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[Idea/Suggestion] PseudoTV Style Shuffle Feature


jfarre20

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jfarre20

I recently came across PseudoTV, a plugin for XBMC. Its quite possibly the coolest thing ever.

 

It's basically a fancy form of media shuffle, It takes your media and generates channels.

Its great for when you don't know what to watch, or just want something playing in the background.

 

Anyway, I was thinking that perhaps MediaBrowser could do something like this. 

 

I'm not asking for MB to support the existing PseudoTV plugin or to attempt to clone it, but at the very least I would like to have some kind of video shuffle feature that will group certain media, and automatically play the next file. 

 

Perhaps this could be called "Jump In" where MB randomly takes a video file, picks a random start time, and starts playing it. 

 

Having this be available in the Web UI or MediaBrowser Theatre/Classic, would be amazing.

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While I've never really understood the appeal of this, to each his own.  I mean, the whole reason I create and maintain my own collection is so I can decide exactly what to watch and when.  I haven't been at the whim of the TV schedule since Tivo first came out and I don't want to go back :).

 

But, like I said, to each his own.  The closest thing I can offer you right now is MB Plus but it only works in Classic right now.  It allows you to organize your content display pretty much how you want and includes both smart lists (criteria-based play lists) and a Random TV playlist that do kind of what you are requesting here.

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BATTLE DONKEY

I'd like to see a PseudoTv type plugin. I know that MB plus already has that sort of functionality but since playlists have been added to the server I have been thinking about this more and more. I like the idea of having a nice EPG type interface/overlay, with individual channels playing randomly selected media tailered to that channel, especially if it can integrated with the live TV plugin so you can scroll thru the EPG for the real channels and then also "specialty channels" consisting of media and online streams, allowing us to name and even add custom .PNG images to the channels to display in the overlay when flipping channels.

 

Essentially it would perform like the regular wmc EPG and how it has internet streams built in, but using personal media instead to create custom movie channels.

 

It has even crossed my mind, if someone wanted to get really technical, to use the premiere date of TV shows which is already in the metadata but not really used for anything, to allow "TV Show (A) only shows on Monday" … TV Show (B ) shows Mon-Fri...

 

The possibilities are endless with a plugin like that.

 

Obviously, things such as playlists and live TV need to be more fleshed out, but when it does... Who wants my money? lol

Edited by BATTLE DONKEY
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jfarre20

Essentially it would perform like the regular wmc EPG and how it has internet streams built in, but using personal media instead to create custom movie channels.

 

I bet I could create a PsuedoTV-Like experience in WMC using existing software. I remember seeing a virtual IPTV tuner driver that could connect to a (local) server that is streaming a randomized playlist of content, However, you would need a ton of VMs, or instances of the streaming program, to create multiple channels. But, all cons aside - this would be great because I have a ton of Xbox extenders, and prefer WMC's look and feel. 

 

But since WMC support is slowly dying, I'm trying to transition away from WMC and cable TV. However, the family likes having a channel guide with randomly scheduled shows. They know how to use media browser, but seem to prefer watching their content from the channel guide. I showed them PseudoTV, and they liked it - but disliked XBMC, its complexity and look/feel. This is where I feel that Mediabrowser with a PseudoTV style guide could win them over.

 

Perhaps the PseudoTV-like feature we want could be added in as a plugin (specifically as a LiveTV plugin) for MediaBrowser.

 

I really wish I knew how to code.

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