s3rakt
I grammar is dumb lol

[te5s3rakt 2]

Actually I’d like to add. I’m not saying I know anything about how the insides of Emby works. I’m merely making a few assumptions based on my own experiences working on systems I’ve developed at work. I should be clear, these are nothing like what Emby have developed here, and pale in complexity.

The devs at Emby have worked absolute magic, and I mean no disrespect when I say things like “simply”. Feel free to say “yeah, nothing in here works like that peasant” lol.

Just your regular wannabe cave dev here, taking a stab at making fire 

[Schmoopies 0]

To offer more specific circumstances, as the devs keep asking:

1) My wife and I have a "bedtime" playlist that contains many comfort TV shows (570 total episodes), which we prefer to play in order while we sleep. If we just play one show and it gets to the finale, we'll wake up when it gets too quiet. But it has multiple shows so it doesn't get too repetitive. As we make it further and further in the list, it takes longer every night to get to where we last left off.

2) I've seen lots of mentions of MCU and Star Wars (which are both extremely valid) but I will add a few of the same kind of issues:
 - Buffy/Angel
 - Arrowverse
 - DCEU
 - Mickey Mouse Shorts/Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse/specials (chronology doesn't strictly matter here, but I would still prefer them in order)

Even if the option didn't show up on "next up" just an option to go to the playlist and hit "continue" would be extremely helpful.

[player8472 2]

Since there is a reference from here

and it seems like feature requests only get done if enough support from the userbase is generated:

I want to reiterate, that this is a feature missing from ALL major Platforms.
 

Making Playlists truly resumable and not having to leave off in the middle of an Episode to know where you left off would be superior to the workarounds (Basically Smart Playlists, natively on PMS, via Plugin in Emby) we've been using on different Platforms.

[Kama-Jeremy 1]

Just to throw in more interest for this feature as well. Same as what other people have said before. If I want to binge watch for example, MCU/Star wars movies/tv shows, and have them auto play, I can hit the play all button and they will play one after another. But when I stop, if I want the movies to auto play again, I would have to hit the play all, then skip to the movie/show I left off on, and try to fast foreword to where I left off on. Having a resume feature would be great. 

I wouldn't mind as well if the coding of this was too difficult if this feature means Items in collections would not show up in the continue playing or up next bars on the main screen if that made it easier. Maybe a setting in order to turn this feature(resume in collections) on and off, where if you turned this feature on, items played in a collection would not appear in the up next or continue watching bars on the main screen. 

[HawkXP71 99]

+1 for this .

 

It also needs to be remembered when you exit.  Currently if I'm watching via a collection, even if random.  The Continue Watching, just lists the last Episode/Movie i was watching.

It should have a "Continue Watching Collection/Playlist" this way I can restart where I left off.

But having the ability when the end credits start to skip them and start the next movie in the collection would be amazing

[Tandhruil 21]

Same need for a Tex Avery collection (65 "movies" of about 6 mn)

 

[Fender1978 7]

I too would like the ability to have movie collection sequels appear in the continue watching section for great flow.

 

Cheers!

[TheShortBus 0]

Came here with the same question. I'm working my way through the Harry Potter collection.  Would be nice to go to the next movie from the Home Page like we do with TV series.

Would love to find out if this feature request has any change in status.