Combine multiple shows into a playlist ordered by airdate

[crusher11 1101]

I have Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Intent, and Homicide: Life on the Street, all of which cross over with each other multiple times. So I'd like a playlist with them ordered by air date so I can go through and watch all the episodes in the order they originally aired.

This seems like it should be trivial but I can't see any way of doing it. 

[rbjtech 5284]

The fundamental problem is there is no formal metadata source for these crossovers.

I wrote a script to automatically do this based on my own metadata, but I based it on file location rather than provider Id - so it's not very portable.  ie it would not work on your system. 

But if you wish to do it manually, you simply have to insert a 'fake' episode as a special via an strm file pointing to the 'crossover' in the other show and then using the 'Special' metadata to position it correctly.  You obviously need to do this the other way as well.

So as an example 

This is Law & Order with Part 2 of Entitled actually playing SVU ..

(hmm - it used to bring over the correct thumbnail too - not sure why that has stopped working ...)

and this is SVU with Part 1 of Entitled playing Law & Order ..

The script adds the correct metadata to the NFO file - manually, you'll need to update this metadata below -

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by rbjtech

[crusher11 1101]

I already have the crossovers filed as specials within the other show. But to be able to watch the crossovers in the context of both shows you need to watch the entire thing in order.

Metadata sources contain original air date. It should be trivial to add all four shows to a playlist and sort by Date Aired, but that doesn't appear to be one of the options. 

[rbjtech 5284]

2 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

I already have the crossovers filed as specials within the other show. But to be able to watch the crossovers in the context of both shows you need to watch the entire thing in order.

Metadata sources contain original air date. It should be trivial to add all four shows to a playlist and sort by Date Aired, but that doesn't appear to be one of the options. 

The specials will play in the order they are listed - so not really sure what you are asking for here.  Why use a horid playlist when you can just present them in the order you would normally play them ?

The metadata for shows has zero mention of where/when it is a crossover for another show - other than in maybe free text in the description.  In some cases it's 5 shows 'deep' in the case of things like Arrow, the Flash, DC's legends, Batwoman and SuperGirl ...   Meaning it all starts getting complicated real quick .. thus needing a script ..

[crusher11 1101]

25 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

The specials will play in the order they are listed - so not really sure what you are asking for here.  Why use a horid playlist when you can just present them in the order you would normally play them ?

Episode 13 of season six of Law & Order is followed by episode 11 of season 4 of Homicide: Life on the Street.

With specials and the correct metadata, I can be watching Homicide: Life on the Street and s6e13 of Law & Order will insert itself correctly. Or I can be watching Law & Order and s4e11 of Homicide: Life on the Street will insert itself correctly.

But what I want to achieve is to watch s4e11 of Homicide: Life on the Street having seen every preceding episode of Homcide: Life on the Street, as well as every episode of Law & Order up to and including 6x13.

So the playlist would, at a time when all shows were running, have for the most part an episode of L&O, then an episode of SVU, then an episode of CI, then an episode of H:LotS. Or whatever order they go in. That way I would be able to see crossover episodes in the context of both shows, not just in the context of one show.

[rbjtech 5284]

ok - so whether it's a playlist or a 'special' - it really doesn't matter - unless you have the raw data to link them all together then it's all just wishful thinking ..

Quote

10,Law & Order,tvdbID=72368,6,13,tvdbID=70727,4,12,,,,,, 
11,Baby, It's You,tvdbID=72368,8,6,tvdbID=70727,6,5,,,,,, 
12,Sideshow,tvdbID=72368,9,14,tvdbID=70727,7,15,,,,,, 
13,Entitled,tvdbID=75692,1,15,tvdbID=72368,10,14,,,,,, 
......

A L&O extract from my 'metadata' is above - I could create a Playlist called 'Entitled' and it would show the 'Crossover' shows titled 'Entitled' - and I have the two shows, by tvdbID that are in it, so I can easily create this as a playlist if I wanted to.

Quote

10,Flash vs Arrow,tvdbID=279121,1,8,tvdbID=257655,3,8,,,,,, 
11,Heroes Join Forces,tvdbID=279121,2,8,tvdbID=257655,4,8,,,,,, 
12,Invasion,tvdbID=279121,3,8,tvdbID=257655,5,8,tvdbID=295760,2,7,,, 
13,Crisis on Earth-X,tvdbID=295759,3,8,tvdbID=257655,6,8,tvdbID=279121,4,8,tvdbID=295760,3,8 
14,Elseworlds,tvdbID=279121,5,9,tvdbID=257655,7,9,tvdbID=295759,4,9,,, 
15,Crisis on Infinite Earths,tvdbID=295759,5,9,tvdbID=361315,1,9,tvdbID=279121,6,9,tvdbID=257655,8,8 

....

For some shows, they have crossovers for 4 shows - So 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' - 'could' be a Playlist of 4 items - all listed above, in it's own 'playlist' if I wanted to.

But again, without the raw data, I'm not sure how you would even link the shows together - the Date Aired means nothing on it's own...

Anyway - that's the answer I came up with .. using strm files - but the playlist idea as 'a mini series' concept does sound interesting - especially for the bigger 'crossovers' - not sure I'd bother with just a 2 show crossover...

Edited June 26, 2023 by rbjtech

[crusher11 1101]

4 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

But again, without the raw data, I'm not sure how you would even link the shows together - the Date Aired means nothing on it's own...

How does it mean nothing?

Multi-select Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Intent, Life on the Street. Three-dot menu -> "Add to playlist" -> "New playlist". Sort playlist by Date Aired.

Easy. Except Date Aired doesn't appear to be a sort option.

[rbjtech 5284]

32 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

How does it mean nothing?

Multi-select Law & Order, SVU, Criminal Intent, Life on the Street. Three-dot menu -> "Add to playlist" -> "New playlist". Sort playlist by Date Aired.

Easy. Except Date Aired doesn't appear to be a sort option.

So you want a playlist with nearly 1300 ish epsiodes in it - with the intention of watching them all in aired order - just so you can get the crossover episodes correct ?

[roaku 842]

41 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

So you want a playlist with nearly 1300 ish epsiodes in it - with the intention of watching them all in aired order - just so you can get the crossover episodes correct ?

He wants to watch all connected shows as if they were one show.

It's about more than just the crossover episodes.

It's about the episode sequence including multiple shows.

[rbjtech 5284]

37 minutes ago, roaku said:

He wants to watch all connected shows as if they were one show.

It's about more than just the crossover episodes.

It's about the episode sequence including multiple shows.

Yes, I guess crossovers are just the 'connection' in this example - but there may be a reason to watch multiple shows by Air Date.

[Lambtalk 44]

This sort of use case is exactly why I had a 'One Chicago' smart playlist in Plex. It would play through all the Chicago shows in order of release date and I could just binge them all without concern of randomly needing to stop and swap to another show because it contains part of a crossover.
Plus since it was a smart playlist, I had it set to only include unwatched episodes.

[rbjtech 5284]

4 hours ago, Lambtalk said:

This sort of use case is exactly why I had a 'One Chicago' smart playlist in Plex. It would play through all the Chicago shows in order of release date and I could just binge them all without concern of randomly needing to stop and swap to another show because it contains part of a crossover.
Plus since it was a smart playlist, I had it set to only include unwatched episodes.

I guess this is one solution to the problem, but imo, a better solution to the problem is to just include the crossovers into the play order per show.    So if I want to watch Chicago P.D. then I can do and any crossovers to Chicago Fire or whatever are included.   The bonus is as both episodes (incl the crossover show) has been watched, then both are skipped if you then watch the other show. 

[Lambtalk 44]

3 hours ago, rbjtech said:

I guess this is one solution to the problem, but imo, a better solution to the problem is to just include the crossovers into the play order per show.    So if I want to watch Chicago P.D. then I can do and any crossovers to Chicago Fire or whatever are included.   The bonus is as both episodes (incl the crossover show) has been watched, then both are skipped if you then watch the other show. 

Ah yes, but in my case I was actively watching all 3 shows

[crusher11 1101]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

I guess this is one solution to the problem, but imo, a better solution to the problem is to just include the crossovers into the play order per show.    So if I want to watch Chicago P.D. then I can do and any crossovers to Chicago Fire or whatever are included.   The bonus is as both episodes (incl the crossover show) has been watched, then both are skipped if you then watch the other show. 

But that's not a solution at all. 

[computerprep 148]

The ability to sort playlists by air date would be most helpful. Current sort options are limited to those for music, even if a playlist comprises entirely of movies and TV episodes.

In my instance, (nerd alert) I am watching every episode and movie of the entire Star Trek canon. Older tv series and movies have easy enough separations to facilitate adding them to this playlist in order, and retaining the playlist's original order. But newer television episodes have more overlapping air dates.

Playlists should not be treated solely as musical entities.

[Luke 42079]

6 hours ago, computerprep said:

The ability to sort playlists by air date would be most helpful. Current sort options are limited to those for music, even if a playlist comprises entirely of movies and TV episodes.

In my instance, (nerd alert) I am watching every episode and movie of the entire Star Trek canon. Older tv series and movies have easy enough separations to facilitate adding them to this playlist in order, and retaining the playlist's original order. But newer television episodes have more overlapping air dates.

Playlists should not be treated solely as musical entities.

Hi, ok, we'll add release date to this. Thanks.

[shortfatrocker 0]

any idea when this new option will be available? im trying to do the exact same thing for my disabled wife with the chicago shows that was mentioned earlyer

 

[Luke 42079]

5 hours ago, shortfatrocker said:

any idea when this new option will be available? im trying to do the exact same thing for my disabled wife with the chicago shows that was mentioned earlyer

 

HI, what exactly are you looking for?

[Bottles51 74]

@LukeI think a good example of what people are looking for would be Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Station 19. If you put all these shows in a playlist it would be nice to sort them in a chronological order or better yet aired time, so that you could watch all the shows as the story is intended.

[Luke 42079]

42 minutes ago, Bottles51 said:

@LukeI think a good example of what people are looking for would be Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Station 19. If you put all these shows in a playlist it would be nice to sort them in a chronological order or better yet aired time, so that you could watch all the shows as the story is intended.

Hi, the upcoming 4.8 server release will have playlist sorting right on the playlist screen.

[levest28 3]

On 1/21/2024 at 8:42 PM, Luke said:

Hi, the upcoming 4.8 server release will have playlist sorting right on the playlist screen.

I am seeing this option now but sadly it seems only available on browser version? I am using Emby mainly on Fire TV and Google TV and it seems there's no option for it yet. Will the TV apps be updated? Alternatively, if I could sort the play list by air date once on browser and then save that as the new default order, that would be perfect.

[Luke 42079]

6 hours ago, levest28 said:

I am seeing this option now but sadly it seems only available on browser version? I am using Emby mainly on Fire TV and Google TV and it seems there's no option for it yet. Will the TV apps be updated? Alternatively, if I could sort the play list by air date once on browser and then save that as the new default order, that would be perfect.

@levest28

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

[computerprep 148]

This sorting in playlists is working great. There's still room for improvement to add filters, though. 

For example, my "All Star Trek" playlist currently has 855 entries across movies and television episodes. Air date puts the movies exactly where they belong according to theatrical release. But by the time one gets to Deep Space 9, you have to scroll halfway down the list to find the first unplayed specific.

Filtering unplayed items in a playlist (and all other standard filter options) would be great.

 

[jiggity 35]

To solve this particular issue I had to use a combo of Collections and Smart playlists

For the L&O cross overs i made a collection with all the L&O and associated shows, then made a Series of smart lists, you have to limit the smart lists as they crap out at around 1000 items and get very dumb with maintaining chronological order, then you can merge the lists into one big list; after fixing crossover orders as multi part episodes didn't even air in the right order originally.  Then you can get rid of the individual smart lists.

I wound up with a playlist for L&O etc that is like this at the end