A new way of handling themes

[crusher11 979]

It would be really good to be able to compile, within Emby, a database of theme music, and apply themes by ID or whatever to each film/TV series/etc.

 

I have dozens of Laurel & Hardy shorts. All of them use the same Laurel & Hardy theme music. Which means there are dozens of copies of that music taking up space on my server.

 

I also have several wrestling "best of" compilations for various wrestlers, using their entrance themes. Again, I have several copies of some themes on my server.

 

It would be better to be able to simply assign these, from one place, thus only having one copy.

 

An additional benefit of this could be that if you're in a collection with a given theme, and then select a film that also has that theme, it could simply continue playing rather than starting over as it currently does. As an example, my collection of Laurel & Hardy shorts also has the Laurel & Hardy music, but every time I select a film from within the collection the theme starts over from the beginning.

 

Potentially, films could even be assigned multiple themes, and if one of those themes is currently playing it could continue playing that theme, thus allowing films to continue playing the theme of multiple collections in which they reside.

[Luke 40123]

Well you can already do multiple themes.

[crusher11 979]

That's the least relevant part of my suggestion, and it couldn't work the way I was talking about anyway. What does it currently do, pick one at random or play them in sequence?

[Luke 40123]

I believe it's in sequence.

[crusher11 979]

Right, which isn't the sort of thing I'm talking about at all.

 

And I'd still need 20+ copies of the Laurel & Hardy theme, seven or eight copies of AJ Styles' entrance music, etc.

[ebr 15673]

If these items are within a hierarchy, then theme music is inherited from parents.

[funwithmedia 369]

If these items are within a hierarchy, then theme music is inherited from parents.

I did not know that -- thanks for sharing!

[crusher11 979]

If these items are within a hierarchy, then theme music is inherited from parents.

What counts as a hierarchy? I know I can give a theme to a TV show and it'll play for all seasons, etc but what about my example of the Laurel & Hardy set?

 

This also wouldn't help the situation with WWE wrestler best-of sets. I have, for example, six "Best of AJ Styles" DVDs, and six "Best of Kevin Steen" DVDs. I would very much rather not have six copies of "I Am" and six copies of "Unsettling Differences" sitting on my server.

[Luke 40123]

The hierarchy is folder based.

[crusher11 979]

So it wouldn't help with the collections thing anyway.

[Luke 40123]

Currently, no.

[crusher11 979]

Which is why it would make sense to be able to simply refer everything in the collection back to the one theme file. For things outside collections, too, as I mentioned above with the wrestling examples.

[Luke 40123]

What if a movie is part of mulitple collections, and they all have themes?

[crusher11 979]

I'm not sure you're understanding my proposal.

 

Theme music audio files would be stored in a "themes" folder. There would be database entries for them.

 

When editing an item's metadata (be it a film, a TV show, a season, an episode, whatever), you can then select a theme for it. Or potentially multiple themes.

 

Then, when a film is selected for example, the system runs through the themes associated with it. If one of them is currently playing, it keeps playing. If not, it picks the first theme, or a random theme, and plays that.

[Luke 40123]

Well I do think it would be neat to be able to designate any audio file in your library as a theme for any given item.

[crusher11 979]

Right, that's basically what I'm after. My six AJ Styles DVDs, for example, will all have the same theme but won't be in a collection, so only having to have that file on the server once would be a huge space-saver (in as much as I have lots of wrestlers for whom this is the case).

[crusher11 979]

Actually, a further question re: hierarchies.

 

With movies I can obviously have letter folders, ie "Films/A/Alien, Films/A/Avatar" etc. How does this work? Could I have more than one "organising" folder, and do they count towards hierarchies? ie could I have "A/AJ Styles/Best of AJ Styles in TNA", "A/AJ Styles/Best of AJ Styles in ROH", etc and put a "theme.mp3" in "A/AJ Styles", which would then play for all films inside the AJ Styles folder?

[Luke 40123]

In theory yes but we haven't tested that ourselves.

[crusher11 979]

Just tried it, and the answer is no. No theme plays.

[Luke 40123]

Thanks for the info.

[crusher11 979]

Bump?

[Luke 40123]

It's possible for the future.

[crusher11 979]

So you've said. Just figured I'd re-raise it in the hope it gets some traction with other users which might push things along a bit.