Better recommendations or "because you liked..."

[TurkeyMan 17]

Hi, I have a large library with lots of users, and I notice that compared to netflix or amazon, for reasons I don't quite understand, nobody can find anything.

I think one main reason is that there is no effective recommendations on the front screen.

I see there are some recommendations inside movies on a separate tab, but no normal user ever sees that and changes tab. I can't see recommendations in TV at all; I just see "Latest Episodes", which is a dump of new stuff added, but the tile is duplicated for every single episode in a new series.

New shows should not show one tile per episode, but rather, per show.

Basically, It's just not good compared to commercial streaming services, and it's absolutely essential that we can add those rows to the front page. None of my family or friends have ever noticed it in a second-tier menu.

Edited July 9, 2023 by TurkeyMan

[Luke 42080]

HI, yes I agree this makes sense. 

[TurkeyMan 17]

One other little detail I think is important, is that the recommendations system which is in place seems to be based on if the media is marked as watched. I think this needs improvement.

For one; I often add media, and on my account, I bulk mark-as-watched things I've seen before, possibly years ago. When I add new media, I just go through marking as watched all the things that should never appear on 'latest' lists for my account. Sadly, this means everything new I add pollutes the recommendations, which I think should be based on what I *actually did watch* recently. Since when I click the little tick and don't actually watch something, there's no way to associate a timestamp regarding WHEN I watched it. It could have been when I was a kid, so that signal should probably be considered less relevant.

Can you tweak the database to distinguish when a user manually marks as watched, and when a show becomes marked as watched because the user actually watched the media? Then recommendations should have a strong preference for (or only consider) actually watched content.

I think it would also make sense for recommendations to consider media where the user clicked the heart button... that signal should offer a strong bias.

There's lots of ways the recommendation system could benefit from a quality overhaul. I'd encourage giving it some love and keeping it in mind. Generally, try and approach the commercial recommendation systems (they are scientifically tuned to keep people engaged). And definitely need to be able to place some such rows on the front screen.

Ideally, I'd like my front screen to show 2 or 3 rows of "because you (actually did) watch recently" (possibly rotating, and selecting for diverse genres), and a row of "recommended for you", which might take into consideration favourites, and probably also some heuristics related to actually watched/binged content. The selection should also be a bit 'fuzzy' so the list feels a bit dynamic, and different things appear at different times when logging in.

I'd also like to be able to customise the default front screen for all users that haven't customised it themselves.

[rbjtech 5284]

There has been a few attempts to try and fill this obvious gap in Emby over the years - I myself started a personal Recommendations solution - which gave you a new personal Recommendations 'library/row' based on other users suggestions (by adding those items to a user or global specific playlist), then there is 'Top Picks' - a Plugin which does something similiar but across all users.  There has also much talk about a 'spotlight'.  Smart playlists (displayed as a channel or library, not the awkward playlist style..) is another area.   They are all trying to achive a similiar goal - and that is to bring more relevant media to the forefront as people do not want to wade though 100's or 1000's of unrelatable media items - nor do they want the hassle of apply filters etc - they just want to see items that has been pre-filtered for them.

Do a search and I'm sure you'll find them if interested - but I fully agree with your comments - the ability to 'highlight' items on the front page (by whatever means) is an obvious omission in Emby compared to other solutions.

Edited July 9, 2023 by rbjtech

[TurkeyMan 17]

Thanks, I'll have a look. But yeah, if they don't go as a row on the front screen, then as far as all users I've observed are concerned, it simply doesn't exist.

[rbjtech 5284]

6 hours ago, TurkeyMan said:

Thanks, I'll have a look. But yeah, if they don't go as a row on the front screen, then as far as all users I've observed are concerned, it simply doesn't exist.

Yea you can just promote them to the first row as 'Latest X' - so that works pretty well.

[TurkeyMan 17]

Oh I think I understand, they create 'collections' which are distinct from Movies/TV, but populated by content in the actual physical collections?

I'll take a look. Pretty awkward hack though